White House on Benchmark: Eh, Failure is Good Enough

Not every aspect of the GAO study on the Iraq benchmarks contradicts the administration line. Indeed, on one unfulfilled benchmark — the persecution of Sunni military commanders — the White House and the GAO see eye to eye. But the response amounts to the same thing. Instead of insisting that the benchmark is met and the strategy is working, the White House admits that it’s not, but curiously insists that it doesn’t need to do anything differently. We just need to stay the course.

The benchmark measures sectarian interference with security operations. According to the GAO, Shiite politicians have pursued groundless accusations of wrongdoing against Sunni officers that the U.S. considers trustworthy. In some cases, “questionable judicial warrants” against officers are issued by “the Office of Commander in Chief” — otherwise known as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The persecution means that the Iraqi security forces’ “formal command structure is compromised by influential sectarian leaders linked to the security ministries.”

Funny thing: the White House doesn’t disagree.

Its July 2007 report (pdf) on the benchmarks contains merely cosmetic differences on this front. Only the White House doesn’t think this should impact its strategy:

The effect is at times to deny the [Iraqi security forces or ISF] the services of qualified officers or to discourage them from operating in a professional non-sectarian manner. However, this does not necessitate a revision to the current plan and strategy, under which we continue to monitor the situation by means of our close coordination with the ISF and to press Iraqi leaders to refrain from this behavior.

So even though the current approach isn’t stopping false accusations against the Iraqi security forces, it shouldn’t change at all. After all, we could hardly have an Iraq War if failure is considered a disqualification.