The Washington Post, working hand-in-glove with Democrats in Congress, has gotten out front in preparing the domestic battlefield for September’s fight over the war in Iraq. The Post led today’s paper with an account of a leaked draft report from the Congressionally-controlled Government Accountability Office (the GAO’s final report is due next Tuesday). The headline: “Report Finds Little Progress on Iraq Goals; GAO Draft at Odds with White House.” Here’s the good news: If this is the best war opponents have to offer, the administration is in amazingly good shape going into September.
The Post reporters–both strongly anti-Iraq war–characterize the GAO judgments as “strikingly negative.” But there’s nothing striking about them. The Democratic Congress ensured that the report would deliver negative “grades” for the Iraqi government by asking the GAO to evaluate whether or not the benchmarks have been met now–just two months after the major combat operations of the surge began. For the report from the White House, Congress asked the administration to detail if the Iraqis are making “sufficient progress.” But Congress asked the GAO, by contrast, to report if the Iraqis had “completed” the benchmarks. This ridiculous standard was a Congressional trap that forced the GAO to waste time and taxpayer money to come out with a pre-ordained and meaningless judgment, since no one ever promised or expected that the Iraqis would have met the benchmarks by now. And the GAO report doesn’t really shed light on the key question: Are the Iraqis making progress?
And what are the benchmarks that Congress set up? Do they include criteria that matter? No. Grassroots political progress? Not in the GAO report. The turn of the Sunnis against the insurgency? Not in the GAO report. The stabilization of Anbar province? Not in the GAO report. And progress against al Qaeda–the single most vital and direct American national interest in Iraq? Not in the GAO report.
Keep reading because it only gets better…..
Ace: “Isn’t it funny that whenever Republicans have control over an institution, that institution’s reports are presumptively dishonest and skewed by partisanship, but when Democrats or liberals control one, its reports are presumptively the Gospel?”
See No Progress, Hear No Progress, Speak No Progress
From the AP: Pentagon Disputes Parts of Iraq Report,
Trackposted to Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Right Truth, Adam’s Blog, Webloggin, Cao’s Blog, Leaning Straight Up, Conservative Cat, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Allie Is Wired, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, CommonSenseAmerica, and Church and State, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe. 
More lies and fruad from the WASHINGTON COMPOST:))
The American Media is finally getting some balls and is begining to stand up to the Bush Administrations lies regarding Iraq.
Too little too late, if they had done their job back in 2002 and 2003, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in now.
There was no good reason to go to war in 2003, and there is no good reason to stay in the Iraq Civil War right now.
The majority of the American people believe the Iraq War was a mistake.
Your team has lost this issue, long ago actually.
The only way forward in Iraq, is OUT.
As usual, you suck up lies and regurgitate them, SFL.
it’s no lie that the majority of Americans think the Iraq War was a mistake.
Face it: FAILURE.
Wrong, look at the polls and not with Rose Law firm colored glasses.
exactly. look at the polls.
but not with those “I’m-an-ignorant-retarded-republican” glasses on, though.
it warps your view of reality.
As usual SFL, you are wrong and uninformed. Read this Zogby poll.
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1352
The WASHINGTON COMPOST must be SAN FRAN LIBS most favorate lie a day rag perfect for the misinformed illiterate fool;))
Is there ANYTHING that can be done about these endless idiotic trackbacks? It’s impossible to have a discussion on one topic when there are 20 trackbacks to other blogs on totally unrelated topics in the comment sections.
I have asked Lisa to fix it FAO.