Pentagon: Please rewrite Iraq report
 It's a sad day at the Defense Department when Congress' General Accountability Office declares that the military has missed 13 out of 18 benchmarks set by Congress to judge the Iraqi government's performance.
That's a success rate of 28%, or, in educational terms, an 'F.'
A frustrated Pentagon is appealing to the teacher for a better grade.
According to AP, "Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that after reviewing a draft of the Government Accountability Office report — which has not yet been made public — policy officials 'made some factual corrections' and 'offered some suggestions on a few of the actual grades' assigned by the GAO."
"We have provided the GAO with information which we believe will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from not met' tomet,'" Morrell told reporters.
He declined to elaborate.
The White House argues that the report is unrealistic because it assesses categories "pass-fail," "rather than assessing whether the Iraqis have made progress toward reaching the benchmark goals," a methodology that would produce a vaguer result.
"A bar was set so high, that it was almost not to be able to be met," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said today. "On the other hand, one of the things it does not take into account, which is not on the benchmark list, is the cooperation of the Sunni tribes, who have decided to fight back against al-Qaida."
But, Perino admitted the benchmarks had not been met.
"I think we have said they have not met the benchmarks," Perino said, according to AP. "I don't see how it would be news for them to come out today and say they have not met benchmarks. We have said that."
"The GAO gave lawmakers' staffers a classified briefing about its findings on Thursday," AP said. "An unclassified version of the report is due to be released on Tuesday. It comes amid a series of assessments called for in January legislation that authorized Bush's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq, where there is now a total of more than 160,000."
The AP's article is available here.
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