Michael O'Hanlon desperately trying to salvage credibility

[ProSense]

O’Hanlon Hopes Final GAO Report On Iraq Will Be ‘Improved’ To Reflect WH Claims Of Progress

Yesterday, a leaked draft of an upcoming Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on progress in Iraq painted a “strikingly negative” picture of the war-torn country. The draft contradicts “the Bush administration’s conclusion in July that sectarian violence was decreasing as a result” of the surge. It concludes, “The average number of daily attacks against civilians remained about the same over the last six months; 25 in February versus 26 in July.”

On CNN this morning, Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon, who recently co-wrote a New York Times op-ed declaring progress in Iraq, took exception to the report: “I have to be quite critical of the GAO.” He implied that he trusted Bush administration’s numbers more than the GAO’s, and said hoped the GAO report would be “improved” to better reflect progress:

Gen. Petraeus just gave an interview, I think yesterday, to an Australian paper, in which he said that there could be a 75 percent reduction in sectarian killing since the winter time. Now let’s allow for the possibility that Petraeus’ data isn’t quite right.

Let’s allow for the possibility that in other parts of Iraq, things could be a little worse perhaps. Still, a 75 percent reduction is very striking. GAO by contrast is apparently saying, “no documented change whatsoever in the secuity environment.”

I just don’t understand how that could be their conclusion. And I will look forward to their report. I hope it’s a flaw in the draft that will be improved in the final result.

Watch it:

Michael O'Hanlon still spinning, but Washington Monthly charts the numbers

PREEMPTED: Bush admin Iraq spin and Petraeus/WH report

[EST]

1. Sure sounds like a threat to me.

Look for some GAO resignations.

[tanyev]

2. Kind of like all those flaws in the 2000 and 2004 exit polls, eh?

The Bush team must have some AMAZING number-crunchers to always be right when everyone else is wrong.

[Rydz777]

3. O'Hanlon can rail all he wants. The GAO is an agency of the

Congress, headed by an independent Comptroller General who is appointed for a 15 year term and then retires at full pay. Neither O'Hanlon nor Bush can pressure the GAO and the current Comptroller General, David Walker, has been very outspoken about how Bush's "great economy" is in fact a house of cards.

[Supersedeas]

7. it is a lost cause O'Han -- you laid your claim with Bushistas, live with it

[DURHAM D]

4. I now refer to him as Michael The Tool. n/t

[otohara]

5. He's Just Another in a Long Line

of wrongs. He'll get promoted and hired as a PT war expert on Fox Noise.

[ProSense]

6. Iraqi police force: a mess of the highest order

‘We should start over’

By: Steve Benen on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 5:12 AM - PDT

As if we needed even more bad news from Iraq, an independent examination of the Iraqi police shows a force that is so far gone, it might need to be scrapped altogether.

An independent commission established by Congress to assess Iraq’s security forces will recommend remaking the 26,000-member national police force to purge it of corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings, administration and military officials said Thursday.

The commission, headed by Gen. James L. Jones, the former top United States commander in Europe, concludes that the rampant sectarianism that has existed since the formation of the police force requires that its current units “be scrapped” and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization, according to one senior official familiar with the findings. The recommendation is that “we should start over,” the official said.

This is a mess of the highest order. The Iraqi police force, which presumably is responsible for helping keep local communities safe and orderly, is reportedly corrupt to its core and overrun by Shiite militias. We could disband the police force, but when we disbanded the Iraqi Armey in 2003, it generated a backlash that helped create the insurgency. The prospect of putting 26,000 well-armed, angry young men out of work, at our request, is, shall we say, unappealing. For that matter, Iraq would be left with no police force for a few years while we tried to build a new one from scratch.

more

This is becoming a comedy of the absurd. Scrap the Iraqi police force? Start over from scratch? Is this a joke? Even if we could do it, it means (a) putting 26,000 armed and pissed off Iraqis back on the street, (b) running the country without a police force until a new one is recruited and trained, and (c) spending two or three years building a replacement. And that's the good news. The bad news is that there's no reason to think the shiny new police force would be any better than the old one. It didn't improve after all our efforts in 2006, after all. The unpleasant truth is that there's a reason the police force acts essentially as an extension of the Shiite militias — namely that that's exactly how the Shiite government wants it — and no reason to think that's going to change anytime in the near future.

So let's take stock. Pretty much everyone has lost confidence in Nouri al-Maliki, though there's no replacement in sight who seems like a better bet. The police force is so corrupt that the best advice the Jones commission can offer is to disband it completely and start over from scratch. And the Iraqi army, after three years of intensive training designed by one Gen. David Petraeus, has a grand total of six battalions capable of operating on their own.