Democrats Blind to Good News in Iraq

The following headline portends good news on the Iraq front.

Pentagon Cites Progress in Iraq Democracy

The ensuing article goes on to site nothing but the complaints of partisans.

The Pentagon told Congress on Thursday that progress toward establishing democracy in Iraq is on track despite an adaptable and deadly insurgency, but it offered no estimate of when U.S. troops would start withdrawing.

And what would give anyone the idea that the Pentagon would ever do such a thing?

Some Democrats were quick to criticize, saying the accounting fell short of helping the public understand when U.S. troops can leave.

Imagine that.

"They missed an opportunity," said Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense.

I agree. They could have been out having drinks rather than wasting their time producing a report that Democrats will either ignore or twist for politics.

He said the report lacks specific criteria for judging when Iraq will be stable enough for U.S. troops, now numbering 138,000, to withdraw.

That comment is immeasurably stupid for the following reason…

The Pentagon said it "should not and must not" publicly disclose specific data.

"The enemy's knowledge of such details would put both Iraqi and coalition forces at increased risk," the report said.

It doesn’t take an expert to figure that out. I honestly don’t know why the Pentagon releases these reports since the media simply turn them into photo ops for the Democrats.

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said Rumsfeld was making a mistake by not publicly releasing the information about Iraqi security forces' readiness.

"By withholding this information from the public, the administration is denying Americans their right to know how much work remains to be done," Biden said. "The notion, as Secretary Rumsfeld suggested, that this information would somehow aid the enemy is absurd."

What is ‘absurd’ is that we have Senators that can’t figure out that releasing our timetable would help our enemies set their own timetable. Do you think they might hunker down until the Americans are gone? I am certainly no expert on the topic, but I seriously think my 3 year old could figure that out. He’s no expert either.

We are simply asking for an honest accounting of the level of troop readiness and capability.

Now that’s a brilliant plan. Let’s post troop readiness levels and capabilities on the net while we are at it.

Not one fact from the report itself is mentioned. Read the report if you get a chance. It is linked at the bottom of the article. It has much substantive information such as the decreasing number of insurgent attacks. Not one bit of that data made it’s way into the AP article.

Check out this little nugget that the AP and Senator Biden chose to ignore.

Just as the Department of Defense should not and must not disclose the precise equipment, training, and readiness data for U.S. military units, such precise data are similarly classified for Iraqi forces. The enemy's knowledge of such details would put both Iraqi and Coalition forces at increased risk. Tables showing this data are therefore in the classified annex of this report.

So the information is there. Biden has access to it. I used to think that, though partisan, Biden would not stoop to such a pathetic level. But he is either too ignorant to know that you don’t give your force levels to the enemy, or he is making political hay with the complicity of the press and at the expense of the military, both U.S. and Iraqi. Biden’s assumption that the public is too lazy to actually read the report is probably a good bet. But making an ‘absurd’ political point regarding access to information that he actually has access to, is best described as slimy.

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