U.S. Officials Exclude Car Bombs in Touting Drop in Iraq Violence
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren’t counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn’t include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims. 
President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory,” he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.
Others, however, say that not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population - one of the surge’s main goals.
“Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them,” said James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at London-based Chatham House, a foreign policy think tank.
Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.
But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24.
Overall, statistics indicate that the number of violent deaths has declined significantly since December, when 1,391 people died in Baghdad, either executed and found dead on the street or killed by bomb blasts. That number was 796 in March and 691 through April 24.
Nearly all of that decline, however, can be attributed to a drop in executions, most of which were blamed on Shiite Muslim militias aligned with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Much of the decline occurred before the security plan began on Feb. 15, and since then radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army militia to stand down.
According to the statistics, which McClatchy reporters in Baghdad compile daily from Iraqi police reports, 1,030 bodies were found in December. In January, that number declined 32 percent, to 699. It declined to 596 February and again to 473 in March.
Deaths from car bombings and improvised explosive devices, however, increased from 361 in December to a peak of 520 in February before dropping to 323 in March.
In that same period, the number of bombings has increased, as well. In December, there were 65 explosive attacks. That number was unchanged in January, but it rose to 72 in February, 74 in March and 81 through April 24.
U.S. officials blame the bombings largely on al-Qaida, which they say is hoping to provoke sectarian conflict by targeting Shiite neighborhoods with massive explosions.
Ryan Crocker, who became the U.S. ambassador in Iraq this month, said the bombings are a reaction to the surge of additional U.S. troops into Baghdad.
“The terrorists like al-Qaida would make their own surge,” Crocker said this week.
U.S. officials have said that they don’t expect the security plan to stop bombings.
“I don’t think you’re ever going to get rid of all the car bombs,” Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said this week. “Iraq is going to have to learn as did, say, Northern Ireland, to live with some degree of sensational attacks.”
But some think that approach could backfire, with Iraqis eventually blaming the Americans for failing to stop bombings.
“To win, the insurgents just have to prove they are not losing,” said Denselow, of London’s Chatham House.
Experts who have studied car bombings say it’s no surprise that U.S. officials would want to exclude their victims from any measure of success.
Car bombs are almost impossible to detect and stop, particularly in a traffic-jammed city such as Baghdad. U.S. officials in Baghdad concede that while they’ve found scores of car bomb factories in Iraq, they’ve made only a small dent in the manufacturing of these weapons.
Mike Davis, who recently wrote a history of car bombs, said that once car bombs are introduced into a conflict, they’re all but impossible to eradicate. A few people with rudimentary skills can assemble one with massive effect.
“They really don’t have to be very sophisticated; they just have to be very big,” Davis said.
Davis said checkpoints are useful in detecting car bombs “until they blow up the checkpoint,” and erecting walls is not practically feasible in communities. When U.S. officials proposed building walls around Baghdad’s most troubled neighborhoods to fend off car bomb attacks, residents balked, saying the walls would further divide the city along sectarian lines.
Bombers also have shown that they can adapt quickly. When the U.S. military blocked off markets to vehicular traffic, bombers wearing explosive vests were able to walk into the areas.
Finding a defense against car bombs has fallen to the Joint IED Defeat Organization, a Pentagon task force created in 2003 to find ways to protect U.S. troops from roadside bombs, which remain the No. 1 killer of Americans in Iraq.
But car bombs aren’t the primary killer of American service members, said Christine Devries, the task force’s spokeswoman. Roadside bombs are.
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ABOUT IRAQI CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
There are no authoritative statistics on Iraqi civilian casualties. The Iraq Study Group in its report last year found that the Pentagon routinely underreports violence. Other groups have criticized the Iraqi government’s statistics as unreliable - a moot point since the government recently stopped releasing comprehensive totals. On Wednesday, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq chastised the Iraqi government for withholding statistics on sectarian violence.
One study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health and Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad, estimated that 78,000 Iraqis were killed by car bombings between March 2003 and June 2006.
Iraq Body Count, which keeps statistics based on news reports, finds that there have been just over 1,050 car bombs that have killed more than one person since August 2003, when a car bomb detonated in front of what was the United Nations headquarters, killing 17.
McClatchy gathers its statistics daily from police contacts, and while they’re not comprehensive, they’re collected the same way every day.
A roundup of Iraq violence is posted daily on the McClatchy Washington Bureau Web site, http://www.mcclatchydc.com. Click on Iraq War Coverage.
© 2007 McClatchy Washington Bureau and wire service sources.
Enron accounting from the Enron types running our country.
Ken Lay: Enron is doing great! You should keep investing.
Bush Administration: Iraq is going great! We should keep investing.
An information blackout engulfed our country following 911. It wasn’t just al Quaeda’s idea to operate as a “shadowy” organization without visible representatives or specifiable headquarters. Our government, using the only advantage they could find in having a ghost enemy, was happy to identify them with the Afghan population, with Saddam Hussein, with Hezbollah, with anybody they didn’t like. General Petreus does not hesitate to attribute bomb attacks to al Quaeda, and people calling themselves al Quaeda do not hesitate to take credit for them. But we no longer know whether any of that is true. I don’t know whether American soldiers know who they are fighting. I don’t know that any of us do. We don’t know who George Bush and Condoleeza Rice are actually working for. Big Oil is every bit as secretive as any Muslim secret society. The “terrorist” moniker is non-specific and non-informative, and we are adrift in a sea of hype. Welcome to Babel.
We had plenty of information in Vietnam. I have a 1966 Life Magazine featuring a color photo of an American soldier torturing a Viet Cong woman (they held their heads under water) and an interview with a Viet Cong commander who described in detail how their war was conducted with captured American weapons. We had real reporters in those days, and we knew the players, even those hidden in the jungle. The debate over whether Communism was a viable threat was at least a relatively informed debate. Not so today.
Moyers’ presentation last night sifted through the prewar bullshit once again, and we are once again appalled at the gullibility and outright complicity of our media and our politicians in what, out here in the boondocks of darkest America, have always been obvious fictions. We shut off our television sets in November of 2001 and cancelled our newspaper subscriptions and turned to the Internet where everybody has an axe to grind but at least nobody can censor information.
We are becoming home grown deconstructionist philosophers today. The world is all theories and lies and credos and spin, and if no facts are available it is perhaps because they don’t exist.
NOBODY believes US officials anymore, especially over Iraq. US Credibility is trashed.
It is a Bush legacy for the nation that will require years of effort to repair and get back to square one.
You are being hypnotized…just watch the ads.
“Car bombs are almost impossible to detect and stop, particularly in a traffic-jammed city such as Baghdad. U.S. officials in Baghdad concede that while they’ve found scores of car bomb factories in Iraq, they’ve made only a small dent in the manufacturing of these weapons.”
What are we paying for anyhow? Are they run by us contractors or not? Millions of lost cash dollars later. But seriously, do they close them?
All attempts to deceive the voters, reflect a deeply-founded conviction on their part that they are wrong, and a disdain for democracy. This hold true also for their unprecedented secrecy, psyops, publically funded propaganda and so on.
If the people can’t be trusted with the information, then that goes double for the government!
I have come across numerous articles in main stream media with references to special or secret or authoritative sources with no names and other extremely shonky origins….
Some articles written anonymously with highly suspicious facts and statistics being quoted unreferenced. Put another way just downright lies and propaganda. Call it publicly and privately funded psyops if you will….
If enough mud is pumped into the media and publicity machine it will create confusion, doubt and inertia in the minds of the average voter…..
This hasn’t occurred this efficiently on such a vast scale since NAZI GERMANY!!!!!!
All wars are founded on lies but this one must be some kind of record.
Its actually quite ironic that the first time the media reported this news was right after bloody Wednesday.
Well, maybe they don’t count the car bombs as insurgent violence because they’re um well… done by U.S. special forces to destabilize Iraq, incite civil war and thus provide a convenient excuse for U.S. to remain in Iraq (chaos) and simultaneously work towards the genocide of darker skinned people.
I’m guessing the growing number of first responders dying from all types of ailments post 9/11 dont count either. Pelosi needs to grow some balls, literally, listen to her constituents and IMPEACH this whole lot of ghouls. Yeah including Condi Rummy and Powell…………… BTW good post clark!
When delusional psychotics don’t like something that disagrees with their delusions, they pretend it doesn’t exist. Ergo, Bush doesn’t count car bombs. There’s no conspiracy here, just a crazy sonofabitch and his pathetic enablers.
Speaking of impeaching - Dennis Kucinich filed artilces of impeachment against Cheney on Tuesday and as far as I can see, it fell down the rathole AKA US media.
Looks like the devil is always in the details–I guess it all depends on what you mean by…oh wait a minute, that was another empty suit that said that.
Thanks to McClatchy for reporting the ugly truth about what is going on over there. And Petraeus, the great and mighty general, says Iraq is just going to have to learn to live with sensational attacks! God help us all, with that kind of attitude.
I have seen this type of behavior before!
Two little boys (about 4-7 years old)were arguing in front of my house when one hit the other on the arm. The one who was hit loudly announced “It didn’t hurt me”! I suppose he didn’t want to hand his opponent a victory either.
I chuckled to myself then…but it doesn’t seem so funny now.
Great news everyone! Violent crimes have decreased in the U.S. Just don’t factor in crimes where guns were involved and it’s true.
Much as some may try, truth cannot hide.
“President Bush explained why in a television interview on Tuesday. “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory,” he told TV interviewer Charlie Rose.”
This is the same twisted logic as dumping excessive amounts of unbacked dollars into a broken economic system to give the appearance of a flourishing economy.
Car Bombings are not Violence
War Is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
We Have Always Been At War With Oceania
How much longer are the press, the military, Congress AND CITIZENS OF THE WORLD going to tolerate this madman?
Sorry Marta
We citizens of the world (the real world outside the Bush USA) have no say whatsoever in who sits in the US White House. We are just helpless passengers on this ship being steered onto reefs and icebergs by the megalomaniac the people of the US have elected twice - I know people say that Bush really won neither election but the bigger (much deeper) issue is that the US allows dangerous lightweights like him to be serious contenders for the White House - that is where the malaise is.
And if we do take action how do we do it against the nation which is the most militarized (apart from perhaps that other megalomaniac ruled nation, North Korea - amazing the similarities) in the world and is such a huge financial powerhouse that it dwarfs any other economy in such a way that it cannot be affected (unless China pulls the financial rug out from under the US).
So, there is no way that the citizens of the world can effectively do anything to remove the US administration. As Fedup says, it is about time the Congress got some backbone and impeached Bush and Cheney.
And, for crying out loud, what harm did Clinton do to the nation? And yet he was impeached. Bush/Cheney have been responsible for teh deaths of over 3000 US soldiers (and hundreds of thousands of foreigners - but they don’t count as they are somehow less human beings that Americans) and the maiming of countless thousands of US people (and hundreds of thousands of those lesser creatures), the hollowing out of teh US economy as they fund their war with billions borrowed from the Chinese, perverted the US Constitution mandated separation of powers, destroyed the rights of Americans, engaged in criminal kidnapping of foreigners all over teh world, etcetc etc). And they do it all so that their rich Halliburton/oil friends can make more money. No sign of serious moves to impeach these criminals. I am afraid that even the Congress has not raised people’s opinion of the US above the level to which Bush has taken it. The Congress has not taken efferctive action - they know that Bush will veto so they are back where they were.
My children and grandchildren who have never been and probably never will be US residents/citizens (and don’t fool yourself - the rest of us sitting outside the US are not sitting here wishing we were US residents/citizens despite the self deluding nonsense that many Americans say about this issue - we are quite happy to be what we are) but they will have to suffer, possibly even drastically, the fallout from the illegal/immoral and brainless/stupid testosterone driven actions of the US in Iraq. If the US stumbles irrevocably, its behaviour (towards/in response to its friends) has created the strong likelihood that even those who used to be its friends will turn away and not reach out a helping hand.
So, sorry, don’t lay the responsibility on the CITIZENS OF THE WORLD. This is a US problem and only the Americans can solve it. We, the rest of the world, unforunately have to wear the consequences of American actions over which we have no control or influence.
Well, the more cars that blow up the less global warming from that souce.
Once again it is the McClatchy news paper whom is the friend of the world for printing the truth! Bill Moyers special the other night was very informative of the facts. The truth was there, and there were people who were not jumping off that cliff with the rush to war, but the news media were star struck with trying not to ask too much. Still we were the ones you all called traitors and Bush bashers. Why is it no one ever says that Bush should make better truth to start with, instead of saying if you tell the truth, and it makes him look bad, because he lied, it is your fault? Why is it never his fault for lying in the first place? The new lie is that the war deaths are down, because we do not count all war deaths as deaths anymore! How is that not lying? Hell we did not like the rules so we make new ones as we need them, but no one but us can use them? Common sense is so rare these days, maybe we should put some “pot” in their drinking watter, we might get understandable lies that way!
Looks to me like all the snake oil salemen of history were reincarnated and made it into the current administration. What amazes me is that the daily press is so compliant or incompetent, or simply stupid to not see through this nonsense coming out of Washington on a daily basis. But hey, if I tell you that the oil I’m selling will make you ten years younger and you buy into it, why should I stop? Oh, a little matter called integrity.
plaza Toro’s post above is a little long, but it is an important read. The American mindset is a blind spot to us. It falls to people from other countries to point out the ignorance and arrogance ingrained in our society. I also get sick of hearing that Bush and his nasties “stole” the 2000 election. 50 odd million dumbassed Americans voted for him. Twice! An “edge” of a few million votes one way or another, the “unfairness” of the electoral college, all notwithstanding, that many gullible idiots in our population should be real cause for alarm.
I remember a quote from the Millennium,
“The cruelest lies of all are often spoken in silence”….
Sin by omission, if you will…
Pathological Bush and his complicit enablers have created a dangerous present and constructed a dangerous future legacy….
Then they have covered it up with LIES and SILENCE….
I’m old enough remember when “conservative” meant nearly the same thing as “skeptical”. The motto of the new Republican Party should be, “Hook, Line & Sinker”.
Try this on the next pro-war loudmouth you meet:
Our leaders lie…
They lie to me,
They lie to you,
They lie to our troops.
The criminal group in the white house have proved one thing, The U S Constitution should be printed on toilet paper for the whole nation to use, as that is what Bush and company are useing it for.