by D. Cupples | Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates voiced optimism about violence in Iraq. That day, four car bombs killed 25 people and wounded 65. Two weeks earlier, an Army Public Relations officer said that violence in Iraq was down 50%. That day, bombs in Bagdhad and Mosul killed 26 and wounded dozens. Three weeks before that, General Joseph Fil announced that violence in Iraq was down 70%. That day, a roadside bomb killed 20 children in rural Iraq.
Intensifying confusion over violence statistics, yesterday's New York Times reported:
"A spate of bomb, rocket and mortar attacks rocked areas of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least nine people and exploding part of a major oil refinery, sending up a thick column of smoke that dominated the city’s skyline for much of the day.
"Seven of the people killed were prison inmates who died after mortar shells landed on a prison in central Baghdad, smashing its walls.
"The attacks came amid an overall lull in violence here, where terrorist attacks have plummeted compared with the numbers in previous months and years.
"Yet despite the relative calm, the pace of attacks has quickened of late, with suicide and other bombers killing at least 50 people nationwide in the past week.
"The Baghdad explosions started before dawn on Monday, when rockets landed in the heavily fortified Green Zone, where the American and Iraqi government buildings are housed behind miles of blast walls.... Officials would not comment on whether anyone was hurt."(NY Times)
During the "lull in violence" that has reportedly seized Iraq, there were six attacks on Monday targeting the Green Zone, a major oil refinery, a prison at the Interior Ministry, two Baghdad neighborhoods, and a rural highway (where a police brigdier and two officers were killed in an ambushing of a convoy carrying weapons supplies).
Yesterday's Los Angeles Times reported that human rights violations, especially against women, are on the rise in Iraq:
"More than 450 attacks have been carried out against Iraq's oil installations or industry employees since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, said analysts who monitor security issues related to energy. Attacks occurred Friday and Saturday in the northern oil hub of Baiji....
"'Before 2003, there were [human rights] violations, but not like the violations we are seeing today,' said Omar Jabouri, human rights advisor to Vice President Tariq Hashimi....
"Jabouri said about 32,000 people were being held by Iraqi security forces. The number being held by U.S.-led coalition forces is 25,500, according to the U.S. military. U.S. military officials say they have gone to great lengths to eliminate abuses at their detention facilities in Iraq....[Meanwhile, back in the USA, the CIA is under fire for destroying tapes of detainees being tortured. ]
"In recent months, police officials in the southern city of Basra have reported the killings of dozens of women by religious vigilantes because the victims wore makeup, or were not dressed in a hijab, a traditional Islamic dress that covers the head and body.
"The reported attacks, including mutilations and beheadings, could not be independently confirmed.
"Women in Basra have also been targeted because of their professions, said Baghdad lawyer Tameem Azzawi, a member of the Iraqi Women's Network.
"'It's worse now than before 2003,' Azzawi said. 'Iraqi women are facing an unprecedented level of violence.'"
Given the confusing statistics and reports, how can we ordinary Americans truly grasp what's going on in Iraq?
Related BN Politics Posts:
* More Confusing Statements about the War
* Administration Officials Zigzag over the War
* CIA Lawyers Authorized Destruction of Torture Tapes?
* Defense Secretary Says Military Can't Protect U.S. Interests Worldwide
* Is Militia Group out of Baghdad?
* Under the Rug: Whatever happened to the 190,000 Missing Weapons?
Problem here is that Gates only considers American deaths as the viable ones when talks about lowered violence. Its the people of Iraq that are consider collateral damage by this administration.
Posted by: Jude | December 12, 2007 at 06:30 PM
Interesting point!
Posted by: D. Cupples | December 15, 2007 at 02:31 PM