Redstate

by using questionable data, they misled its readers by painting a gloomier picture than the more reliable data would indicate

By Charles Bird Posted in War — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The news sounded ominous, with reporter Joshua Partlow openly questioning the success of the current surge strategy, stating as fact that June civilian deaths in Baghdad were much higher in comparison to January:

Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41 percent higher in June than in January, according to unofficial Health Ministry statistics.

During the month of June, 453 unidentified corpses, some bound, blindfolded, and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

My goodness. Depressing news like this could be enough for a weak-kneed GOP Senator to flip the other way and declare that all is lost, not even waiting to see if the new plan will work or not. The problem, however, is that the statistics Mr. Partlow used are so unreliable that the article is tantamount to a lie.

More below the fold.

The statistics are based on Baghdad morgue data, which is no longer routinely provided to the public except by unauthorized anonymous officials, and the faulty presumptions are that all dead bodies end up at the morgue. Here's another reason why this metric is very well untrustworthy:

Civilian deaths in Iraq have been a contentious point since Day One of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Anti-war activists and opposition politicians often cite estimates of 100,000 civilian deaths said to have resulted from the invasion and the subsequent violence. A recent United Nations report calculated that 6,000 civilians died in the violence in May and June alone. The morgue is at the heart of that debate, because whoever controls the morgue controls the numbers. That person is radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. One day last week, a NEWSWEEK reporter saw more than a dozen militiamen, dressed in the traditional black of Sadr’s army, patrolling the facilities, keeping an eye on the staff. According to morgue employees, Sadr’s Mahdi militiamen aim to control the flow of information to give Sadr a leg up in the propaganda war. Ministry of Health officials release statistics from time to time. Last week, a ministry official told NEWSWEEK that the last few weeks have seen a 30 percent rise in victims, many of them found in the garbage or floating down the Tigris—but they rarely reveal details about the nature of the deaths, or the identities of the corpses. Sadr’s political wing also controls the Health Ministry, and he has good reason to keep such details hidden: they could incriminate Shiite militias.

With Muqtada al Sadr's political party in charge of this operation, why would a Washington Post reporter unquestioningly transmit this "data"? Why didn't Mr. Partlow go with the best information available? Perhaps because success must never be an option? The better source for data (and it's most likely the best source) is the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which reported 27% drop in execution-style killings in Baghdad (735 in January and 540 in June). The graph is linked here.

Then there's this misleading paragraph from Mr. Partlow:

But even before the plan went into effect, the number of bodies discovered had fallen well below the levels of last fall. In October, for instance, 1,782 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad, according to the United Nations, citing official statistics provided by the Health Ministry.

By January, the total dropped to 321 in the capital, according to the statistics provided to The Washington Post, followed by 294 in February, 272 in March and 182 in April. But the figure spiked upward to 433 in May and 453 last month. A Health Ministry spokesman could not be reached for comment on the statistics despite several attempts.

Gee, I wonder why that Health Ministry spokesman couldn't be reached. First off, we don't know how that 1,782 number was derived because it came through the UN. Second, the 182 casualties in April looks way low. From Engram at Back Talk:

For example, here is a story in USA Today that relies on the same UN figure for October (which they should not have done) but comes up with a much different figure for April, again by relying on someone who was not authorized to speak to the media:

The number of unidentified bodies found in Baghdad — an indicator of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims — dropped from a high of 1,782 in October to 411 in April, according to an Interior Ministry official who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

So which is it, 182 or 411 for April? According to Iraq Coalition casualty Count, 425 bodies were found in Baghdad in April. These are based on reports provided by officials who are authorized to speak to the media and who do so every single day. Unless you think the media reports that document these deaths are lies, the number supplied by the Washington Post (182) is way off base.

Here is the New York Times weighing in on the subject:

In Baghdad, 730 civilians were reported killed in June from assassinations, bombs or small-arms fire. That was down from 1,070 in May, a decline of almost 32 percent, an Interior Ministry official told The New York Times.

However, the number of dead bodies found in Baghdad, a measure of sectarian killings, while lower in June than in May, was still higher than in April, according to the Interior Ministry official. In April, there were 411 dead bodies found in Baghdad; in May, there were 726; in June, the number dropped to 540.

The numbers in this article for April, May and June are quite close to the numbers you get from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC), which are 425, 649, and 540, respectively. I suspect that these are official statistics of the Iraq Interior Ministry (because the source is not identified as being unauthorized), but I can't be sure. In any case, let's look at the numbers for the month of April from 4 different sources:

Washington Post: 182 ??
USA Today: 425 [Ed.: actually 411]
NY Times: 411
ICCC: 425

Does one number stand out as being different from the others? The new Washington Post story is way off the mark. That being the case, you simply cannot trust the overall analysis provided by that story, and you certainly cannot trust the headline: Body Count In Baghdad Up in June.

So here we have the Washington Post putting together numbers from dubious sources and making comparisons to an October 2006 number with an unknown methodology. Naturally, this assembly of "facts" paints a bleaker picture for its readers than the more reliable data would indicate.

When you add this misleading reporting to that the fact that AP was spreading fabrications about beheadings, and the fact that valuable firsthand accounts are relegated to second-tier blogs*, is it any wonder that the general public and GOP Senators are as dissatisfied with Iraq as they are? Not that any of us should be satisfied about Iraq, nor should we conclude that the better June numbers were in any way good, but c'mon already. Iraq is in the top five of important American issues. For a subject of this import, we should at the very least be getting reasonably reliable and accurate information. Clearly, we are not.

The editors at the Washington Post need to correct this, and they need to place that correction in the exact same place where the mistake was made in the first place, which would be page A1 above the fold.

* For Yon, second-tier trafficwise but first-tier in quality.