Iraqi Death Rates & Bogus AP Sources: Correlation or Coincidence?
Strategy Page has a report on the latest tragic numbers coming from Iraq with some interesting comparisons including this:
BTW- Only 10% of Iraqi deaths have been caused by US troops.
Here is how today's numbers compare to Saddam's violent rule...
Michelle Malkin pointed out yesterday that Multi-Forces Iraq and Iraqi officials have a long list of problematic Iraqi Police/Ministry of Interior spokesmen quoted by the AP and other news services that the military says it cannot verify as legitimate employees. This list of IP/MOI problematic sources is published at Flopping Aces and includes these two spokesmen:
* Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman (a.k.a. Police Brigadier Abd al-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf)These two men have been giving death tolls to the press but are not official spokesmen for the MNF-Iraq or the Iraqi government. Since the AP started using these questionable Iraqi spokesmen the death rates in Iraq have gone up 300%! Is there a correlation or is it just coincidence?
* Lt. Thaer Mahmoud, head of a police section responsible for releasing daily death tolls
Here are a few of the articles where Lt. Thaer Mahmoud showed up this past year and a half:
* On June 26, 2005 the AP reported:
Gunmen also killed two policemen from a commando unit patrolling western Baghdad yesterday, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said. In addition, Iraqi police found the body of a slain uniformed policeman in another section of Baghdad.* On November 27, 2005 the AP reported:
Six people were killed and 12 wounded when a suicide car bomber struck in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police Lt. Col. Mahmoud Mohammed said. Four other people died when a car bomb exploded in west Baghdad as two armored cars passed by, according to police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud. More than 270 people have been killed since Nov. 18 in car bombings and suicide attacks in Iraq.* On February 29, 2006 the AP reported:
Kadhim Abdul-Hussein was fatally shot, and his son, Karrar, was wounded in the capital's western Ghazaliyah neighborhood by unidentified assailants, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.* On June 10, 2006 the AP reported:
A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Saturday, killing four people and wounding 27, police said.* On July 11, 2006 the AP reported:
The victims were all civilians as the explosion missed the police patrol in the al-Sadriya market, police Lt. Ali Mitaab and Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
Gunmen in Baghdad intercepted a minivan carrying a coffin to the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Tuesday, killing all 10 people on board, police said. Another five people were killed in a double bombing at a restaurant near the Green Zone. The van was attacked in the volatile southern neighborhood of Dora by gunmen in two cars, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said, providing the casualty toll.* On October 6, 2006 the AP reported:
A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol went off in an outdoor market in Baghdad on Saturday, killing four people and injuring 27, police said. According to the AP, the victims were all civilians as the blast missed the police patrol in the al-Sadriya market, police Lt. Ali Mitaab and Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.* On November 7, 2006 the AP reported:
Gunmen in two cars also shot to death a Shiite metal worker and wounded two others in their shop in western Baghdad, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
Bombings and shootings on Tuesday killed at least 39 people in Iraq. According to the AP, the attackers pulled up in two cars and ordered the minivan to stop before opening fire in the southern neighborhood of Dora, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.* On November 26, 2006 Aljazeera.com quoted the AP:
An unidentified attack drove his truck into a crowded gas station north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing 12 people, and injuring 12 others, The Associated Press reported. Also nine cars were destroyed in the gas station bombing in Samarra, 60 miles north of the Iraqi capital, police Lt. Col. Mahmoud Mohammed said.Michelle Malkin has a complete roundup of the Centcom press conference today including this:
From CPATT PAO:Curt at Flopping Aces has the AP response.
BG Abdul-Kareem, the Ministry of Interior Spokesman, went on the record today stating that Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He explained the coordinations among MOI, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense in attempting to track down these bodies and their joint conclusion was that this was unsubstantiated rumor.
He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.
Previously:
AP Is Busted! Uses BOGUS Source For Months in Iraqi Fables!
Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq- The Other Bogus AP Source
Sorry AP... Your Torched Sunni Report Is Still Very Bogus!
AP Is Outraged! Promises to Keep Using Hoaxers for Reports!
Update: Tall Dave sends this correction:
Your Saddam's Rule number is much too low. It's generally accepted Saddam was responsible for about two million deaths from several wars and the usual repression (which itself is 100/day). Tat works out to 83K/year over hi 24 years or 228/day.A Jacksonian takes another look at the numbers coming from Iraq.
Since everyone calls the current violence a "war" it certainly seems fair to include's Saddam's near constant wars in addition to his day-to-day brutality.
posted by Gateway Pundit at 11/30/2006 03:50:00 AM
2 Comments:
Your Saddam's Rule number is much too low. It's generally accepted Saddam was responsible for about two million deaths from several wars and the usual repression (which itself is 100/day). Tat works out to 83K/year over hi 24 years or 228/day.
Since everyone calls the current violence a "war" it certainly seems fair to include's Saddam's near constant wars in addition to his day-to-day brutality.
One of the reasons I went with conservative numbers when I looked at them for Saddam's deathtoll during his reign is that they are extremely difficult for anyone to actually quibble with. But then I also give the proviso that the numbers do NOT reflect those that 'disappeared', whole families and small villages that just vanished with no trace, entire groups that slowly got taken into prisons never to be seen, and those who have had the witnesses to their deaths killed. So my average daily death toll of 126 is absolutely minimalist and could run easily between three to five times that and I state that.
We are in an era where some number of people have a very 'flexible' idea of evidence, so that when they try to prove things to their advantage they wish to have supposition and hearsay taken as 'truth'... and then turn around when someone else cites similar against them and assails those individuals as 'biased' or 'racist'.
Thus, when I point out that the average daily death toll since the invasion is far below the average under Saddam, I see that as an *improvement*. A 'Civil War' with the high number of automatic weapons *still* kept in households would make the current number of deaths seem like a minor back alley brawl. And yet so many wish to point to the 'violence' and decry 'Civil War' forgetting that the term has an actual, real meaning going back centuries.
Is the violence bad? Yes, it is.
Is it delimited, by and large, to cities? Why, yes, it is.
What is happening outside of Anbar and the southern most border provinces? Not much.
That even sounds like a strategy going on! Stabilize the countryside, give Iraqi forces time to learn their duties and 'spin up' to heavy combat by learning the ropes in more peaceful areas and then rotate them into the worst areas, those being cities. This way the majority of tribes in the Provinces actually get to SEE the government working for them and realize that there is a difference between their government and Sharia law under al Qaeda or Iran.
The violence that is left is telegenic, increased in scale as it is concentrated, and has building scale applied to it so that images taken are put into perspective. Securing the cities could have been done 'first', as so many wanted, but then an entrenched, hardened and dispersed insurgency in the countryside would become firmly rooted and endemic. That is the result of that strategy across South America, Africa and Asia. The way things are going now, the MNF-Iraq forces and the Iraqi Government are playing the 'long game' of securing the majority of the Nation and getting them to agree that it is worth having a Nation. This has never, ever, been attempted in Iraq with democratic means.
Federalism is a tough sell to people used to centuries of being multi-variate pawns to strongmen, dictators and autocrats. Coming to understand that tribal and familial affiliation and fealty are *not* lost, but are no longer basis for governing is a very, very hard thing to accomplish. Tribal chiefs and leaders are finding that by working *with* each other and the government they can gain security, but only when they no longer seek to rule their own people. They still have all the familial loyalty and internal tribal structure, but it no longer *rules* them. A law above the tribes and families give commonality between tribes and families. And they still get to keep those structures. As many in Anbar and the Iranian south border provinces have learned: Sharia law means death to the head of tribes and families and foreigners put in their places in a dictatorial manner.
That takes time to learn.
In the West it took a few centuries.
If we learn to let go of our 20th century conceptions of Nations and the meaning of them and all the baggage attached to the huge Nation State, this becomes clear. And then the way forward to stabilize Iraq is obvious.
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