The clusterfuck is almost complete: US, Iraq Long-Term Security Deal Abandoned

[Richardo]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/13/us-iraq-long-term-securit_n_112383.html

...plus, accelerated troop draw-down - WITH DATES - being negotiated. But those troops will not be coming home, oh no. They're needed in Afghanistan where that long-unwatched pot is boiling over with Taliban resurgence.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

<snip>

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

Although President Bush has repeatedly rejected calls for a troop withdrawal timeline, "we are talking about dates," acknowledged one U.S. official close to the negotiations. Iraqi political leaders "are all telling us the same thing. They need something like this in there. . . . Iraqis want to know that foreign troops are not going to be here forever."

So: Capitulation by Bush on almost every front:
...Negotiating a date-certain withdrawal timetable
...No certainty that any troops will be allowed to remain (so who's going to be on all the bases we've constructed?)
...Strategic decision to diminish military action in Afghanistan a failure
...Strengthened Iran who is now the regional power broker
...No strategic improvement in the security of the oil supply - certainly not to US benefit
...Oh, yes, and 5,000 US troops and untold hundreds of thousands of civilians now officially killed for no reason.

Liek every other thing he's done in his life, the next poor bastard will have to mop up.

January 20 can not come fast enough.