Bushies claim Iraq violence down, but "Getting Shot in the Front of the Head Doesn't Count"

[ProSense]

Getting Shot in the Front of the Head Doesn't Count

Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Karen DeYoung does a great job of breaking down the various questions with the "sectarian violence" numbers that are being quoted by Petraeus and Bush. My favorite

according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

So to recap. The violence numbers do not include: 1) Sunni on Sunni violence. 2) Shi'a on Shi'a violence 3) Car bombs 4) Getting shot in the front of the head.

But violence is down. Trust me.

‘It began to look like spaghetti’

Posted September 6th, 2007 at 12:47 pm

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The WaPo’s Karen DeYoung wrote a must-read on the subject today, doing exactly the kind of heavy lifting that the media needs to do more of. What DeYoung found wasn’t surprising, but it was depressing: the administration are playing games with the numbers and cherry-picking statistics in a deceptive way.

Specifically, Gen. Petraeus is expected to say there’s been a 75% drop in sectarian attacks, a 56% drop in overall attacks, and a 17% drop in civilian casualties. All of this, it turns out, is suspect, and in some instances, contradictory.

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They’re making up standards as they go along, in the hopes they can keep the charade up just long enough to fool policy makers. It’s almost comical what doesn’t count towards the military’s data.

But as the administration’s need for some kind of public relations boost became more desperate, so, too, did the administration’s willingness to play fast and loose with the numbers.

Petraeus, in particular, is peddling bogus data.

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Why, oh why, did the Washington Post run this story on page A16? It’s the kind of report that should fundamentally alter next week’s hearings and congressional debate.

Data on U.S. troop fatalities from icasualties.org:

Top 10 months for U.S. troop fatalities, Jan. 2006 to Aug. 2007

Year....Jan...Feb...Mar...Apr....May...Jun...Jul...Aug...Sep...Oct...Nov...Dec
2006....62....55.....31.....76.....69.....61....43....65.....72...106....70...112
2007....83...81.....81...104...126...101...79....84.....11......0......0.......0


Top 20 months for U.S. troop fatalities, Mar. 2003 to Aug. 2007 (top 10 underlined)

Year....Jan...Feb...Mar...Apr...May...Jun...Jul...Aug...Sep...Oct...Nov...Dec
2003......0.....0.....65.....74....37.....30....48....35.....31....44.....82.....40
2004....47....20.....52...135....80....42....54....66.....80....64...137.....72
2005..107....58.....35.....52....80....78....54....85.....49....96....84......68
2006....62....55.....31.....76....69.....61....43....65.....72..106.....70...112
2007....83...81.....81...104..126..101....79...84.....11......0......0.......0