GAO Findings On The Iraq Situation

Iraq benchmark findings

By The Associated PressThu Aug 30, 8:02 PM ET

Government Accountability Office findings on status of 18 military and political goals set by Congress for Iraq:

IRAQ HAS FULLY MET REQUIREMENTS TOWARD:

_Establishing supporting political, media, economic and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan.

_Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad.

_Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.

IRAQ HAS ONLY PARTIALLY MET REQUIREMENTS TOWARD:

_Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semiautonomous regions.

_Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.

IRAQ HAS NOT MET REQUIREMENTS TOWARD:

_Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.

_Ensuring that the Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for outlaws, regardless of sectarian or political affiliation, as Bush says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has pledged to do.

_Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Baathification.

_Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources of the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner.

_Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions, in consultation with U.S commanders, without political intervention, to include the authority to pursue all extremists, including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

_Ensuring that the Iraqi Security Forces are providing evenhanded enforcement of the law.

_Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of operating independently.

_Ensuring that Iraq's political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against members of the Iraqi Security Forces.

_Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security.

_Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections.

_Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review.

_Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty.

_Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the constitution of Iraq