Winning

I repeatedly hear supporters of our continued military presence in Iraq talking about "winning" or "surrendering" and other terms that to my mind seem to have no relationship to what is actually going on over there. In January, when the President presented his proposal for the "surge", he portrayed it essentially as a way to buy time for the Iraqi government to get its feet under it, by completing a few important measures that would allow them to take over and us to come home.

So, in some way, in order for us to "win", there needs to be a functioning, stable Iraqi government that is ready to take over. The implication is that it's just those pesky insurgents and terrorists that are keeping a valiant bunch of freedom-loving, enlightened Iraqi democrats from getting themselves organized. Real soon now, the Iraqis will pull it together, as long as we can keep the mortars off their heads for a few more months.

How's that coming?

At issue is whether the Iraqi parliament will take its regular summer break, a two-month vacation scheduled to begin July 1. If it does, Republican lawmakers have warned that the Iraqis' recess could cost President Bush support from within his own party at a crucial moment in the war.

The U.S.-backed government in Baghdad "would lose a lot of support here," said Sen. Tom Coburn, a conservative Republican from Oklahoma who has opposed Democratic attempts to set a deadline for U.S. troop cutbacks in Iraq. "We're fighting hard. You need to be fighting hard."

Top administration officials have noted the concern. Vice President Dick Cheney raised the issue in meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad on Wednesday, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates discussed it during his most recent trip to Iraq.

"I'll be blunt: I told some of the Iraqis with whom I met that we are buying them [time] for political reconciliation, and that every day we buy it with American blood," Gates said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. "For this group to go out for two months, it would, in my opinion, be unacceptable."

Once again, it appears the Iraqis didn't get the memo on the President's talking points. Imagine, a legistlative branch of government that doesn't obey, just because the executive branch says something. (You can understand why the administration might have been taken by surprise on that.)

Not that the Iraqi parliament is a beehive of activity when it is nominally in session:

The political weight that the vacation has taken on irritates some Iraqis and strikes others as odd. Even when it is in session, Iraq's parliament is hardly a model of legislative efficiency.

The Iraqi parliament normally meets three times a week, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but its sessions involve numerous problems that Congress does not face.

This week, Tuesday's session was canceled because the parliament building's electricity was out, a result of Baghdad's chronic power shortages. That meant microphones did not work, the windowless room in which legislators meet was dark, and there was no air-conditioning at a time the outside temperature was rising into the 90s.

Of the 275 lawmakers, 170 were present for the session that never happened. Attendance has been a persistent problem — reasons for absences range from boycotts to traffic jams caused by suicide bombings and checkpoints. The body managed to hold its session Wednesday.

Perhaps, if Senator Coburn had to regularly fight traffic, checkpoints and snipers to get to a meeting in an oven-hot room in the dark, he might understand why some of the members want to take off for depths of the Baghdad summer.

Still, the plucky Iraqis are taking things in stride, and carrying on as best they can. They've been hard at work, negotiating and discussing legislation of importance to the Iraqi people, just as you would expect from the legislature of a sovereign democracy.

BAGHDAD -- A majority of Iraqi lawmakers endorsed a draft bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday.

The legislation was being discussed even as U.S. lawmakers were locked in a dispute with the White House over their call to start reducing the size of the U.S. force in the coming months.

The proposed Iraqi legislation, drafted by the parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was signed by 144 members of the 275-member house, said Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc.

The Sadrist bloc, which holds 30 parliamentary seats and sees the U.S.-led forces as an occupying army, has pushed similar bills before, but this was the first time it garnered the support of a majority of lawmakers.

The bill would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from parliament before it requests an extension of the U.N. mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq, al-Rubaie said. It also calls for a timetable for the troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of the foreign forces.

Huh. Timetables for withdrawal. What a wild idea.

It seems a little bit odd that the Iraqis would want the foreign troops out of their country if they felt like having them there was going to make things better. You'd think that, if the foreigners were actually making things more secure, making friends with the people and helping the government get control of things, then the legislators would want to keep them around.

Could it be that the majority of Iraq members of parliament think the American troops aren't actually making progress on the security issue? I wonder what would have led them to that conclusion?

BAGHDAD - A sharp increase in mortar attacks on the Green Zone — the one-time oasis of security in Iraq's turbulent capital — has prompted the U.S. Embassy to issue a strict new order telling all employees to wear flak vests and helmets while in unprotected buildings or whenever they are outside.

The order, obtained by The Associated Press, has created a siege mentality among U.S. staff inside the Green Zone following a recent suicide attack on parliament. It has also led to new fears about long-term safety in the place where the U.S. government is building a massive and expensive new embassy.

The situation marks a sharp turnaround for the heavily guarded Green Zone — long viewed as the safest corner of Baghdad with its shops, restaurants, American fast-food outlets and key Iraqi and American government offices.

The security deterioration also holds dire implications for the Iraqi government, which uses the Green Zone as a haven for key meetings crucial to its ability to govern. On Wednesday, for example, Vice President Dick Cheney held meetings in the Green Zone with Iraq's prime minister.

Reporters covering the Cheney visit were hustled into a secure area when a large explosion rattled windows in the U.S. Embassy late in the afternoon. Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride said the vice president's meeting "was not disturbed and he was not moved."

The increase in mortar attacks comes despite the presence of tens of thousands more American and Iraqi soldiers in the streets of Baghdad as part of the security crackdown ordered by President Bush in January.

The vest and helmet security order was issued May 3, one day after four Asian contract workers working for the U.S. government were killed when rockets or mortars slammed into the Green Zone.

It was at least the third straight day of barrages against the 3.5-square-mile area along the west bank of the Tigris River in the center of Baghdad.

Because of the "recent increase of indirect fire attacks" — the military term for mortar and artillery barrages — the order told embassy employees that until further notice, "outdoor movement" must be "restricted to a minimum."

"Remain within a hardened structure to the maximum extent possible and strictly avoid congregating outdoors," the order said.

Government employees who work outside of a "hardened structure" such as the current embassy building or travel "a substantial distance outdoors" must wear "personal protective equipment," meaning flak jackets and helmets, the order said.

Yeah, that might have something to do with it. We can't even keept the mortars off of our heads. No wonder they don't think we're helping them.

I hear the voices from Washington talking about how important it is to "win", and how we ought to wait until September to have General Petraeus tell us about whether that's happening or not, and I have to wonder: just what the heck are they talking about?