On Jan. 11, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Bush administration would not “stay married” to its Baghdad security plan if the Iraqis do “not [live] up to their part of the obligation.” She said that “the most important thing that the Iraqi government has to do right now is to reestablish the confidence of its population that it’s going to be even-handed in defending it,” otherwise “this plan is not going to work.” Watch it:

Those two to three months are up, and recent troubling reports indicate that Maliki’s office has not been “even-handed” in defending the Iraqi population and has actually increased sectarian tensions:

– “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.”

– According to a recent poll, Maliki inspires confidence in 72 percent of Shiites, but just eight percent of Sunnis.

– “The UN has sharply criticised the Iraqi government’s human rights record, in the two months since a security plan was launched in the capital, Baghdad. The UN mission for Iraq said Iraqi authorities had failed to guarantee the basic rights of about 3,000 people they had detained in the operations.”

– In its April 26 Iraq Index, the Brookings Institution found “no progress thus far” on four of Rice’s benchmarks: establishing new election laws, scheduling provincial elections, disbanding militias, or putting together a plan for national reconciliation.

Even though the Iraqi government has been largely unsuccessful in meeting its political benchmarks, the Bush administration refuses to change its plan in Iraq. Yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Rice said that the administration opposes imposing any “so-called consequences” on Maliki’s government “for missing the benchmarks,” and plans to veto any bill that does so.

UPDATE: Video of the hearing has been added.

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This morning on CBS’s Face the Nation, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) expressed frustration with the White House’s public rhetoric about wanting to reach a compromise over Iraq funding. “They say we’re willing to compromise,” he said. “And then we don’t get any compromise.”

“We’ve already compromised,” Murtha said. “And we need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken. There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is the purse.” Host Bob Schieffer followed up, pressing him on whether impeachment was a serious option on the table. Murtha responded, “I’m just saying that’s one way to influence a president.” Watch it:

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This evening, 60 Minutes will air its discussion with former CIA Director George Tenet. In one exchange, Tenet elaborates on a briefing that he and his former aide Cofer Black delivered to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in July 2001 warning of an “urgent threat” from al Qaeda. In the 60 Minutes interview, Tenet says this is the message he delivered to Rice two months prior to 9/11:

We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, a perplexed and stunned Rice said, “The idea of launching preemptive strikes into Afghanistan in July of 2001, this is a new fact.” Rice then said, “I don’t know what we were supposed to preemptively strike in Afghanistan. Perhaps somebody can ask that.” Watch it:

Note to Rice: The intelligence community was trying to tell you to take the action President Clinton took — that is, make an effort to kill this guy:

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The New York Times reports this morning, to no one’s great surprise, that the Bush administration foresees its “surge” lasting until “well into” 2008.

The Bush administration will not try to assess whether the troop increase in Iraq is producing signs of political progress or greater security until September, and many of Mr. Bush’s top advisers now anticipate that any gains by then will be limited, according to senior administration officials.

In interviews over the past week, the officials made clear that the White House is gradually scaling back its expectations for the government of President Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. The timelines they are now discussing suggest that the White House may maintain the increased numbers of American troops in Iraq well into next year.

In early March, the Times reported that Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq, had recommended in a private memo that Bush’s increased troop levels “be maintained through February 2008.” Odierno also said in January that “even with the additional American troops,” it might take another ‘two or three years‘ for American and Iraqi forces to gain the upper hand in the war.”

Odierno is notable since he was mentioned in the Washington Post’s report on Friday about the growing “split inside the military between younger, mid-career officers and the top brass.” The Post reported that “many majors and lieutenant colonels have privately expressed anger and frustration” with the performance of several generals, “calling them slow to grasp the realities of the war and overly optimistic in their assessments.” Odierno was one of three generals cited by name.

UPDATE: David Kurtz adds:

[This] is a milestone in the Bush Administration’s public spin of the war, marking the first official acknowledgment that the surge and all the attendant fuss were nothing more than an elaborate stop-gap intended to buy time so that the colossal failure of the President’s foreign policy can be pawned off on the next president.

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This morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), gave several television interviews in which he vigorously advocated staying the course in Iraq. He told the CBS Early Show, “[T]here is progress being made…we’ve got to at least give this new strategy a chance to succeed.”

McCain further claimed, “I don’t recall a time in history while men and women are fighting and sacrificing that one of our major leaders has said that the conflict is lost.” On two separate occasions during the Clinton administration, however, he argued for the approval of legislation guaranteeing the removal of U.S. forces from foreign engagements, regardless of the consequences:

October 1994 — McCain argued for the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Haiti: “In my view that does not mean as soon as order is restored to Haiti. It does not mean as soon as democracy is flourishing in Haiti. It does not mean as soon as we have established a viable nation in Haiti. As soon as possible means as soon we can get out of Haiti without losing any American lives.” [Senate Floor, 10/6/94]

October 1993 — McCain argued against giving any strategy the chance to succeed in Somalia: “Mr. President, can anyone seriously argue that another 6 months of United States forces in harm’s way means the difference between peace and prosperity in Somalia and war and starvation there? Is that very dim prospect worth one more American life? No, it is not.” [Senate Floor, 10/14/93]

Watch his statements:

McCain has conveniently forgotten his previous statements. He now calls the position he took in ’93 and ’94 “precipitous withdrawal” and “surrender.”

– Ryan Powers

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In a fiery speech last night, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) blasted Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for joking about improvised explosive devices (IED) during his appearance on the Daily Show on Tuesday.

McCain was asked by Jon Stewart about his notorious recent shopping trip at a Baghdad market, and responded, “I had something picked out for you, too — a little IED to put on your desk.”

During his floor speech last night, Murtha said that he received a call from a friend’s wife who was distressed about McCain’s crack. “In the last four months, we’ve lost more troops than any other period during this war,” Murtha said. “Imagine a presidential candidate making a joke about IEDs when our kids are getting blown up!” he shouted loudly. “It’s outrageous!”

Watch it:

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In an interview last night on PBS, President Bush complained that people who measure progress in Iraq by how many car bombs and suicide attacks occur are giving a “huge victory” to the enemy by making it more difficult for him to promote the war to the American public.

“If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings,” Bush said, “we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory.” He repeated later that people who “judge the administration’s [escalation] plan” based on such acts of violence “have just given Al Qaida or any other extremist a significant victories [sic].”

Bush said that these images of brutal violence on television are “one of the problems I face in trying to convince the American people” that the war is worthwhile. Watch it:

Another reason President Bush doesn’t want to talk about suicide bombings: they’ve increased 30 percent over the past six weeks despite the escalation, according to U.S. military data.

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Vice President Cheney and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) exchanged words today in back-to-back news conferences. Cheney accused Reid of “defeatism” and called Reid’s speech yesterday “uninformed and misleading.”

Reid assailed President Bush for again sending out his “attack dog, also known as Dick Cheney.”

Watch it:

Below, a rebuttal of Cheney’s main attacks:

CHENEY: “Yesterday, Senator Reid said the troop surge was against the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. That is plainly false. The Iraq Study Group report was explicitly favorable toward a troop surge to secure Baghdad.”

FACT: Iraq Study Group says escalation will “not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq.” The Iraq Study Group said that a “short-term redeployment” of troops into Baghdad could be part of a larger military, economic, and diplomatic plan to wind down the war. But the Bush escalation policy is not short-term. The ISG also states, “Sustained increases in U.S. troop levels would not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq… As another American general told us, if the Iraqi government does not make political progress, ‘all the troops in the world will not provide security.’”

CHENEY: “Senator Reid said there should be a regional conference on Iraq. Apparently he doesn’t know that there is going to be one next week.”

FACT: Regional conferences mean little without diplomacy. Reid criticized Bush yesterday for failing to “launch any meaningful diplomatic efforts.” The fact that there is a regional conference means little if the U.S. chooses not to engage Iraq’s neighbors. An account from last month’s regional conference: “So they went, shook hands and chatted briefly. And that was the sum of the direct interaction between American and Iranian delegates at a long-awaited, day-long regional summit on Iraq today in Baghdad. … U.S. and Iranian officials said there were no private conversations of any substance.”

CHENEY: “Senator Reid said he doesn’t have real substantive meetings with the president. Yet immediately following last week’s meeting at the White House, he said, ‘It was a good exchange. Everyone voiced their considered opinion about the war in Iraq.’”

FACT: These two statements don’t contradict. In both, Reid simply says that Bush gave his opinion on Iraq. One is more diplomatic than the other, but they don’t contradict.

CHENEY: “What’s most troubling about Senator Reid’s comments yesterday is his defeatism. Indeed, last week he said the war is already lost. And the timetable legislation that he is now pursuing would guarantee defeat.”

FACT: Americans think Cheney is wrong. From a 4/19 Fox News poll: “[D]o you think it is accurate to compare withdrawal with surrender?” Yes: 33 percent | No: 61 percent

CNN’s Dana Bash reported that Cheney’s Capitol Hill press conference was “virtually unprecedented,” but that war critics “aren’t worried about it.” As one said in an email, “I wish Dick Cheney would come out every single day.”

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Last night, congressional Democrats settled on an agreement “to ignore President Bush’s veto threat and send him a $124 billion war spending bill that orders the administration to begin pulling troops out of Iraq,” with a final withdrawal goal of October 1, 2007.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) attacked the plan this morning on CNN, claiming it was “the first time I know of — in the middle of a war — that a country just announces that on a specific date it’s walking off the battlefield.” He added, “[I]t’s almost as if Americans want to say that we’re failing before our troops have a chance to get the job done.” Watch it:

Kyl doesn’t mention that on two separate occasions during the Clinton administration, he voted explicitly in favor of setting “a specific date” for American troops to “walk off the battlefield”:

– In June 1998, Kyl voted in favor of amending the National Defense Authorization Act for FY1999 to “require the President to submit Congress a plan for withdrawing United States forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina if the Congress does not so act by March 31, 1999.”

– In May 2000, Kyl voted against removing a provision from Military Construction Appropriations Act of 2001 that struck provisions requiring that President Bill Clinton withdraw all U.S. ground forces from Kosovo by July 1, 2001.

Since then, Kyl has become a critic of timelines and has voted again and again to give Bush a blank check in Iraq.

– Ryan Powers

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When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) led a bipartisan delegation to Syria earlier this month, several Republican lawmakers criticized her for undermining the President:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH): “She’s going for one reason and that is to embarrass the president.”

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA): “The Speaker and many of her Democratic allies have become so drunk with grandiose visions of deposing Bush that they break bread with terrorists and enemies of the United States.”

Republican Rep. David Hobson (OH) was also on that trip. But in an interview published in the Washington Post today, he states that he never received any of the attacks that were thrown at Pelosi:

“Before we left, we met with the State Department people and nobody told us not to go,” Hobson said, adding that none of his Republican colleagues broached the subject, either. “Nobody ever called me to say, ‘Why are you going to Syria with those people?’“

Despite his attacks on Pelosi, Boehner has repeatedly refused to criticize Hobson for going to Syria. His spokesman recently confirmed that “there’s no tension or hard feelings there whatsoever” between Boehner and Hobson over the trip. Similarly, the lawmakers who criticized Pelosi were silent on similar congressional trips led by fellow Republicans.

Hobson has also defended Pelosi against his colleagues’ attacks, noting that she “did not engage in any bashing of Bush in any meeting I was in and she did not in any meeting I was in bash the policies as it relates to Syria.” He recently sent a box of chocolates to Pelosi to thank her for including him in the trip and said, “If asked, I would go again. I thought it was a good trip.”