By ANNE FLAHERTY and ANNE GEARAN, Associated
Press Writers
August 30, 2007
WASHINGTON - An independent assessment concluding that Iraq
has made little political progress in recent months despite
an influx of U.S. troops drew fierce objections from the White
House on Thursday and provided fresh ammunition for Democrats
who want to bring troops home.
The political wrangling came days before the report was to
be officially released and while most lawmakers were still
out of town for the August recess, reflecting the high stakes
involved for both sides in the Iraq war debate. President Bush,
who planned to meet Friday at the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, is nearing a decision on a way forward in Iraq while
Congress planned another round of votes this fall to end the
war.
A draft report by the Government Accountability Office concluded
Iraq has satisfied three of 18 benchmarks set by Congress and
partially met two others, a senior administration official
said Thursday. None of those are the high-profile political
issues such as passage of a national oil revenue sharing law
that the Bush administration has said are critical to Iraq's
future.
The State Department, Pentagon and White House dispute some
GAO findings, including the conclusion that Iraq has only partially
met tests involving its budget process and legislation dealing
with semiautonomous regions in the large, multiethnic country,
two officials said.
Administration officials also disputed that Iraq has failed
to provide three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support
Baghdad operations or to ensure that the security plan will
not provide a safe haven for outlaws.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to describe
internal deliberations that included lengthy meetings Thursday
at the White House. The GAO may alter some of its findings
in response to administration arguments, one official said.
Administration officials also said the draft report is unrealistically
harsh because it assigned pass-or-fail grades to each benchmark.
Signaling a potential setback for U.S. efforts to have Iraq
take over its own security, an independent commission will
recommend remaking the 26,000-member national police force,
which has been bedeviled by corruption and ties to sectarian
killings, The New York Times reported. Congress established
the commission to assess Iraq's security forces and expects
its recommendations next week.
The commission will suggest that current police units rampant
with sectarianism from the beginning, investigators found should
be reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization as part
of a total overhaul, the Times reported in its Friday editions.
Still, the commission also found positive elements in the Iraqi
Army's performance since this year's increase in troop levels,
which the Times said several officials thought showed promise
for the U.S. effort to remake Iraqi institutions.
The GAO found that Iraq had fully met requirements to:
• Establish political, media, economic, and services
committees in support of the Baghdad security plan. That plan
involves many of the 30,000 U.S. troops Bush sent to Iraq this
year.
• Establish joint security stations in neighborhoods
across Baghdad.
• Ensure the rights of minority political parties in
the Iraqi legislature are protected.
Bush has suggested he intends to stick to his Iraq strategy,
but in his meeting Friday at the Pentagon he's expected to
hear some of the Joint Chiefs express deep concern at the long-term
impact on the military of maintaining a heavy troop presence
in Iraq in 2008 and beyond. Now, there are more than 160,000
troops in Iraq, the most since the war began in 2003.
The Army and the Marine Corps have shouldered most of the
burden, creating strains that service leaders fear could hurt
their recruiting as well as their preparedness for other military
emergencies. The Joint Chiefs are not, however, expected to
urge Bush to withdraw from Iraq entirely as many Democrats
want.
"It is clear that every objective expert keeps providing
the American public with the same facts: that the president's
flawed Iraq strategy is failing to deliver what it needs to — a
political solution for Iraq," said Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid, D-Nev.
GAO officials briefed congressional staff behind closed doors,
promising an unvarnished assessment when an unclassified version
of the report is publicly released on Sept. 4.
"The real question that people have is: What's going
on in Iraq? Are we making progress? Militarily, is the surge
having an impact?" said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "The
answer is yes. There's no question about it."
But Democrats and even some Republicans say military progress
made in recent weeks is not the issue. If Baghdad politicians
refuse to reach a lasting political settlement that can influence
the sectarian-fueled violence, the increase in troops is useless,
they said.
The Pentagon and State Department provided detailed and lengthy
objections to the findings by the congressional auditors.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that
after reviewing a draft of the GAO report, policy officials "made
some factual corrections" and "offered some suggestions
on a few of the actual grades" assigned by the GAO.
"We have provided the GAO with information which we believe
will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades
should be upgraded from 'not met' to 'met,'" Morrell said.
State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said the GAO should
at least note progress made when ruling that Iraq has failed
to meet a specific benchmark.
Democrats are expected to try to use money needed to support
the war as leverage to bring troops home. The Pentagon has
requested $147 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan for the 2007
budget year, which begins Oct. 1. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
on Thursday suggested Bush should not be asking Congress to
approve "tens of billions more dollars" when independent
voices like GAO find the Iraqis are failing to reach a political
accord.
"With the president continuing to stay the course in
Iraq, Republicans will have to decide whether they will continue
to vote with him or join Democrats and the vast majority of
Americans who are demanding a new direction in Iraq and refocusing
America's efforts on fighting the real threats of terrorism
around the world," said Pelosi, D-Calif.
The GAO report is one of several assessments called for in
May legislation that funded the war: Retired Gen. James Jones
briefs Congress next week on his assessment of the Iraqi security
forces; Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, testify the week
of Sept. 10. Bush will deliver his own progress report by Sept.
15.
Bush is meeting Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and
Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a secure conference room
at the Pentagon known as "the Tank."
Maj. Gen. Richard Sherlock, director of operational planning
for the Joint Chiefs, told reporters this would be the Joint
Chiefs' opportunity to "provide the president with their
unvarnished recommendations and their assessments of current
operations."
It did not appear that the session was intended to work out
a consensus military view on how long Bush should maintain
the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq or how soon to transition to
Iraqi control of security.
Bush will be hearing from Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs; Adm. William Fallon, the senior commander of
U.S. forces in the Middle East; and top commanders in Baghdad.
___
Associated Press writers Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Kimberly
Hefling, Terence
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