What Defines a Killing as Sectarian? | U.S. Military Teams Analyze and Tally Each Civilian Death | By Karen DeYoung | Washington Post Staff Writer | Tuesday, September 25, 2007; Page A01
On Sept. 1, the bullet-riddled bodies of four Iraqi men were found on a Baghdad street. Two days later, a single dead man, with one bullet in his head, was found on a different street. According to the U.S. military in Iraq, the solitary man was a victim of sectarian violence. The first four were not.
Such determinations are the building blocks for what the Bush administration has declared a downward trend in sectarian deaths and a sign that its war strategy is working. They are made by a specialized team of soldiers who spend their nights at computer terminals, sifting through data on the day's civilian victims for clues to the motivations of killers.
The soldiers have a manual telling them what to look for. Signs of torture or a single shot to the head, corpses left in a "known body dump" -- as the body of the Sunni man found on Sept. 3 was -- spell sectarian violence, said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Dan Macomber, the team leader. Macomber, who has been at his job in Baghdad since February, rarely has to look it up anymore. ...
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Military statistics ... selectively ignore negative trends. ... exclude Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen, etc.
Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq | Military Statistics Called Into Question | By Karen DeYoung | Washington Post Staff Writer | Thursday, September 6, 2007; Page A16
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.
...
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.
...
"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome." Analysts found "trend lines . . . going in different directions" compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. "It began to look like spaghetti."
Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. "Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."
Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels.
...
Recent estimates by the media, outside groups and some government agencies have called the military's findings into question. The Associated Press last week counted 1,809 civilian deaths in August, making it the highest monthly total this year, with 27,564 civilians killed overall since the AP began collecting data in April 2005. ...
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
repeated examples of soldiers believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens. ... killed the teen "to take him out of his misery."
Documents Show Troops Disregarding Rules | Sep 4, 6:49 AM (ET) | By RYAN LENZ
New documents released Tuesday regarding crimes committed by U.S. soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a troubling pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.
The documents, released by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents. They show repeated examples of soldiers believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.
The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.
In the suffocation, soldiers covered the man's head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord for a "stress position" they insisted was an approved technique.
...
Among the files released to the ACLU were the court-martial records for two soldiers convicted of assault in the drowning of a man pushed into the Tigris for violating curfew and three soldiers convicted in the "mercy killing" of an injured teenager in Sadr City.
The teen had been severely injured; one soldier explained that he shot and killed the teen "to take him out of his misery."
Other killings included:
- A man shot after a search of his home near Balad uncovered illegal weapons and anti-American literature. Immediately after the shooting, according to testimony, Sgt. 1st Class George Diaz, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder, said, "I'm going to hell for this." Diaz also was convicted of mistreating a teenage detainee when he forced the youth to hold a smoke grenade with the pin pulled as Diaz questioned him at gunpoint.
- A suspected insurgent in Iraq by Staff Sgt. Shane Werst, who said the man appeared to be reaching for a weapon. Werst was acquitted of murder despite acknowledging he had fired and then planted a chrome Iraqi pistol on the suspect to make his claim of self defense more believable. ...
...
Another previously undisclosed case involved Sgt. Ricky Burke, who was charged with murder for killing a wounded man alongside the road following a firefight. Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, a member of Burke's military police company, testified he heard Burke say before the shooting, "It's payback time." ...
New documents released Tuesday regarding crimes committed by U.S. soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a troubling pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.
The documents, released by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 incidents. They show repeated examples of soldiers believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.
The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.
In the suffocation, soldiers covered the man's head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord for a "stress position" they insisted was an approved technique.
...
Among the files released to the ACLU were the court-martial records for two soldiers convicted of assault in the drowning of a man pushed into the Tigris for violating curfew and three soldiers convicted in the "mercy killing" of an injured teenager in Sadr City.
The teen had been severely injured; one soldier explained that he shot and killed the teen "to take him out of his misery."
Other killings included:
- A man shot after a search of his home near Balad uncovered illegal weapons and anti-American literature. Immediately after the shooting, according to testimony, Sgt. 1st Class George Diaz, who was convicted of unpremeditated murder, said, "I'm going to hell for this." Diaz also was convicted of mistreating a teenage detainee when he forced the youth to hold a smoke grenade with the pin pulled as Diaz questioned him at gunpoint.
- A suspected insurgent in Iraq by Staff Sgt. Shane Werst, who said the man appeared to be reaching for a weapon. Werst was acquitted of murder despite acknowledging he had fired and then planted a chrome Iraqi pistol on the suspect to make his claim of self defense more believable. ...
...
Another previously undisclosed case involved Sgt. Ricky Burke, who was charged with murder for killing a wounded man alongside the road following a firefight. Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein, a member of Burke's military police company, testified he heard Burke say before the shooting, "It's payback time." ...
AP's Count: Contrary to Claims -- Civilian Deaths Soaring in Iraq
AP's Count: Contrary to Claims -- Civilian Deaths Soaring in Iraq | Published: September 01, 2007 3:25 PM ET
BAGHDAD Civilian deaths rose in August to their second-highest monthly level this year, according to figures compiled Saturday by The Associated Press. That raises questions about whether U.S. strategy is working days before Congress receives landmark reports that will decide the course of the war.
At least 81 American service members also died in Iraq during August — an increase of two over the previous month but well below the year's monthly high of 126 in May. American deaths surpassed the 80 mark during only two months of 2006. ...
...
However, figures compiled by the AP from police reports nationwide show that at least 1,809 civilians were killed across the country last month compared with 1,760 in July. That brings to 27,564 the number of Iraqi civilians killed since AP began collecting data on April 28, 2005.
According to the AP count, civilian deaths reached a high point during the wave of sectarian bombings, kidnappings and killings at the end of last year — 2,172 in December and 1,967 in the previous month. ...
BAGHDAD Civilian deaths rose in August to their second-highest monthly level this year, according to figures compiled Saturday by The Associated Press. That raises questions about whether U.S. strategy is working days before Congress receives landmark reports that will decide the course of the war.
At least 81 American service members also died in Iraq during August — an increase of two over the previous month but well below the year's monthly high of 126 in May. American deaths surpassed the 80 mark during only two months of 2006. ...
...
However, figures compiled by the AP from police reports nationwide show that at least 1,809 civilians were killed across the country last month compared with 1,760 in July. That brings to 27,564 the number of Iraqi civilians killed since AP began collecting data on April 28, 2005.
According to the AP count, civilian deaths reached a high point during the wave of sectarian bombings, kidnappings and killings at the end of last year — 2,172 in December and 1,967 in the previous month. ...
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