Progress In Iraq?

Ken AshfordIraqLeave a Comment

No, actually.

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

Read the whole thing.  What’s surprising is that the GAO — government officials themselves — all but calls the administration and the Pentagon liars. Politely, of course:

The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."

"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies."

It’s important to note, as WaPo explains, that this report was leaked.  And WaPo explained the leaker’s motivation: he suspected that this report would be watered down after it went through the hands of the DoD.  In other words, had it not been leaked, it would have been massaged by the Bush cronies to reflect, well, kinda good news.