So I posted how 15 of 18 Iraq benchmarks have been met  

No, you posted how they have *NOT* been met.  This is just another report on how the Shrubbery have decided to give Iraq an "E" for effort--not an "A" for accomplished.

You really don't read well, do you?  And I'll bet you don't even know what the benchmarks *ARE*.

This is from January.  Please inform us as to how each of the benchmarks "unmet" or "partial" at that time were met in the five months since.  (Hint:  Only #3 counts, the rest are optional)

Government Benchmarks: 2 of 8 Accomplished

1. Perform constitutional review. Unmet

2. Enact de-Ba’athification reform. Partial

4. Form semi-autonomous regions. Unmet

5. Hold provincial elections. Unmet

6. Address amnesty. Unmet

8. Establish support for Baghdad Security Plan. Met

16. Ensure minority rights in Iraqi legislature. Met

18. Keep Iraqi Security Forces free from partisan interference. Unmet

Security Benchmarks: 1 of 8 Accomplished

7. Disarm militias. Unmet

9. Provide military support in Baghdad. Partial

10. Empower Iraqi Security Forces. Partial

11. Ensure impartial law enforcement. Unmet

12. Establist support for Baghdad Security Plan by Maliki government. Unmet

13. Reduce sectarian violence. Partial

14. Establish neighborhood security in Baghdad. Met

15. Increase independent Iraqi Security Focres. Unmet

Economic Benchmarks: 0 of 2 Accomplished

3. Implement oil legislation. Unmet

17. Distribute Iraqi resources equitably. Partial

For those of you wanting an explanation of the lack of progress, check here:

http://www.americanprogress...

BS, to quote from the AP story you linked to: "And while the Iraqi government has made measurable progress in recent months, the pace at which it's done so has been achingly slow.

"The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq's efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are "satisfactory"—almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. The May 2008 report card, obtained by the Associated Press, determines that only two of the benchmarks—enacting and implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenues—are unsatisfactory."

When the report card comes from someone other than the Bush crime family administration, I might pay attention to it.

Self-assessment? Puh-leeze.

You really want to know what's going on in Iraq? Check out this blog.

The Bush Administration's ability to judge progress is itself in doubt.  They seem to think *THEY* are doing a good job, too...

The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq's efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are "satisfactory" — almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. http://ap.google.com/articl...

The benchmarks haven't been met, the EFFORTS TO REACH THEM ARE SATISFACTORY according to the administration.

The most important one, the oil law, has apparently been changed since it was passed in February 2007.  They can't seem to get a final draft--since the main objective seems to be to keep any oil money from reaching Iraqis we don't like.

I gave a web address of a Clinton supporter  who posted it

LIAR!

http://people.bakersfield.c...

Where's the link, LIAR?

And posting a link (in this blog, not the one you were talking about above) to an AP story just makes you look desperate considering this:

http://www.powerlineblog.co...

and this:

http://stuckinmiddle.wordpr...

and this:

http://wwwwakeupamericans-s...

BS, let's get one thing straight: I would love nothing more than absolutely meeting all 18 benchmarks, and that the world has a stable, democratic, free Iraq. That would be wonderful.

The problem is, it's still far from that. My God, we have made progress, sure. I should hope so after five years and a couple bazillion dollars and at least 5,000 American lives and who knows how many dead Iraqis.

The war/invasion was brilliantly planned. The rest of it: no. And we've been, at best, playing catch up ever since.

I wish I had your capacity for self-delusion and your willingness to accept GOP propaganda as gospel. I simply cannot. I don't accept Democratic Party propaganda as gospel, either. I look at the facts, at the evidence, and the actual reports, and then I think. I don't simply accept it at face value because someone told me it was so.

About the only reason I still post on here is to try to reach the people to whom you spread misinformation, falsehoods and lies. I think you're past saving.

Bingo !!!

And does it matter? Now we have Afganistan, Iran etc..... what a can of worms BushCo & friends opened for profit and they sneak away quietly and much richer....

I'm not the grammar police, but if you used spellcheck once in a while it would help your case Superman.

The surge has certainly helped calm down violence a bit, but what is going to happen when we stand down?

The benchmark to get  the Iraqi parliament's agreement to talk does not mean they will agree on the issues at hand. Getting them to agree is the real benchmark. All one has to do is look at the legislation in the Iraqi parliament for issues like de-bathification, provincial autonomies, amnesty for insurgents,etc., to see that there are really profound religious and ethnic differences of agendas. We are talking about centuries of conflct here. A surge in military presence will not make the Sunis, Shia, and Kurds suddenly become best buddies.

The Bush administration, in it's waning months, is just trying to portray a high degree of success in Iraq so that they can claim that whoever the next Prez is, Obama OR McCain, is the one that screwed the pooch. That misleading strategy has kept him in office for 8 years, but history will not be kind to him, and even conservatives will wonder why they voted for him.

Virtually every issue on which there appears progress--like the de-Baathifcation issue, or the oil law--is actually a step backward.

But it's not about progress, it's about declaring progress and then blaming the inevitable collapse on the next guy.  Much as I'd like to see that collapse blamed on McBush--few deserve it more--I fear for the world if that old fool is forced to respond to such a collapse.

Spam Code CHANK.  If it ain't the past tense of "chink," it ought to be.

its true the violence has gone down but what next, how do you determine victory?

Hmmm.. BS, besides what everyone else has posted, the simple fact of the matter is that the Bush Administration willingly used intelligence which wasn't 100% credible to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein was building WMD.  Bush wasn't alone, however, because Congress had the same reports, and also heard the same doubts from plenty of intel experts. There are plenty of sources which conclude this, all of which are 100% credible, for example:

http://www.globalsecurity.o...

http://www.npr.org/template...

My main issue with our current war is that we have yet to be told the whole story.  We do not have the true reasons why Bush wanted to invade.  While I make cracks about Dubya's intellect, I know he's not stupid enough to actually have been ok with using intelligence which he knew had a good chance of being wrong.

I'm also upset because the United States could have and should have taken care of Saddam back in the 1980's when evidence first came out of his inhumane treatment of the Kurdish peoples in the northern regions of his country.  In fact, instead of holding Saddam accountable, we fed him technology, chemical and biological weapons capabilities and plenty of intel on Iran, all because we were too afraid of the possibility that Iran would spread the idea of an Islamic state to the rest of the Mideast.  It wasn't until the invasion of Kuwait when we would actually do anything, and even then, Bush Sr. didn't keep his word when he promised the Kurds and Shia air support if they revolted. I'm upset because Clinton didn't do much to make the situation any better when he was in the Oval Office.

I'm upset because, as usual, U.S. foreign policy ignores the people who truely suffer from our decisions. 

 US, Iraq Long-Term Security Deal Abandoned

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. and Iraq have abandoned attempts to forge a long-term security agreement. The focus is now on a "bridge document" that would provide for basic military operations after the UN mandate expires at the end of this year, and it would fall to the next administration to deal with any extended security agreement:

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

Although President Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, "we are talking about dates," acknowledged one U.S. official close to the negotiations. Iraqi political leaders "are all telling us the same thing. They need something like this in there. . . . Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever."

The increasing need for more troops in Afghanistan to combat a resurgent Taliban may force the Bush Administration to accelerate the rate of troop withdrawal from Iraq:

The Bush administration is considering the withdrawal of additional combat forces from Iraq beginning in September, according to administration and military officials, raising the prospect of a far more ambitious plan than expected only months ago.

Such a withdrawal would be a striking reversal from the nadir of the war in 2006 and 2007.

One factor in the consideration is the pressing need for additional American troops in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other fighters have intensified their insurgency and inflicted a growing number of casualties on Afghans and American-led forces there.

More American and allied troops died in Afghanistan than in Iraq in May and June, a trend that has continued this month...

...The desire to move more quickly reflects the view of many in the Pentagon who want to ease the strain on the military but also to free more troops for Afghanistan and potentially other missions.

US TROOPS FORCED OUT OF AFGHAN BASE

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. and Afghan troops have abandoned a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine American soldiers this week, officials said Wednesday.