Don't Believe Everything That You Read

In the next couple of weeks, there is going to be a lot of spin, whitewashing if one will. This will come primarily from the White House on the War in Iraq. The Bush administration is writing its own report, and that report is most likely not going to jibe with the GAO's report. The GAO believes that the war is pretty much an unmitigated disaster.

From The Washington Post:

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

The GAO is non-partisan. The Bush administration is partisan on the other hand. Who are you going to believe? The side that cares about how this war goes or the side that could care less on either side? I'm going to go with the dispassionate side.