Yesterday's news included the release of GAO's assessment of progress in Iraq. Here are a link to the report, and its summary and recommendations, plus a link to the classified report order form.

This post has a more detailed followup posted Saturday, September 8, 2007.

this report has a number of useful tables and charts that lay out its points succinctly and clearly. Page 11, for example, provides a comparison between GAO's assessment and the Administration's.

On page 10, it provides graphic information about the Average Number of Daily, Enemy-Initiated Attacks against the Coalition, Iraqi Security Forces, and Civilians (May 2003-July 2007). This makes it easy to assess the status of each factor measured.

Securing, Stabilizing, and Rebuilding Iraq - Iraqi Government Has Not Met Most Legislative, Security, and Economic Benchmarks GAO-07-1220T - Statement of David M. Walker Comptroller General of the United States (Sept. 4, 2007)

This is a short report. Here is the bottom line:

Conclusions

As of August 30, 2007, the Iraqi government met 3, partially met 4, and had not met 11 of 18 legislative, security, and economic benchmarks. The Iraqi government has not fulfilled commitments it first made in June 2006 to advance legislative, security, and economic measures that would promote national reconciliation among Iraq’s warring factions. Of particular concern is the lack of progress on de-Ba’athification legislation that could promote greater Sunni participation in the national government and comprehensive hydrocarbon legislation that would distribute Iraq’s vast oil wealth. In late August, Iraq’s senior Shi’a, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders signed a Unity Accord signaling efforts to foster greater national reconciliation. The Accord covered draft legislation on de-Ba’thification reform and provincial powers laws, as well as setting up a mechanism to release some Sunni detainees being held without charges. However, the polarization of Iraq’s major sects and ethnic groups and fighting among Sh’ia factions further diminishes the stability of Iraq’s governing coalition and its potential to enact legislation needed for sectarian reconciliation.

Reconciliation was also premised on a reduction in violence. While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, it is unclear whether violence has been reduced. Measuring such violence may be difficult since the perpetrators’ intents are not clearly known. Other measures, such as the number of enemy-initiated attacks, show that violence has remained high through July 2007.

As the Congress considers the way forward in Iraq, it should balance the achievement of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks with military progress and homeland security, foreign policy, and other goals of the United States. Future administration reports on the benchmarks would be more useful to the Congress if they clearly depicted the status of each legislative benchmark, provided additional quantitative and qualitative information on violence from all relevant U.S. agencies, and specified the performance and loyalties of Iraqi security forces supporting coalition operations.

Recommendations

In preparing future reports to Congress and to help increase transparency on progress made toward achieving the benchmarks, we recommend that:

1. The Secretary of State provide information to the President that clearly specifies the status in drafting, enacting, and implementing Iraqi legislation;

2. The Secretary of Defense and the heads of other appropriate agencies provide information to the President on trends in sectarian violence with appropriate caveats, as well as broader quantitative and qualitative measures of security; and

3. The Secretary of Defense and the heads of other appropriate agencies provide additional information on the operational readiness of Iraqi security forces supporting the Baghdad security plan, particularly information on their loyalty and willingness to help secure Baghdad.

We provided drafts of the report accompanying this testimony to the relevant U.S. agencies for review and comment, which we incorporated as appropriate. We received written comments from the Departments of State and Defense and technical comments from the Central Intelligence Agency and National Intelligence Council, which are included in the report. State and DOD concurred with our recommendations but disagreed with our assessment of certain benchmarks. Although we analyzed classified data, including the August 2007 National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq, the testimony and report only contain unclassified information, as of August 30, 2007. We issued a classified report to supplement the information discussed in our report. FN4 [GAO-07-1223C.]

If you click on FN4 [GAO-07-1223C] you will find that it is unavailable. There is a form you can fill out to request it, though.

• GAO,
• Iraq