Last week Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the defense Appropriations subcommittee, pointed to language in the report accompanying May's Iraq funding bill that would satisfy most of those demands. It orders the first detailed status report on July 11 and follow-ups every 90 days thereafter.The information required is specific and detailed. It includes such measures of the security environment as the number of engagements per day, the count of trained Iraqi forces, the estimated strength of the Iraqi insurgency and the role of foreign fighters.
It orders up indicators of economic activity, including unemployment levels, electricity, water and oil production rates, and hunger and poverty levels.
It requires detailed information on the training of Iraqi military and security forces, their equipment, and their capabilities -- and the timetables for achieving full readiness.
It aims to end the confusion over Iraq's forces by asking specifically which Iraqi battalions are capable of operating independently, which can fight if supported by coalition forces and which are not ready to conduct counterinsurgency operations even with help. It also requires documentation on their absentee rates and calls for similar information on the Iraqi police forces and their training.
Finally, it directs Rumsfeld to provide -- either in public or in classified annexes -- an estimate of U.S. military forces needed in Iraq through the end of calendar 2006 and the criteria the administration will use to determine when it is safe to begin withdrawing forces from that country.
I asked for this last week without realizing someone had already slipped the language into the appropriations bill. So to whomever managed to get this language in, thank you. If the administration takes this seriously, it can make a big difference in winning in Iraq and in giving the American people a fair chance to measure how we're doing.
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