From the Los Angeles Times
Administration foiled by own Iraq goals
The
failure to prod Baghdad with a list of benchmarks has aided foes of the
war in Congress and enemies in the field, officials say.
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer
July 12, 2007
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's decision to set benchmarks for
measuring the progress of the Iraq mission is now seen by some U.S.
officials as a costly blunder that has only aided the White House's
critics in Congress and its foes in Iraq.
When they began publicizing the benchmarks a year ago, administration
officials saw them as realistic goals that would prod the Iraqi
government toward reconciliation, while helping sustain political
support for the effort at home. The yardsticks include steps vital to
Iraq's stability: passage of a law to divide oil revenue among the key
communities, reforms to allow more members of Saddam Hussein's party
back into the government, and elections to divide power in the
provinces.
Yet now, with the major goals still out of reach, the administration is
playing down their importance. With an interim report on the U.S.
effort due out today, administration officials instead are emphasizing
other goals — some of which are less ambitious but have been attained.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, recently told reporters that
while the benchmarks remain important, "We have to look on a wider
scale than the benchmarks themselves."
In private, many officials were more scathing in their critique, saying
that defining the goals in such a way galvanized resistance in Iraq and
gave war critics a way to argue that the U.S. mission was falling short.
"You better believe it was a mistake," said a Pentagon official who
spoke on condition of anonymity when criticizing administration policy.
"In any armed conflict, trying to predict the future is folly…. You are
setting up some degree of failure."
President Bush turned to benchmarks amid intensifying criticism from
Congress and plummeting public support. Benchmarks offered a way to
counter congressional demands for timetables and to dampen the midterm
election rage that ultimately cost his party control of Congress.
Some officials now believe that setting benchmarks stirred resentment
among proud Iraqi leaders and spelled out for anti-American groups in
Iraq precisely the things they should try to obstruct.
The administration decided to make the goals public last summer, after
the elected government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki took power. U.S.
officials quickly realized that the fractious government would need a
spur; at the same time, Iraq's leadership was under pressure from the
United States to provide signs of progress to justify continuation of
the war effort.
Senior U.S. officials — while acknowledging at the time that brokering
these deals would be tough — voiced repeated public optimism that the
goals would be met. At times, they seemed to threaten that if the
Iraqis didn't move, there would be adverse consequences.
Bush, in a Jan. 10 speech laying out his troop "surge" strategy,
outlined five of the major benchmarks and said: "America will hold the
Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."
A senior administration official, briefing reporters that same day,
said Iraq's leadership was "talking about, in a fairly short period of
time" moving on the key reforms. He said U.S. officials would quickly
acquire "the ability to judge" whether the Iraqis were living up to
their promises.
But the effort bogged down.
By February, U.S. officials had grown deeply pessimistic about the
prospects for easing of the so-called de-Baathification law to allow
former low-ranking members of the deposed Baath Party to return to
government.
The same month, U.S. officials announced that a new oil law had made it
through Maliki's Cabinet and seemed on a path to enactment. But its
progress soon ground to a halt, and the measure continues to languish.
The Maliki government, in laying out benchmarks for itself last year,
had called for the completion of many by the first quarter of this
year. But officials failed to make the deadlines.
The Bush administration has not penalized the Iraqis for these
failures. U.S. officials said they understood that the central
government was weak and couldn't force consensus if it wanted to.
But the delays did have a consequence — stirring louder and more
sharply focused criticism of the Baghdad government in Congress, among
Republicans and Democrats. The criticism played a pivotal role in
persuading many lawmakers to split with the White House over the war.
This spring, Congress wrote 18 benchmarks for political, security and
economic reforms into the 2007 emergency war-spending bill. The
yardsticks were based on pledges of action that the Maliki government
had made in January, when Bush agreed to send in more U.S. troops. Bush
signed that measure, endorsing the 18 goals.
Some U.S. officials insist that the benchmarks remain important, and
emphasize that the Iraqis had made some progress.
Sean McCormack, the chief State Department spokesman, told reporters
this week that the Iraqis have taken important steps on the oil law and
other key measures. But, he said, the benchmarks don't measure other
signs of progress, such as the willingness of tribal leaders in Al
Anbar province to work against militants in that area. "Unless you have
a set of benchmarks that looks like the New York City phonebook, it's
very difficult to measure," he said.
One administration official, who declined to be identified because of
the sensitivity of the subject, said senior officials misjudged the
difficulty of taking these steps toward Iraqi reconciliation. He said
setting out the goals created expectations that could not be met.
"There is a rush to declare failure if an expectation is not met," the
official said. "But it doesn't mean failure is imminent. It is up to
everyone to step back and look at the reasons" the benchmarks were not
met.
Daniel P. Serwer of the U.S. Institute for Peace said it was likely
that Islamic radicals and Saddamists in Iraq had been closely watching
how the administration was trying to reshape Iraq's government, and had
done what they could to block it.
"The enemy is rational. They know what we're trying to do, and they
want to stop it," he said.
--
paul.richter@latimes.com
Times staff writers Julian E. Barnes and Doyle McManus contributed to
this report.
--
Begin text of infobox
Iraqi benchmarks
Here are the 18 benchmarks written into law by Congress. Considered to
be among the most important are those dealing with the distribution of
oil profits, de-Baathification, provincial elections and the
constitutional review, none of which have been met.
• Forming a constitutional review committee and completing the
constitutional review.
• Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification.
• Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable
distribution of oil revenue.
• Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form
semiautonomous regions.
• Enacting and implementing legislation to hold provincial
elections.
• Enacting and implementing legislation that addresses amnesty.
• Enacting and implementing legislation to disarm militias.
• Establishing political, media, economic and services committees
in support of the Baghdad security plan.
• Providing three trained, ready Iraqi brigades to support
Baghdad operations.
• Providing Iraqi commanders with authority to pursue all
extremists,
including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, without political
intervention.
• Ensuring that the Iraqi security forces are providing
evenhanded enforcement of the law.
• Ensuring that the Baghdad security plan will not result in
havens for militias or insurgents.
• Reducing the level of sectarian violence and eliminating
militia control of local security.
• Establishing planned joint-security stations in neighborhoods
across Baghdad.
• Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of
operating independently.
• Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the
Iraqi legislature are protected.
• Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenue for
reconstruction projects — including delivery of essential services — on
an equitable basis.
• Ensuring that Iraq's political authorities are not undermining
or
making false accusations against members of the Iraqi security forces.
--
Los Angeles Times
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
