So what else is new?!

Cooking the Books - Does the Bush administration believe they can get away with not telling the American people the truth about the high loss of lives in Iraq? It is not surprising that they would try; it part of a rather persistent pattern of deception along a number of dimensions in this war. It began with the reasons for going to war, moved on to the course of nation-building efforts, and now centers on "success." It reminds us once again of the Orwellian nature of Mr. Bush's view of reality. Juan Cole, Informed Comment blogger, informs us today that is very hard to get accurate casualty counts out of Iraq. To quote,

Since the Bush administration doesn't actually have any good news on Iraq, they are just making it up. It confirms your worst suspicions. They haven't been counting victims of car bombings when they say that violence is down in Iraq! Bush administration spokesmen and officials are just saying that fewer bodies are found in the streets, victims of death squads. But the number of victims of car bombing has actually increased in this period.

Where did they learn it? CBS News reports that the Iraqi government is witholding death figures from the United Nations. The United States, as an exampleof truth-telling, has been very poor. We should not be surprised by the juxtaposition of these two stories on the same day. Quoting from the story,

U.N. officials accused the Iraqi government Wednesday of withholding civilian death figures to avoid portraying a "very grim" situation, adding that the humanitarian crisis was worsening despite the U.S.-led Baghdad security crackdown.

Reference: CBS News Interactive - "Iraq - 4 Years Later"
[tagname]

My “creativity and dreaming” post today at Good Second Mondays is about .