{"id":11437,"date":"2007-07-13T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2007-07-13T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11437.html"},"modified":"2007-07-13T09:00:11","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T13:00:11","slug":"about-those-areas-of-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/about-those-areas-of-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"About those areas of ‘progress’…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I finally got around to reading the White House’s Initial Benchmark Assessment Report<\/a> (.pdf) last night, so I could learn all about the “progress” that the president is so encouraged by. It’s worth checking out, if for no other reason, than to see just how desperate the situation really is and to see just how low the Bush gang’s spin machine can go.<\/p>\n

The whole project was a decent idea. Congress, in giving Bush funding for the war, attached a small condition: the establishment of 18 benchmarks to gauge progress in Iraq. Yesterday was the interim report assessing “whether satisfactory progress toward meeting these benchmarks is or is not being achieved.” The president said<\/a> there was “satisfactory progress” in eight of the 18, eight where Iraq is falling short, and two which could go either way.<\/p>\n

Now, even at face value, eight out of 18 isn’t exactly impressive. Bush may have benefited from some generous curves to prevent him from flunking out of college, but I’ve never heard of 44% being a passing grade.<\/p>\n

But the truth is, even the eight areas of “satisfactory progress” aren’t exactly what the White House claims.<\/p>\n

But before we get into that, consider the areas in which the president admits failure — de-Baathification reform, oil revenue distribution, provincial elections, militia-disarmament, evenhanded law enforcement, and increasing ISFs capable of operating independently, among other things. These are … what’s the word … important<\/i>. As the LAT put it<\/a>, “The least progress is being made on the most important goals.” (Indeed, in some instances, Iraq has slipped backwards in some of these areas the past few months.)<\/p>\n

But that’s not the part that surprised me. The more ridiculous parts of yesterday’s report were the success<\/i> stories — the eight of the 18 in which the Bush gang is patting itself on the back.
\n
\nAs Slate’s Fred Kaplan explained<\/a>, “The report’s account of the eight supposedly successful benchmarks is, on inspection, no less dismaying.”<\/p>\n

Take Benchmark No. 1: “Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.” The report admits that Iraq’s “political blocs still need to reach an accommodation on these difficult political issues.” (The report neglects to point out that many of the Sunni blocs are boycotting the parliament.) And yet it declares that the Iraqi government has made “satisfactory progress” because the constitutional review<\/i> is “now underway.”<\/p>\n

Or Benchmark No. 9: “Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.” The report admits, “Manning levels for deploying units continues to be of concern.” The report doesn’t explain what this means — namely, that Iraq’s brigades have only 50 percent to 75 percent of their soldiers. And yet it concludes that the Iraqi government has made “satisfactory progress” because it “has provided” the brigades.<\/p>\n

Then there’s Benchmark No. 12: “Ensuring that … the Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of sectarian or political affiliation.” The report admits this task “remains a significant challenge” in “some parts of Baghdad.” However, it claims “satisfactory progress” because U.S. commanders report “overall satisfaction with their ability to target any and all extremist groups” and because U.S. diplomats, in their talks with Iraqi officials, “continue to stress the importance” of the topic.<\/p>\n

The good mark for Benchmark No. 17 is particularly dubious: “Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.” The report admits that the Iraqi government has spent only 22 percent of its capital budget, that “it remains unclear” whether the oil ministry has “made any real effort” to spend its share of the funds, that it’s hard to track the budget, and that the effects of new spending are felt “unevenly.” Still, it claims “satisfactory progress” because some<\/i> of the revenue is dribbling into the economy.<\/p>\n

The other four “satisfactory” grades concern purely procedural matters. They assess legislation on “procedures<\/i> to form semi-autonomous regions” (not on whether the regions have been formed); “establishing<\/i> … political, media, economic, and service committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan” (not whether their support has been effective); “establishing<\/i> … joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad” (not whether they’re effective, either); and “ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature<\/i> are protected” (not in Iraqi society). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the game was rigged. On the most important benchmarks, the policy has produced failure. On the rest, the White House is playing word games on slanted pass\/fail questions.<\/p>\n

No serious person could read the White House report and see anything resembling actual progress. Fortunately for the president, Senate Republicans are not serious people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stemming a revolt among Senate Republicans, President Bush appeared Thursday to win two more months for his “surge” strategy in Iraq after arguing that U.S. forces had made some progress and needed time to make the country more secure. […]<\/p>\n

[Bush] appealed to nervous Republicans to stand firm, arguing that lawmakers should not impose their judgments on the commander in chief…. Leading Republicans said they remained skeptical that the buildup of 30,000 troops would work, but they appeared to have accepted the president’s plea to wait until a more comprehensive Pentagon assessment is released Sept. 15 before trying to force any change in course.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s like watching a con game in which the mark knows in advance he’s going to lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I finally got around to reading the White House’s Initial Benchmark Assessment Report (.pdf) last night, so I could learn all about the “progress” that the president is so encouraged by. It’s worth checking out, if for no other reason, than to see just how desperate the situation really is and to see just how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}