New U.S. intelligence assessment casts doubts on Bush’s Iraq policy
By Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy, July 11, 2007

The Shiite Muslim-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has made only “halting efforts” to end the power struggle fueling the war between Iraq’s religious and ethnic communities, a new U.S. intelligence report said Wednesday.

Even if the bloodletting can be contained, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders will be “hard pressed” to reach lasting political reconciliation, the report stated.

The report, reflecting the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, cast new uncertainty about the chances of success for President Bush’s plan to contain the war through the deployment of an additional 28,000 U.S. troops, mostly in and around Baghdad.

The conclusions also appeared to be bleaker than a White House assessment produced by the top U.S. officials in Baghdad, which found that Iraqi politicians have made satisfactory progress on some of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress in May. [complete article]

The impossible task set for an embattled government
By Patrick Cockburn, The Independent, July 11, 2007

The benchmarks the Iraqi government is meant to achieve in exchange for US support were never realistic and have more to do with American than Iraqi politics.

The weak and embattled Iraqi government is supposed to make changes which the US at the height of its power in Iraq failed to make stick. At stake are policies deeply divisive among Iraqis that are to be introduced at the behest of a foreign power, the US, in a way that makes the Iraqi government look as if it is a client of America.

One US benchmark is for the elimination of militias and an end to sectarian violence. But the Shia-Kurdish parties that make up the ruling coalition almost all have their own powerful militias that they have no intention of dissolving. In much of southern Iraq the militias and the local police forces are the same. In almost all cases units of the security forces are unwilling to act against their own community. [complete article]