U.S. to Hand Iraq a New Timetable on Security Role

The New York Times (excerpt) ^ | October 21, 2006 | David S. Cloud

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said.

Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country.

~ snip ~

[debg]

NY Times citing unnamed sources, reports just hours after the meeting. I tend not to believe any of it.

[LibLieSlayer]

Let me guess... bob woodward is using his anonymous psychic powers to determine these findings.

LLS

[M. Dodge Thomas]

The way I see it, in Iraq we walked into the middle of a religious conflict that had been in progress for hundreds of yeas before our own country had even come into existence, being conducted on top of a four way “ethnic” dispute that had been going on for generations.

People in Iraq don’t cut off each other’s heads, drill holes in the neighbors skulls, or car-bomb the other side’s hospitals and schools because of what either liberals or conservatives in the US think of our efforts there, and IMO it’s the height of arrogance to suppose that our presence is anything but a side-show in this conflict, or that other than having caused things to boil over sooner rather than later by removing a Dictator who had been temporarily keeping the lid on we have had, or will have, much say in the outcome.

We went into this project in ignorance, and we are going to be exiting it in impotence.

And the likely result is going to a very, very ugly political situation at a time when our nation has a bad need for unity.

[unspun]

Religious contention yes, but we also walked into an Iraq with a secularist yet despotic government. The majority there would like to maintain the former and fix the latter.

[Ed25]

In a statement issued Saturday night, a White House spokeswoman, Nicole Guillemard, said the Times’s account was “not accurate,”.Well now!

[debg]

Thanks for posting that. Nice to see that I was right :)