Bush hails troop cuts as 'return on success' in Iraq
But his speech Thursday ignores failure of Iraqi political reconciliation, critics say.
posted September 14, 2007 at 9:26 am EST
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And as for the administration's new emphasis on bottom-up political progress rather than national political reconciliation, some Iraq experts say it simply acknowledges the reality that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is practically nonexistent, is unable to move forward on stalled legislation, and is unlikely to become functional any time soon.
But as the White House prepared to deliver a required report on Iraq to Congress Friday, officials insisted the administration continues to press the Iraqis on the benchmarks for progress that all sides – the White House, the US Congress, and the Iraqi government – had agreed on.
"We're not moving the goal posts about the benchmarks; the benchmarks are important, and we want them to be met," says another senior administration official, who asked not to be named because the president had not yet delivered his speech. "However, they are not the only signs of progress or the only things to measure."
The Council on Foreign Relations' Kupchan says the White House has "deftly undercut the voices calling for a deadline for withdrawal." He says administration officials cleverly made a return to pre-surge troop numbers by next summer seem like a compromise and accepting a middle ground.
But with the White House eschewing any use of the phrase "exit strategy" and Bush still speaking Thursday of a "democratic Iraq" that is an example to the Middle East, Kupchan says the image left is of a president who plans to stick with his vision as long as he is in office.
"The issue this administration has yet to grapple with is, how do we get out of Iraq?," Kupchan says. "In effect, they are kicking the can down the road in a waythat avoids having to deal with some very difficult decisions."
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