More reality checks from the GAO:
The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the “surge” of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.
While agreeing with the administration that violence 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.
Not that this will stop David Brooks from doing another victory lap, as he clearly still buys into the Tinkerbell Strategy. The Brooks piece really does deserve a post of its own, but I am just tired of these wankers. On the day the GAO report is released outlining all of our continued failure in the region, all he can do is taunt those who just want this war to end, all the while praising the attributes of the guy who got us into this mess. What can you really say other than than to direct him to this website (NSFW).
It really is depressing. Of course it is undeniably good news violence is down in the short term, and we get to see if our great experiment in Anbar holds as we turn it over today (cross your fingers). But the GAO report outlines that things are likely going to remain a mess for a while, and we really need to come to terms with what we are going to do in Iraq, especially with Our Glorious Leader leaving office in January and the military at the breaking point. However, that discussion will not happen while the opinion leaders in the nation’s most valuable editorial real estate are busy tongue polishing the codpiece and taunting the opposition.
God damn I wish I could get a do over on my 2000 and 2004 votes, and all you shitheads thinking about supporting McCain because Keith Olbermann said something sexist to Hillary Clinton better unlodge your head from your hindquarters, or you too will get to see how I feel. It sucks.