How to make good news.

[Rex Kickass]

Zee Link, Monsieur.

 

he American military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks, including suicide bombings, when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday.

 

The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital Aug. 7 had more than halved the city's murder rate.

 

But the types of slayings, including suicide bombings, that the U.S. excluded from the category of "murder" weren't made explicit at the time. That led to confusion after Iraqi Health Ministry figures showed that 1,536 people died violently in and around Baghdad in August, nearly the same number as in July.

 

The figures raise serious questions about the success of a security operation launched by the U.S.-led coalition. When they released the murder rate figures, U.S. officials and their Iraqi counterparts were eager to show progress in restoring security in Baghdad at a time when Iraq appeared on the verge of civil war.

 

At the end of August, the U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, said violence dropped significantly because of the operation. Caldwell said "attacks in Baghdad were well below the monthly average for July. Since Aug. 7, the murder rate in Baghdad dropped 52 percent from the daily rate for July."

 

However, Caldwell did not make the key distinction that the rate he was referring to excluded a significant part of the daily violence in and around the capital. On Monday, for example, at least 20 of the 26 people slain in the capital were killed in bombings.

 

"These comments were intended to highlight some specific indicators of progress and were never stated in relation to broader casualty figures," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Monday.

[FlaSoxxJim]

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