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By White House–Democrats
WASHINGTON: The White House has
overrated progress in its updated report on Iraq, US Democratic
lawmakers said Tuesday.
Representative Mike McIntyre, a
Democrat from North Carolina, said the report used false standards
to determine whether satisfactory progress was made in 18 benchmarks
set by the Bush administration.
The report, made public Tuesday,
rated Iraq’s progress in 15 of 18 benchmarks as
“satisfactory,” up from eight in an earlier report a year ago.
Only two benchmarks, enacting and
implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenues
were rated “unsatisfactory.”
One benchmark was described as
“mixed:” the progress of the Iraqi security forces.
But McIntyre and other Democrats
said only a few benchmarks has been actually met.
Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat
from Michigan, said there is no military solution to the Iraq
problem, no matter what the White House said about the progress in
Iraq.
US President George W. Bush
signaled that he will keep most of the current 147,000 US troops in
Iraq through the end of his term in January next year.
But on whether the United States
will speed up withdrawal from Iraq after that, it still depends on
results of this year’s general election.
Republican presidential contender
John McCain said he would fight the war until a complete victory
while his Democratic rival Barack Obama promised to start
withdrawing troops from Iraq as soon as he takes the office of the
president.
--XINHUA
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