Panel: U.S. Underreported Iraq Violence
 

ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON - U.S. military and intelligence officials have systematically underreported the violence in
Iraq in order to suit the Bush administration's policy goals, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group said.

In its report on ways to improve the U.S. approach to stabilizing Iraq, the group recommended Wednesday that the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense make changes in the collection of data about violence to provide a more accurate picture.

The panel pointed to one day last July when U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence," it said.

Article

I'm not surprised. Manipulation of information to acheive political goals is not a new idea. It has been going on to a varying degree in the USA for almost as long as the country has been around. I believe it is much more rampant these days, which is a bit disheartening. It's kind of like this thread. It only covers one side of the conflict. While we do need to recognise the good that is happening in Iraq, we shouldn't ignore or avoid the bad.

And what, pray tell, is our military's political agenda? Are you suggesting that our troops and their commanders in the field are opportunistically distorting the facts? Why would they do that?

The panel is questioning the way the military has determined which acts of violence are of importance to their tactics and strategy. If they're not handling the violence properly then their information gathering methods should be called into question. But the panel is not accusing them of censorship. CNN and Fox News and MSNBC and BBC World and Al Jazeera and Sky News pretty much have the whole nation of Iraq blanked in video cameras and embedded reporters. Believe me, there's no chance that the violence there is being underreported.

Report (PDF)

edited@9:59pm eastern

Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land - Google Video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...23714384920696

For this reason.

Same for the time when Bush wanted the media not to show coffins of the returning dead soldiers. You don't see it, you don't think about it.


I suggest you take a look at this doco. Violence in Palestine is greatly unreported as you will see, why would Iraq's case be any different? If they can hide the suffering of the palestinians so well, they can do it to the Iraquies.

I wonder when Bush is finally gonna admit that Iraq has sunk into a civil war.

I was thinking about this today, Mazer. If you look at any Military advertisement, they always show the good things about being in the military. You see people skydiving or rockclimbing or working on computers. You never see the bad side of war. You never see people maimed or dead. Or the fact that you might have to kill someone elses family member. They never show the realities of war. Of course this makes sense if you are trying to recruit people, but in my estimation it is false advertising. These tactics are also used to keep the American public backing a war. Don't show the realities of war, just the "cool stuff". Distorting or manipulating facts works almost as well as the Audio/Visual propaganda machine.

Don't get me wrong, I support the USA military, but I strongly believe they are being horribly misused and put into dangerous positions they don't need to be put in. And the military budget is misused and bloated.

For every one of these............. There are thousands of these.

First...

The AP (Associated Phables) fabricates stories for political agenda reasons. Since they no longer report events as they happen, but fabricate stories to support their political agenda, they are no longer a news organization, but a propaganda machine. **Cough** "Captain Jamil Hussein" ------ "Captain Jamil Hussein" is but one of 14 Iraqi-sounding names of sources quoted by AP that U.S. military officials say cannot be verified as credible sources. Iraqis also are trying to find out who Jamil is. Seems no one but the AP has heard of him. So who cares what the AP is reporting, unless you like a sick factious story. Ignore them.


Vernarial

By your thinking, what company or organization does not use false advertising? Maybe some drug companies because they quickly blast through all the side effects their drug may cause. But Should McDonalds show the bad side of eating there? Car companies maybe should show fatal car wrecks in there ads, how about Travel Agencies, they can have one page showing the nice warm beach and on the other the bodies of passengers whom plane crashed, oh I know, why not show the planes hitting the WTC. I can go on if you like. Let me know.

Who even mentioned AP ?

anyway here is what he is babbling about:

They cycle of violence reached new levels in Iraq last week and into the weekend, but the military is complaining that one Associated Press report — and its source — was dodgy.
Link

with the Lincoln Group' on the job now, the news should get a bit better next year

So not only are you accusing our troops of politically motivated censorship, you're also saying that they're dumb enough to believe that recruitment ads paint a complete picture of military service.

I understand that you respect our volunteer soldiers and marines even though you don't support their mission. But try to remember that the president and the military are two separate entities, and the politics of the one do not reflect on the deeds of the other. Our troops sign up to protect our country, not the party line.

That goes for you too, Jack. The troops are not trying to build up popular support for their mission, they're simply trying to accomplish it. In Iraq the military filters the relevant information from the background noise so they can plan their strategies accordingly. The filtering process makes the information suitable for military use, not necessarily for reporting in the mass media, but so what? We civilians don't actually need the pentagon to tell us what's happening over there. And when it comes to policy making here at home, well, the president already has an agenda and full disclosure isn't going to change his mind. Besides, Bush couldn't be any more unpopular than he already is so your story changes nothing. Those who believe that the military is the long arm of the Republican party will go on believing it while the troops themselves will continue to honor their oaths to obey the guy in charge no matter who he happens to be this year, all the while quietly keeping their political opinions to themselves.

right, ----it is only in the first line of the first post......


add

If by one AP report you mean at least eight stories since April 2006, and by dodgy you mean fabricated to make the AP story a weapon in a war of perception. – you are right -- Also It was not the American Military whom brought this to light, On November 25, the press office of Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNCI) published press release No. 20061125-09 – Which stated that an investigation showed only one mosque had been attacked and found no evidence to support the story of the six burned to death Sunnis.

An email from MNCI to the AP that states "no one below the level of chief is authorized to be an Iraqi Police spokesperson." The email also addresses the story of the Sunnis being burned alive.: "neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story - We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee." The letter is attributed to US Navy LT Michael Dean.


http://www.strategypage.com/on_point...128212619.aspx

yes sir mr. mazer, but i think you mean james.

as in james baker and the bi-partisan iraq study group. it's their report. now as to intent i notice they're careful not to accuse editorially, but by highlighting the army's factor of 12 "error" they force the reader to draw his own conclusions so in this the study group has it both ways. it's nothing new. many establishment committees formed after disasters tread carefully and avoid overt finger-pointing when well acquainted with the players. they know their relations will continue long after the public's attention has moved on.

sinner, so it's damn the entire ap now? based the armchair blogging cult, a source’s real name and the word of iraqi officials?

catty bloggers won’t convince responsible adults an organization like the associated press is fabricating articles to damage america with some he said-she said gossip out of the thousands it reports weekly. they may be wrong from time to time, but if they are they'll say so, it will come out. if not expect them to strongly stand up for themselves, especially since a free press itself has become so threatening to many red-state americans. they have re-reported the story, found further witnesses and stand by it. for those who haven’t heard about this latest anti-american-press “event,” background is in this weeks wir. search "hyperbole." the original link is select-subscription but you may be able to see it anyway.

what these isolated conservatives have done, again, is expose their own biases and blind pro-war rage, and they’ve given us an unvarnished look at their ugly ignorance and crafty paranoia. these bloggers now resemble witch burners.

yep, life is sure swell in baghdad!

where more than sixty iraqi's were blown to bits, and over two-hundred injured. today.

- js.

Ok Jack, help understand your thinking, The AP is caught lying and you are not at all concerned about that. Instead you want to spew "well, then I guess everything is swell in Iraq”, hmmm who said or implied that? What does one have to do with the other - Then you want to start namecalling the blogger who discovered it, because he's not a liberal who hates the war, he has to be just a silly or stupid person along with anyone who believes him. His discovering it is just not important. – BS I say

You probably already have forgotten how the NY Times repoted just before the election and confirmed that Saddam was a year away from having nukes.…..just before they killed that story. The press loves people like you.

These events which may never have happened, make the media talk about how Iraq in a state of Civil War. Whether Iraq is in a civil war or not, the insurgents want you to believe it is. Their goal is to last long enough until our morale breaks and we run away – (Paper Tiger). They've stated that time and again in their internal documents. When insurgent propaganda or unsubstantiated rumor are passed off as verified news, it does nobody any good, except the people who want to drown Iraq in blood.

Well if their report is ambiguous on that account then I'm sure it's by mistake. The study group wouldn't be doing its job if it believed but failed to report that the military had suspicious intentions. Clearly, not all the crime that occurs in Baghdad directly relates to the insurgency, hence the apparently shallow reporting done by the military. I gather that the study group wants the filtering process to be refined so it makes better use of available data, but would that necessarily result in a 12 fold increase in the number of reports they add to their database? Probably not, 90% of everything is crap after all.

Some corrections are necessary to make the statement true:

"What these liberals have done, again, is expose their own biases and blind anti-war, anti-USA rage, and they’ve given us an unvarnished look at their ugly ignorance and crafty paranoia."

I'm not accusing the troops themselves, but rather those in the Pentagon, and yes I do believe some of the troops are dumb enough to believe the recruitment ads paint a complete picture.

Actually the President is the ultimate head of the military. He can use the military to further his own political motives. And not all of our troops sign up to protect our country. Some sign up to see the world, or so their college education can be paid for, or a host of other reasons.

@ Sinner
Just because everyone does it, doesn't make it right. And there is alot of difference between McDonalds and the USA military. And yes, I would like it if McDonalds would show the bad side of eating their food. I wish all advertising and business was more honest and open. Just as I wish my government was more honest and open.

I take it back. It doesn't sound like you have any respect for our armed forces at all.

Well, you are entitled to your opinion.
If you are referring to the dumb part, I would attribute that to everyone, not just soldiers. I'm sure there is a segment of the whole population that is fooled by the ads. I'm sure there is a segment of the troops that are fooled as well.
If you are referring to why people join the military, that's just from personal experience. I have talked to quite a few soldiers and once you get past the obligatory "I'm doing it to keep my country free" part you will learn that there are many different reasons for people joining the military.

Speaking about the people in the military and not the organization: there are all kinds in there and no need to pretend they're some class of nobility.

My favorite acquaintance in the navy was nicknamed "pigfucker" because he freely admitted he used to fuck pigs on the farm in Iowa and his taste carried over to hookers, which he pursued with considerable enthusiasm and little selectivity.

No doubt people like him have been labeled "heroes" in the past and people like you would idolize them, but he was just another character to his buddies who covered his back like he covered theirs.

Well, that's the one thing that makes them different. Even below agverage people can have honor, even people with ulterior motives for joining up can be credited with altruism when they put their lives and health at risk. It doesn't elevate them to superhero status to join the military, but it does make them special.

Mostly what I'm concerned with is the idea that the armed forces are somehow subverting the democratic process when all they are attempting is to complete their mission. If those service men and women have something to speak out about they can wait to say it when their terms of service end, and in all but rare cases that's what happens. I'm certain that they all have different opinions about the war in Iraq, but in the interest of solidarity they keep their opinions private. If the military did have a political agenda it simply would not be able to function as a single unit, and recruitment rates would drop sharply. This is the one American institution that has to be perfectly neutral, and the fact that it has accomplished anything is evidence that it is neutral.

The commander in chief is a civilian. Not only is he allowed to be biased, his job often requires him to be biased. In no way does that reflect on the motives of the military because their oath mentions the president's title, not his name. Whoever the president happens to be, that's who they've sworn to obey. Sure, the president can abuse his power for political purposes, but because the military obeys all of his orders and not just the ones they agree with, all the blame for their actions lies with the president.

DUH.

HUH? Dude, I barely know where to begin.

Of course the military has a political agenda, it's the embodiment of a political agenda. The current agenda is to win the "war on terror," "spread democracy" and make Americans "feel safer" by fighting in Iraq. Now granted this might not seem in the least bit logical to anyone with half a brain, but if it's not a political agenda then I can't imagine what would fucking qualify.

You maintain that it's the duty of soldiers to keep their mouths shut about their own political opinions lest recruitment should suffer, but it's apparently lost on you that that in itself is a political agenda, and you go on to argue that the military has ascended to a state of neutrality! Of course the military isn't neutral, the aggressive sterilization of individual opinion itself is a hard political line which is precisely designed to allow it to function as a unit toward a goal. A military goal is anything but "perfectly neutral."

Also you suggest that Iraq is blanketed by free agent reportage in a journalistic orgy that must be filling virtual warehouses with videotape as evidence that there's no chance the violence is underreported, and yet oddly you could compile all the footage and reports that have emerged from Iraq and been shown to the American public since the outset, edit it together and probably view it in a single evening. Seems to be a small margin of discrepancy there, no?

Ah yes, funnily you know it seems people only use the word PROPAGANDA when they're in denial of the message.

You're projecting the president's agenda onto the people who have to do what he orders them to. The buck stops with Bush, Ramona.

Who said it was their duty? Soldiers keep their political opinions private out of necessity. Almost nobody in the military gets to pick who their superior officers will be. Those who can't take orders from people they disagree with don't last very long, so military life actually requires the kind of tolerance and open-mindedness that liberals pretend is their hallmark. Reticence is not about duty, it's about teamwork, without which there is no military.

Well it would be if it wasn't voluntary. That people from all walks of life sign up for this kind of treatment on purpose, even educated people with college degrees, speaks to the fact that individuality is less important to some people than it is to you. Hey, different strokes for different folks, right?

Blame the free press, not the military. Maybe Iraq war news is a ratings killer and people just don't give a damn anymore. I'm sure there are people you can call to request more Iraq war news coverage, but they've got their advertisers to think about. And there's always print news. I doubt you could read all the printed Iraq war news in a month, let alone an evening.

Maybe, If we bomb all the people without the internets...

Your toilet is broken. You call a plumber. Your neighbor asks "what's the plumber doing there?"

If you want to be a smart ass, you might say the plumber is there to get paid, but you would really be avoiding answering your neighbor's question. On the other hand if you answered "he's there to fix the toilet," I doubt your neighbor would accuse you of unfairly projecting your own agenda on his.

If the almighty Buck Stopper has an agenda and he orders people to carry it out it is exactly the same as saying that those people are serving as the embodiment of his agenda. I don't really understand your need to refute this beyond the fact that you seem to be a self-appointed although somewhat flailing apologist for the sainted, perfectly neutral, politically agenda-less military. Or perhaps you're suggesting that there is in fact a hidden ulterior motive--a concept that, I'd concede, isn't beyond the realm of possibility. Perhaps the plumber is using the idea of fixing the toilet as a ruse and is actually there to raid your medicine cabinet?

lol, well now you've convinced me. I'm heading straight down to the local recruitment office to sign up, dressed as Elizabeth Taylor.

In a 2003 Gallup Poll, nearly 1/5th of the soldiers surveyed said they felt the situation in Iraq had not been worth going to war over and the number of military families who believe that war was not the right course of action is actually higher than that in the general population. They may have divulged this information privately, but it's no secret.

In July, Rod Nordland, who served as Newsweek’s Baghdad bureau chief for two years, told readers of Foreign Policy this:

At least I can count on you to understand the difference between secrecy an privacy, but what's the difference between a soldier and a plumber? The plumber has the option to turn the job down and go fix someone else's sink instead. By definition, people without free agency are incapable of serving their own agendas unless their handlers happen to have the same agendas. Your poll says that many soldiers want to leave Iraq. If the president rescinded all his orders and told the Army and Marines that they could pull out of Iraq if they wanted to, do you think they'd stay? I don't know either, but if they actually had an agenda then that's when it would surface. Until that happens—and it probably never will—all this talk about the military's agenda is hypothetical.

Why am I defending the troops from the accusation that they are totally responsible for the effects of Bush's politics? I'm looking for hypocrisy. People can't say they support the troops while criticizing their mission if they believe the troops chose this mission for themselves.

And this is the same as an admission that 'their handlers' do have an agenda. And indeed it is simply absurd to suggest otherwise--tantamount to insisting that there is a military presence in Iraq wandering around aimlessly for no reason at all. Arguing about whose agenda they are carrying out is A: unnecessary and B: does not change the fact that they are in fact carrying out an agenda. Nor does it make that agenda "hypothetical."

I really had no idea frankly, as any school child knows that the troops are only following orders and probably also realizes that in wartime civilians are rarely privy to the full extent and nature of these orders, but saying they are not responsible is not the same as maintaining that their deeds and the ramifications thereof do not exist.

If they have orders to withhold certain information and by their actions successfully suppress such information, then you can argue about 'responsibility' until doomsday but the information gets suppressed all the same.

I'm only really interested in the reality of the situation: what information has been suppressed and to what extent. Your argument is about blame--and seems a little magical: if we can't blame the military then perhaps the information isn't really being suppressed. Blaming the guy that took all the toilet paper will not wipe your ass. It'll still have shit on it.

It seems clear enough that information has been suppressed to some extent even though you seemingly want to avoid acknowledging it altogether in your rhetoric. However I find myself unable to conclude that you are naive enough to think that this is the unprecedented Virgin Mary of All Fully Publicly Disclosed Wars in Real Time, even though your rapturous arguments of a near-mystical Militant Purity glowing like some moral Tinkerbelle seem, kind of crazily, to insist it. :shf:

Well as self-appointed Chief of Napsterites Hypocrisy Police, first go pick on probably about 80% of the people driving around with "Support The Troops" bumper stickers and point out to them that a general agreement with "the president's agenda" for whatever heartfelt reason is in no way supporting the troops in any conceivable world, it's merely lip service and cheerleading--and remind them that when done uncritically it has a grave potential to get more of them killed and maimed and psychologically fucked than may be absolutely necessary... or even sane.

Such is the power of opinion and the importance of having the right information to formulate it.

You're in top form today, Ramona. Your rhetoric hasn't convinced me, but it has certainly upstaged me. Take a bow. :encore:

Iraqi Government Confirms That Jamil Hussein Exists

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press…

Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein’s existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record…

Khalaf told the AP that an arrest warrant had been issued for the captain for having contacts with the media in violation of the ministry’s regulations.

Hussein told the AP on Wednesday that he learned the arrest warrant would be issued when he returned to work on Thursday after the Eid al-Adha holiday. His phone was turned off Thursday and he could not be reached for further comment.

Khalaf said Thursday that with the arrest of Hussein for breaking police regulations against talking to reporters, the AP would be called to identify him in a lineup as the source of its story.

Should the AP decline to assist in the identification, Khalaf said, the case against Hussein would be dropped. He also said there were no plans to pursue action against the AP should it decline.
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/0...ussein-exists/


U.S. News Agency Says Photographer Killed in Iraq

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A photographer with the Associated Press has been shot and killed in Baghdad, the U.S. news organization said on Friday.

The body of Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28, was found with a gun shot wound in the back of his head, six days after he was last seen by his family as he left for work, the agency's Director of Media Relations and Public Affairs said in a statement.

Linda Wagner said Naji, whose body was found in a morgue, had been a messenger and occasional cameraman for the Associated Press (AP) for two-and-a-half-years.

``All of us at AP share the pain and grief being felt by Ahmed's family and friends,'' AP President and CEO Tom Curley said in a statement.

``The situation for our journalists in Iraq is unprecedented in AP's 161-year history of covering wars and conflicts. The courage of our Iraqi colleagues and their dedication to the story stand as an example to the world of journalism's enduring value.''

Wagner said the circumstances of Naji's death were unclear. He is survived by his wife and four-month-old twins.

Iraq was by far the deadliest country for journalists in 2006, with 32 killed, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

The group has said a total of 92 reporters have been killed in the country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, as well as an additional 37 media support workers -- interpreters, drivers, fixers and office workers.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world...tographer.html

the Jamil Hussein thing has been quite the cause celebre for the right, ever desperate to blame the problems in iraq (and in fact, all the world's problems in general) on their darkest fanatsy - the "liberal media". sorry sinner - bs indeed. better luck next time.

I know this is a dead issue by now, but hindsight is 20/20 right? Here's the answer I should have given last month.

In my first and second replies to this thread I did acknowledge that information was being systemically suppressed, or rather filtered to make it usable. By asking and answering a related question, why has information been suppressed, it becomes obvious what has been suppressed and to what extent. Since this information was contained within a database that was not open to the public, it's wrong to conclude that the motive was to deceive the public. No, the information was being filtered for the same reason that horses wear blinders. The intent was only to filter data which was peripheral to the task at hand, to the extent that it made the task manageable. That was the reality of the situation as the Baker Commission saw it, and their suggestions for improvement were not accusations of censorship.