Government report on Iraq finds Baghdad fails 11 of 18 goals

Baghdad has not met 11 of its 18 political and security goals, according to a new independent report on Iraq that challenges President Bush’s assessment of the war.\nThe study, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, was slightly more upbeat than initially planned. After receiving substantial resistance from the White House, the GAO determined that four benchmarks – instead of two – had been partially met.\nBut the GAO stuck with its original contention that only three goals out of the 18 had been achieved. The goals met include establishing joint security stations in Baghdad, ensuring minority rights in the Iraqi legislature and creating support committees for the Baghdad security plan.\n“Overall key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds,” said U.S. Comptroller General David Walker in prepared remarks for a Senate hearing Tuesday.\nAn advance copy of the 100-page report and Walker’s testimony was obtained by The Associated Press.\nThe GAO’s findings paint a bleaker view of progress in Iraq than offered by Bush in July and come at a critical time in the Iraq debate. So far, Republicans have stuck by Bush and staved off Democratic legislation ordering troops home. But many, who have grown uneasy about the unpopularity of the war, say they want to see substantial improvement in Iraq by September.\nNext week the top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, are scheduled to brief Congress.\n“While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, measuring such violence may be difficult since the perpetrator’s intent is not clearly known,” the GAO states in its report. “Other measures of violence, such as the number of enemy-initiated attacks, show that violence has remained high through July 2007.”\nEarlier this year, Bush sent 30,000 extra troops to Iraq to enhance security in Baghdad and Anbar province. In a congressionally mandated progress report released by the White House in July, Bush judged that Baghdad had made satisfactory progress in eight of the 18 benchmarks. In five of those eight areas, the GAO determined that Iraq had either failed or made only partial progress.\nThe disparity is largely due to the stricter standard applied by the GAO in preparing the report. The GAO used a “thumbs up or thumbs down” approach in grading Baghdad, whereas Bush’s assessment looked at whether Iraq was achieving progress. For example, Bush said Iraqi politicians had made satisfactory progress in reviewing Iraq’s constitution, whereas the GAO ruled they had failed because the process was not complete.