Wow

Even the Albanian judge?

From the AP

Official: Iraq gov't missed all targets


By ANNE FLAHERTY and ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writers
A progress report on Iraq will conclude that the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad has not met any of its targets for political, economic and other reform, speeding up the Bush administration's reckoning on what to do next, a U.S. official said Monday.
One likely result of the report will be a vastly accelerated debate among President Bush's top aides on withdrawing troops and scaling back the U.S. presence in Iraq.

The "pivot point" for addressing the matter will no longer be Sept. 15, as initially envisioned, when a full report on Bush's so-called "surge" plan is due, but instead will come this week when the interim mid-July assessment is released, the official said.

"The facts are not in question," the official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the draft is still under discussion. "The real question is how the White House proceeds with a post-surge strategy in light of the report."

The report, required by law, is expected to be delivered to Capitol Hill by Thursday or Friday, as the Senate takes up a $649 billion defense policy bill and votes on a Democratic amendment ordering troop withdrawals to begin in 120 days.
…

Tony Snow then got out the big “At the Earth's Core”

tunneler to gouge deep enough into the planet’s mantle to lower expectations even further than the White House has already tried to do.

…
"You are not going to expect all the benchmarks to be met at the beginning of something," Snow said. "I'm not sure everyone's going to get an `A' on the first report."
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Honestly, even after all this time and the layers and layers of bullshit that have been troweled out from that podium on the subject of Iraq, I am simply amazed that at this point Snow isn’t being pelted by rotten fruit, bags of flaming poo and batteries every time he tries to take a lie this massive, this malevolent and this shameless out for a walk.

So for all of this quality, the loss of international reputation, the wounded, the dead, the year-and-a-half of The Bicycle Chief still running the country into the ground, how much would you pay?

How about the low-low, introductory surge price of a mere $12 billion dollars a month?

The boost in troop levels in Iraq has increased the cost of war there and in Afghanistan to $12 billion a month, with the overall tally for Iraq alone nearing a half-trillion dollars, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which provides research and analysis to lawmakers.

The figures call into question the Pentagon's estimate that the increase in troop strength and intensifying pace of operations in Baghdad and Anbar province would cost $5.6 billion through the end of September.
…

Their rapacity and utter recklessness will eventually cost us, the American tax-paying citizen, every cent we and our children have just to clean it up and get it back to less than we had to begin with.

Because there is nothing Republicans touch that doesn’t turn to short-term profit for their cronies and to shit for you and me.