Posted on 08/30/2007 3:16:23 AM PDT by SueRae
WASHINGTON — Congressional auditors have determined that the Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush's Iraq war strategy, The Associated Press has learned.
The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure progress in the rush into Iraq of increased numbers of U.S. troops are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline for Bush to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is not yet public, also said the administration is preparing a case to downplay its findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, "all or nothing" standards when compiling the document.
The GAO is to give a classified briefing about its findings to lawmakers on Thursday. It is not yet clear when its unclassified report will be released, but it is due Sept. 1 amid a series of assessments called for in January legislation that authorized Bush's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq. The Americans already have more than 160,000 in-country.
Among those Bush will hear from are the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. The Pentagon said Wednesday Bush probably would get a variety of views from different military officials. Bush then will deliver his own report to Congress by Sept. 15.
The GAO, the congressional watchdog, is expected to find that the Iraqis have met only modest security goals for Baghdad .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
THe GAO is a branch of the DNC (ok, not officially, but in reality). I’m sure there is much to be disappointed with, but it IS reasonable to challenge any “all-or-nothing” standards at this point. The question on each dimension of evaluation should be has there been any progress, how much and in what areas, etc. If the GAO is really trying to require 100% success on each benchmark then obviously that is a ‘Rat strategy to call most or all of it a failure.
No reasonable person could expect complete successes at this point — the question is whether we are moving toward success and whether we have real prospects of success.
Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, “all or nothing” standards when compiling the document.
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The dRAT party is the American wing of al-Qaeda.
All too predictable. The good guys are winning on the battlefield so they try to help Al Qaeda by getting people focused on political instability as an alleged sign of “failure”while it’s mainly due to the fear of being abandoned Iraqi politicians have thanks to the pro-terrorist media and the Congress willing to forsake them. So basically they are accusing Iraqis and Dubya for something their liberal lust for treason is ultimately responsible for.
God forgive them, for they’re unforgivable by human standards. Have babies killed at home, let GI’s and the oppressed be killed abroad, work for the enemy, all at the taxpayers’ expense: that’s all they do in life.
Since the US Government in general, and the Congress in particular, are perfect in every respect, meeting all their respective benchmarks on time every year, we have every right to complain about other countries’ shortcomings.
Putting aside the obvious irony considering Congress has accomplished only 1 of its 2006 election benchmarks (increase the min. wage)....
this means they met 5/18 benchmarks, which means there has been progress contrary to the dems’ rhetoric. I don’t recall it being an all or nothing situation either, and, from the start, all have known that you can’t have political progress without security. As security is just taking hold, naturally political progress is going to lag behind.
Congressional auditors need to train their sights on the pathetic record of unfulfilled judicial confirmations in the US Senate.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the report from Petraus will not be that great. The problem is if Iraq is not meeting these benchmarks, then we need to realize we can’t hold their hand forever.
If they are not stepping up by now, they never will.
From the beginning of the current surge program, I understood that the proposed steps for much of the program was to be consecutive. That is, when the security part took hold, then certain political steps would kick in. In other words, the benchmarks would be at different levels of accomplishment.
Of course, if Patraeous and the Iraqe government used the US Congress as a model, the levels of accomplishments would all read negative numbers.
“Congress has accomplished only 1 of its 2006 election benchmarks (increase the min. wage)....”
With inflation, does that even count? :)
imagine if the media had the nuts to actually compare the two side by side.
Pentagon responds: GAO made errors + Dems spinning
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