An Honest Look at the Security Situation in Iraq
Last week the New York Times wrote that "the insurgency in Iraq has gotten worse by almost all measures":
Bombs Aimed at G.I.’s in Iraq Are IncreasingBut, Back Talk took at a look at 7 month trends and found a very different picture of Iraq.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — ..."The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels," said a senior Defense Department official who agreed to discuss the issue only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for attribution.
US military fatalities are down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 57 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 73 per month). This is easily confirmed by going Here
The number of US fatalities from IEDs is down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 32 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 42 per month), this despite the fact that more IEDs are being placed (incompetently, perhaps). This is easily confirmed by going here.
Iraqi military and police casualties are down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 177 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 243 per month). Again, you can confirm this yourself by going here.
The number of US wounded is down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 425 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 499 per month). This is easily confirmed by going here.
Back Talk adds:
I am surprised that the New York Times cannot even be trusted to consult readily available data that can be easily examined to evaluate their judgment of the strength of the insurgency.Ouch!... and yet, so true!
Also, just this week- "Coalition and Iraqi forced captured "well over" 100 known Al Qaeda terrorists and associates in the last week!"
The official spokesman for the Iraqi department of defense, Mr. Muhamed Alaskari said, "Armed attacks have substantial decline, about a 70% decline compared to the last few weeks."
And... The BBC is even reporting the joint operation to improve security in Baghdad is bringing results.
Now, the mainstream media may try to fool you claiming that "70 percent of the 1,666 bombs that did explode targeted U.S.-led forces" in Iraq (AP).
But, if what the AP was saying was true...
Around 4% of the 1,666 (70% of the total) exploding bombs in Iraq last month hit their target.
Iraqi police and security watched over a million Shiite pilgrims gathered in peace over the weekend in Baghdad’s Kadhimiyah neighborhood to commemorate the death of the 7th Imam.
Iraqi Shiites pilgrims march toward the Imam Mousa al-Kadim shrine, for the annual commemoration of the saint's death, in Shiite district of Kazimiyah, in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday Aug. 20, 2006. (AP)
As far as "Iraqis Are Staying at Home" as the New York Times suggests, in the Holy City of Najaf where much of the economy is based on tourism, here is a first hand report (from an email):
Business in Najaf is booming similar to Irbil (in the Kurdish region). Security is good and our forces are ready to hand over the full province to the Iraqis in the next few months.Back Talk also discusses what the coming election will mean, not just to America, but to innocent Iraqis living in a fragile democracy. Either the "Cut and Run Lamont Option" will prevail and the real slaughter will begin, or the "Stay the Course Option" will win out.
We will know soon enough.
Powerline looks at the civil war allegations coming from Iraq.
JeffreyMark looks back at Saddam's slaughter.
The Futurist is absolutely correct.
posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/23/2006 03:55:00 PM
14 Comments:
No comments? I guess it would be news if the NYT found the truth fit to print. As it is, we're all burned out on combating the bullshit coming out of the MSM. What do I think?
No comments.
Good stuff. When a supposedly mainstream publication refuses to look at any positive data on this situation, one has to suspect that they actually don't WANT it to get better there.
Victory in Iraq is inevitable by 2008, as that is when the trends converge to reach critical mass. We are two-thirds of the way there.
The NYT goes digging for people with a partisan ax to grind. Same old, same old.
I think there needs to be prosecution of illegal leaks which have the effect of aiding and abetting the enemy. If their "anonymous source" isn't supposed to be talking to the media, then there's a damn good reason, and there ought to be consequences. Journalism is not a license to help people commit crimes that would otherwise be prosecutable.
Can we just euthanize MSM already?
It needs to be put out of everyone's misery.
Great work, especially for no cash.
However, can I suggest you start following "business" guidelines?
Reports by month, and quarterly, and yearly.
"Getting worse" means: worse month, worse quarter, worse year. Maybe worse week or worse (worst?) day -- but usually it's clear such a short time frame is too short.
Great work, really -- but if you could have an even higher standard, it would make the NYT look even more amateurish (with or w/o PJs).
And THANKS for your fine work, too!
One of the reasons that I love the Belmont Club and link to it regularly from my blog -- Kiko's House -- is that it provides a necessary counterbalance to that mean old MSM.
Having said that and noting that the stats presented in the post do paint a less pessimistic picture, I'm a long view guy.
Taking that long view -- specifically this time and place three and a half years after an invasion and lightning quick victory over Saddam's army -- the inescapable conclusion is that large swaths of Iraq are in civil war. That was not true a year or two or three ago.
President Bush has painted himself into an incredibly tight corner. He swears repeatedly that the U.S. will stay the course (translation: I'll dump the mess on my successor) but political considerations -- which have always trumped policy -- will force him to do otherwise.
Well dang! The New York Times caught out again...
So much for the supposed paper of record, eh?
I went to the original source data for deaths and casualties and did a median split and quartile split for all of the available data. If there were a trend for deaths or casualties, this would show that trend in an unbiased way (i.e., choosing the last 7 months or some other possible time period that supports your argument is a biased way selection of the data).
You know what I found? For casualties, no significant difference for a median split and a significant diference when comparing the 1st and last quartiles - only problem is that the latest quartile was the one with the more casualties. Ya know what I found for deaths? The exact same thing. I even compared the latest 2 quartiles against eachother - no significant difference for either deaths or casualties (I did not do an ANOVA with all 4 quartiles, as I do not have SPSS on this machine - but controling for multiple comparisons would work against claims of a trend in either direction, and for the null hypothesis that no trend is occuring).
I think this puts this absurd "analysis" to rest.
APPLES & ORANGES
I believe that the assertion in the piece was that " Attacks " by insurgents were at all time high levels! In other words the frequency of incidents is increased.
What you present to refute this is stats on Fatalities.
Although the two can be connected you have failed to do so.
It is entirely possible that increased attacks become less effective
It's not as if the NYT doesn't provide enough evidence of misreporting that you can't find real issues to confront! Is it?
OMMAG
I'm a pro in statistics. Over the last few years I have found some truly terrible statistical analyses in the Times, obviously done by people without proper training.
E.g., several years ago they had a huge analysis puporting to show that the death penalty doesn't deter murders. Their "study" cherry-picked the data to support their desired conclusion.
I wrote a long letter to the editor explaining the problems. Interestingly, the Times chose to run no letters at all relating to that article, even though the article was given big play.
The Times cannot be trusted on statistical analyses
OMMAG
"I believe that the assertion in the piece was that " Attacks " by insurgents were at all time high levels! In other words the frequency of incidents is increased."
I'm not talking about the NYT piece. I'm talking about Gateway Pundit's "analyses" which are unfounded in the very data he uses to make said analysis.
"What you present to refute this is stats on Fatalities.
Although the two can be connected you have failed to do so."
(and casualties, but anyway...). Are you seriously going to try to undermine my post by saying that deaths and casualties "can" be related to attacks but may not be? Becasue that's just rich right there...
Anywhoo, Gateway's asserting a trend, so it's up to him to prove it. He did not, and I pointed this out using statistics. Are things getting worse? Statistically, I can't draw that conclusion from the data the way I analyzed it. But there are unbiased trends that show increasing deaths and casualties while there are no unbiased trends that show the opposite. Gateway stated that there were. He has no basis for saying this, and that's all I'm pointing out.
"It is entirely possible that increased attacks become less effective"
As evdienced by either unchanging or greater numbers of death and casualties? Did our servicemen suddenly become very, very clumsy or something? This makes no sense.
"It's not as if the NYT doesn't provide enough evidence of misreporting that you can't find real issues to confront! Is it?"
So my analysis of the data Gateway used is wrong becasue the NYT makes more egregious errors all the time. Right.
BRS, I think your analysis was overly and needlessly complex. You need to bring it down a notch for the rest of us.
But, unfortunately, you may be correct. But that remains to be seen. I went back and looked at the raw data and there truly is a trend downwards. However, there have been other encouraging trends in the past only to see the deaths rise again.
A better and more straightforward way of looking at the deaths is to simply accumulate them over the entire period. If we are truly experiencing a drop in deaths the resulting curve should level off. What we really see is a steady straight line showing no leveling off at all.
This sort of graph is very commonly used in the construction industry to show manhour progress on a construction project. It normally generates what is called an "S-Curve." As a project comes to an end, the number of people, thus the number of hours, drops until it levels off to a flat straight line.
But none of this doesn't mean it WON'T level off (I'm an optimist and your statistics can't address this). The real question then is do we find the level of deaths an acceptable price to pay for what we are doing. I think the answer is yes.
I don't see him asserting a trend. I see him refuting the New York Times' analysis, pointing out that their statement is in error.
Long term is the only way to really understand trends statistically, but when you're dealing with real life issues, the shorter term has great impact. If fewer people are dying in Iraq over the last x weeks, that means fewer people are dying in Iraq lately and that's a good thing.
Isn't it?
Or are you just so interested in statistics and finding bad news you can't even admit this simple truth?
This isn't about success or failure or the overall plan being good or bad. It's just about peoples lives in the country.
good Job! :)
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