Iraq govt missed all targets: US official
Ap, Washington
A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the US-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a US official said Monday. The "pivot point" for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush's so-called "surge" plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. But another senior official said Bush's advisers, along with the president, decided last week there was not enough evidence from Iraq to justify a change now in current policy. They had launched discussions about how to react to the erosion of support for the president's Iraq approach among prominent Republicans, that official said, and the debate was part of a broader search for a way out of a US combat presence in Iraq by the end of Bush's presidency. The second official said the decision was to wait for the September report one originally proposed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other administration officials, and then enshrined into law by Congress before deciding whether any course shift is warranted. The official spoke on condition of anonymity so he could talk more freely about internal deliberations.
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