The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.
Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.
Take for example the huge loss of life a month ago when more than 500 Yezidis (an ancient, pre-Islam sect) were killed in Iraq. What do you do with statistics like that, numbers that push up the death-rate beyond what the Pentagon wants it to be?
You decide the murderous attack on the Yezidis wasn't a sectarian attack (!) and you exclude it from the final count. Result: the death-rate for August isn't quite as bad. You give the media those tailored numbers. The media go with the story and the revised stats become "common knowledge" in the run-up to the Petraeus report.
Two media reports this morning examine the administration's deliberate falsification of statistics from Iraq. One report appears in the Washington Post, cited above. The other was given on NPR. Here are the facts hidden by the Pentagon's Anbar province mythology.
This year, Anbar is actually the second-deadliest place for U.S. troops in Iraq. Baghdad is the deadliest.
And while there's no doubt the numbers of troops killed in Anbar this year is lower than last year, troop casualties have spiked dramatically in other provinces.
Twenty American service members were killed in Diyala Province last year. So far this year, 100 U.S. service members have died in Diyala. Every month this year, more American troops have been killed as compared with the same month last year.
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