That September Report on Iraq? It's Not the Only One.

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That September Report on Iraq? It's Not the Only One.

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 26, 2007; Page A19

The White House may have killed attempts to revive the much-heralded Iraq Study Group, but the Bush administration will still face a tough, independent evaluation of the progress in Iraq -- from one of its own agencies.

In a little-noticed addition to legislation requiring the July and September assessments on Iraq from the White House, Congress mandated a third report from the agency that has quietly done the most work to track the missteps, miscalculations, misspent funds and shortfalls of both the United States and Iraq since the 2003 invasion: the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO's international affairs team has had far more experience in Iraq than the study group led by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) or any of the other independent panels that have weighed in on Iraq. Indeed, the study group consulted the GAO team in preparing its report. Over the past four years, the GAO has issued 91 reports on Iraq, on topics including the mismanagement of Iraq's oil industry and problems in its new army.

The GAO team is back in Iraq this week doing research to make its own assessment of the 18 benchmarks covered by the administration's reports.

The 15-person team includes an array of specialists, lawyers, economists, foreign policy experts and statisticians. Most have been working on Iraq since June 2003, when the first GAO reports were mandated. They work on a day-to-day basis with the departments of State and Defense, but the GAO makes independent assessments.

The GAO report is due Sept. 1 -- two weeks before the administration's document. So it may set a standard that makes it harder for the administration to attach caveats to its answers, as outside analysts say it did in the July report.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072502014.html?nav=rss_world

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