Happy birthday to me

Rumsfeld has until July 11 to produce Iraq benchmarks

By DAVID S. BRODER
Washington Post columnist
Last update: July 03, 2005

President Bush is facing a legal deadline to deliver what he has been most resistant to providing: a set of specific benchmarks for measuring progress toward military and political stability in Iraq.

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.

I can hardly wait.