FUDGING THE REPORTS ON IRAQ SECURITY FORCES

Pale Rider at Blue Girl, Red State makes a great catch: The GAO's report on the ISF, released last Friday. The GAO notes that we've been told for a while that there were some ISF units whch could operate "fully independently" BUT the assessors themselves no longer use those terms since Spring 2006! (page 17 of the report):

Previously, in guidance provided to Coalition transition teams for use in evaluating Iraqi Security Forces, a level 1 unit was said to be "fully capable of planning, executing, and sustaining independent operations." However, in the spring of 2006, MNC-I removed the words "fully" and "independent" from the definition. When we asked DOD officials for the reason for this change they were not able to provide us with an explanation. Therefore, according to the current guidance, a level 1 unit is one that is "capable of planning, executing, and sustaining counterinsurgency operations." It is important to note that, according to the guidance, a Coalition transition team cannot judge an ISF unit as "independent." However, in its most recent report to Congress, DOD asserted that an "independent unit is one that is capable of planning, executing, and sustaining counterinsurgency operations." Thus, DOD’s continued reporting that some ISF units are "independent" or "fully independent" is not congruent with MNC-I’s instructions for filling out the Operational Readiness Assessments on which DOD’s assertions and reports seem to be based. If independence is still a relevant descriptor of ISF unit capabilities, then why was the term removed from the definition of a level 1 unit in 2006?