But regardless of the praise or accuracy of Gen Ward's previous reporting we learned yesterday that "Palestinian Security Forces Are Found Unfit."

The security forces of the Palestinian Authority are divided, weak, overstaffed, badly motivated and underarmed, and more attention must be paid to building up institutions rather than personalities, says the first independent survey of the complicated Palestinian security environment since the death of Yasir Arafat.

The survey, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times by the authors a day before publication, was prepared in close coordination with Lt. Gen. William E. Ward, the American-appointed coordinator of the effort to overhaul the chaotic Palestinian security apparatus, and the Palestinian Authority. It has been reviewed by senior American and Palestinian officials, including those in the office of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Most of the rest of the article is providing excuses for Abbas's failure:

The essential problem for the Palestinian Authority, the report says, is that its security forces were established on "an ad hoc basis without statutory support and in isolation of wider reforms," a lasting legacy of Mr. Arafat's policy of duplication and promoting rivalry within his organization.

The security forces in Gaza are somewhat stronger than those in the West Bank, but suffer from a continuing lack of coordination, the report says. "The critical gap is in command and control," Mr. Chopra said. "There's a blurring between state actors and non-state actors, and that's very difficult from the military point of view."

Despite recent changes by Mr. Abbas, centralizing most forces under Mr. Youssef, that formal structure does not reflect the realities of power, the report indicates.

For example, former chiefs of preventive security like Jibril Rajoub and Mahmoud Dahlan, who have no line authority over the security forces now, have powerful influence over them and play an important security coordination role with Israel. The current chief of preventive security, Gen. Rashid Abu Shabak, is considered a Dahlan loyalist with weak ties to Mr. Youssef, and divisions between the West Bank and Gaza are deep.

Yesterday, Ynet reported that Shabak head Yuval Diskin testified that Dahlan is hampering Israel anti-terror efforts.
(The NY Times article cites the efforts of an organization called Strategic Assessments Initiative in preparing the report. Here's a previous assessment from the group on the implications of the Gaza withdrawal.)
Of course, fitting the Sulzberger Indifference Template the Times reports on those aspects of the problem that are Israel's fault:

The report's picture of the state of the Palestinian security forces is sobering, even as senior Israeli military officials, as well as Israeli politicians, insist that Mr. Abbas has sufficient manpower and arms to dismantle the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad if only he would decide to do so. Israel has refused requests by General Ward to allow the Palestinians to import new armored vehicles and fresh supplies of arms.

After Israel went to war against the Palestinian security forces in the spring of 2002 - a year and a half into the current Palestinian intifada, or uprising - destroying much of their infrastructure, the current quality of arms and ammunition is low and deteriorating.

"The current ratio of personnel to weapons is 4 to 1," the report says. "Meanwhile, non-state factions" like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the various fighters of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades and local groups like the Tanzim and the Popular Resistance Committee "are, by contrast, relatively well armed."

Of course the problem was that during the "Aqsa intifada" the security forces were not taking action against the "non-state factions" but were acting in concert with them, which is why Israel targeted them. But I wouldn't expect that the NY Times or Strategic Assessment Initiative would acknowledge that.
Now would it be unreasonable to assume that the Washington Post will editorialize on Abbas's failure? Especially when they asserted two months ago that all was great according to General Ward. The point isn't that the Post's editors can't opine what they want. The point is that if they're going to praise Abbas and knock Israel there better be a good reason for it, else their editorials on the subject will have no credibility. (The Post, by the way, carried a Reuters story on the SAI report, but did no reporting of its own.)
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.