Rumsfeld has until July 11 to produce Iraq benchmarks

[norml]

Rumsfeld has until July 11 to produce Iraq benchmarks

By DAVID S. BRODER
Washington Post columnist

Last update: July 03, 2005


President Bush is facing a legal deadline to deliver what he has been most resistant to providing: a set of specific benchmarks for measuring progress toward military and political stability in Iraq.

Under a little-noticed provision of the defense spending bill passed by Congress in May, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld has until July 11 to send Capitol Hill a "comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security" two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

If and when it comes in, it could do much more than the president's Tuesday night speech at Fort Bragg to provide a factual basis for judging how close we may be toward reaching our goals in Iraq.

In that address, Bush once again demolished a straw man, denouncing any talk of a deadline for withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces and any timetable for phasing them out. While public support for a pullout has grown, almost no one in Congress is advocating such a step.


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http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/03OpOPN32070305.htm

[flordehinojos]

1. rumsfeld will meet his deadline--stacked up with misleading and false

benchmark information--the republican senate will buy it--the spineless democrats will go along-rumsfeld will meet his benchmark--and, as the spanish say, "aquí no hay nada. nada ha pasado." more or less translates into, "nothing to hear, nothing to see, nothing to report. all remains the same."