New Iraq Report Card: 15 of 18 Benchmarks "Satsifactory"

I'll lower myself to linking AP here because the story is important enough.

I'd say the headline is pretty positive. Not the AP though. Here's their lede:

No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with one of the most frustrating realities in Iraq: the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates.

True, I suppose, though the US government is hardly a jackrabbit either. Perhaps a more informative lede would have been:

No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will confront an Iraq far more stable, peaceful, and well-functioning than would have been predicted by the most optimistic of analysts a mere year ago.

More:

...

The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light...

Um, that's the way "the White House sees" it? Really? Just them? I would think it to be an objective fact that the report is positive.

...declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq's efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are "satisfactory" — almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. The May 2008 report card, obtained by the Associated Press, determines that only two of the benchmarks — enacting and implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenues — are unsatisfactory.

The militias are being rapidly disarmed. Perhaps it's still not satisfactory, but it's happening. Quickly.

posted by Ace at 04:56 PM

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