Ah, the joys of being scooped. I’ve been trying to get confirmation on an internal Army memo that has been making the rounds the past couple weeks, and have been unable to move the story much—but apparently the NY Times’ Michael Gordon has.

Written in early July, the memo by Col. Timothy Reese, a senior adviser to Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, titled “It’s Time For The U.S. To Declare Victory And Go Home,” is a whopper. While it represents the opinion of one (albeit a senior, well respected) officer, the piece is a scathing indictment of the Iraqi government and military, saying that “we aren’t making the [Iraqi government] and the [Iraqi Security Forces] better in any significant ways with our current approach. Remaining in Iraq through the end of December 2011 will yield little in the way of improving the abilities of the ISF or the functioning of the GOI. Furthermore, in light of the GOI’s current interpretation of the limitations imposed by the 30 June milestones of the 2008 Security Agreement, the security of US forces are at risk.”

The chances of a “violent incident” occurring that damages the partnership between American forces and the Iraqis “has greatly increased” since American troops left the major cities on June 30, Col. Reese wrote, adding that “such a rupture would force an unplanned early departure that would harm our long term interests in Iraq and potentially unraveling the great good that has been done since 2003. The use of the military instrument of national power in its current form has accomplished all that can be expected.”

In an odd twist, it is the very successes the United States has had in training Iraqi forces that has created this impasse, Col. Reese notes.

Today the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) are good enough to keep the Government of Iraq (GOI) from being overthrown by the actions of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the Baathists, and the Shia violent extremists that might have toppled it a year or two ago. Iraq may well collapse into chaos of other causes, but we have made the ISF strong enough for the internal security mission. 

The most strident part of the memo comes when Reese lays out the situation, as he sees it, within the Iraqi government and Armed Forces:

The general lack of progress in essential services and good governance is now so broad that it ought to be clear that we no longer are moving the Iraqis “forward.” Below is an outline of the information on which I base this assessment:

1.) The ineffectiveness and corruption of GOI Ministries is the stuff of legend. 

2.) The anti-corruption drive is little more than a campaign tool for Maliki

3.) The GOI is failing to take rational steps to improve its electrical infrastructure and to improve their oil exploration, production and exports.  

4.) There is no progress towards resolving the Kirkuk situation.

5.) Sunni Reconciliation is at best at a standstill and probably going backwards.

6.) Sons of Iraq (SOI) or Sahwa transition to ISF and GOI civil service is not happening, and SOI monthly paydays continue to fall further behind. 

7.) The Kurdish situation continues to fester. 

8.) Political violence and intimidation is rampant in the civilian community as well as military and legal institutions.

9.) The Vice President received a rather cool reception this past weekend and was publicly told that the internal affairs of Iraq are none of the US’s business.

Is it time to leave Iraq? Secretary of Defense Gates seems to be open to pulling out troops sooner than originally planned, and recent incidents in Baghdad where Iraqi forces have been giving the Americans a hard time have strained relations between the two. In the end, it’s a question of how you measure success. Iraq is unlikely to be a stable and secure country any time soon, and will experience car bombings, assassinations and other forms of low scale conflict for the foreseeable future. As Col. Reese says, that is probably about as much as we can expect, and the longer we stay, the more likely it is we’ll find reasons not to leave.