U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks

[Pirate Smile]

U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks

By Mark Brunswick and Zaineb Obeid
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren't counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country's sectarian violence.

In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.

That has allowed U.S. officials to boast that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.

But it eliminates from tabulation huge numbers of people whose deaths are certainly part of the ongoing conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Not included, for example, are scores of people who died in a highly coordinated bombing that leveled an entire apartment building in eastern Baghdad, a stronghold of rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15474438.htm

[HuffleClaw]

1. creative accounting !

what a joke.

[Pirate Smile]

3. Fuzzy math?

[Libby2]

2. WTF??

Nothing surprises me anymore, nothing.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Every day it's another shoe dropping with these bastards.

[Richard Steele]

5. Typical B*shcabal tactic- just plain LIE.

It's really just that simple: LIE.
Lie more, keep lying, then repeat as necessary.

[gratuitous]

6. If you count his tail as a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

Four. Just because you call his tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Just because you don't count the deaths doesn't make them go away. This is just hideous. Friday news dump time.

[zanne]

14. gratuitous; Is that an old one or...

Did you just make it up? I love it.

[gratuitous]

16. Absolutely ancient

I had to scrape some of the rust off it before it was presentable.

[struggle4progress]

7. Rec'd

[daleo]

8. Everyone knows that car bomb deaths aren't real deaths.

I mean, this is standard procedure among lunatics.

On edit - For the record, I mean Bush.

[rodeodance]

9. This is totally deceptive to all--especially to the dead!

[babylonsister]

10. WHY? God Dammit, WHY? This is not how to 'measure results'.

[Pirate Smile]

11. The actual results never matter with this crew, just the spin and PR.

Reality? What's that?

[krispos42]

12. Ah, car bombings and mortar attacks are partisan violence!

Can't forget that!

So we have the religious violence, and we have the partisan violence. The religious violence is what we're trying to stop, apparently. The partisans that are fighting a foreign occupier? Eh, fuggetaboutit!

Just to define partisan: A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation.

So, to summarize: the Pentagon does not count the violence towards US and our supporters, only sectarian Sunni-on-Shia violence, in order to make it look like we are winning the battle against civil war.

Have I mentioned tonight how much I have these people?

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. So whatever the number of casualties the US reports

We should double it, at least.

[RedEarth]

15. Good grief.......these people don't count...give me a break

[MGD]

17. I have still yet to find a definitive number of Iraqi Defense Force deaths

There's a casualty figure for everybody but the Defense force members as far as I can tell e.g. US deaths, Iraqi civillian deaths, UK deaths, Australian deaths, Canadian deaths, etc. Considering that they are our number one ally in this war, I would think that their deaths would be included in the death toll somewhere. I am convinced that if their casualty numbers were included in the coalition death toll figures, an entirely different reality would be portrayed of the situation on the ground over there, a reality that would not reflect favorably on the chicken hawk in chief and his cabnet of incompetents.