more on the GAO report

the CSMonitor has a niece piece on the GAO report:

it includes critisism by o'hanlon:

The GAO's data may not reflect the downward trend experienced last month, says Mr. O'Hanlon. During his recent tour through Iraq, he adds, every local briefing he received from the US military said that attacks in that particular sector were down.

just remember, last month saw the WORST attack in iraq, EVER since the start of the war!
btw, this article on realclear politics claims, that if only you ignore those 520 dead Yazidis, august wasn t that bad a month..

but O'hanlon goes on, to make another point:

In addition, for the GAO to decline to judge whether attacks are sectarian or not is to take an overly rigorous approach to the numbers, says the Brookings expert.

"I just think they were flat-out sloppy," he says of GAO.

nice. so he clearly knows the motivs, of people killing people in Iraq?
i at least know the motivs of the US military. they will again label those 520 dead Yazidis to be NOT killed by sectarian violence.

In another discrepancy between the GAO and the administration, the GAO judges Iraq's commitment to field three government brigades in Baghdad as only "partially met," while the administration marked it as "satisfactory."

The difference? The GAO cites its concerns about the training and readiness of those Iraqi troops – and whether they are truly a deployed force. Just 65 percent of Iraqi personnel are deployed in the field at any one time, for instance, says its report.

so GAO thinks, that 65% "brigades aren t really brigades. it tend to agree. it s rather interesting to notice, how the pentagon changed it s numbers again. they insist those units arrived in Baghdad at 71%. but before the claim was, that after an initial problem with very low numbers, battalions arrived ready to act.
and remember, we are talking about battalions brought to 110% strength, before the move.
this would lead to the conclusion, that EVEN MORE soldiers stayed at home!

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Kagan, who brought up the original plan for the surge, has some problems with the report as well. of course his arguments don t make any sense at all. sigh.