Front of the Head

Great work from Karen DeYoung at The Washington Post on a piece headlined "Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq":

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends. [...]

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

Too bad it's on page A-16.

Comments

Wonder if there's any way to forward that story to the Post's editorial board? Maybe that guy Hiatt could take a look at the story.

Posted by El Cid | September 6, 2007 10:50 AM

I'm no intelligence analyst, but that conflicts with most of the mob movies I've seen. It's two to the back of the head, unless ya want to deny the mother an open casket funeral. Then it's in the face, not the front of the head.

Posted by AJ | September 6, 2007 10:51 AM

In fairness to the Post, it's probably worth noting that the strong headline did make the front page.

Posted by Greg Sanders | September 6, 2007 11:22 AM

The disconnect between the Post's reporting and editorial pages is getting to almost Wall Street Journal like proportions.

As a daily reader of the Paper, it is a continual source of frustration that there also seems to be a conscious policy of burying these bad news Iraq stories deep within the A-Section. I guess in that sense Hiatt is in tune with the news editors.

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | September 6, 2007 11:24 AM

This is the problem with reading online. She has a second story, "Iraqi Army Unable To Take Over Within A Year, Report Says" on page 1, which is continued on pg. 16. So this other story is not really buried; it's sort of the other part of her story. I don't think this is so bad, really.

Posted by Matt | September 6, 2007 12:44 PM

In a tangentially related note, I heard on NPR this morning that there were intelligence reports claiming more insurgents killed in the surge than were reported existing at the beginning of the surge. I wish I could read more about that.

Posted by Njorl | September 6, 2007 12:54 PM

What's interesting about the Deyoung piece is that the WaPo KNOWS its important--on the website for the print edition, its the only story not on P1 that gets played like its on the front-page: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/print/

Posted by AB | September 6, 2007 2:57 PM

hmmm. "Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq" was on the front page of my Post this a.m. I get it delivered. Could that make the difference?

Posted by lou | September 6, 2007 3:07 PM

"In a tangentially related note, I heard on NPR this morning that there were intelligence reports claiming more insurgents killed in the surge than were reported existing at the beginning of the surge. I wish I could read more about that."

That's easy - just kill a bunch more civilians and tag them as "insurgents".

US military does that in every war. Somebody fires a shot from a village, take out the whole village, claim you wiped out 500 "insurgents."

Just about every claim of insurgent casualties from Afghanistan or Iraq boils down to that.

Oh, and of course, we're still claiming that "we don't do body counts."

Right. Just when we need to show "progress" - THEN we do body counts.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 6, 2007 8:55 PM

Here's an example:

US strikes in Baghdad kill 14 sleeping civilians
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070906/wl_afp/iraqunrest

============================================

"A total of four buildings were damaged, including two enemy strongholds that sustained major damage and two surrounding buildings that sustained moderate damage," the statement said....

An AFP photographer on the scene said three houses were destroyed and two damaged.

Amid the rubble of one house was a mattress covered in blood with human body parts scattered about. Neighbours said a family of six had been killed in the house, including a 12-year-old girl.

Bloodstains could also be seen amid the wreckage of the other houses, where angry residents gathered to denounce the US military.

"They prevented me from trying to get two of my wounded neighbours to hospital," said Ammar Assem. "They fired on my car when I tried to leave the area. I had to go back."
===========================================

Another "successful" operation...

What IS interesting is that the headline doesn't even attempt to cover it up - it says straight up, "US strikes in Baghdad kill 14 sleeping civilians".

Even the news media isn't buying this crap from the Pentagon any more.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 6, 2007 10:02 PM