GAO Says No Progress in Iraq
The Washington Post got its hands on a draft of the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, report evaluating progress in Iraq and — surprise — it doesn't look good.
According to the report, Iraq has failed to meet all but three of the benchmarks for political and military progress demanded by Congress. And that's quite a different picture than the one presented by the White House.
"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," the Post reports.
Moreover, the report also encourages the administration to change the nature of its own assessments, saying it "would be more useful" if they backed up their claims with details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies."
That's a direct jab at the upcoming Patraeus report due out in September — that's the White House's own benchmarking report. With 27,662 troops wounded and 3,730 dead, will the WH keep their heads buried in the ground and still try to paint a rosy picture? Or will we finally have a real conversation about Iraq?
I really wonder how Bush is going to spin this one. Only 3 out of 18 benchmarks met? Sheesh.
To show how clueless they are, Rachel Maddow had a funny story about soccer balls that were dropped by the U.S. into Iraq. But they put the words "Allah" on them so the kids wouldn't "kick Allah" around so the soccer balls were useless.
Too bad the Petraeus report isn't really by him. Poor guy is going to be another statistic fo generals to go under the Bush knife.