Here’s the problem, as defined by two front page newspaper stories.
The Washington Post has a report that undercuts claims that violence in Iraq is dropping:
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.
Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers — most of which are classified — are often confusing and contradictory. “Let’s just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree,” Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.
Of course, cherry-picking the intel was one of the ways the Bush Administration sold the war to the gullible public, in the first place!
The article makes clear that compliant military officers have been questioning the methodology of the recent pessimistic GAO report and the similarly negative report in the recent National Intelligence Estimate. For example, the NIE reported on the worsening warfare between rival Shiite factions, while the military simply doesn’t track Shiite-on-Shiite or Sunni-on-Sunni attacks. Violence is apparently invisible and inconsequential if it isn’t perpetrated by pre-selected factions. One wonders if there’s an actual application form they’re supposed to fill out, before their murder and mayhem can be officially recognized. Similarly, acts of violence by Sunni tribesmen who have been recruited as U.S. allies aren’t counted at all. In other words, being a U.S. ally means never having to say you’re a murderer.
The December 2006 Iraq Study Group also reported that violence was being underreported, as the Los Angeles Times explained:
Bombings, sectarian slayings and other violence related to the war killed at least 1,773 Iraqi civilians in August, the second month in a row that civilian deaths have risen, according to government figures. An Associated Press tally put the August figure even higher, at 1,809.
And, according to that AP tally, those August casualties represent the second-highest monthly total of the year.
The NIE was also edited, to paint a more positive picture. As the Post article explains:
A senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it “odd” that “marginal” security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months. He attributed the change to a desire to provide Petraeus with ammunition for his congressional testimony.
Now, to anyone paying attentio, none of this is exactly a secret. We all know that the facts are being fudged, and we all know that the reports to Congress will be as dishonest as the reports that first got us into this war. You would think Congress would be ready to call bullshit and take a stand to end this continuing atrocity. But, of course, we already know what’s going to happen.
As the New York Times reports:
With a mixed picture emerging about progress in Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders are showing a new openness to compromise as they try to attract Republican support for forcing at least modest troop withdrawals in the coming months.
After short-circuiting consideration of votes on some bipartisan proposals on Iraq before the August break, senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, “If we have to make the spring part a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that.”
Rather than something that is binding? Because it is better to do what amounts to nothing than to try to do something that will actually hasten the war’s end? What’s most baffling is that Senator Levin voted against the original war resolution, so many wasted lifetimes ago. He knew it was wrong, then; so, what could possibly have convinced him that it’s necessary to continue the war, now?
Some Democrats have concluded that their decision earlier this summer to thwart votes on alternatives left them open to criticism that they were being intransigent.
Criticism from whom? David Broder? Fred Hiatt?
So, the current plan seems to be go along with Senator John Warner’s proposal to set a start date for withdrawing troops; and never mind that the proposal offers no end date. And never mind that the proposal comes from a retiring Republican. Democrats want time to “digest” the upcoming reports by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker before making any final decisions. Apparently, the fact that literally everyone knows what those reports will say doesn’t matter. And neither does the fact that we all know what thorough digestion leads to.