Government Accountability Office Contradicts McCain, Concludes The Surge Has Failed

[babylonsister]

http://firedoglake.com/2008/06/24/government-accountability-office-contradicts-mccain-concludes-the-surge-has-failed/

Government Accountability Office Contradicts McCain, Concludes The Surge Has Failed
By: Blue Texan Tuesday June 24, 2008 10:30 am


McSame, crowing about how awesome Iraq is last week:

"There is no doubt...in my mind that the surge is working."

The GAO says -- no it's not:

While agreeing with the administration that violence {in Iraq} has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the "New Way Forward" strategy remain unmet.

The report, after a bleak GAO assessment last summer, cited little improvement in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to act independently of the U.S. military, and noted that key legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament had not been implemented while other crucial laws had not been passed. The report also judged that key Iraqi ministries spent less of their allocated budgets last year than in previous years, and said that oil and electricity production had repeatedly not met U.S. targets.

Republicans love to preen themselves in their moral clarity -- how the world is black and white, right and wrong. But mention Iraq and they start desperately scrambling around for shades of gray.

It's pretty simple. The surge, as defined by Bush in January 2007, has either succeeded or failed. And it's clear it's failed.

Bush's strategy of January 2007, the GAO said, "defined the original goals and objectives that the Administration believed were achievable by the end of this phase in July 2008." Not meeting many of them changed circumstances on the ground and the pending withdrawal of the last of the additional U.S. forces mean that strategy is now outdated, the report said.

But McSame and the wingnut chorus will continue to insist that we're "winning" and that we just need to stay the course -- while totaly ignoring the metrics they set for what defines "winning" in the first place.

It's quite a scam.

[smoogatz]

1. k/r

[Pastiche423]

2. One more K&R

[papapi]

3. K&R. NO mention in the M$M about this that I've heard.

Was there any coverage of the Justice Department investigation in the M$M today? I didn't think so.

[oldskool]

4. M$M big story today

Obama snubs Muslims. Go figure. They're knee jerking him

[Quantess]

5. He's not really lying. He just says "there's no doubt in my mind..."

He just really, really, believes that the escalation is working. Some people really, really, believe the sun revolves around the earth, too.

[AntiFascist]

6. The real goal, as if this should be some sort of surprise to anyone,....

is to to get the Iraqi government to allow big Western oil companies access to Iraqi oil. Since they seem to be making progress on this front, in the Republican mind, the surge is working, even if it means US forces must remain in Iraq to assure the success of Big Oil.

[PerfectSage]

7. You know what's really a scam: That the US army is the greatest... ...ever.

The most dysfunctional pathalogical organizational culture since the colapse of comunism resides in the pentagon.

Of course the surge is working: Buy time to run out the clock on the Bush presidency so the next president can be blamed for losing.

[norepubsin08]

8. This needs to be shoved in the MSM's Face

Their gonna tell us what a genius that crazy old bastard is in regards to the Iraq War, because HE says the surge is working...there needs to be a lot of refutable evidence so that McSame shuts his pie hole!!

[Democratic Lawyer]

9. McCain was wrong? Will wonders never cease...

Color me un-surprised (is that a word?)