In a report titled Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq: Coalition Support and International Donor Commitments, GAO checks in with our "coalition of the willing" and with the pool of international donors providing grants and loans to Iraq.
GAO includes this chart by way of showing how non-US coalition participants have dropped off the scene in the last year or so. Currently, American forces are 92% of what's on the ground in Iraq, and 2006 was the first year we lost coalition partners with no new ones to replace them.
This chart is perhaps even more notable for how directly it illlustrates the lie of the surge. In December of 2005, coalition forces numbered 178,100. We recently "surged" up to a whopping 157,600. In other words, the "surge" took us to just 88% of a historical troop level that didn't stop the violence back in late 2005. Do you really feel the need to "give the plan a chance" at this point?
The report also includes a view of our current force structure in Iraq, which I've included in the extended. Our major partners in Iraq at this point -- that is, those nations actually in charge of a region of the country -- are the United Kingdom, Poland, and South Korea. Although the Korean role in Iraq is rarely reported on in the US, the Korean force is in charge of operations in the northeast of Iraq, from Irbil to Kirkuk. They're also planning on leaving the country in 2007.
In addition to the force structure chart, I've also included GAO's coalition participation chart in the extended. As mentioned above, 2006 was the first year that saw only dropouts from the coalition, with no replacements:
- 2004: Japan and Singapore join, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Hungary, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Philippines, Spain, and Tonga drop
- 2005: Armenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina join, Singapore drops
- 2006: Estonia, Macedonia, Mongolia, and Netherlands drop
The remaining coalition is mostly a "who's who" of former Eastern bloc nations.
The US has spent about $1.5 billion in support of coalition partners since the start of the war, with nearly $1 billion of that going to Poland (as befits their relatively large contribution of troops and concomitant inability to transport or house them). The second-place recipient here is actually Jordan, to whom we've paid about $300 million to help them secure their border.
The report also takes a look at international (non-US) aid offered to Iraq. About $15.6 billion in aid has been offered to Iraq, with the substantial caveat that 70% of this is as loans, rather than as outright payment. The biggest "givers" overall are the European Commission ($921 million), Iran ($1 billion), Japan ($4.9 billion), and the IMF and World Bank (which together amount to at least $5.5 billion in proposed loans).
But that's loans. Who's giving the most money outright? It turns out that the big gift-giving nations (again, non-US) are Japan ($1 billion), the United Kingdom ($775 million), Korea ($153 million), Canada ($110 million), and Spain ($100 million).
The GAO gave no specific recommendations in this informational report. I do think the total troop levels over time shown in the very first chart provide mute witness to George Bush's lies about Iraq.
Force structure in Iraq (at present -- recall that Korea is pulling out this year):
The changing face of coalition forces:
