Iraq's Poor Record On Meeting Benchmarks

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice sent a letter to Sen. Carl Levin responding to a request to disclose the details of an agreement that had reportedly been made between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government last fall    TPM

   From The Associated Press:

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Rice: Iraq missed political deadlines

By ANNE GEARAN
AP DIPLOMATIC WRITER

Iraq has passed target dates to make laws establishing provincial elections, regulating distribution of the country's oil wealth and reversing measures that have excluded many Sunnis from jobs and government positions because of Baath party membership, according to the list Rice provided.

    You can read Miss Rice's letter HERE.

   With the vote forthcoming on the non-binding resolutions over Bush's troop escalation, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham  are working on a plan of their own aimed at blocking the two resolutions which are highly critical of the White house by proposing a resolution that would set benchmarks for the Iraqi government and describe the troop increase as a final chance for the United States to restore security in Baghdad. NYTimes

   Is that not just what the Iraqis need? More benchmarks that they will never meet on top of the ones that they haven't met yet? This sounds like a winning plan to me!

Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat who acted as chairman for the hearing, said he would soon introduce a resolution that would go much further. It would end all financing for the deployment of American military forces in Iraq after six months, other than a limited number working on counterterrorism operations or training the Iraqi Army and police force. In effect, it would call for all other American forces to be withdrawn by the six-month deadline.   NYTimes

 

Technorati tags: Iraq, Benchmarks, Rice

 

Congress Can Stop War

   From Daily Kos:

  Entire Article

The U.S. Congress has the power to end the war in Iraq, a former Bush administration attorney and other high-powered legal experts told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

Facing mounting opposition over his Iraq troop increase plan, President George W. Bush insisted it would be "too extreme" if lawmakers pass a resolution condemning his Iraq policy.

Four out of five experts called before the Senate Judiciary Committee said Congress could go even further and restrict or stop U.S. involvement in Iraq if it chose.

"I think the constitutional scheme does give Congress broad authority to terminate a war," said Bradford Berenson, a Washington lawyer who was a White House associate counsel under Bush from 2001 to 2003.

"It is ultimately Congress that decides the size, scope and duration of the use of military force," said Walter Dellinger, former acting solicitor general, the government's chief advocate before the Supreme Court, in 1996-97 [...]

The other experts at the hearing said that while the Constitution makes the president commander-in-chief of U.S. forces, Congress' constitutional power to declare war and fund the military gave it power to stop what it had set in motion.

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania said: "I would respectfully suggest to the president that he is not the sole 'decider' ... The decider is a shared and joint responsibility."

 

Technorati tags: Congress, War