Congress report says violence stays high in Iraq

[SlowDownFast]

Source: Reuters

By Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan
Tue Sep 4, 2007 4:02 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Violence is high in Iraq, with scant political progress and mixed results on security, a Congressional report said on Tuesday, a day after President George W. Bush visited Anbar province and struck an upbeat tone.

The independent Government Accountability Office (GAO) said Iraq had failed to meet 11 of 18 political and military goals set by Congress last May. Iraq met three benchmarks and partially met another four, it said.

"Violence remains high, the number of Iraqi security forces capable of conducting independent operations has declined and militias are not disarmed," the GAO report said -- despite Bush's addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq this year.

"It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased," David Walker, head of the GAO, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Read more: http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-09-04T200203Z_01_WAT008042_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-USA-COL.XML&archived=False

[cliss]

1. I'm surprised they actually came out

and said it.

"Surprise of the year" that they would even dare to say that Iraq is a gross failure. Can you imagine the pressure the WH must have ratcheted up on the GAO office to change the verdict to "Wonderful".

Final Insult
The final insult came yesterday on Yahoo news. The White House reacted by saying "Congress set benchmarks which are impossible to attain". Bush said the same thing.

Interesting that they never said A WORD about this when the benchmarks were published, about 1 year ago. This was in conjunction with Bush's new Carte Blanche for $150 billion in war spending. This time, Congress made it conditional. Curiously, it was NOT an issue then.

:smoke:

[ShockediSay]

2. And violence is growing higher in the US ... Why?

could it be the ever widening income/opportunity disparity gap?