What Happens Next

by DemFromCT

Karen DeYoung has two fact-checking stories in the WaPo today on progress in Iraq. The page 1 story is about how the Iraqi army is not ready to step up, and the page 16 story is about the contradictory and confusing stats on violence (see emptywheel's take on the page 16 story):

Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq
Military Statistics Called Into Question

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.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

The bottom line is that no matter how the PR campaign plays out, the public has already made its mind up about the war. Hard core Republicans still support it (hence the war dance at the Republican mating ritual in NH), but they don't represent a majority. So here's the new Conventional Wisdom, via Carl Leubsdorf writing in the Dallas Morning News (and acknowledging the CNN poll).

Meanwhile, the administration's effort to turn glimmers of progress into a steady light at the end of the tunnel faces the reality checks of independent observers. For example, though officials claim progress on half of the 18 benchmarks Congress set, the independent Government Accountability Office this week reached a far more pessimistic conclusion. It said the Baghdad government has met only three of the 18 with partial progress on four others.

In the end, the spate of claims and counterclaims about conditions in Iraq may offset one another, creating public confusion and leaving Congress and the public in a stalemate about the war. Public attitudes, after all, have been relatively unchanged for years.

But unless Mr. Bush and his supporters can succeed in changing the prevailing majority view that favors ending the war as soon as possible, even his ability to stage upbeat events in Iraq and win periodic fights in Congress won't give Republicans a positive terrain on which to fight the 2008 campaign.

While Larry Craig is doing his best to highlight ongoing Republican scandals, there's little good news out there in what even Republican and conservative observers describe as a bleak picture. The fundamentals aren't changing, and Republicans remain on the wrong side of the issues, including the sectarian civil war in Iraq. So far, at least, they've done nothing to take Iraq off the table for 2008. It's the reason that the fact-checkers have so much work to do whenever anything comes out of the Republican spin machine. And it's the reason predictions about the war being less of an issue in the next election are so much hot air.

Comments

[Jodi]

The War! The War! The War! The War! Stupid!

George Bush has just about destroyed the Republican Party and also the term Conservative though he really isn't either except in name.

[janinsanfran]

In this situation, I think the regional news media may be of more importance than the national ones. Being closer to the ground, they are more reflective of the fact that for the US people at large, the Iraq war is a failure to be moved past. Meanwhile Washington (and the NY Times) are still fighting it. (And the Iraqis are still getting killed, but they never figured in any of this.)

Congresscritters are getting whipsawed because they live in dual, different realities. At home, Iraq is so over; in DC, they are supposed to absorb bamboobuzzlement and decode lies. I don't expect them to be able to handle this very well. Most are not very smart in a street sense way; most are people who have learned above all to channel ambition into winning periodic campaigns. Only a few have any real ideas about war and peace, though they may know how to get federal dollars to their districts. We are being shown again what weak instruments we are stuck with for trying to get majority sentiment registered.

I don't apply what I just said to Senators. They live in some ethereal bubble where they believe they are the Wise Ones, Solons. This requires them to have wisdom on these things about which they know nothing -- so they imbibe what is around them.

A government with stuffed shirts like this at is core worked passably when the US was a backwater -- it is a plague on the planet given that we are a locked, loaded and economically fragile superpower.

[eyesonthestreet]

I have not read the article yet, but I agree, no amount of hocus pocus, as EW states, is going to change the majority view. A fiasco is a fiasco.

[ab initio]

The war will be the central issue of the next election too - there's no doubt about it.

The one advantage the Repubs will have though is that they can point to the fact that Dems who were given a mandate to end the occupation in 2006 turned around and facilitated the continued endless occupation. So the distinctions have now been blurred.

IMO, the first presidential candidate who unequivocally articulates a plan of withdrawal with clear timelines will sweep the nomination and general election.

[eyesonthestreet]

O/T judge strikes down parts of revised Patriot Act

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/06/national/a075452D43.DTL&feed=rss.news

ACLU prevails.

[Kathleen]

The Senate hearing going on right now with the Generals is telling. Makes one wonder if Betraeus report may just be used to support the "need" to pre-emptively attack Iran.

One of the Generals keeps referring to how the Iraqi army was disbanded by the Bush administration and how hard it is to be creating a new army while trying to maintain....almost impossible.

Does really make you wonder about the possibility that the neo-cons wanted death and destruction in Iraq. They ignored experts, created false intelligence, fought against sending in more troops, did not protect the Iraqi history museums, did protect oil sights, disbanded the army etc etc. Has to make one wonder.

When 2 million Iraqi people have been killed over the last 16 years due to sanctions and the illegal invasion and 4 million are now refugees. Out of a population of 25 million what is that one sixth of their population are now displaced. With 60,ooo IRaqi people leaving a month in five years one fourth of the Iraqi population will be displaced, this makes it much easier to control the oil and for Israel and the U.S. to dominate the region.

Our nation should be held accountable for war crimes

[Jodi]

Hey DemFromCT, one bone to pick with you.

I recall you and others here at TNH defending mightly the Lancet death estimate number of civilians in Iraq.

Lancet foolishness

Oct 11, 2006
Lancet
654,965 deaths estimate for July 2006

This right before the 2006 elections

And was much talked about here as the "Gospel."

Now you are touting Karen DeYoung

Karen DeYoung

who has very different numbers in her article in the Washington Post, Sept 6, 2007. Civilian deaths about 71 to 78 thousand.

Killed
US Mil 3,739 with 27,662 wounded
Allied Mil 297
US civilians 159
Iraqi Civilians 71,277 to 77,827

updated Sept 05, 2007

Personally, the 3,739+ is the number I really pay attention too. Yes that is taking it personally and selfishly. I'm ok with that.

But my question to you DemFromCT is whether you now admit the Lancet piece was a bunch of crap?

Their methods were sloppy, and their modeling theory non-applicable.

[DemFromCT]

Your characterization of the Lancet article as a bunch of crap is really unwillingness to accept the reality of what's happening on the ground in Iraq. No one has a firm grasp of the real numbers. There's a range presented here, but none of the numbers are definitive.

Challenges to how military and intelligence statistics are tallied and used have been a staple of the Iraq war. In its December 2006 report, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group identified "significant underreporting of violence," noting that "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack.

Have no doubt that the military underestimates civilian deaths when its in their interest to do so.

[Mimikatz]

Since no one official is counting Iraqi deaths, we can't know how many have died. Certainly some 2 million (mostly Sunnis) have been displaced, and that is pretty indicative.

Congresspeople are really hard to read. The DC consensus for war is so strong that it sucks in people like Brian Baird and makes them zombies. Put that together with the risk-averse nature of the Dem leadership and I really don't know what (if anything) they will do.

DH in MI posted a great take-down of the supposed progress in Anbar, but will Congress listen?

Supposedly many GOPers and pro-war Dems were telling their consdtituents that it would just take a little longer and we would see real progress. How can they buy this BS for 4 years now?

Meanwhile, iraq is disintegrating to the point where Nir Rosen says it no longer exists. Our troops are being asked to do the impossible--win the Iraqis civil war for tem, as we switch sides once again--and they just get shot and blown up over and over. Criminal.

[JEP]

Lets count ALL the war dead, not just the victims of battles and crossfire and bombs.

How many refugees are dying from starvation, disease or exposure, who aren't being considered in the violence tally?? How many American soldiers have committed suicide, but they were't listed as casualties? Ad them to the list, if you really want to be righteous about it.

And when someone dies from malnutrition or infection or bad water because we destroyed their infrastructure, they too should be counted in the violent deaths. Even any Iraqi child who gets killed by an auto, at a corner where we blasted the stopsign to smithereeens, is really one of our victims, too.

The real numbers are never going to be revealed, but I would guess they add up to well over 500,000, if you consider every war-related death, not just the battle casualties and bodies turning up with drill marks and bulletholes.

[JEP]

"And was much talked about here as the "Gospel."

LOL!!!

St. Marcy?

Our Lady of Dem from CT?

Although, as blogs go, it can certainly provide a lot of Truth! "The Gospel according to Emptywheel..."
(the angels would blush...)

[Redshift]

So, Jodi, a little thought experiment for you:

Let's start with the hypothesis that George W. Bush is the conservatives' Judas goat who will carry away all of the un-Republican and un-conservative sins when he goes (and ignoring the fact that he did these things with the full-throated support of the vast majority of Republican elected and appointed officials, and more.)

So granting that, if Republican voters are stupid enough to elect someone who is un-Republican and un-conservative to the highest office in the land and not realize it for seven years, why should anyone trust all of you to figure out who's a real Republican and conservative now?

[JEP]

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/09/fbi_arrests_a_dozen_nj_public.html

Dems, beware, the Bush DOJ is rearing an ugly head...

[cboldt]

O/T but Judge Marrero has reiterated his finding that the parts of the USA PATRIOT Act that facilitate the issuance of NSL's are unconstitutional.

SDNY Case No. 04-civ-2614 (runs 107 pages ... I'm undecided about posting a conversion of that length at NoEasyAnswers)

Similar (constitutional) principles should play in any FISA analysis.

Notice the Doe v. Gonzales, nee Doe v. Ashcroft case has been kicking around for some time, including one trip to the 2nd Circuit in 2005.

[Seamus]

What happened to not feeding trolls, and why all this shouting from the troll? This used to be an equal opportunity blog, but someone is taking advantage of our good manners.

[eyesonthestreet]

I have learned to adapt to reading this blog by skipping over the trolls bolded statements, but when regular posters start answering him, it makes the sifting to the real comments more trying.

[Seamus]

The trolls bolded statements are a very recent happening and I am trying to head it off. Acquiescing to trolls is a very bad habit, IMO. This troll is suddenly getting very wordy and it is a waste of bandwidth, as troll is not looking for answers, just wasting time and energy on side issues - classic troll behavior, changing subjects and building straw men.

[greenhouse]

Seamus, where have you been? Bolding is Jodi's MO.

[BlueStateRedhead]

Lest trawling troll distact us, please EW, more thought on the who and why now of the leaking of even more information. it's not leaks, it's an open fire hose.

you might have to explain to some of the young'uns what those are.

Thanks all for making it such a pleasure to sneak a peak during work time. even the troll is funny, sometimes.

As for corruption in NJ, take it from a former NYCer, it comes from the drinking water and is entirely bipartisan.

[BlueStateRedhead]

Woops. my fast on the draw trackball ate the sentence. "It's the Pentagon papers, redux."

You might have to explain to some of the young'uns what those are. Not firehoses, of course.

[Jodi]

Redshift,

first I voted for Bush in 2000 because he seem pretty good. The first Presential Election I got to vote in.

Ok, he fooled me.

In 2004, I voted for the Democrat. (Wow that way I don't have to say the accursed name.)

When it gets down to it we have only a couple of choices.

From what I have heard on this very blog, people who deem themselves progressive or liberal, or Democratic, or leftist, have the same problem with their choice of candidates. And then the candidates they vote for don't do as they say they would.

i.e. the people here at TNH complain a lot. Just like me.

(It's really kind of disgusting, isn't it.)

[Dismayed]

The only time trolls should be answered is when there is a reasonable possibility, that an open minded visitor my by misled.

Then someone must punch quick, hard, and if they can bear to, politely.

The reputation of the blog trumps all.

[MarkH]

"What Happens Next"?

The Bush administration is unraveling, but Bush himself is continuing to try and top or outdo all the presidents from his lifetime.

He is firing generals much faster than Truman fired them. He might want to use MORE nukes than Truman did. He's got a sleazy VP like Eisenhower did. He's probably having an affair like Kennedy. He might even have hopes of being assassinated the way Kennedy was. He's running a stupid war like LBJ did. He's trying to get impeached the way Nixon did. Who knows what nonsense he has yet to impose on us.

But, our job is to inform the public, guide our legislators, get rid of Bush & Co and get on with fixing things and governing properly. I say "our job" because, as citizens, we have a duty to be involved.

[Albert Fall]

Heard on the radio today that Faux News released an instant poll at the end of the Rep debate last night that showed Ron Paul (the one anti-war Republican) as the plurality winner of the NH debate at 33%.

What happens in four months if Ron Paul actually pulls in votes in the primaries? The polls show Republicans as being just slightly above 50% in war support--what if all those votes go to the anti-war candidate, sort of a libertarian nut-case Gene McCarthy?

That is the kind of thought that can warm a cold evening.

[Dismayed]

I'd vote for Ron Paul. Ron Paul could beat Hillary.