No Accountability at Home, No Accountability in Iraq

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


President Bush announced the surge in January with a side note about why the military would succeed when previously it had not: “In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time… Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.”

Well, Bush couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only is the Maliki government tolerating sectarian interference, it’s promoting it. From a Washington Post article that is getting a lot of attention today:

A department of the Iraqi prime minister’s office is playing a leading role in the arrest and removal of senior Iraqi army and national police officers, some of whom had apparently worked too aggressively to combat violent Shiite militias.

So Maliki has failed gloriously on a key benchmark. Will Bush hold him accountable? Of course not.

President Bush will not sign any war spending bill that penalizes Iraq’s government for failing to make progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

We set benchmarks. The Iraqis fail them. We supply them with more money and more troops. Rinse out the blood and repeat.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate