Recommendation 78

Of the Iraq Study Group:

“The Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense should also institute immediate changes in the collection of data about violence and the sources of violence in Iraq to provide a more accurate picture of events on the ground.”

More accurate picture, ay? I guess they mean more accurate than how the liberal media has been reporting it, right? Because they've been overstating the violence for years, right, I mean they...

Study says violence in Iraq has been underreported

The Bush administration routinely has underreported the level of violence in Iraq in order to disguise its policy failings, the Iraq Study Group report said Wednesday [...]

The finding bolsters allegations by Democratic lawmakers and other critics that the Bush administration has withheld or misconstrued intelligence that conflicted with its Iraq policy while promoting data and claims that supported its positions.

Those allegations date back to President Bush's contention before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that Saddam Hussein was hiding illegal nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. His claim proved to be unfounded [...]

On page 94 of its report, the Iraq Study Group found that there had been "significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq." The reason, the group said, was because the tracking system was designed in a way that minimized the deaths of Iraqis.

"The standard for recording attacks acts a filter to keep events out of reports and databases," the report said. "A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count."

"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report continued.

Oh, never mind.

This essentially calls out the Administration as deliberate liars. The importance of this information cannot be minimized. This is in fact the exact opposite of what the shouters on the right have been saying since the war began. The McClatchy article cites one day in July where the US reported 93 attacks, when in fact that day had 1,100. OVER A THOUSAND MORE.

Oh yeah, also we have 33 Arabic speakers in the entire US Embassy in Baghdad. Good planning.

I'm going to remember this one every time I hear some loudmouth blathering on about how the media isn't reporting what's going on in Iraq.