Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks

[ProSense]

Iraqis Are Failing to Meet U.S. Benchmarks

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: June 13, 2007

BAGHDAD, June 12 — Iraq’s political leaders have failed to reach agreements on nearly every law that the Americans have demanded as benchmarks, despite heavy pressure from Congress, the White House and top military commanders. With only three months until progress reports are due in Washington, the deadlock has reached a point where many Iraqi and American officials now question whether any substantive laws will pass before the end of the year.

Kurds have blocked a vote in Parliament on a new oil law. Shiite clerics have stymied an American-backed plan for reintegrating former Baathists into government. Sunnis are demanding that a constitutional review include more power for the next president.

And even if one or two of the proposals are approved — the oil law appears the most likely, officials said — doubts are spreading about whether the current benchmarks can ever halt the cycle of violence gripping Iraq’s communities.

For the handful of party leaders with the power to make deals, the promise of compromise now carries less allure than the possibility for domination. Long-suppressed Shiites and Kurds now see total victory within their grasp. Previous American benchmarks like elections have failed to bring peace and, after four years of unfulfilled promises, bloodshed and sprawling chaos, once wary glances have become cold, unblinking stares.

The same forces of entropy and obstinacy have also severed links between the party leaders and their constituencies. In Shiite areas of southern Iraq, Sunni areas of the west and for Kurds in the north, Iraq’s central government has become increasingly irrelevant as competing groups within each faction maneuver at the local level for control of public money and jobs. In many cases, especially through mosques, Iran and other foreign powers often provide more institutional support than Baghdad.

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“We have not committed to doing it by September,” Mr. Hamoudi said. “Maybe the American Congress has made such a commitment, but we have not.”

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The latest effort began this spring with the grandly titled Reconciliation and Accountability Law, a proposal backed by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the senior American envoy in Iraq until April. The draft decreed that all former Baathists who had worked in the government could collect their pensions. It opened government jobs to thousands more, and set a three-month time limit for Iraqi citizens to bring lawsuits against former members of the Baath Party.

Sunnis supported the overhaul, and Shiites and Kurds were expected to fall in line after the Shiite prime minister and the Kurdish president announced the plan on March 26.

But the law was stymied by Ahmad Chalabi, who headed Iraq’s de-Baathification commission. Mr. Chalabi, the former Pentagon protégé, relies on the commission for an official role in Iraq’s government. Having just renovated a spacious office in the Green Zone, he has strongly opposed any effort to weaken his position or the country’s policy on former Baathists.

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Yet Bush puppet al-Maliki is spewing admin rhetoric about "Our Common Struggle."

[AndyA]

1. Who could have possibly predicted this would happen?

The Iraqis have done so well up to now meeting their commitments.

:sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

2. Damn Iraqis. We starve them, bomb them, invade and occupy them

and they STILL won't behave. :sarcasm: