by Maxim Kniazkov Wed Jul 12, 4:17 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The investigative arm of the US Congress has
openly questioned if victory in Iraq can be achieved without a
significant overhaul of President George W. Bush's strategy, arguing
the outcome of the war was presently "unclear".
The findings by the Government Accountability Office mark the first
time a non-partisan US government agency publicly doubted whether the
geo-strategic undertaking that Bush made the defining element of his
presidency, could be successful.
"It is unclear how the United States will achieve its desired
end-state in Iraq given the significant changes in the assumptions
underlying the US strategy," the GAO wrote in its report unveiled
Tuesday at a hearing in the House of Representatives.
The review focuses on the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," a
glitzy document released by the White House with great fanfare last
November.
The strategy charted what was described at the time as a sound course
for overcoming the Iraqi insurgency and turning the country in the
first true democracy in the Arab world.
Nine months later, congressional investigators found these high hopes
were resting on shaky premises that are quickly melting away.
The bedrock foundation of the president's strategy -- a permissive
security environment -- "never materialized," said the authors of the
report, describing the Iraqi insurgency as "active and increasingly
lethal."
The overall number of attacks increased by 23 percent from 2004 to
2005 and rose to the highest ever level of intensity last April, the
investigators pointed out.
In the absence of security, the document continued, efforts to
rebuild the war-ravaged country or even to return key segments of its
economy to their pre-war level have hit a roadblock.
If before the 2003 US-led invasion, crude oil production averaged in
Iraq 2.6 million barrels a day, it stood at only two million barrels a
day this past March, according to the report.
A combination of insurgent attacks on pipelines, dilapidated
infrastructure and poor maintenance have hindered domestic refining
and turned Iraq into an importer of liquefied gas, gasoline, kerosene
and diesel fuel, the document said.
Water and sanitation projects, on which the United States spent about
52 million dollars, were inoperable or operating below capacity.
Investment has been reduced to a trickle. Last year, the report
noted, the Iraqi government budgeted approximately five billion
dollars for capital expenditures, but managed to spend only a few
hundred million.
Generous foreign aid -- another hoped-for component of success in
Iraq -- was never delivered in promised amounts.
While foreign donors had pledged about 13.6 billion dollars to
rebuild Iraq, only 3.5 billion was actually provided as of last April,
the GAO pointed out.
Meanwhile, it will take 30 billion dollars for the Iraqi oil industry
to produce five million barrels a day -- and 20 billion to rebuild the
electricity sector, the agency estimated.
All of these factors have prompted the GAO to issue a dire forecast:
"Security, political, and economic factors will hamper US efforts to
stabilize Iraq and achieve key US goals."
The report is certain to add fuel to a growing debate in Congress
over the future US course in Iraq, which President Bush says
should remain unchanged and Democrats insist is in need of a thorough
re-evaluation.
In the meantime, the State Department rejected the congressional
findings, saying in its response that the GAO report "rests on a
flawed understanding of the strategic architecture guiding United
States policy in Iraq."
