Rice Says Bush Won’t Accept Benchmarks In Iraq War Funding Bill (UPDATED)

Over the past few days there have been some press reports that suggested that in the end the Bush administration and Congress will come up with some kind of compromise on Iraq war funding. These reports suggest a likely compromise would be no withdrawal timetable but some benchmarks that the Iraq government would be required to follow.

But now Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has thrown cold water on that idea, as well:

President Bush will not sign any war spending bill that penalizes Iraq’s government for failing to make progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday, a fresh warning to Congress about challenging him.

Bush is expected to veto a bill this week that would order U.S. troops to begin withdrawing from Iraq by Oct. 1. Lacking the votes to override a veto, the Democratic-led Congress is considering a revised plan to pay for the way while requiring Iraq to meet benchmarks for progress.

Congress has not decided whether to punish Iraq for falling short. Rice sent lawmakers a clear message, saying Bush would not agree to a plan that penalizes the Baghdad for insufficient progress.

“To begin now to tie our own hands — and to say ‘We must do this if they don’t do that’ — doesn’t allow us the flexibility and creativity that we need to move this forward,” Rice said.

So unless this is part of a bargaining ploy with Congress, you can toss out the idea that a compromise would entail some kind of benchmarks for Iraq’s government. Apparently a compromise would entail everything George Bush wants and nothing even a Bush-supporting but concerned member of Congress would seek. MORE:

Democratic lawmakers, eager to wind the war down, showed little appetite for establishing goals without consequences. Iraq has struggled to keep its own promises for distributing oil wealth, refining its constitution and expanding democratic participation.

“The benchmarks — the Iraqis agreed to it, the president agreed it,” said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., who heads a House subcommittee that controls defense spending. “We’re saying to them, `Well, let’s put some teeth into the benchmarks.’”

So the situation means:

The three key scenarios that are likely to play out between now and 2008 are the war stays the same, the war gets worse or the surge succeeds with progress on the war and Iraq stability highly notable. All but the last one spell very bad news for the Republican Party, which has been losing independent voters in droves — the voters that had been in effect dismissed as irrelevant by some prior to the 2006 elections…in which they proved anything but…