Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, testified today before Congress and described the Iraqi government as being “dysfunctional.” However, he indicated that the fact that Iraqi leaders recognized that their government is dysfunctional is a sign of progress. So as long as you know you’re fucked up it doesn’t matter if you fix things or not. If you take what Crocker said literally and that is apparently how he meant it, there is no possible way that a dysfunctional Iraqi government could have reached any of the benchmarks set by the Bush administration.
The benchmarks were supposed to determine whether US troops would stay in Iraq. So far Iraq has only marginally met a few benchmarks according to non-government agencies that have been evaluating the situation on the ground. Yesterday, during his testimony, General Petraeus indicated that the Iraqi government and military had met significant benchmarks, but had little or no proof to substantiate his claim. What is truyly interesting about the tesimonies is that Crocker’s testimony of a dysfunctional Iraq is completely the opposite of what Petraeus has been saying during his testimony.
Today with all this contradictory testimony, President Bush (R-Liar) apparently is set to announce that the surge of troops, some 30,000 soldiers, would be pulled out by next summer. Bush suddenly wanting to bring troops home is very interesting. There certainly hasn’t been enough progress in Iraq to warrant a withdrawal according to Bush’s own guidelines. Also, Bush has repeatedly said that announcing withdrawals would only help our enemies on the ground in Iraq. So why now? Why suddenly contradict everything you have said about troop strength including comments the president made yesterday? Your guess is as good as mine, but what is very clear is that the executive branch of the Untied States government is just as dysfunctional as its Iraqi counterparts.