Bush to Declare Progress in Iraq on Some Benchmarks [View All]

Source: NYTimes

The Bush administration will assert in the next few days that progress of the Iraq security plan has been satisfactory on nearly half of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, according to several administration officials.

But it will qualify some verdicts by saying that even when the political performance of the Iraqi government has been unsatisfactory, it is too early to make final judgments, they said.

The administration’s decision to qualify many of the political benchmarks will enable it to present a more optimistic assessment than if it had provided the pass-fail judgment sought by Congress.

The administration officials provided details of the draft report to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, in part to rebut claims by members of Congress in recent days that almost no progress had been made in Iraq since the security plan began.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/world/middleeast/12surge.html?hp