Dawn : Bush moves away from benchmarks in assessing Iraq

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Bush moves away from benchmarks in assessing Iraq

AFP | WASHINGTON | August 18, 2007

US President George W. Bush Saturday praised what he called “progress and reconciliation” achieved in some Iraqi communities, but pointedly avoided using US government-approved benchmarks in assessing the situation in the country.

“Americans can be encouraged by the progress and reconciliation that are taking place at the local level,” Bush said in his weekly radio address.

He spent much of his address describing what he called “political gains” made by various Iraqi communities.

Bush acknowledged that “political progress at the national level had not matched the pace of progress at the local level,” and benchmarks adopted by the US government as a standard for assessing progress in Iraq had largely remained unmet.

The 18 benchmarks call for sustainable progress in national reconciliation and mending the country's broken economy as a condition for continued US support.