Benchmarks, timetables, stay the course...they all mean the same thing- The Troops Aren't Leaving.


I saw a great article in the Washington Post the other day. As you are probably aware, Bush just recently held a news conference about the Iraq war and how we were going to start marking progress in the war by a series of benchmarks. These benchmarks are supposed to measure how well the Iraqi police forces and Iraqi government are doing in gaining control of their own country and internal security. The point of this news conference was to make Bush look more flexible in his Iraq strategy. Instead of just saying "we'll stay the course", he came up with specific goals that the US and Iraqi government will work to reach together. Ok, so when the Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces reach these goals, the American troops will be withdrawn, right? Well, first that would assume that the Iraqi government has any incentive to follow these benchmarks. The Bush administration has specifically stated there will be no pressure, punishments or recourse of any kind if the Iraq government does not reach the benchmarks on time. Plus Bush never said that if the Iraq police and government reached these goals that America would draw down their forces. So in other words, this news conference was to let Bush just remind America that we are going to be in Iraq a long time and to quit all this fool talk about bringing the troops home.

In fact, Donald Rumsfeld would prefer it if some people quit all their fool talk about the Iraq war. In the Washington Post the other day, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld told critics of the 'new' Bush strategy that they "ought to back off, take a look at it, relax, understand that it's complicated, it's difficult". In case you need a translation, "Quit critising us, you couldn't possibly understand something so complex". Right. How complicated could this plan be if George W Bush understands it? (ok, sorry, that was a cheap shot) But what is most disturbing is he told this to a group of reporters. Ok, reporters are the people who are supposed to ask the tough questions and figure out the policies and then report it to the millions of people who don't get to attend Pentagon and White House press conferences. I guess Rumsfeld doesn't like these pesky things like freedom of speech or freedom of the press. And I guess it makes sense for him to dislike these rights. After all, even Republicans such as Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH) having been publicly stating that Rumsfeld has made many mistakes and needs to resign. If we didn't have freedom of speech, then he wouldn't have to hear annoying statements like that.