Leon Panetta is full of shit

saying "no open-ended commitment" to the iraqis will accomplish absolutely nothing except giving bushco an open-ended invitation to extend the iraq war for the rest of his presidential term... i don't care if leon panetta is "former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a member of the Iraq Study Group," he's still full of shit...

Instead of dividing over the strategy on the war, the president and the Congress should make very clear to the Iraqis that there is no open-ended commitment to our involvement. As the Iraq Study Group recommended, Iraqi leaders must pay a price if they continue to fail to make good on key reforms that they have promised the Iraqi people.

In calling for a specific withdrawal date, the House and Senate versions of the supplemental spending bill send a clear message to the Iraqis (even if they do face a certain veto). The worst mistake now would be to provide money for the war without sending the Iraqis any message at all about their responsibility for reforms. Both the president and the Congress at the very least must make the Iraqi government understand that future financial and military support is going to depend on Baghdad’s making substantial progress toward the milestones Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has publicly committed to.

and what's included on panetta's list of satisfactory benchmarks...? if you guessed the oil law, you can go to the head of the class...

The Iraqis promised to achieve, by the end of 2006 or early 2007, the approval ... of a law to regulate the oil industry and share revenues...

i find it so very interesting that something that totally favors big oil in ways unheard of in the industry gets buried in a list of so-called "benchmarks" and the benefit to big oil never gets mentioned... why is that, do you suppose...?

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