[rmnunez]

I can't offer any evidence things are going well in Iraq, the evidence I do offer suggests they are very gradually getting worse fatality-wise for the Coalition, but that in the summer there's a bit less action.

I don't know whether the Iraqi legislature customarily takes summer off, in Spain and Mexico they do, I thought they did in the US too. If it were established practice, the Bush administration should have considered this when planning for the surge.

The recent negative evaluation of the Iraqi government regarding every benchmark set by the US government, might also provoke some indisposition towards the US and Bush's expectations.

Then again, we could be misreading the situation on the ground, it may seem more dire because things are exagerated, this would explain the Iraqi indolence. It could also be that there is sufficient 'opposition' in the Iraqi legislature to US efforts that they are doing everything they can to raise obstacles in Bush's path.