Iraqis miss all targets for progress

I still support the Iraq War. There. I have said it. And I mean it. It was a good thing to remove the madman Sadaam Hussein from power - stopping the filling of mass graves - and the only way it was going to happen was by application of military force. But it is becoming harder and harder to support the peace, as every report shows an Iraqi government unwilling or unable to make progress.

A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.
One likely result of the report will be a vastly accelerated debate among President Bush's top aides on withdrawing troops and scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq.
The "pivot point" for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush's so-called "surge" plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said.
"The facts are not in question," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. "The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report."

I have beeen thinking for some time about the best way to address this situation, since we all knew that at the very least not EVERY target would be met. Where do we go from here? After all, Sadaam Hussein slaughtered all of the best and brightest, so it is not a great shock that those who remain lack experience. But at the same time, there comes a time when you stop making excuses and start forcing accountabiliity. One wonders how different a presidential race it will be if the troops are out of Iraq by Election Day 2008.