Here's an credible angle that (to me) seems under-reported in the press.
Suddenly, you get a visible sense that, finally, adults are in charge of project Iraq.
If you get tired of reading the crap "status" reports on Iraq, that seem to give data without information, you can pickup up 134 pages on Nation Building from the U.N.'s mission to Iraq, UNAMI, dated July, 2007, laid out in a usable and action-based format.Suddenly, you get a visible sense that, finally, adults are in charge of project Iraq. Here, one gets almost a soup-to-nuts project-management document that might make L. Paul Bremer beam, rather than "unclassified" reports and GOP appointed officials who'd rather not benchmark themselves lest they have to "give me all your sixes", as Rumsfeld once lamented from the podium (or the visible signs of information hoarding, as one Senator was caught not being able to find out the current status of the hydrocarbon law from staff and complaining about it, while Sec. Rice was testifying).
Don't stop. Of interest is Appendix 1, that starts on page 45.
Here you find out that the "due date" for major legislative initiatives in Iraq is "end of 2007". Could that be why the government thought that they could take the summer of '07 off?
Then you find out that the document may be the one that is largely or increasingly operative, inside Iraq, just when you think it couldn't be that the U.S.'s recent hoopla over political benchmarks for September might have been ... almost totally moot:
The ICI Secretariat [International Compact for Iraq] is the main agency in the Government of Iraq in charge of monitoring and coordinating the implementation of the compact. It aims to: track progress of ICI implementation: measure progress on Joint Monitoring Matrix (JMM)...
Background
Digging up recent history, the International Compact (pdf) was a product of the May, 2007, Sharm-el-Sheik meeting.
While the reports were that this compact centered on "reconciliation", neighbor "involvement", and "development" under banner of the Millennium Goals, it does seem that there was a greater shift in political leadership going on. In fact, the compact provides a list that includes, for instance:
- Strengthen stability and security
- Mutually reinforcing commitments
- Iraq’s pursuit of critical reforms
- International commitments for support
- Recognizing fundamental needs
- Good governance
- Resolving the political and security challenges
The August 10, 2007 "reauthorization" from the UNSC via resolution 1770, appears to have codified the U.N.'s expanded mandate, which covers a broad range of elements, including
(iv) economic reform, capacity-building and the conditions for sustainable development, including through coordination with national and regional organizations and, as appropriate, civil society, donors, and international financial institutions;
(v) the development of effective civil, social and essential services, including through training and conferences in Iraq when possible;
The money for all this seems to be related to the Madrid pact and follow-on pledges. It's not clear whether US AID projects or money are tracked on the JMM or how the US's provincial reconstruction teams dovetail with the U.N.'s expanded mandate. The September Benchmark Report (pdf) noted only:
These international developments may appear independent of one another, but they are in fact part of an interrelated effort ... the Expanded Neighbors Process, the International Compact, and the expanded Security Council Mandate for UNAMI -- provide new and promising platforms ..
If you dig up resolution 1770 in the Washington Post or the New York Times, you don't find a lot of media coverage.
Reading the tea leaves
One might conclude that the reason that the ministers from France and Sweden were recently in Iraq had more to do with this change in politics than a sudden realization of their self-interests, as it was spun. In fact, the GOP finally appear to have quietly relented their go-it-alone approach and done power-sharing via a multi-lateral set-up, in which other people can get involved in Iraq, something that the Bush-led GOP scoffed at for so long.
Most of the "reconciliation process" appears to be on the shoulders of UNAMI. This may explain why Ambassador Crocker didn't have the answer that I thought he might to the questions before the Press Club on the reconciliation process (which includes this effort (pdf) from the Iraqis themselves).
