continuing to take his cues from bush

Iraqi PM: Criticism 'signals' militants

BAGHDAD - Iraq's beleaguered prime minister accused his American critics on Sunday of underestimating how hard it is to rebuild his country and failing to appreciate his government's achievements "such as stopping the civil and sectarian war."

(In whose reality has this happened?)

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said told reporters that some of the criticism from Washington sends "signals to terrorists luring them into thinking that the security situation in the country is not good." He offered no specific examples.

(Again, I think that anyone in Iraq would just have to look out their windows to see that this is true.)

He also said U.S. critics may not know "the size of the destruction that Iraq passed through" and do not appreciate "the big role of the Iraqi government and its achievements, such as stopping the civil and sectarian war."

The Democratic-controlled Congress is growing increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of political reform in Iraq. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have called for al-Maliki to be replaced.

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A draft report by the Government Accountability Office concluded Iraq has satisfied only three of 18 benchmarks set by Congress for measuring progress and partially met two others.

None of those five benchmarks are the high-profile political issues such as passage of a national oil revenue sharing law that the U.S. has said are critical to Iraq's future.

It doesn't seem like anything that anyone in America says could possibly have a worse affect on the situation in Iraq than reality has on it already!
I think that our administration and Iraq's administration needs to stop looking for scapegoats and looking for solutions!
Easier said than done, of course, but there needs to be some progress!