GAO Op-ed

My elected representative, Terry Everett, writes a column that is published weekly in my local newspaper. Usually he rails about this and that, but the bottom line is that if anything goes wrong it’s because of “liberals”. Since not many things have gone right as of late, he’s probably getting writer’s cramp; or his intern is. Most recently he’d written about the GAO’s report to Congress. Here it is:

September 10, 2007: Congress Plays Political Games with Iraqi Progress

I wrote the following in response and, to my astonishment, it was published in the very same paper. Enjoy

“Are you not tired of these “liberal” water balloons? It seems that recently discovered documents exhumed from Al Capone’s vault found not only Jimmy Hoffa, and the $9 Billion dollars “Missing” in Iraq, but that it was a liberal on the grassy knoll!

I read every one of Rep. Everett’s articles. I’m glad he writes at least once a week. This shows that he understands that a dialogue between the “leader” and the led is important. I could do without the “liberal congress” silliness. However, I don’t remember him writing about the conservative Congress’ ignoring the page chasing, backroom dealing, K-Street, Scottish golf trips, etc. It is important to note that the wording of things is very important as well.
That being said I’d like to point out a few flaws that perhaps the Congressman had overlooked. I understand he’s a busy man, so am I, but I’ll do his homework for him.

Rep. Everett most recently wrote about the GAO’s report of Iraqi progress. The report as he relates, claims that the benchmarks were provided by the Democratic Congress in June. In reality the benchmarks were of UN and Iraqi origin, not the Democratic Congress. This is noted in the introduction of the actual report, available with a simple “Google” search.

What he’s writing about was the Iraq Accountability Act. Since this state consistently votes Yellow Dog Republican on the National level ever since 1964, I would assume reasoning based on the idea that they’re more fiscally responsible. One would welcome such oversight in a situation and with an administration that spends like a 16 year old Valley girl with Daddy’s credit card.
In 2006 the “International Compact with Iraq” was an international agreement that Iraq’s government would attempt to meet certain goals (that just so happen to match what Everett’s Democratic Congress stated). Quid pro quo from the international community would be continued aid to that nation.

If the reader would simply find the GAO’s website and find the study, one would find some interesting pieces of information that the Honorable Congressman omitted.

In reference to the Iraq Accountability Act “The Act requires GAO to report on the status of the achievement of these benchmarks… As the Congress considers the way forward in Iraq, it should balance the achievement of the 18 Iraqi benchmarks with military progress and with homeland security goals, foreign policy goals, and other goals of the United States.”

I noted with laughing interest that the GAO’s core values use a phrase that is often repeated, but hardly true: “Fair and Balanced”

The Honorable Congressman also noted that the GAO’s report did not take into account the level of increasing or decreasing sectarian violence. One reason could be simply because we do not track Iraqi civilian casualties. This estimate comes from Britain’s The Lancet (the UK’s most respected medical journal) “392,979 and as many as 942,636”. FYI There is only one group that does maintain such statistics, but the information was deemed not reliable by GAO. Therefore it was omitted from the report. Mr. Walker (the head of the GAO) further said that even
“if the military’s methodology was acceptable to the GAO, it would not have changed the resulting report.”

The debate discussed by Mr. Everett really centered on Sectarian violence. The surge was intended to buy time for the Iraqi government to make some movement forward. Therefore, if no political progress has been made, and it hasn’t, how could a surge be called successful? The DOD and GAO differ on that one issue, nothing else. As for the “factually incorrect” claim of the Congressman, it should be noted that according to a Washington Post article dated Sep. 5, “ONE MILITARY OFFICIAL” claimed as such, not several as would be deduced from the “S” at the end of Official, and there was no mention of seniority. This complaint is also telling as Mr. Walker said GAO had consulted with military officials up until that Thursday, and had asked but not received information through the end of August.

You see citizen. Throwing around labels you hear on TV to denigrate the opposing political viewpoint is not only silly, but you’d need to be inaccurate. Ok, I’ll be honest since this is apparently something that lacks in our society. You’ve got to lie. Not misrepresent the truth, not averting facts, it’s called lying folks. Perhaps it’s time to wake up? The problem with throwing political water balloons is that nothing gets done, and everyone ends up wet.”

Bacchus