GAO’s final report on war upgrades earlier assessment

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday released its hotly anticipated final report on the war in Iraq, upgrading two progress benchmarks to “partially met” that were listed as unmet in a draft report leaked by the White House last week.

{mosads}Despite that slightly brighter picture, which followed an intense push from the Bush administration for changes to the report, Comptroller General David Walker acknowledged during Tuesday testimony that President Bush’s troop increase in Iraq thus far has not achieved its stated purpose.

Some Democrats chided the administration for lobbying the GAO on its findings.

“Despite the apparent efforts by the Pentagon to edit this independent report, it will take much more than a red pen to correct the failures of the president’s Iraq policy,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), No. 3 in the Democratic Caucus, said on the floor.

Walker defended his agency’s edits under questioning by Foreign Relations Committee Democrats. The two benchmarks changed to “partially met” dealt with the number of trained and ready Iraqi brigades supporting Baghdad and the closing of remaining safe havens for insurgents.

Walker said that he changed one of the benchmarks independently of the Pentagon’s input and changed the other benchmark after receiving new information from the administration.