Benchmarking the Iraq war

Careful reading of report shows patience required

By Dennis Byrne
Chicago Tribune

The Bush administration's report to Congress on the status of the Iraq war on balance should give Americans encouragement -- if they'd bother to read the document themselves instead of just listening to the back-and-forth rhetoric.

Instead, before President Bush's critics even had time to skim it, they, like our Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Dick Durbin, were taking potshots that were too simple-minded to deal with here. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in truly ridiculous fashion, didn't wait until the end of Bush's news conference last week before concluding that the president's "policy has failed." No doubt, editorials and commentaries -- with only superficial examination of the report -- will repeat the same the policy-has-failed line.

But it hasn't -- at least not as badly as the harshest critics would have it -- as any fair, careful reading of the report would show. Don't bother e-mailing me that only Bush the Evil Idiot and Bush lickspittles would say such a thing; let's look at the 18 assessments of the war made by the report.

Many news accounts said that "only" eight benchmarks recorded satisfactory progress, implying that the other 10 were failures. I don't know how someone came up with the number, but the way I read it is: eight successes, four mixed, one "progress but not enough" and five unsatisfactory to varying degrees.

Satisfactory progress has been made on: forming a constitutional review committee and completing the review; moving ahead with legislation to form semiautonomous regions in Iraq; establishing political, media, economic and service groups to support increased Baghdad security; providing three trained-and-ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations; establishing all of the planned joint-security stations in Baghdad neighborhoods; protecting the rights of minority political parties in the Iraq legislature; and allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenues for reconstruction projects, including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis.

Significantly, the report said Iraq has made satisfactory progress in ensuring that Baghdad doesn't become a safe haven for, in Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's words, "outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation." As a result, the discovery of weapons caches there has tripled since last year because of "an erosion of insurgent safe havens."

The report gave a mixed review on establishing new election law procedure and reducing the level of sectarian violence. Benchmarks for granting a general amnesty and disarming sectarian militias could not be rated either way because the "right conditions are not currently present" for their accomplishment.

In what I would place in a separate "not-satisfactory-now, but-progress-is-being-made" category is making Iraq Security Forces evenhanded in its enforcement actions. The report noted "significant progress," but its "overall judgment" was unsatisfactory because "we are holding the ISF to a high standard." As they should.

That leaves five "unsatisfactory" ratings in areas of: de-Baathification (reconciliation) reform; equitable distribution of oil supplies; insulating military commanders from political influence; increasing the number of ISFs to operate independently; and ensuring that political authorities are not undermining or making false accusations against ISF members. It's not as if nothing was happening. While rating progress on these benchmarks as unsatisfactory, the report said that no revisions to current plans or strategies are required to achieve some of these benchmarks because progress is being made.

Obviously, this is the Bush administration's view of things, and while events change daily, the report is, in its own words, reflective of "trend data" and "trajectory." Many Americans see only U.S. casualty figures as a measure of the war's success or failure -- and that's certainly a legitimate measure -- but it's also important to have a longer view. That longer view says some things are working, and some things need to have time to work, raising the question: If a policy appears to be working, or soon will be, how rational is it to abandon that policy?

Clearly, the report ought to give pause for more thoughtful examination by knee-jerks like Obama and Durbin. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) had it right: "There is nothing in this report that should justify anyone who's not already made up their minds that they want to retreat from Iraq to vote to mandate a retreat from Iraq. The report is too mixed. There's too much on the line in Iraq."

Instead, we get the monumentally irresponsible Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) thoughtlessly intoning: "It would be immoral to wait until September to change a failed policy." To the contrary, abandoning that policy now in the face of progress would be immoral.

Sex abuse victims get shafted again

The Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $660 million to 508 alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse. Considering how the church allowed this outrage to continue for decades, the amount isn't unreasonable.

But wait, the victims won't be getting a lot of that money. The plaintiffs' attorneys can expect to receive as much as 40 percent of the $660 million settlement money for their work.

No doubt that some of that money will go to Democratic candidates who have financed their campaigns with lush contributions from trial lawyers. Just how indebted the Democrats are to the trial lawyers was demonstrated again yesterday as five of the Democratic presidential candidates came to Chicago to personally vie for the attorneys' support. The kiss-ups at the assembly of trial lawyers were Senators Hillary Clinton (N.Y.), Barack Obama (Ill.), Joseph Biden (Del.), former Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Richardson was the only non-lawyer among the candidates.

None of the candidates had to say it, but the trial lawyers can continue to count on the Democrats to kill real tort reform, as long as the lawyers keep the money flowing.

It's the ideology, stupid

There continue to be reports of wide-spread amazement that the Liverpool bombers turned out to be doctors. This wonderment usually is expressed by folks who look to the old standbys--poverty and education denied--to explain harmful, illegal and, dare I say it, evil acts.

"How do physicians who have taken an oath to do no harm commit such acts?" is how it usually is asked. The question is dangerously naive. We've known for years that the terrorists, the leadership most certainly, have risen from a well-educated, middle and sometimes upper class.

Yet, whenever President George W. Bush reminds us that we are engaged in a world-wide war against an ideology, he's portrayed as a lunatic. Now that everyone can no longer deny that's the case, perhaps we can get some realistic ideas from Democrats about how they would fight this war.

Divisive diversity

You can have diversity as long as it is not divisive. That's apparently the operating rule in Kansas City, Mo., where the appointment of a member of the anti-illegal immigration group, the Minutemen, to the city's Parks and Recreation board has angered the diversity guardians.

The Wall Street Journal today reported (subscription required) that the clash erupted after the Kansas City Star outed Frances Semler, 73, who believes "...very strongly in obeying the law," as a Minutemen member. It didn't take long, the Journal reported, for the ruckus to start:

The city's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Jewish Community Relations Bureau held a new conference on June 14 to9 condemn the appointment. Later that day, the city council, voting 9 to 3 adopted a resolution calling for Mrs. Semler's removal from the parks board.

Beth Gottstein, a board member who voted for the removal, said, quite predictably, "This is about racism and divisiveness--everything we are not supposed to be about."

In case you're confused, as I was, Gottstein wasn't talking about her vote to oust someone from the board because of her views and associations ("Are you or have you ever been a member of the Minutemen?). Bouncing someone off a public body because of her views and affiliations smacks of the old Communist witchhunts and feels like the kind of divisiveness that violates the First Amendment. No, Gottstein was talking about Semler's views and affiliations, which are not illegal and, to many Americans, not even offensive.

Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser, who appointed Semler, is standing by her woman, refusing to remove her. "Diversity," he said succinctly , "is also about the diversity of views."