The army says they can maintain the surge only as long as another year. The problem is that while attacks in Baghdad against US troops are down, attacks against Iraqi's are the same and the Iraqi government has met only 3 of 18 benchmarks set by Congress. As much as I'm sure Bush will try to avoid this, the fact was the surge was merely supposed to buy time for the government to stabilize. We're also finding that weapons the US gave to Iraqi security forces are being used in crimes in Turkey. Just great.
This is according to drafts of a GAO report that Congress will get net week. This comes after a National Intelligence Estimate last week that "depicts a paralyzed Iraqi government unable to take advantage of the security gains achieved by the thousands of extra American troops dispatched to the country this year." The Bush administration is supposed to provide a report on progress in mid September. The question is will the Bush administration "water down" the report by cherry picking the good stuff and playing down the bad? General Petraeus says he'll write his own report, uninfluenced by the White House.
It turns out the military is divided over it's recommendations and in an unusual occurrence, won't make a unified recommendation to Bush. Daily Kos interprets this as "Pentagon Gives Up; Hands War Over to Bush".
Meanwhile Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War. This is "on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." Now the question is, will the Democrats lead?
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