Fact-Checking Key Assertions in the State of the Union Address
Monday, January 28, 2008; 11:21 PM
FOR THE RECORD: IRAQ
"The Iraqis launched a surge of their own . . . and today, this grass-roots surge includes more than 80,000 Iraqi citizens who are fighting the terrorists. The government in Baghdad has stepped forward as well, adding more than 100,000 new Iraqi soldiers and police during the past year."
ANALYSIS: The citizens Bush mentioned are actually Sunni neighborhood-watch groups that have been hired by the U.S. military for $300 a month. Military officials said they are unsure what will happen when these "citizens" are no longer paid.
Indeed, Sunni officials say many Sunnis would like to join the Iraqi military or police forces but are prevented from doing so by the Shiite-led government. Meanwhile, the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party in December criticized the groups for not submitting to government authority.
There is also some uncertainty about the number of Iraqis involved in the effort. Bush administration officials repeatedly claimed last year that there were 77,000 Sunni volunteers fighting militants in Iraq, although military officials in Baghdad acknowledged in November that the actual number was just over 60,000.
Though Bush boasted that Iraqi military and police forces have grown, a commission headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones last fall found that Iraq's army will be unable to take over internal security from U.S. forces in the next 12 to 18 months and "cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven." The commission also described the 25,000-member national police force as riddled with sectarianism and corruption, recommending that it be disbanded.
Last night, the president said that "on the local level, Sunnis, Shia and Kurds are beginning to come together." However, much of the once-heterogeneous city of Baghdad is still divided into Shiite and Sunni enclaves, while the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq functions almost like a separate state.
While Bush praised the Iraqi parliament for passing a new de-Baathification law -- to allow some former members of Saddam Hussein's political party to participate in government -- as one of the "encouraging signs" of reconciliation, many experts believe the law in many ways is more punishing to former Baath Party members than a much-criticized earlier law.
-- Glenn Kessler
FOR THE RECORD: ECONOMY
"Some in Washington argue that letting tax relief expire is not a tax increase. Try explaining that to 116 million American taxpayers who would see their taxes rise by an average of $1,800. . . . This budget will keep America on track for a surplus in 2012."
ANALYSIS: Bush makes the potential expiration of his tax cuts sound like a big deal for the average American, but his estimate of the financial impact is skewed because the cuts have disproportionately helped the very richest citizens. That fact boosts the average cost of reinstating the taxes, a circumstance that doesn't reflect what the typical household might experience.
Here's another way of looking at it: the median American household will pay roughly $828 more in taxes in 2011 if the Bush tax cuts expire, according to the Tax Policy Center, a non-ideological think tank venture. The richest 1 percent of American households, in contrast, would have to pay an extra $64,154 a year when the tax cuts expire.
With the economy slowing, the Congressional Budget Office this month projected that the federal budget deficit would actually grow worse this year, not better. In predicting that a surplus will return in 2012, moreover, Bush is not counting the long-term cost of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, nor is he taking into consideration likely congressional action to mitigate the expansion of the alternative minimum tax, which increasingly threatens the middle class.
Bush's 2008 budget accounted for the cost of holding the AMT at bay for just one year. Congress obliged, with an AMT measure that cost the Treasury $50 billion. Bush has said the AMT should be repealed only when the tax code is broadly overhauled, a goal he did not mention last night.
The administration has repeatedly underestimated the costs of the wars. In 2009, it has budgeted $70 billion, only one-third the cost this year.
-- Steve Mufson and Jonathan Weisman
FOR THE RECORD: IMMIGRATION
"America needs to secure our borders, and with your help, my administration is taking steps to do so. We are increasing work-site enforcement, we are deploying fences and advanced technologies to stop illegal crossings, we have effectively ended the policy of 'catch and release' at the border, and by the end of this year, we will have doubled the number of Border Patrol agents."
ANALYSIS: Bush's claim that his administration has boosted prosecutions of companies or company officials that have hired illegal workers is debatable. Such activity decreased during his first presidential term and remains relatively rare.
While federal immigration authorities arrested nearly four times as many people at workplaces in 2007 as they did in 2005, for example, only 2 percent of those arrests involved criminal charges against the employers responsible for hiring workers. Only 92 owners, supervisors or hiring officials were arrested in an economy that includes 6 million companies that employ more than 7 million unauthorized workers.
Only 17 firms faced criminal fines or other forfeitures. The number of illegal immigrants arrested in workplace enforcement cases fell from 2,849 in 1999 to a low of 445 in 2003 before rebounding.
The deployment of technology at U.S. borders to prevent illegal immigration is experiencing limited success.
The Department of Homeland Security in December installed a pilot 28-mile electronic fence along the Arizona border that uses cameras, radar and ground sensors to intercept illegal crossers, but it was six months late and requires additional testing. The department has not said whether the projected multibillion-dollar system is ready to be expanded as scheduled this year.
In his speech, Bush repeated an assertion that the border cannot be secured against illegal crossers unless the United States increases channels for foreign workers to enter legally, but he did not make any specific new proposal for them to do so.
FOR THE RECORD: AFGHANISTAN
"In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies, and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al-Qaeda is now a young democracy. . . . These successes must continue, so we are adding 3,200 Marines to our forces in Afghanistan."
ANALYSIS: President Bush did not mention the large dispute within NATO over how to fulfill the Afghan mission, including discord over the number of forces that each nation should contribute and where and how they should fight.
He also did not mention that a White House assessment last year concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 had not been met. The extra Marines are, according to senior officials, being sent not to build on success but to prevent failure.
Only a few NATO countries engage in fighting -- especially the British, Canadians and Dutch -- while the rest focus on reconstruction. The United States already provides more than half of the 53,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, but the additional Marines were deemed necessary because no other NATO country was willing to commit new forces to the southern provinces where the Taliban has made a comeback.
Meanwhile, the economy and security situation in Afghanistan remain poor. Kidnappings and suicide bomb attacks have become more common in some regions, even in Kabul, where the city's top hotel was recently bombed. Opium production has risen, and many experts say programs to provide rural Afghans with alternative income are underfunded and poorly coordinated. Polls show a growing portion of the citizenry is losing faith in the government headed by President Hamid Karzai.
According to a survey released last year by the Asia Foundation, for example, 79 percent of Afghans said the government does not care what they think, while 69 percent said it is not acceptable to publicly criticize the government.
-- Glenn Kessler
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/28/AR2008012803175.html?hpid=topnews