Gates: Iraq Political Reform Difficult

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Gates: Iraq Political Reform Difficult

By LOLITA C. BALDOR
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 2, 2007; 11:39 AM

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates -- U.S. officials
underestimated how difficult it would be for the Iraqi
government to pass political reforms, Defense Secretary
Robert Gates said Thursday, adding that the "depth of
mistrust" among the factions is greater than anticipated.

Talking to reporters on board his plane as he returned
from a four-day swing through the Middle East, Gates
said he is more optimistic about improvements in security
in the wartorn nation than he is about getting legislation
passed by the bitterly divided government.

"In some ways we probably all underestimated the depth
of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these
guys to come together on legislation," Gates said. "The
kinds of legislation they're talking about will establish
the framework of Iraq for the future so it's almost like
our constitutional convention. ... And the difficulty
in coming to grips with those, we may all have
underestimated six or eight months ago."

Gates' comments came a day after six Sunni Cabinet
ministers from the Iraqi Accordance Front quit in protest
over what they said was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
failure to respond to a set of demands. Just two Sunnis
remain in the 40-member Cabinet, and Maliki Thursday was
working to get the six to reconsider.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

[babylonsister]

1. Difficult? Did he lose the word 'impossible' from his vocabulary? nt

[rodeodance]

2. praytell-------IS THIS NEWS?

[Supersedeas]

3. never anticipated that they would not fold their oil rights over to us

[rodeodance]

4. U.S. underestimated Iraq political problems: Gates

Source: reuters




U.S. underestimated Iraq political problems: Gates

By Andrew Gray 28 minutes ago

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday the United States had probably underestimated how hard it would be for Iraqi political leaders to agree reconciliation measures.
...........

He said he was more optimistic now than several months ago that increased U.S. troop levels could improve security in Iraq, but political progress had proved harder than anticipated.

The main Sunni Muslim bloc quit Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government on Wednesday, underscoring how difficult relations are between political groups.

"We probably all underestimated the depth of the mistrust and how difficult it would be for these guys to come together on legislation which, let's face it, is not just some sort of secondary kind of thing," Gates said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070802/pl_nm/mideast_usa_g... ;_ylt=AojhwFJ.iALYC0N1bODf95Ws0NUE

[BridgeTheGap]

5. Underestimated the political problems?

Hell, the neo-cons were counting on them.

[saigon68]

11. Lynndie Chain

[Demeter]

6. They Had No Clue

and when people told them so, they cut them off.

I truly don't think that the current situation is what anyone had in mind---but the GOP feels as long as juice can be squeezed from these lemons and stuffed into their lemonade, they are getting theirs.

Besides, it would take a bigger man than the GOP has ever had since Teddy Roosevelt to admit they made an error.

[BridgeTheGap]

13. No Clue? Daddy Bush had already told them in his book

about why he didn't go in and take Sadam out in the first gulf war - inspite of the fact that he whipped up the Shiites and promised to back them up if they revolted.
Bush I knew that this would be a quagmire and avoided it.
The notion put forth by the neo-cons that "they'll welcome us with open arms" was pure bullshit and I don't think they believed their own bullshit.
Their goal was/is a permanent u.s. military presence there. They kept saying "we can't leave until things are stabilized" If they don't want to leave, they don't want things "stabilized."

[Raven]

7. Never, never to be forgiven. How does anyone or group of people

make a mistake like that, completely avoidable, which costs thousands of lives and billons of dollars and still get up every day and strut around and...plan more aggression without the faintest idea of where it will lead? I'm really beginning to wonder if these people are of the same species.

[aquart]

8. Uh, the rest of us knew.

ALL the rest of us knew.

[Supersedeas]

9. Who would be the chief diplomat in charge of estimating -- Condincompetence?

[guitar man]

10. damn

misunderestimated again....

[trof]

12. "probably"? The Duh Factor