Congress vs Rumsfeld. July 11 deadline for Iraq "measures of stability and security"

[Ladewig]

Congress vs Rumsfeld. July 11 deadline for Iraq "measures of stability and security"

Cincinnati Post

Under a little-noticed provision of the defense spending bill passed by Congress in May, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld has until July 11 to send Capitol Hill a "comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security" two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, responding to my inquiry, said last week, "We are working toward completing the report by the due date."

[snip]

The information required is specific and detailed. It includes measures of the security environment, including the number of engagements per day, the count of trained Iraqi forces, the estimated strength of the Iraqi insurgency and the role of foreign fighters. It orders up indicators of economic activity, including unemployment levels, electricity, water and oil production rates, hunger and poverty levels. It requires detailed information on the training of Iraqi military and security forces, their equipment, and their capabilities - and the timetables for achieving full readiness.

In some of the other threads, posters have been disagreeing on how much progress has been made in Iraq. If Rumsfeld hits his deadline, we'll know in just a couple of days.

If Rumsfeld misses his deadline, I suppose that Congress could hold him in contempt.