More Carelessness from Brookings
For four months, the “Iraq Index,” a project of the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution, has failed to update a key indicator of Coalition progress.
The data in question records the number of “actionable tips” generated by the Iraqi population. An “actionable tip” is one that contains information regarding anti-government forces that can be used in operational planning by the MNF or by Iraqi Security Forces.
A genuinely heartening trend in the Iraq has been the substantial increase in civilian anti-insurgent co-operation, dating from roughly March of 2005. Brookings/Saban chose to include this indicator in its Index, which is ostensibly updated every Monday and Thursday. But they haven’t updated the “actionable tips” chart, drawn straight from military sources, since December 2005. And they have the December number wrong as well.
The result is a drastic underreporting of an unfolding situation highly favorable to the entire democracy proect in Iraq. Brookings/Saban reports an average of 2,789 actionable tips received per month for the period March-to-December 2005. An updated chart, from the same Multi-National Force sources, would show 4,392 tips per month between December 2005 and March 2006.
Actionable tips from the civilian population against the insurgency have increased a cool 57% from what the Iraq Index reports. And Saban/Brookings missed it.
We have commented before on sloppiness in the Iraq Index.
Here is the purpose of the index, according to its authors:
The Iraq Index is a statistical compilation of economic, public opinion, and security data. This resource will provide updated information on various criteria …The index is designed to quantify the rebuilding efforts and offer an objective set of criteria for benchmarking performance…Such information can provide a clearer picture and contribute to a healthier and better informed debate.
It’s hard to see how excluding evidence of increased Iraqi cooperation against the anti-Democracy insurgency advances a “better informed debate.”
Reality Check
On April 28th, the AP reported: “An American soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Friday, making April the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq this year.”
And so it was – in a year that has seen American casualties running 40% lower than in 2005, and 54% lower than in 2004.
How bloody was the “deadliest month for American forces in Iraq this year”? American forces, intervening forcibly – and successfully – in the Anbar and Baghdad governates to uproot attempts to promote civil war, suffered 72 fatalities, or 2.4 per day. The average rate of coalition casualties since March, 2003 – the end of major combat – has been 2.3 per day.
In six of the twelve months of 2005, U.S. losses were higher.
There were, of course, no screaming headlines regarding “the least deadly month for American forces in Iraq” a month ago, in March, when US fatalities hit their lowest level in over two years – 1 per day. That’s roughly half the murder rate in New York City, where the big anti-war rally was held over the weekend.
And by the way – as a result of forceful U.S. intervention, the April casualty rate for Iraqi civilians and security forces declined 10% from its March spike, according to the meticulous tally kept by the virulently anti-war “Iraq Casualty Count”:
And by the way – the low end of the baseline for civilian murder under the Ba’athist regime was 70 per day or over 2,100 per month. Dr. Stephen Cass, an Iraqi historian at Oxford, estimates the average regime-caused civilian death toll in Saddam’s era at between 70 and 125 deaths per day.
A lousy month under the new regime is less bloody than a normal month under Saddam. Which is why, when asked whether they think Saddam’s ouster was worth the turmoil in its wake, 77% of Iraqis, including 98% of Shi’ites, and 91% of the Iraqi Kurds, answer “yes.”
A Snapshot
One of the more controversial propositions that we at the DD have advanced is that the MSM has become a passive conduit for news generated by the jihadists in Iraq. The dependence of MSM on Iraqi stringers and Arab media clips to provide feeds for the nightly news often results in the use of incidents staged by the insurgency for Western consumption.
One doesn’t often get to isolate this process in action. One notable exception was the jailing of al Jazeera correspondent Tayssir Alouni by a Spanish Court for acting as a financial courier for al Qaeda.
But occasionally Coalition foces uncover elements of the insurgents’ media strategy in the course of ordinary tactical operations. Thus this April 28th release “Anti-Iraqi Forces camera crew busted”:
It appears that a couple of camera men were filming the 172nd Stryker Brigade during a routine patrol in Mosul. When approached, they ran, and were apprehended. Their vehicle contained the makings for two IEDs. Both tested positive for explosives residue. Both claimed they were hired to film coalition movements.
The insurgency doesn’t film itself for home movies. It does so in order to provide feeds to the Arab news channels and MSM stringers.