Benchmark


Well, isn't it nice that the Iraqi parliament's decided to "compromise:"

The most recent irritant among U.S. lawmakers was a report that Iraqi officials would break for two months this summer.

"Our armed forces are up to 150,000 troops; we're over $600 billion appropriated for this, lost 3,300 lives, 25,000 wounded fellow citizens. ... And the Iraqi answer? We're taking a summer off. Goin' fishing," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill.

Saleh said he expects the vacation to be shortened by at least a month, although nothing had been decided. He added that Iraqis value being independent and do "not take kindly of (U.S. officials) telling us when to recess."

Just one month? By Shrubian standards, that sure is some "hard work." (Though, as most of us already know, Iraqi representatives aren't exactly engaged in due diligence when it comes to quorum calls.

Anyway, this plea from about as nominal a government as has ever existed (Jeez, they make South Vietnam look like a functional nation-state) underscores just how little has been been accomplished since, ahem "Mission Accomplished," and how pathetic Shrub truly is when it comes to possessing even a modicum of leadership. Basically the message from the Iraqi "government" is that they are a house of cards, extant ONLY because of a mix and match of US soldiers on site and 25 foot blast walls around a pitifully small section of Baghdad.

At this point, ONLY the delusional can have any sense that even a modestly "acceptable" solution can be worked out. The cynic in me thinks that our esteemed Iraqi legislature is looking for one last gravy train (maybe another $8 billion in unaccounted for cash), a final payday before heading off to exile. Meanwhile Shrub doesn't mind the additional waste of lives and money, because anything that postpones his day of reckoning is is just fine by him. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt: it's also an official Team Bush policy.