JustinLogan.com: Administration Lies That Matter

January 2008

July 13, 2005

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Administration Lies That Matter

While we're all carping about the administration's shameful behavior in the Plame Game, a much more consequential story is passing under the radar. I caught wind of it in this Broder column from 7/3:

Under a little-noticed provision of the [supplemental] defense spending bill passed by Congress in May, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld has until July 11 to send Capitol Hill a "comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security" two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

[...]

Last week Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the defense Appropriations subcommittee, pointed to language in the report accompanying May's Iraq funding bill that would satisfy most of those demands. It orders the first detailed status report on July 11 and follow-ups every 90 days thereafter.

The information required is specific and detailed. It includes such measures of the security environment as the number of engagements per day, the count of trained Iraqi forces, the estimated strength of the Iraqi insurgency and the role of foreign fighters.

It orders up indicators of economic activity, including unemployment levels, electricity, water and oil production rates, and hunger and poverty levels.

It requires detailed information on the training of Iraqi military and security forces, their equipment, and their capabilities -- and the timetables for achieving full readiness.

It aims to end the confusion over Iraq's forces by asking specifically which Iraqi battalions are capable of operating independently, which can fight if supported by coalition forces and which are not ready to conduct counterinsurgency operations even with help. It also requires documentation on their absentee rates and calls for similar information on the Iraqi police forces and their training.

Finally, it directs Rumsfeld to provide -- either in public or in classified annexes -- an estimate of U.S. military forces needed in Iraq through the end of calendar 2006 and the criteria the administration will use to determine when it is safe to begin withdrawing forces from that country.

Now, via Atrios, we learn that:

the Pentagon failed to meet a 60-day deadline set by Congress to provide a detailed plan for training Iraqis and for likely US troop levels.

[...]

The Pentagon yesterday maintained that it is still compiling the report, but did not say when it would be complete.

The war spending legislation, approved by both houses of Congress, stipulated that ''the administration must develop and provide to the Congress a more comprehensive set of performance indicators and measures of stability and security in Iraq than is currently available."

I say we open the betting on whether the administration decides to comply with the law in this case. I think I'll take "no" on this one. Because, you know, if the Pentagon actually decided to develop metrics to determine what the hell is going on in Iraq, it'll only embolden the terrorists.

Actually, in this case, it might...

July 13, 2005 | Permalink

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"Throughout the nation's history, the national destiny of the United States has been understood in antimilitaristic, libertarian terms." -Hans J. Morgenthau

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January 2008

July 13, 2005

Administration Lies That Matter

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