The "benchmarks" were agreed to two months ago?

Reuters has exerpts from that Maliki press conference Mr. Rumsfeld told me to read in full for "context," but while reading it, I came across this from Maliki,

I want to clarify something ... Khalilzad was at a meeting between us and other officials including the president and his deputies. We discussed setting a timetable for solving pending issues. That was two months ago ...

It is not a timetable for the government but rather the issues needed to be solved. We said, for example, 'In November we will finish this and in January this and in 2007 we will amend the constitution'. The term used by Khalilzad was not accurate. That is why it was negatively understood. It is a list of issues we need to solve and this was our decision. It was not Khalilzad's decision but he was present.

So, if I'm reading that right, Maliki is saying that these "benchmarks" which have been so touted by the Bush administration as a major (pre-election) breakthrough were actually agreed to two months ago?

And to the Iraqis they don't mean anything?

You would think this might be a big story.