Mark Twain's famous quote "There are lies, damned lies and statistics" has never been more true than now. Particularly in the way the occupation in Iraq is spun by the White House and their flunkies. However, this is just ridiculous:
U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.
Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Bush administration officials have pointed to a dramatic decline in one category of deaths - the bodies dumped daily in Baghdad streets, which officials call sectarian murders - as evidence that the security plan is working. Bush said this week that that number had declined by 50 percent, a number confirmed by statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers.
But the number of people killed in explosive attacks is rising, the same statistics show - up from 323 in March, the first full month of the security plan, to 365 through April 24
UPDATE: Evidently, the US isn't the only country who doesn't want to be open about the death toll in Iraq: Human Rights Watch: Iraq Must Release Civilian Casualty Data To U.N.
