glacially slow

The Japan Times Online March 30の記事 'Worse than a jungle’: The cartel controlling Iraqi borders' のサブタイトルにあった表現を取り上げます。
The network arises from Iraq's glacially slow bureaucracy, fractious politics, limited nonoil industry and endemic corruption.
氷河の動きは年に何センチの単位なので "glacially slow" は非常に遅いことを意味しているのが容易に分かります。辞書にどの様な説明があるか調べて見ます。
いずれの辞書も形容詞の "glacial" の項に次の説明がありました。
・Oxford English Dictionary: Extremely slow (like the movement of a glacier): ‘an official described progress in the talks as glacial’

・Collins Dictionary: If you say that something moves or changes at a glacial pace, you are emphasizing that it moves or changes very slowly.: Change occurs at a glacial pace.

・Cambridge English Dictionary: extremely slow: The case is moving forward at a glacial pace.