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New Military Numbers Contradict Petraeus on Surge's Progress
While the House Judiciary Committee hearings are in recess, take a look at this great post from Ilan Goldenberg at Democracy Arsenal. Goldenberg combs through the just-released quarterly Pentagon report (pdf) and compares its civilian-casualty numbers (pdf) to those presented last week to Congress by General David Petraeus (also pdf). And sure enough, it appears that the quarterly report's numbers -- which were taken from Multinational Corps-Iraq, the command just under Petraeus' -- make the pre-surge period seem better than Petraeus' numbers; and the surge period seem worse.
Goldenberg writes:
According to the MNC-I data there has been no improvement since either December (The numbers Petraeus and the Administration often cite) or February (when the surge actually began). Why wasn’t Congress shown these numbers in the presentation by General Petraeus? Why only the good news numbers? Why the lack of clarity on Petraeus’s sourcing? Especially since he himself acknowledged that the best numbers come from the MNC-I database.In terms of actual anomalies
Anomaly A: Somehow in December, the month that is always cited by the Pentagon and the Administration, Petraeus’s Iraqi dead is actually greater than the MNC-I Iraqi Dead + Wounded. That makes absolutely no sense. You can’t have more dead than dead and wounded combined.
Anomaly B: In the months after the surge begins Petraeus’s Iraqi dead numbers are significantly lower than the dead + wounded numbers in the Pentagon report. This is inconsistent with the entire history of the previous year, where the numbers track closely. The only explanation would be a dramatic increase in the wounded to dead ratio. Perhaps there were more car bombings that injured people but didn’t kill them, as opposed to close range executions where victims do not survive. Or maybe there is another explanation. Still it seems inconsistent to see this major split just as the surge begins.
I heard some encouraging news yesterday from U.S. Central Command on my Freedom of Information Act request to see Petraeus' command's definition of sectarian violence and casualties. More to come on this later.
Comments (3)
M M wrote on September 18, 2007 4:00 PM:Don't just ask for the definitions used via the FOIA, ask for the underlying data as well which tied back to his charts.
If the data is granular enough down to different Baghdad neighborhoods it would be interested to see how much of the decrease in sectarian violence was attributed to neighborhoods that had been ethnically cleansed between the two time periods. No sunni's left to kill in a bunch of neighborhoods where they were forced out.
Steve wrote on September 18, 2007 5:22 PM:I keep waiting for someone to point out that since Petraeus was in charge of gathering the numbers that determined his own job performance he had a severe conflict of interests.
It's kind of like paying a salesman on the number of calls he makes and telling him to just turn in the numbers himself. Even the most honest salesman would fudge. But no one had the guts to mention it. I guess because they thought the GOP might spin it as attacking Petraeus's credibility. The truth is that the numbers should have always come from an independent agency like the GAO. I think Hillary said it best when she said Petraeus's report required a suspension of disbelief.
BT wrote on September 18, 2007 8:03 PM:So - When will Petraeus be returning to Congress address these differences? I have read posts from people like myself whose jobs are to present data to executive-level decision makers every day. My analyses support multi-million dollar decisions and the executives expect it all to tick and tie. No one should be allowed to get away with such a vague, unsubstantiated case - with lives and billions on the line. And Bush calls the excercise of oversite by Dems theater. The lead up and final presentation to congress by Patraeus was theater.