Iraq progress report: views at war

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.

Not that things in Iraq are going great, in O'Hanlon's view. Violence remains high, and political progress is nonexistent.

"The overall situation is quite mediocre," he says.

Dispute over Iraqi brigades

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.

In a written response, the Pentagon objected to this figure, saying the real number was 71 percent.

GAO rejected the criticism.

"We are retaining the 65 percent in our report because it is from a published [Department of Defense] source and we do not have further documentation on the new figure," says the GAO report in an appendix.

A completely secure Baghdad?

Ejecting outlaws of various kinds from their Baghdad strongholds has been a major goal of the US surge. It's a goal the US military says has already been met.

GAO? Not so much. The key difference in judgment: The Shiite stronghold of Sadr City remains a redoubt of extremist Shiite militias, in the GAO's view.

It's true that US and Iraqi forces have conducted more than 80 operations in Sadr City this year. But there are no Joint Security Station forward outposts for US troops in the neighborhood itself – and only one on its border.

"There are no security bases in Sadr City, and that is an area that one can say is not totally secure by any means," Walker told the Senate panel.

Debates about details and exact force levels in Iraq are to be expected, given the high stakes and the nature of the political pressures involved, says Tufts University's Dr. Martel.

But most of the differences in assessment of benchmarks do not seem to involve order-of-magnitude discrepancies.

"The numbers are close enough where we are getting some basic representations of ground truth," Martel says.

Extremism fading

In recent weeks, the debate over Iraq has shifted somewhat, as lawmakers from both parties have traveled home and received a dose of reality from constituents, he says. Everyone knows the hour is late.

The extreme positions on both sides of the political spectrum – withdraw troops now, and stay no matter what – have lost ground, he says.

Now is the time for everyone involved to look past political opportunism and the 2008 election, adds military expert Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, in a new report.

"Whatever the mistakes of the past, the US needs to look at its moral and ethical obligations and future strategic needs," writes Mr. Cordesman in "America's Last Chance in Iraq." "If Iraq can be made to work, it needs a bipartisan effort [in Congress] and a clear commitment from the next president."

Page: 1 | 2