Pentagon Questions Congress' Iraq Report

Apparently, the Democratically controlled Congress sanctioned an Iraq progress report that produced a dire picture. Not surprisingly, The Pentagon would like to have a word with the authors. Few would be shocked to see a dour report slip into the hands of a Congress almost desperate, by the admission of some of its Democratic members, for a loss in Iraq. But many are surprised by the extent of pessimism emenating from Capitol Hill.

According to the Pentagon:

""We have provided the GAO with information which we believe will lead them to conclude that a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from `not met' to `met,'" Morrell said. He declined to elaborate or to spell out which of the benchmark grades the Pentagon was disputing."

Another problem may be that the Democrats in congress set the benchmarks to unreachable standards. Iraq isn't going to be releasing doves in a celebration of peace anytime soon, but that doesn't mean the situation on the ground isn't improving. To the contrary, most accounts have the surge succeeding.

Skye at Midnight Blue is reporting about more success in Baghdad.

As we get closer to General Petraeus' report, I suspect we'll hear more dire predictions about Iraq from the forces in congress who need the United States to lose the war to advance their own narrow and selfish agendas.