{"id":14727,"date":"2008-02-28T13:15:02","date_gmt":"2008-02-28T18:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14727.html"},"modified":"2008-02-28T13:15:02","modified_gmt":"2008-02-28T18:15:02","slug":"bush-hails-political-setback-as-interesting-moment-in-iraqi-constitutional-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-hails-political-setback-as-interesting-moment-in-iraqi-constitutional-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush hails political setback as ‘interesting moment in Iraqi constitutional history’"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the president’s White House press conference<\/a> this morning, a reporter raised a reasonable question: “You’ve said, Mr. President, that you want to leave Iraq in a sustainable situation at the end of your administration. Can you describe for us specifically what do you mean by ‘sustainable’? Do you have specific goals and objectives that in your mind would meet the criteria of sustainability?”<\/p>\n

Bush hemmed and hawed a bit, avoiding the kind of specifics the question sought, before emphasizing the ways in which he would “push hard” for political reconciliation in Iraq.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know if you noticed yesterday, but it was a very interesting moment in Iraqi constitutional history, when part of the — a member of the presidency council utilized his constitutional right to veto one of the three pieces of legislation recently passed. I understand the use of the veto, intend to continue to use it, but I thought it was a healthy sign that people are thinking through the legislation that’s passed, and they’re worrying about making sure that laws are constitutional.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Got that? An Iraqi leader utilized his constitutional right to veto yesterday, which the president seemed quite pleased about today. The veto was proof, he said, of a “healthy” process, and a system in which Iraqis are “thinking through” legislation.<\/p>\n

You’ll notice, of course, that the president was a little vague about what, exactly, was vetoed. There’s a very good reason for that.
\n
\nThe measure that was rejected was held up by the Bush administration as an example of political progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iraq’s three-man presidency council Wednesday announced that it’s vetoed legislation that U.S. officials two weeks ago hailed as significant political progress. […]<\/p>\n

The rejected bill, which sets out the political structure for Iraq’s provincial governments and establishes a basis for elections in October, was only the second of 18 U.S.-set political benchmarks that the war-tore nation needs to reach.<\/p>\n

Parliament considered it in a bundle with two other bills, a general amnesty and a budget, and approved it on Feb. 12 in what was welcomed in Washington as an example of good government, compromise and progress toward national unity.<\/p>\n

Now the question is whether parliament is willing to revise the measure.<\/p>\n

“It was a package deal. Now that package is broken,” said Joost Hiltermann, an Iraq expert at the International Crisis Group in Amman, Jordan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Funny, Bush didn’t mention any of this today when he sounded pleased about this being “a very interesting moment in Iraqi constitutional history.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the president’s White House press conference this morning, a reporter raised a reasonable question: “You’ve said, Mr. President, that you want to leave Iraq in a sustainable situation at the end of your administration. Can you describe for us specifically what do you mean by ‘sustainable’? Do you have specific goals and objectives that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}