The Iraqi government has been listening too much to the Bush administration. The Iraqi government has announced that the Parliament will be taking a two-month vacation. They will not work in July and August. From Senator Levin:
The Iraqis are no closer to political reconciliation today than they were at the time the surge started. Instead of Prime Minister Maliki’s government becoming stronger, it appears that it is weaker. Disagreements within the government have prevented proposals for de-Baathification and oil revenue sharing legislation from even being forwarded to the Council of Representatives for consideration. The committee considering amendments to the Iraqi Constitution appears to be as far from completing its work as it has always been. Meanwhile, the Assembly is apparently planning to go on a two month recess at the end of June. Let me repeat that since it is so unbelievable - the Iraqi Council of Representatives is apparently planning to go on a two month recess at the end of June. And incredibly, Hasan Suneid, a lawmaker and adviser to Prime Minister Maliki, was quoted in the paper the other day as saying that "time is irrelevant." Well time is plenty relevant to us, our troops and their families.
Baghdad is burning while the Iraqi politicians avoid responsibility for their country’s future. Even the detonation of a suicide bomb within the Green zone, killing Iraqi parliamentarians, has failed to change the political situation. It appears that the Iraqi factions are content to seek vengeance rather than reconciliation.
Crooks and Liars has more, including Blitzer interviewing Rice:
BLITZER: Because there's a lot of concern right now that the Iraqis themselves aren't taking all of these benchmarks, all of these requirements that seriously. Supposedly, they're about to go on vacation, the Iraqi parliament, for two months, July and August, in the midst of their failure so far to disarm, disband the militias, deal with the oil resources, the revenue from that, deal with some other critical issues that you want them to deal with.
RICE: Well, certainly they need to keep working. And we've made that very clear to them. I think that they will make some progress on the oil law. They have made a lot of progress on it. They need to close that and finish it.
They need to get the provincial elections set up. And we're continuing to tell them that our patience isn't limitless, but neither is the patience of the Iraqi people limitless on this issue — these reconciliation issues.
She's right, the administration's patience has a limit. January 20, 2009. But don't worry about that, just get that oil law passed!
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