Well at least I read the darn thing.
Ok I am upset. I am reading the GAO’s report on Iraq meeting its benchmarks.
My first point is that some of the bench marks, in my opinion, due nothing to improve the security of the nation.
The first objective reads as follows: Forming a Constitution Review Commitee and completing the constitutional review.
Now how does telling the Iraqis how their constitution should read lower the deaths and violent attacks in Iraq?
Objective number eight I cannot even read. "Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services commitees in support of the Baghdad secuirty plan.
However, it appears to state that committees of political, media, economic, and service in nature need to be established. You mean the Iraqi Security Forces have been operating for three years without these infrastructures? I find this hard to believe.
Objective number nine reads as follows. Providing three trained and ready brigades to support Baghdad operations.
The reason this is a partially met objective states: Forces provided; some of limited effectiveness.
The above statement is too vague. What does “some of limited effectiveness” mean? Do you mean of the forces provided 50% are ineffective? This statement really did need to be qualified. What if 90% of the forces provided were effective and only 10 were ineffective? I would consider that progress.
Objective number twelve reads as follows: Ensuring that, according to President Bush, Prime MInister Malike said "the Baghdad secuirty plan will not provide safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their} sectarian or political afiliation".
The reason for not a full accomplishment of meeting this goal is: Militia of some security forces enables some safe havens.
Again, I ask what “some” means.
Ok now I am really getting upset.
Objective 13 reads as follows: Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local secuirty.
The reason for this not been a met objective is: Militias control some local security; unclear whether sectarian violence has decreased.
My big problem here is “militias control some local security”. Again, what does “some” mean? In addition, “unclear whether sectarian violence has decreased’ means they cannot say is has decreased or increased.
Ok now the next objective is how a description and resolution should be stated.
Objective number 14 reads as follows: 14. Establishing all of the planned joint secuirty stations in neighborhoods acroos Bagdad.
Its evaluation reads as follows: 32 of 34 stations established.
These are exact numbers and show exactly what the progress was in meeting the objective. I think 32 out of 34 is not bad.
However, it only gets worse from here.
Objective 15 reads as follows: 15 Increasing the number of Iraqi secuirty forces capable of operating independently.
This objective's evaluation reads as follows: number of independent units declined between March and July 2007
Let me see March, April, June, and July. Yep that is 4 months. What about the rest of the three years the GAO was supposedly reviewing data to make this report? In the last 4 months, there were decreases but were forces increasing before this time and does the decrease in forces have to do with the fact the Iraqis were getting close to acquiring the forces they needed.
The GAO report on the Iraq government bench marks can be found at the GAO website (www.gao.gov). The report’s title is Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq: Iraqi Government Has Not Met Most Legislative, Security, and Economic Benchmarks
GAO-07-1220T, September 4, 2007.
When I was researching the GAO on its website it stated the GAO” … has earned a reputation for professional, objective, fact-based, nonpartisan, nonideological, fair and balanced reviews of government programs and operations.”
I could not tell from this report where the professional and objective part is. The title implies that Iraq is a failure. However, when I read this report I saw were the Iraqi government was close to meeting the benchmarks. In addition, it appears to me that Iraq is being penalized in the public relations sphere because the GAO cannot verify if there were gains or not. I really do not see were the professionalism is in these report.
It is way to vague and most of the claims on the report are not substantiated with facts and numbers.
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