Progess of war in Iraq difficult to measure (Scripps Howard)

http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=IRAQ-MEASURE-10-12-05&cat=WW


Progess of war in Iraq difficult to measure
By BILL STRAUB
Scripps Howard News Service
October 12, 2005

WASHINGTON - President Bush and other members of the administration have consistently held that "progress is being made" in the global war on terrorism and they are looking to gather some objective data to bolster the veracity of that disputed claim.

To this point, most recently in his Oct. 6 address, the president has relied on little more than anecdotal evidence to support his assertion that terrorism's grip is eroding while those opposed to war in Iraq and other initiatives taken under the president's direction point to countervailing reports to establish the effort is not proceeding well.

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Now, two years later, with polls showing the American public beginning to lose faith in the direction of the war on terrorism, the administration is looking to develop a method for measuring success of its effort. The Department of the Army posted on Sept. 8 a solicitation for contractors interested in developing "a system of metrics to accurately assess U.S. progress in the War on Terrorism, identify critical issues hindering progress and develop and track action plans to resolve the issues."

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Arnaud de Borchgrave, director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said any measurement will show the war in Iraq "has served as a recruitment poster for al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency"' and that the growing network of Islamist terrorists has only become energized.

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