GAO must be filled with defeatist Democrats. US military in Iraq has far more credibility than bureaucrats in WashDC.
>Military Officials in Iraq Fault GAO Report
By Karen DeYoung and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
A bleak portrait of the political and security situation in Iraq released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office sparked sharp protests from the top U.S. military command in Baghdad, whose officials described it as flawed and "factually incorrect."
The controversy followed last-minute changes made in the final draft of the report after the Defense Department maintained that its conclusions were too harsh and insisted that some of the information it contained -- such as the extent of a fall in the number of Iraqi army units capable of operating without U.S. assistance -- should not appear in the final, unclassified version.
The GAO rejected several changes proposed by the Pentagon and concluded that Iraq had failed to meet all but two of nine security goals Congress had set as part of a list of 18 benchmarks of progress. But grades for two of the seven unmet security benchmarks -- the elimination of havens for militia forces and the deployment of three Iraqi army brigades to assist the U.S. security plan in Baghdad -- were recast to reflect progress. Two other benchmarks, one political and one economic, were also described as "partially met."
The report, published days before the Bush administration's own progress report on Iraq, said that only one of eight political goals -- safeguarding minority rights in the Iraqi parliament -- had been met. It found little if any substantive movement on key legislation, including measures to clarify the distribution of oil revenue, schedule provincial elections and change de-Baathification laws.
Comptroller General David Walker, who heads the GAO, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday that "the least progress has been made on the political front." Fifteen of 37 cabinet ministers have "withdrawn support" for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and serious problems remain in other ministries, Walker said.
Democratic leaders jumped on the GAO's conclusions to bolster their calls for a new strategy in Iraq, and Republican leaders dismissed the report as dated and politically insignificant.
"Today's GAO report confirms that the president's Iraq strategy is simply not working," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) said Pentagon officials had told Republican leaders that the GAO had relied on outdated information. Because the agency was told simply to assess whether the benchmarks had been met, the GAO was set up to deliver a negative report, Blunt said. He added that lawmakers were far more interested in the assessment coming next week from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.< |
