When the non-partisan Government Accountability Office launched an independent investigation of the administration’s Iraq policy, it found that Iraq has failed to meet 15 out of 18 congressionally-mandated benchmarks for political and military progress. But almost as interesting as the results was the GAO’s motivation for leaking its report: the agency can no longer trust the Bush administration to tell the truth.
I still can’t quite get over that. We have a government system in which Congress’ investigative arm is convinced that the White House will intentionally manipulate government reports to deceive lawmakers and the public. The independent agency is so certain of this, it believes it’s necessary to leak reports in advance so people know the truth before it’s been Bush-ified.
And sure enough, right on cue…
Stung by the bleak findings of a congressional audit of progress in Iraq, the Pentagon has asked that some of the negative assessments be revised.
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that after reviewing a draft of the Government Accountability Office report — which has not yet been made public — policy officials “made some factual corrections” and “offered some suggestions on a few of the actual grades” assigned by the GAO.
That didn’t take long. Agency officials feared their results would be “watered down,” and sure enough, the editing pen is unsheathed immediately.
Of course, the GAO was always interested in what the Pentagon had to say, but noted in its leaked report that the Defense Department’s assessments “would be more useful” if they backed up their judgments with evidence. The Pentagon apparently doesn’t care for that approach. (In other words, the GAO, unlike some members of Congress, isn’t persuaded by “Take our word for it; there’s lots of progress.”)
As for the White House, it’s pushing back against the GAO because the darned agency refuses to grade on a curve. Seriously.
At the White House, officials argued that the GAO report, which was required by legislation President Bush signed last spring, was unrealistic because it assigned “pass or fail” grades to each benchmark, rather than assessing whether the Iraqis have made progress toward reaching the benchmark goals.
“A bar was set so high, that it was almost not to be able to be met,” White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said.
Yes, the White House’s big complaint now is that the GAO is grading its test too hard. In its independent investigation, the GAO’s standards were unambiguous — either Iraq (and the administration’s policy) had produced the desired result or it hadn’t. Each benchmark was pass/fail. According to the draft, Iraq failed 15 out of 18, which isn’t even good enough for a “Bush gentleman’s C.”
The White House believes in partial credit, and wishes the GAO didn’t see progress as a black-or-white issue.
Of course, as Brian Beutler noted, Bush wasn’t complaining when he embraced the benchmarks in May: “This important bill [war supplemental and benchmarks] also provides a clear roadmap to help the Iraqis secure their country and strengthen their young democracy. Iraqis need to demonstrate measurable progress on a series of benchmarks for improved security, political reconciliation, and governance. These tasks will be difficult for this young democracy, but we are confident they will continue to make progress on the goals they have set for themselves.”
Apparently, the test is only too hard when they’re failing it.