the press and the number game

look at these two articles about civilian casualties.

first, NYtimes:

Still, the trend is similar: both the American and the Iraqi reports note a roughly 50 percent drop in the number of civilians who have been killed since the end of 2006. According to Iraqi government data, the number of civilians nationwide who died as a result of violent causes dropped to about 2,000 in August from about 4,000 in December 2006. American military statistics shows that the number of civilian deaths declined to 1,582 in August from 2,989 in December.

then we have the Boston Globe:

In March, the Pentagon's quarterly report estimated that there were about 1,300 sectarian slayings across Iraq in December 2006, when the sectarian violence was at its peak. But in its June report, the Pentagon revised the December 2006 death toll to more than 1,600. That change makes the decline to about 600 in April - after the surge began - even more dramatic.

so it looks like the pentagon simply keeps "UP-dating" it s old numbers. and makes new numbers look better by doing so.



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Kaplan has written some piece on who disbanded the iraqi army. looks like Cheney did. funny, eh?