Iraq

Leaked Report on Iraq Reveals Almost No Progress

Posted by Stephanie Taylor on August 30, 2007 at 09:58 AM

A draft of a leaked report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that Iraq has failed to meet 15 of 18 benchmarks for political and military progress. From the Washington Post:

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker.

The White House is expected to claim that the escalation in Iraq is showing signs of progress. But according to the leaked GAO report, even though attacks on U.S. troops have decreased, the attacks on Iraqi civilians remains the same--and the capabilities of Iraqi security forces are not improving.

Perhaps most significantly...

The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version -- as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month's National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

...which raises real questions about the credibility of the upcoming report from the White House in September.

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