U.S. Comptroller General David Walker prepares to testify. Photo by Chuck Kennedy/MCT

by Frank James

Another day, another Iraq report in this "season of reports," as outgoing White House Press Secretary Tony Snow called the next few weeks which will see a number of Iraq progress reports released.

Today it was the turn of David Walker, Comptoller General of the U.S. and head of the Government Accountability Office, who was on Capitol Hill to discuss the non-partisan agency's progress report on Iraq which is considerably more negative than the one the Bush Administration issued in July.

Since the GAO report was leaked last week, it's been known that the non-partisan agency had determined that the Iraqi government had missed the vast majority of legislative, economic and security benchmarks set by Congress in its effort to increase accountability, reaching only three out of 11 benchmarks.

It was also known that the White House took exception to the GAO's fairly harsh assessment and tried to get the agency to essentially increase some grades. The GAO did give Iraq some partial credit on four benchmarks.

But Walker, who came bearing poster boards to illustrate his points, suggested that the White House was giving Iraq credit for accomplishing tasks that were only partly done. For instance, the Bush Administration gave the Iraq government full credit for merely forming a constitutional review committee which had not accomplished the assigned job of actually reviewing the Iraqi constitution.

Hoping to insulate himself and his agency from charges that they were liberal cut-and-runners with an ax to grind, Walker stated for the record that his son was a Marine combat veteran of the Iraq theater.

Here's the start of Walker's testimony:

MR. WALKER: Chairman Kerry, Senator Lugar, other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I'm pleased to be here with you today to discuss GAO's report on whether or not the government of Iraq has met 18 benchmarks contained in the U.S. troop readiness, veterans' care, Katrina recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007.

This act required GAO report on the status of the achievement of these benchmarks. Importantly, consistent with GAO's core values and our desire to be fair and balanced, we used our independent and professional judgment to use a partially met rating for some of these benchmarks.

In comparison, the act requires the administration to report on whether satisfactory progress is being made towards meeting these benchmarks.

At the outset, let me note that my son fought as an officer in the Marine Corps in Iraq, and that our professional independent assessment in -- should in no way serve to diminish the courageous efforts of our military and those of our coalition partners.

To complete this work, we reviewed U.S. agency and Iraqi documents and interviewed officials from the Departments of Defense, State, and Treasury, the Multinational Force Iraq and its subordinates commands, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
National Intelligence Council, and the United Nations. These officials included but were not limited to Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General Petraeus.

We made multiple visits to Iraq during 2006 and 2007, most recently from July 22nd to August 1st, 2007. Our analysis has been enhanced by about 100 different reports and testimonies that we've issued on Iraq since May of 2003, and we obtained data as recently as August 30th, 2007.

I will start on the left. I've got several boards that hopefully will be helpful to the senators and all of these, I might note, are included in my testimony as figures and I'll be going in order.
Figure One, or Board Number One, shows that the benchmarks that are contained in the act would derive from commitments articulated by the Iraqi government beginning in June 2006 and affirmed in subsequent statements made by Prime Minister Maliki in September 2006 and January 2007. Iraq's commitments to these benchmarks were most recently stated in a May 2007 international compact for Iraq.
Next, on my right -- your left -- is the second board. As of August 30th, 2007 the Iraqi government had met three, partially met four, and did not meet 11 of the 18 benchmarks. Overall, key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend the $10 billion in reconstruction funds it has allocated, and we'll leave this one up on the right because it's the bottom line assessment.

Then back to my left for the third board, with regard to legislation the Iraqi government met one of eight legislative benchmarks -- the rights of minority political parties in Iraq's legislature to make sure they're protected. The government also partially met one benchmark -- to
enact and implement legislation on the formation of regions. This law was enacted in October of 2006 but will not be implemented until April 2008. Further, the government has not enacted legislation on de-Ba'athification, oil revenue sharing, provincial elections, amnesty,
and military disarmament.
Then back here to my left -- the next board -- with regard to security, two of nine security benchmarks have been met. Specifically, Iraq's government has established various committees in support of the Baghdad security plan, and it's established almost all
of the plan joint security stations in Baghdad. The government has partially met the benchmarks of providing three trained and ready brigades for Baghdad operations and the benchmark of eliminating safe havens for outlaw groups.
Five other benchmarks have not been met in the security area. The government has not eliminated militia control of local security, eliminated political intervention in military operations, ensured even hand enforcement of the law, increased army units capable of independent operations, or ensured that political authorities made no false accusations against security forces. It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased.

This is a key security benchmark. Since it is difficult to measure intentions and there are
various measures of sectarian violence from different sources, all of which do not show consistent data. Some show increases, some show decreases, and some show inconsistent patterns. So therefore we're not in a position to say that that condition had been met. If we look
and see the security situation, you'll see the overall security situation was roughly the same in July on average number of attacks per day as it was in February of 2007, and that's the next one here on the left.

Public Law 110-28 requires GAO to report to Congress by September 1 on whether or not they've achieved these. We've done that and -- but I want to show you how our assessment compares with the administration's assessment of July 2007, and I realize, Senator Kerry
and other senators, that the administration will make a new assessment within the next two weeks.

I know we all look forward to that, but I think if you look at this you'll see that as I mentioned before we are assessing whether or not the benchmark was met, partially met, or not met. The administration is assessing whether or not satisfactory progress is being made. They are fundamentally different. And yet if you look at our analysis -- our independent professional analysis on the left versus what the administration said in July, there is only one benchmark in which there is a significant difference of opinion.

By that I mean of the three potential ratings we had the lowest rating and they had the highest rating, and that was Benchmark Number One, forming a constitutional review committee and then completing the constitutional review. They have formed the committee but there's a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done to complete that constitutional review and that's -- we didn't feel enough had been done to give that a partially met assessment.

Merely forming the committee is not enough. There's lots more that has to be done. On
the other hand, we do feel that our approach has provided a professional, objective, fair and balanced assessment as of August 30th, 2007.

In summary, as of August 30, 2007 the Iraqi government had met three, partially met four, and had not met 11 of 18 legislative, security and economic benchmarks. In late August, there was a significant subsequent event.

Iraqi senior Shi'ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political leaders signed a unity accord signaling efforts to foster greater national reconciliation. The accord covered draft legislation on de- Ba'athification reform and provincial powers laws, as well as setting up a mechanism to release some Sunni detainees being held without charges.

However the polarization of Iraq's major sects and ethnic groups, and fighting among Shiite factions, further diminishes the stability of Iraq's governing coalition and its potential to be able to enact needed legislation for sectarian reconciliation.

As the Congress considers the way forward in Iraq, in our view it should balance the achievement of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks with military progress and homeland security, foreign policy and other goals of the United States.

Further administration reports on the benchmarks would be more useful to the Congress if they clearly depicted the status of each legislative benchmark; provided additional quantitative and qualitative information on violence from all of the relevant U.S. agencies; and specified the performance and loyalties of Iraqi security forces supporting Coalition operations. You not only need to be ready, you need to be reliable in order to support security operations.
Finally, I would like to thank the GAO team who has done this work. They've done a tremendous amount of work on a very short deadline; have pulled some all-nighters, including as recently as the last 48 hours. And I want to thank you, senators, for taking time out
of your busy schedules to be here. And I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.