Salon's War Room: Collection of Bush Admin Quotes On Benchmarks ('Sometimes, it's hard to keep up')

[Hissyspit]

War Room
by Tim Grieve

Benchmarks and consequences

Sometimes, it's hard to keep up:

George W. Bush, Jan. 10, 2007: In a speech to the nation, the president declares: "A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

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Condoleezza Rice, April 29, 2007: Asked whether the president will accept "any kind of conditions" on continued funding for the war in Iraq, the secretary of state says: "Why tie our own hands in using the means that we have to help get the right outcomes in Iraq? And that's the problem with having so-called consequences for missing the benchmarks."

Dick Cheney, May 10, 2007: Asked about the possibility of attaching consequences to benchmarks, the vice president says: "I'm always a little puzzled when we talk about consequences. I mean, these people, you've got to remember the consequences that the Iraqis have been faced with. I mean, in terms of casualties, they've suffered far more than we have ... So when we talk to them about consequences in some kind of bureaucratic sense or threatening them with a cutoff of funds, for example, if they don't do A, B and C, it strikes me as, you know, that's Washington talk but it may not have all that much relevance on the ground out there."

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Tony Snow, May 10, 2007: Asked whether the president believes that there ought to be consequences for failing to meet any benchmarks that might be set, the White House press secretary says: "I'm not even going to bite on that."

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