How Do We Measure Progress in Iraq?

'Bench marks'? 'Quantitative metrics'? 'Key indicators'? 'Body-counts'? 'Kill ratios'? Passage of 'hydrocarbons bill'? Elections?

Friedman Units?
Reconstruction of infrastructure?

Head of Reconstruction Teams in Iraq Reports Little Progress Throughout Country (NYT 19-Oct-07):

BAGHDAD, Oct. 18 — Attempts by American-led reconstruction teams to forge political reconciliation, foster economic growth and build an effective police force and court system in Iraq have failed to show significant progress in nearly every one of the nation’s provincial regions and in the capital, a federal oversight agency reported on Thursday.

Body Counts?

iCasualties.org:

Feisal Units?

On 8-Mar-04, Feisal Istrabadi, was just back from Iraq where he was one of the principal drafters of the Iraq the interim constitution:

I think the significance is that the people of Iraq are taking charge of their future. This is the first step towards the assertion, reassertion of the sovereignty of the people of Iraq, which has been usurped for at least 35 years by a tyrannical and brutal regime.

It is the first step that Iraq takes in over a dozen years to attempt to reintegrate itself into the family of nations. And it is, I think, a day which the first steps towards ending at least the formal occupation of Iraq by the coalition forces begins. It's a significant day, I believe, in Iraq's history.

But this week, Istrabadi, deputy ambassador of the Shiite government of Iraq to the United Nations, resigned in disgust and began speaking out about the corruption, incompetence, and inefficiency of the Iraqi government:

You’ve got patently incompetent men appointed to important positions.

I think the question was: ‘Should elections have been held?’ And I think that there is only one answer to that question, and that’s absolutely not. . . . .You’ve got patently incompetent men appointed to important positions.

. . . . What did we accomplish, exactly, [with] this push towards an appearance of institutions . . . merely an appearance? Except that an American politician can stand up and say, ‘Look what we accomplished in Iraq.’ When, in fact, what we accomplished in Iraq over the last three years has been chaos and instability. . . . there is no Iraqi government.

The Calendar?

This illegitimate occupation is not progressing. It's just aging. We have 454 days - at the very least - to go.