Contradiction

The GAO report – now that’s an official report by the accounting offices of our government, you understand – for January 15, 2008, on Iraq doesn’t sound like anything we've been hearing the Bush administration say. It begins by saying the administration reported (read: lied) actual funds spent on capital projects as quite a rather larger amount than the Iraqi government reports, and continues from there with a sad tale of the improbability of any improvement on the situation.

Unlike George, Condi, et al., however, the GAO will not be televised.

In its September 2007 Iraqi benchmark assessment, the administration reported that Iraq's central government ministries had spent 24 percent of their 2007 capital projects budget, as of July 15, 2007. However, this report is not consistent with Iraq's official expenditure reports, which show that the central ministries had spent only 4.4 percent of their investment budget as of August 2007. The discrepancies between the official and unofficial data highlight uncertainties about the sources and use of Iraq's expenditure data. The government of Iraq faces many challenges that limit its ability to spend its capital project budget. Violence and sectarian strife delay capital budget execution by increasing the time and cost needed to implement contracts. Recent refugee flows and the de-Ba'athification process have contributed to the exodus of skilled labor from Iraq. In addition, U.S. and foreign officials also noted that weaknesses in Iraqi procurement, budgeting, and accounting procedures impede completion of capital projects. […] [I]mproving Iraqi government budget execution is part of a broader U.S. assistance effort to improve the capacity of the Iraqi government. For example, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has trained 500 ministry officials in procurement or budget execution. USAID also led an effort to implement an automated financial management information system for the Iraqi government, although this program was suspended in June 2007 following the kidnapping of five contractors involved in the project.