U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Guess you can go wash that purple off your finger.

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

"Shedding the unreality"??? Are you kidding me? Isn't this a fancy way of saying, "We are going to stop lying"?

OK, let me get this straight. It's about WMD's and "keeping America safe". There weren't any WMD's. (Well, there are now. But that's besides the point, right?) It's about spreading democracy. Now, we no longer expect a "model new democracy". Get ready for a theocracy. It's about freedom. Well, we can't promise freedom anymore, sorry. What's this about a self-supporting oil-industry? Are we saying that it's not even about the oil ?

Well then, WTF is this all about?

And yet, Georgie comes out and says this yesterday- totally contradicting all of the previous statements from his own administration

"Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed," President Bush said yesterday in his radio address.

Arrrgggh! So George is still lying in his soundbites! (banging my head on the keyboard)

Read on for more of the reality that is Iraq. It's as bad as you think, with "officials" simple declaring that "it can't be done".

Iraqi officials yesterday struggled to agree on a draft constitution by a deadline of tomorrow so the document can be submitted to a vote in October. The political transition would be completed in December by elections for a permanent government.

But the realities of daily life are a constant reminder of how the initial U.S. ambitions have not been fulfilled in ways that Americans and Iraqis once anticipated. Many of Baghdad's 6 million people go without electricity for days in 120-degree heat. Parents fearful of kidnapping are keeping children indoors.

Barbers post signs saying they do not shave men, after months of barbers being killed by religious extremists. Ethnic or religious-based militias police the northern and southern portions of Iraq. Analysts estimate that in the whole of Iraq, unemployment is 50 percent to 65 percent.

U.S. officials say no turning point forced a reassessment. "It happened rather gradually," said the senior official, triggered by everything from the insurgency to shifting budgets to U.S. personnel changes in Baghdad.

The ferocious debate over a new constitution has particularly driven home the gap between the original U.S. goals and the realities after almost 28 months. The U.S. decision to invade Iraq was justified in part by the goal of establishing a secular and modern Iraq that honors human rights and unites disparate ethnic and religious communities.

But whatever the outcome on specific disputes, the document on which Iraq's future is to be built will require laws to be compliant with Islam. Kurds and Shiites are expecting de facto long-term political privileges. And women's rights will not be as firmly entrenched as Washington has tried to insist, U.S. officials and Iraq analysts say.

"We set out to establish a democracy, but we're slowly realizing we will have some form of Islamic republic," said another U.S. official familiar with policymaking from the beginning, who like some others interviewed would speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity. "That process is being repeated all over."

Go read the whole article for more. I dare say there will be a religious civil war in Iraq that might engulf the whole region.

Jesus, we have totally screwed this up.

Feeling safer now, America?

I want this fucker impeached. Now.