thedrifter
09-07-07, 06:50 PM
Level of Iraq violence difficult to gauge
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 7, 2007 18:30:03 EDT
Iraq’s young government has failed to achieve political reconciliation of its often-violent factions, all official observers seem to agree. But in the debate over the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq, the more immediate battle is how to reconcile the statistics on sectarian violence.
If the numbers are down, it will boost the Bush administration’s case that its troop surge strategy is working at a point when Congress is considering whether to attach troop withdrawal deadlines or other requirements to the next war spending bill. But despite the flood of reports on the Iraq war now pouring into Washington, some members of Congress are wondering exactly what is getting measured.
The concern is such that Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Friday he will send Defense Secretary Robert Gates an “urgent request” to declassify data in the classified annex of a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq that found the Iraqi government has not met its political benchmark of reducing the level of sectarian violence.
Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he had reviewed the classified report and remarked, “I don’t quite understand the reason for the classification.”
Levin wants Gates to review the request over the weekend so legislators might have access to the information by Monday, when Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker will start presenting their long-awaited assessment of the surge and suggestions for future plans — thoughts they’ve already shared with Bush. That assessment is expected to claim a dramatic reduction in recent violence.
During a presentation of the GAO report Friday before Levin’s committee, David Walker, U.S. comptroller general and chief of the GAO, told Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., that the annex contains information “directly relevant” to the methodology used to calculate sectarian violence. Reed said the information goes to the heart of the discussion about the way forward in Iraq.
“We’re going to have a very public debate,” Reed said. “General Petraeus will make public statements about the decrease in violence, about the level, et cetera. And if there are details in that classified report which we can’t divulge, then we, frankly, are disadvantaged.”
Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, likely will tout a 75 percent reduction in sectarian attacks on U.S. and Iraqi military and Iraqi civilians “since last year” — as he recently told an Australian newspaper.
Walker acknowledged that Petraeus will report a decline in violence. But, he added, “We cannot get comfortable with the methodology that’s used to determine the total violence which is sectarian-related and which is nonsectarian-related. It’s extremely difficult to do that. People don’t necessarily leave calling cards, you know, when certain things happen.”
And even if they do, he said, “You don’t know the accuracy or reliability of it.”
In its report, GAO cited Multi-National Force-Iraq data showing a sharp decline in the average number of overall daily, enemy-initiated attacks in June and July. GAO concluded that “levels of violence remain high.”
The Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, led by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, told Congress on Thursday that the average number of killings in Baghdad has decreased since the beginning of the surge, as well as the number of daily attacks. But, it also said, “violence remains a fact of life in Iraq.”
The August National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, the collective product of the entire U.S. intelligence community — including that of the military — found that while there have been “measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation” since the January NIE and “overall levels of violence have fallen during seven of the past nine weeks …the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high.”
In its last quarterly report on Iraq, issued in June, the Defense Department reported about 1,050 weekly attacks on troops and civilians and about 155 total daily casualties in the 3-month period ending May 4.
The next quarterly report is expected the week of Sept. 10. And Petraeus is expected to present up-to-date numbers on daily, enemy-initiated attacks to Congress, although it’s unknown whether the format or mode of calculation will be any different than in previous MNF-I reports. Walker said it’s up to Congress to decide how much granularity is required.
“I think that one of the things that the Congress needs to consider is whether or not the relevant benchmark should be sectarian violence or total violence,” Walker said. “It’s difficult to be able to determine the difference and to some people, you know, a casualty is a casualty is a casualty.”
Ellie
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 7, 2007 18:30:03 EDT
Iraq’s young government has failed to achieve political reconciliation of its often-violent factions, all official observers seem to agree. But in the debate over the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq, the more immediate battle is how to reconcile the statistics on sectarian violence.
If the numbers are down, it will boost the Bush administration’s case that its troop surge strategy is working at a point when Congress is considering whether to attach troop withdrawal deadlines or other requirements to the next war spending bill. But despite the flood of reports on the Iraq war now pouring into Washington, some members of Congress are wondering exactly what is getting measured.
The concern is such that Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Friday he will send Defense Secretary Robert Gates an “urgent request” to declassify data in the classified annex of a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq that found the Iraqi government has not met its political benchmark of reducing the level of sectarian violence.
Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he had reviewed the classified report and remarked, “I don’t quite understand the reason for the classification.”
Levin wants Gates to review the request over the weekend so legislators might have access to the information by Monday, when Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker will start presenting their long-awaited assessment of the surge and suggestions for future plans — thoughts they’ve already shared with Bush. That assessment is expected to claim a dramatic reduction in recent violence.
During a presentation of the GAO report Friday before Levin’s committee, David Walker, U.S. comptroller general and chief of the GAO, told Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., that the annex contains information “directly relevant” to the methodology used to calculate sectarian violence. Reed said the information goes to the heart of the discussion about the way forward in Iraq.
“We’re going to have a very public debate,” Reed said. “General Petraeus will make public statements about the decrease in violence, about the level, et cetera. And if there are details in that classified report which we can’t divulge, then we, frankly, are disadvantaged.”
Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, likely will tout a 75 percent reduction in sectarian attacks on U.S. and Iraqi military and Iraqi civilians “since last year” — as he recently told an Australian newspaper.
Walker acknowledged that Petraeus will report a decline in violence. But, he added, “We cannot get comfortable with the methodology that’s used to determine the total violence which is sectarian-related and which is nonsectarian-related. It’s extremely difficult to do that. People don’t necessarily leave calling cards, you know, when certain things happen.”
And even if they do, he said, “You don’t know the accuracy or reliability of it.”
In its report, GAO cited Multi-National Force-Iraq data showing a sharp decline in the average number of overall daily, enemy-initiated attacks in June and July. GAO concluded that “levels of violence remain high.”
The Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, led by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, told Congress on Thursday that the average number of killings in Baghdad has decreased since the beginning of the surge, as well as the number of daily attacks. But, it also said, “violence remains a fact of life in Iraq.”
The August National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, the collective product of the entire U.S. intelligence community — including that of the military — found that while there have been “measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq’s security situation” since the January NIE and “overall levels of violence have fallen during seven of the past nine weeks …the level of overall violence, including attacks on and casualties among civilians, remains high.”
In its last quarterly report on Iraq, issued in June, the Defense Department reported about 1,050 weekly attacks on troops and civilians and about 155 total daily casualties in the 3-month period ending May 4.
The next quarterly report is expected the week of Sept. 10. And Petraeus is expected to present up-to-date numbers on daily, enemy-initiated attacks to Congress, although it’s unknown whether the format or mode of calculation will be any different than in previous MNF-I reports. Walker said it’s up to Congress to decide how much granularity is required.
“I think that one of the things that the Congress needs to consider is whether or not the relevant benchmark should be sectarian violence or total violence,” Walker said. “It’s difficult to be able to determine the difference and to some people, you know, a casualty is a casualty is a casualty.”
Ellie