thedrifter
02-13-07, 07:41 AM
Measuring success in Iraq
Lawmakers want benchmarks; DoD officials say framework exists
By Gordon Lubold - Staff writer
Posted : February 19, 2007
As the U.S. slowly begins its new approach in Iraq, sending more American troops to stabilize Baghdad and Anbar province, the Pentagon believes there are adequate benchmarks to measure progress.
But influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including some supporters of the surge plan, aren’t so sure.
U.S. commanders in Iraq have begun a “rolling implementation” of Bush’s new plan for Iraq, sending troops to augment those already there and ramping up the number of U.S. trainers embedded with Iraqi units.
By May, the U.S. will have increased the size of its force in Iraq — now about 138,000 — by 21,500. But as the controversial effort gets underway, lawmakers believe there is still no specific way to measure success or failure in Iraq under the Bush plan.
At a Feb. 6 hearing that was supposed to focus on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2008 budget request, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was instead grilled on how he will know if the renewed effort in Iraq is working.
Lawmakers such as Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a vocal supporter of Bush’s plan in Iraq who sits beside Levin on the panel — want to see specifics.
U.S. officials have laid out a broad framework for measuring success, saying the Iraqis must abide by their agreements not to interfere with military operations, to allow U.S. and Iraqi forces into all neighborhoods and to ensure that all Iraqi forces promised under the Baghdad security plan show up for duty.
Since Bush announced his plan in January, Gates has repeatedly said that he’ll have a sense of how it’s going soon, and hopes to regularly brief lawmakers once the effort is fully underway. Defense officials are assembling a “matrix” of benchmarks to show what the expectations are, he said.
“The military commitments are going to be the ones where we can evaluate performance first,” Gates said. “Are [Iraqi security forces] showing up? What numbers are they showing up in? Are they going into all neighborhoods, and so on?”
It will take longer to determine if the Iraqis are stepping up in other areas, Gates said.
“The political and economic benchmarks, in terms of the Iraqis putting up their own money and ... getting elections, authorizing a provincial elections law, a hydrocarbons law and so on, will probably take a little longer,” Gates said.
Levin said he formally requested a more detailed list of such benchmarks three times before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice finally replied in a Jan. 30 letter that Levin’s office released.
“We believe the Iraqi government understands very well the consequences of failing to make the tough decisions necessary to allow all Iraqis to live in peace and security,” Rice wrote. “It is essential that the government of Iraq — with our help, but its lead — set out measurable achievable goals and objectives on each of three critical, strategic tracks: political, security and economic.”
Levin said he still wants something more tangible.
“Unfortunately, none of these additional commitments have any details or timelines,” Levin said in response to the letter. “The one commitment or benchmark that the president and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, [Marine] Gen. [Peter] Pace, have described and for which they have provided a timeline — namely that the Iraqi government will take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November 2007 — is missing.”
Levin said the absence of specifics suggests that Bush does not intend to attach “meaningful consequences” if Iraq fails to meet its goals.
“America supplying more troops while Iraqi leaders simply supply more promises is not a recipe for success in Iraq,” he said.
Gates and Pace also were questioned about U.S. troop and equipment readiness in Iraq once the additional surge force flows into theater, following media reports that some units would deploy to Iraq without necessary equipment.
Additional troops will be fully trained and equipped, but they won’t all deploy with enough up-armored Humvees, Pace acknowledged.
About 41,000 up-armored vehicles are in Iraq, not enough to fully support expanded force levels as a result of the surge, he said.
Commanders have agreed that they will share vehicles as needed until the others arrive, so no one will leave base in anything but an up-armored Humvee, he said.
Ellie
Lawmakers want benchmarks; DoD officials say framework exists
By Gordon Lubold - Staff writer
Posted : February 19, 2007
As the U.S. slowly begins its new approach in Iraq, sending more American troops to stabilize Baghdad and Anbar province, the Pentagon believes there are adequate benchmarks to measure progress.
But influential Republican and Democratic lawmakers, including some supporters of the surge plan, aren’t so sure.
U.S. commanders in Iraq have begun a “rolling implementation” of Bush’s new plan for Iraq, sending troops to augment those already there and ramping up the number of U.S. trainers embedded with Iraqi units.
By May, the U.S. will have increased the size of its force in Iraq — now about 138,000 — by 21,500. But as the controversial effort gets underway, lawmakers believe there is still no specific way to measure success or failure in Iraq under the Bush plan.
At a Feb. 6 hearing that was supposed to focus on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2008 budget request, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was instead grilled on how he will know if the renewed effort in Iraq is working.
Lawmakers such as Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. — a vocal supporter of Bush’s plan in Iraq who sits beside Levin on the panel — want to see specifics.
U.S. officials have laid out a broad framework for measuring success, saying the Iraqis must abide by their agreements not to interfere with military operations, to allow U.S. and Iraqi forces into all neighborhoods and to ensure that all Iraqi forces promised under the Baghdad security plan show up for duty.
Since Bush announced his plan in January, Gates has repeatedly said that he’ll have a sense of how it’s going soon, and hopes to regularly brief lawmakers once the effort is fully underway. Defense officials are assembling a “matrix” of benchmarks to show what the expectations are, he said.
“The military commitments are going to be the ones where we can evaluate performance first,” Gates said. “Are [Iraqi security forces] showing up? What numbers are they showing up in? Are they going into all neighborhoods, and so on?”
It will take longer to determine if the Iraqis are stepping up in other areas, Gates said.
“The political and economic benchmarks, in terms of the Iraqis putting up their own money and ... getting elections, authorizing a provincial elections law, a hydrocarbons law and so on, will probably take a little longer,” Gates said.
Levin said he formally requested a more detailed list of such benchmarks three times before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice finally replied in a Jan. 30 letter that Levin’s office released.
“We believe the Iraqi government understands very well the consequences of failing to make the tough decisions necessary to allow all Iraqis to live in peace and security,” Rice wrote. “It is essential that the government of Iraq — with our help, but its lead — set out measurable achievable goals and objectives on each of three critical, strategic tracks: political, security and economic.”
Levin said he still wants something more tangible.
“Unfortunately, none of these additional commitments have any details or timelines,” Levin said in response to the letter. “The one commitment or benchmark that the president and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, [Marine] Gen. [Peter] Pace, have described and for which they have provided a timeline — namely that the Iraqi government will take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November 2007 — is missing.”
Levin said the absence of specifics suggests that Bush does not intend to attach “meaningful consequences” if Iraq fails to meet its goals.
“America supplying more troops while Iraqi leaders simply supply more promises is not a recipe for success in Iraq,” he said.
Gates and Pace also were questioned about U.S. troop and equipment readiness in Iraq once the additional surge force flows into theater, following media reports that some units would deploy to Iraq without necessary equipment.
Additional troops will be fully trained and equipped, but they won’t all deploy with enough up-armored Humvees, Pace acknowledged.
About 41,000 up-armored vehicles are in Iraq, not enough to fully support expanded force levels as a result of the surge, he said.
Commanders have agreed that they will share vehicles as needed until the others arrive, so no one will leave base in anything but an up-armored Humvee, he said.
Ellie