Remember Those Benchmarks?
BARNES, FRED
Remember Those Benchmarks? Unheralded political progress in Iraq. BY FRED BARNES A year ago, when neither the war nor political reconciliation was going well, the Bush administration...
...Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said the report “shows the president’s fl awed escalation policy is not working...
...The new laws deal with the harder, more divisive issues...
...If they wish, Democrats can cite the failure of the Iraqi parliament to pass a “hydrocarbons” law to codify the sharing of oil revenues among the Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds...
...Now, the facts on the ground have changed dramatically, and so has progress on the benchmarks...
...The most controversial—and the toughest to enact—gives significant power to provincial councils and mandates new provincial elections by October 1. As a result, leaders of the so-called Sunni Awakening who have broken with al Qaeda and insurgents are all but certain to gain power...
...We’ll see...
...And Iraq will have a decentralized, federal system of government...
...So far, Democrats have reacted with silence...
...They had a point, but not anymore...
...Last fall, the Iraqis had “not made satisfactory progress” on this reform...
...According to Democratic senator Joe Biden of Delaware, “all it does is point out the failure...
...By the way, the vast majority of the $48 billion came from oil production...
...The Iraqi government had made progress on nine of the 18 benchmarks before last week...
...But these were the easier ones, like forming a constitutional review committee or establishing security stations in Baghdad with American and Iraqi soldiers...
...Taken together, the laws are likely to bring minority Sunnis fully into the political process they had earlier boycotted and to produce a new class of political leaders...
...And the Democratic Congress eagerly wrote the benchmarks into law, also requiring the administration to report back in July and September on whether the benchmarks were being met...
...Next in importance to reconciliation is an amnesty law under which thousands of jailed Sunnis who haven’t been charged with a crime will be released...
...The new law has been criticized as too complicated...
...Months ago, the administration said “the prerequisites for a successful general amnesty are not present...
...Indeed they do...
...Just as important is what the laws reflect in Iraq today...
...Now they have...
...And that law is still needed, particularly to provide a framework for managing the oil sector of the Iraqi economy...
...Democratic senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island said the Iraqi government “is not making progress . . . with respect to these benchmarks...
...Facts are stubborn,” Hillary Clinton said last month, “and I know it’s sometimes hard to keep track of facts...
...The surge, by quelling violence and providing security, was supposed to produce “breathing space” in which reconciliation could take place...
...Now it has, not because President Bush says so, but based on those same benchmarks that Democrats once claimed were measures of failure in Iraq...
...It called for “enacting and implementing a deBaathifi cation reform” to allow thousands of bureaucrats and offi cials in Saddam Hussein’s regime to regain their jobs...
...Or will they continue to claim the surge has failed and demand rapid withdrawal of our troops...
...A few weeks ago, the Iraqi government dealt with still another benchmark involving reconciliation...
...Ten billion dollars is to be distributed to the provinces without any sectarian bias...
...The whole motivating factor” behind the legislation was “reconciliation, not retribution,” says American ambassador Ryan Crocker, who has never sugarcoated the impediments to progress in Iraq...
...They’re approaching it from a spirit of reconciliation,” he said...
...Despite the surge of additional American troops and a new counterinsurgency strategy, the reports found little progress on the political benchmarks requiring tangible steps toward reconciliation between Shia and Sunnis...
...Crocker said the law will have to be straightened out by the executive council of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the president (a Kurd), and two vice presidents (Shia and Sunni...
...Democrats insisted this meant the surge had failed...
...But with Democrats, the warning of former Harvard dean Henry Rosovsky may apply...
...This is “remarkably different” from six months ago, he said...
...Never underestimate the diffi culty,” he said, “of changing false beliefs by facts...
...When the second benchmarks report was released last September, Democrats jumped on it...
...In assessing progress last fall, the administration conceded the Iraqis had “not made signifi cant progress” on achieving the benchmark on provincial powers...
...Will Democrats acknowledge this...
...Last week, the Iraqi parliament passed three laws that amounted to a political surge to achieve reconciliation...
...In effect, however, the Iraqis are now sharing oil revenues through the $48 billion budget they passed...
...BY FRED BARNES A year ago, when neither the war nor political reconciliation was going well, the Bush administration reluctantly agreed to 18 benchmarks for judging progress in Iraq...
...It may be as likely to force former Baathists—Sunnis mostly—out of jobs as it is to provide them with job opportunities...
...But the surge changed that by reducing violence and creating the conditions for amnesty...
...But facts matter...
Vol. 13 • February 2008 • No. 23
