Against Administration's Hopes, Iraqi Parliament to Take August Off

[The Decider]

FOXNews.com - Against Administration's Hopes, Iraqi Parliament to Take August Off - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday appeared resigned to the fact that theIraqi parliament is going to take August off, even though it has just eight weeks to show progress on military, political and economic benchmarks prescribed by the United States. "My understanding is at this juncture they're going to take August off, but, you know, they may change their minds," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "You know, it's 130 degrees in Baghdad in August," he said, sympathetically. Snow was reminded that U.S. troops will be continuing to fight throughout August in the heat. "You know, that's a good point," Snow said. "And it's 130 degrees for the Iraqi military." The White House and other top officials previously had worked to persuade the parliament to remain at work, saying it would send a bad signal if the Iraqi lawmakers went on vacation while U.S. troops were fighting and dying.

You have to understand---130 degrees is HOT! How can we expect Iraqi parliamentarians to work in such difficult conditions. Never mind that American soldiers endure those temperatures daily. Never mind that America is waiting for political progress on a whole host of issues. Never mind that the "surge" is designed to facilitate that political progress.

Why are young Americans dying for these jokers again?

Bring the troops home.

[thx1138]

Never mind that American soldiers should not be there in the first place.

That's the root of problem until you realize that nothing else matters.
Bring the troops home and close the bases there.

That's the thing that no one is talking about closing the bases there.

Will the next puppet do that? I don't think so.

That guys name should be Tony Snow Job.

If you start watching this video from 1:05:20 you can hear papa Bush telling congress in 1990 that the U.S. interest in Iraq will not end anytime soon.
So, now his son is continuing that mission....
U.S. Foreign Policy - Secret Wars of the CIA

[rmnunez]

Mr. Snow seemed rather sensitive and accomodating, 130 degrees is very hot, don't united statian legislators have summer holidays too? The soldiers don't have to fight, its 130 degrees for the insurgents and their terrorist friends too, they will lie low for the hot season. I checked the casualties and there have dips in Coalition fatalities between July and September each year, I suspect its because of the heat.

[thx1138]

Quote by: rmnunez Mr. Snow seemed rather sensitive and accomodating, 130 degrees is very hot, don't united statian legislators have summer holidays too? The soldiers don't have to fight, its 130 degrees for the insurgents and their terrorist friends too, they will lie low for the hot season. I checked the casualties and there have dips in Coalition fatalities between July and September each year, I suspect its because of the heat.

Are you completely devoid of any sensitivity or empathy?
You check the casualties enough to notice a dip each year?
What is this a sports game... you're checking the score?

The soldiers don't have to fight, its 130 degrees for the insurgents and their terrorist friends too, they will lie low for the hot season.

That's really an insensitive thing to say about people being killed. What does it matter if fatalities on either side going down in the summer it's still too many.

[Chaossaber314]

Quote by: Rmnunez Mr. Snow seemed rather sensitive and accomodating, 130 degrees is very hot, don't united statian legislators have summer holidays too?

Yeah, I was going to make a comment about our legislature setting a fine example but it looks like you beat me to it.

[The Decider]

Quote by: rmnunez Mr. Snow seemed rather sensitive and accomodating, 130 degrees is very hot, don't united statian legislators have summer holidays too?

Is a deadly civil war engulfing Washington D.C. as it is in Baghdad? Are American troops dying too?

Your analogy fails.

[rmnunez]

We must be exagerating this civil war engulfing Baghdad business.

If things are 'cool' enough to take a break for the hot summer season, despite the US expectation for documentation of much more substantive progress by the government, then Iraq probably isn't in as chaotic a state as we think -or at least the Iraqi legislators don't think its so bad they should skip their vacations.

I don't constantly monitor casualties, but when I saw this note I wondered whether the heat impacted on the daily tally and confirmed this.

[Chaossaber314]

I wonder about the correlation you seem to be making, since I believe there have been studies (admittedly, none I can think of off hand) that correlate the opposite at least in the US that violent crime rates going up share some correlation with rising temperatures and heat waves in the summer months.

[The Decider]

Quote by: rmnunez If things are 'cool' enough to take a break for the hot summer season, despite the US expectation for documentation of much more substantive progress by the government, then Iraq probably isn't in as chaotic a state as we think -or at least the Iraqi legislators don't think its so bad they should skip their vacations.

You need to back this claim up in the OP story or some other source. The Fox News piece said nothing about Iraqi legislators choosing August because the war is going so well in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq.

In any case, even if your claim were true, Bush advised against this vacation while American troops are fighting and dying in Iraq, and especially weeks before the pivotal September "surge" report. Taking a vacation now makes no sense politically IF the Iraqi politicians want Bush to keep US troops in their country. It seems that they may not need us after all......

Iraqi PM: Peace is possible without U.S. - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

[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.

[thx1138]

This should tell you how well things are going on the ground...

July 13: After U.S. Special Operations forces arrested an Iraqi police lieutenant suspected of being a militant responsible for attacks against Americans, Iraqi police opened fire.

MSNBC Video