With all due respect to the GAO ;I prefer to wait to see the Petraeus/Crocker report in about 2 weeks.
What this reports to is phony "benchmarks" that Congress concocted which I think is in fact insulting to the Iraqis . Ambassador Crocker has served under 7 US Administrations in countries throughout the Middle East . He interviewed with John Burns of the NY Slimes in July . He is convinced that these phony benchmarks are meaningless measures in gaging progress in the country .
U.S. Envoy Offers Grim Prediction on Iraq Pullout - New York Times
In my view all these phony benchmarks do is shift the blame and culpability from al-qaeda ,and Iran's stooges to the government ;a government that is admittedly struggling, but still has made tremedous strides,despite the many obsticles , towards forging a nation out of the ruin of the Saddam gulag.
Inside Iraq Blog - Times Online - WBLG: Will this little Iraqi girl lose her sight?
The Democrats talk a big game about winning hearts and minds but they
have no clue what that means . Shahib would not have those fears except
for what he hears from American domestic politics.....and that in turn
needlessly risks the lives of our troops.
Yes ,success ultimately depends on a political solution...(duh) .To argue that there is no correlation between military success and political is absurd and dishonest . Mookie al-Sadr would not have suspended militia activities if he wasn't getting the snot knocked out of him and feeling the political pressure from the Maliki government .
Radical Iraqi Shi'ite Cleric Orders Militia to Halt Activities
The Mahdi Army is splintered because Petraeus’ orders to confront them rather than avoid them, and Sadr’s abdication by fleeing to Iran when things got hot.
Now extend this to the Iraqi governement . These politicians go to work every day at a risk to their lives. Assassination could be the result of them boldly making the political compromises needed. The more insistent Congress becomes about troop withdrawals, the more unlikely political reconciliation in Iraq becomes. But I'm sure the Democrats have taken that into their political calculations since they appear to be invested heavily in defeat.
I would also note that the GAO report was finalized in July . Since then there has been some significant progress towards" reconciliation ".
http://www.stratfor.com/products/pre...ep=1&id=294529
Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe notes that the political accord is a “breakthrough” of such magnitude that congressional Democrats may now be in trouble next November.
Good news, but not for Democrats - The Boston Globe
I think he has summed it up nicely .