Iraq govt has missed all targets: US official

A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the US-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, said a US official.

A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the US-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reforms, speeding up the Bush administration’s reckoning on what to do next, said a US official.

The “pivot point” for addressing the matter will no longer be September 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush’s so-called “surge” plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, said the official said.

But another official said Bush’s advisors, along with the President, decided last week there was not enough evidence from Iraq to justify a change now in current policy.

They had launched discussions about how to react to the erosion of support for the Bush’s Iraq approach among Republicans, that official said, and the debate was part of a broader search for a way out of a US combat presence in Iraq by the end of Bush’s presidency. The second official said the decision was to wait for the September report—one originally proposed by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and then enshrined into law by Congress—before deciding whether any policy shift is warranted.