Don't penalize the Iraqi government for moving backwards

in her back-to-back talk show appearances yesterday, condi introduced the new talking point du jour...

President Bush will not sign any war spending bill that penalizes Iraq’s government for failing to make progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday, a fresh warning to Congress about challenging him.

[...]

“To begin now to tie our own hands - and to say ‘We must do this if they don’t do that’ - doesn’t allow us the flexibility and creativity that we need to move this forward,” Rice said.

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Rice said Iraqi leaders know U.S. patience is worn. Still, she said deadlines for progress could undermine the work of Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

oh, no, perish the thought that we should penalize the iraqi government if they don't make progress... however, should we penalize them if, instead of "making progress," they go backwards...?

A department of the Iraqi prime minister's office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias, according to U.S. military officials in Baghdad.

[...]

Although some of the officers appear to have been fired for legitimate reasons, such as poor performance or corruption, several were considered to be among the better Iraqi officers in the field. The dismissals have angered U.S. and Iraqi leaders who say the Shiite-led government is sabotaging the military to achieve sectarian goals.

"Their only crimes or offenses were they were successful" against the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia, said Brig. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, commanding general of the Iraq Assistance Group, which works with Iraqi security forces. "I'm tired of seeing good Iraqi officers having to look over their shoulders when they're trying to do the right thing."

and, please, pray tell, what is this "flexibility and creativity" bullshit...? the only creativity i've seen is how to keep the slaughter going against the wishes of the american people, how to continue to occupy a country against the wishes of the iraqi people, how to magically make billions and billions of dollars disappear, how to wage an illegal war on the basis of lies, how to create a sectarian civil war in a country where those same sects were living tolerantly side-by-side, and how to claim progress is being made when it clearly isn't... and as for "flexibility...?" 'fraid i haven't seen any...

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