Poppies for “remembrance”…. just keep digging the graves

  

LAT:

Progress in Iraq likely to miss target

Military officers doubt any of the three top goals will be achieved before the September assessment.

By Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writers
6:08 PM PDT, May 28, 2007 

BAGHDAD — U.S. military leaders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that most of the broad political goals President Bush laid out early this year in his announcement of a troop buildup will not be met this summer and are seeking ways to redefine success.

In September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to present Congress with an assessment of progress in Iraq. Military officers in Baghdad and outside advisors working with Petraeus doubt that the three major goals set by U.S. officials for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will be achieved by then.

Enactment of a new law to share Iraq’s oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might possibly be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot. The two other key benchmarks are provincial elections and a deal to allow more Sunni Arabs into government jobs.

With overhauls by the central government stalled and with security in Baghdad still a distant goal, Petraeus’ advisors hope to focus on smaller achievements that they see as signs of progress, including deals among Iraq’s rival factions to establish areas of peace in some provincial cities.

“Some of it will be infrastructure that is being worked, some of it is local security for neighborhoods, some of it is markets reopening,” said a senior military official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing military tactics.  [snip]

In a side link, a “related” article at LAT, it says the meetings iwth Iran were “business like and positive”.  The ABC World News tonight presented the meetings as a breakthru that will “save lives”.  Scraping at the bottom of the barrel….

However, this is scraping at the rotted wood of the barrel:

“If the nature of the problem is to terminate a communal struggle, then the only way to do that is to strong-arm the parties into a cease-fire agreement,” Biddle said. “There are all kinds of downsides to using military force as a source of sticks and carrots for this purpose. It could easily fail. But if we don’t try it, I am confident we will fail.”

A five year war… and no end in sight.  Never has been in sight.

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Via Angry Arab:

“One of the Muslim world’s leading calligraphers has been shot dead by gunmen in Baghdad. Khalil al-Zahawi was the most famous practitioner in Iraq of the art of writing classical Arabic script.” (thanks May)

Posted by As’ad at 10:24 AM

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