Behind the News

Petraeus and the numbers game

How does it all add up?

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Today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for. Starting today and continuing through the week, General David Petraeus and Iraq Ambassador Ryan Crocker will deliver their testimony to both houses of Congress about the progress of the war, and are scheduled to appear “exclusively” on Fox News as part of a larger White House-brokered PR push to buy more time for the “surge” to work.

Pundits, bloggers and politicians have been gearing up for the testimony, with Senators McCain and Lieberman taking to the pages of The Wall Street Journal this morning to spin as hard as they can to link 9/11 to the war in Iraq:

Whatever the shortcomings of our friends in Iraq, they are no excuse for us to retreat from our enemies like al Qaeda and Iran, who pose a mortal threat to our vital national interests. We must understand that today in Iraq we are fighting and defeating the same terrorist network that attacked on 9/11.

You read that right. The guys who attacked us on 9/11 are now in Iraq. While it can’t be argued that al Qaeda isn’t active in Iraq, it must be noted that they weren’t there before we invaded, no matter what the folks might have you believe.

Countering the increasingly desperate senators’ claims is a piece in this month’s Washington Monthly by former Stars & Stripes reporter Andrew Tilghman called “The Myth of AQI,” in which he argues that the presence of al Qaeda in Iraq has been grossly overstated, and that AQI has never had the numbers or influence that have been reported in the press over the past couple of years.

But all this is just the latest salvo in a skirmish that has been raging for at least a week about the accuracy of the numbers the White House and General Petraeus are using to claim that the “surge” is producing results—namely, decreased civilian casualties across Iraq. On Thursday, The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung published a damning critique of the military’s statistics (which, it should be noted, are classified) that show that violence is down in Iraq, writing that “experts within and outside the government…contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends…,” and that intelligence analysts are wary of “how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, 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.’”

The article created a firestorm in the blogosphere over the weekend, and led to some pretty serious scrutiny of other stories concerning the military’s numbers. One of the victims was The New York Times’ Michael Gordon. Greg Sargent over at Talking Points Memo’s “Horse’s Mouth” blog flagged Gordon’s piece in Saturday’s Times which relied exclusively on the military’s numbers, (showing that civilian death in Iraq are down), while ignoring the reporting DeYoung had done to call the numbers into question.

Josh Marshall called it “a remarkably credulous account,” and Sargent picked up on the theme, pointing to a September 2 story in the Times by James Glanz that reported that civilian deaths had actually gone up in August, as opposed to Gordon’s story that stated they had gone down. The discrepancy occurred because Glanz used figures provided by the Iraqi government, while Gordon relied on the American military’s figures. Who to trust?

For starters, it’s pretty hard to trust a paper that runs conflicting accounts of the same subject in the same week, without even the slightest nod to the fact that it is using two different sets of numbers. But this is all just prologue to the battles that are going to unfold this week over the general’s and the ambassador’s testimony, and their star turn on the White House’s favorite mouthpiece, Fox News.

CJR

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Comments

padikiller

Mon 10 Sep 2007 10:22 PM

Paul McLeary Wrote

While it can’t be argued that al Qaeda isn’t active in Iraq, it must be noted that they weren’t there before we invaded

padikiller asks

So what?

Who cares WHY the Al Quaida terrorists are in Iraq? What does this have to do with the need to stay there and kill them?

Killing them in Iraq makes a whole lot more sense than running away from them or fighting them here.

If President Bush (as screwy liberals love to claim) somehow "brought" Al Quaida terrorists out from under their rocks from the four corners of the Earth to concentrate in Iraq... He should get a Nobel Peace prize.

Just THINK of all the violence that has been saved in obviating the need to go on a global hunt for these vicious pigs.

Catch22

Tue 11 Sep 2007 10:51 AM

So what? Who cares WHY the Al Quaida terrorists are in Iraq? What does this have to do with the need to stay there and kill them?

The reason that it matters that they didnt exist in Iraq before the invasion is because the invasion is what made it possible for them to go to Iraq. Furthermore, it is the presences of American troops that is the sole reason for their existence. Al Queda Iraq doesnt have much support outside of their opposition to the US. If the US were no longer their there is no indication that they would have any support.

Furthermore, this is not a zero sum game with a finite number of bad guys to go out and kill. Contrary to the myth you promote most of the people in Iraq were not already terrorists to beging with, but were radicalized by the war and as they are killed there is no shortage of persons to replace them also radicalized by the invaision.

Just THINK of all the violence that has been saved in obviating the need to go on a global hunt for these vicious pigs.

There is no evidence that any violence was saved and in fact the war is creating more radicals and terrorists. Meanwhile thousands of innocent Iraqies have been killed in the process along with thousands of US soldiers.

Killing bad guys is not a solution if the process creates even more enemies.

padikiller

Tue 11 Sep 2007 01:46 PM

Catch 22 wrote

this [war] is not a zero sum game with a finite number of bad guys to go out and kill. Contrary to the myth you promote most of the people in Iraq were not already terrorists to beging with, but were radicalized by the war

padikiller notes

Ah yes!... The Ole "Bush Turned Peaceful, Nice Innocent People Into Al Quaida Terrorists" Claim...

What a bunch of horse hockey.

Your claim is a silly one that is refuted by all the data.

The Al Quaida terrorists are mostly foreign Islamist radicals that are funded by Saudi sources who seek to exploit the instability in Iraq.

These terrorists are NOT "made" in Iraq, they COME to Iraq with fat wallets and a murderous intent firmly established.

Nice try, but NO cigar.

Here's ANOTHER cluebat for you.

The terorists aren't "radicalized" by the war- they are instead readicalized by their their hateful ideologies.

There is indeed a TON of evidence to suggest that battling Al-Quaida in Iraq has been an effective policy. THOUSANDS of terrorists have been killed there.

Of course civilians have been killed in Iraq. Saddam slaughtered them by the droves. That's one of the reasons we're there. No more mass graves.

As for civilians killed by Americans- this is of course tragic (wars are tragic) but usually unaviodable. Deliberate war crimes should be and are being punished. Liberals, however, have a selective tolerance for this collateral loss of life. You didn't hear a peep out the lives lost when President Clinton lobbed Tomahawks on the streets of Baghdad or bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan (during a bout of pre-impeachment stress syndrome).

kweberlit

Wed 12 Sep 2007 09:16 PM

Ah, yes . . . those foreign interlopers "exploiting the instability in Iraq." And of course the Bush administration had nothing to do with producing that "instability" and creating that opportunity, did they?

As for comparing the civilian deaths in Iraq to those caused by the Clinton administration . . . were hundreds of thousands of people killed when Clinton bombed (what you claim was) an aspirin factory?

Go ahead and write your five hundred word response filled with CAPITAL LETTERS. It doesn't make your logic any more impressive.

potus

Thu 13 Sep 2007 05:24 AM

Apples and oranges. You are all wrong. Al Quaida is not one thing and one specific group of people. You all know that. The group is a diverse as the liberals in the Democratical Party or the Repooflicans from Ahnold to Newt. Whether they are in Iraq or not is beside the point. They are here in the U.S.--and who is taking time out from war games to find them before they find us?

More domestic spying keeps us safe.

padikiller

Thu 13 Sep 2007 09:02 PM

kweberlit wrote

And of course the Bush administration had nothing to do with producing that "instability" and creating that opportunity, did they

padikiller responds

You mean the "opportunity" for these terrorists to come to Iraq and be killed by the American military there, instead of in London, Amsterdam or Manhattan?

Sure, President Bush created this "opportunity" for them... Thank goodness.

kweberlit continues

were hundreds of thousands of people killed when Clinton bombed (what you claim was) an aspirin factory?

padikiller responds

No... And neither have hundreds of thousands of civilians been killed in the Iraq war, either.

However, according to Noam Chomsky, tens of thousands of Sudanese died because of a lack of medicine brought on by President Clinton's "wagging the pre-impeachment dog".

Circus Boy

Sun 16 Sep 2007 09:45 PM

Padikiller's still here? Same citing of "mounds of evidence" that never see the light of day? Your "we're fighting them over there so we don't fight them over here" argument is my favorite. YES! That's what I call talking points that can't be proven!

More! More!

padikiller

Mon 17 Sep 2007 06:41 PM

Circus Boy Wrote

Your "we're fighting them over there so we don't fight them over here" argument is my favorite.

padikiller responds

You are misstating my argument.

My argument, in fact, is that "we're fighting them over there so we don't have to go all over the world looking for them".

It is undeniably easier to kill terrorists when they flock to one place than it is to travel all over the world hunting them down. To argue otherwise is just silly.

And for the record, we have killed hordes of foreign terrorists in Iraq- terrorists that would otherwise be sucking air in other climes.

This little slice of reality might be unpleasant for the moonbat crowd- but there it is.

Circus Boy

Wed 19 Sep 2007 07:56 PM

How many argumentative fallacies can you use in one post, Padi? Hi-lar-i-ous! Keep 'em coming! Got anything besides your stalking of Mcleary everywhere on the Allen issue? You're a real comedian, and I mean that with all sincerity.