Wash. Post's Romano touted Petraeus' Iraq testimony as "the only report that matters now on the Hill"

During a September 6 "Post Politics Hour" online chat on washingtonpost.com, Washington Post national political reporter Lois Romano asserted that "the only report that matters now on the Hill ... is the greatly anticipated report by [Army] General [David] Petraeus [commander of Multi-National Forces in Iraq] -- which will give assessment of the conflict" in Iraq. Romano was responding to a reader who asked whether CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric's recent reporting from Iraq was being discussed on Capitol Hill. Romano later said that Petraeus' assessment of Iraq is significant on Capitol Hill because that is "the report that the politicians will latch onto and the media will emphasize." Romano added: "I don't mean to suggest the other reports are not important -- I think everything will be considered as a whole. But the Petraeus report will likely create the most fanfare." Romano made this claim on the same day that her own newspaper had published an article by Washington Post staff writer Karen DeYoung noting challenges to the U.S. military's recent assertions -- and scrutinizing a specific claim Petraeus is expected to make in his testimony to Congress -- that sectarian violence in Iraq is declining.

In that article, headlined, "Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq," DeYoung reported that in his upcoming testimony to Congress on the status of President Bush's Iraq troop increase plan, Petraeus "is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks." Citing a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the article added that "[o]thers who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory":

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month's pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

The Post added that "the intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations" regarding violence in Iraq. It also reported that one unnamed "senior intelligence official" specifically took issue with how the military counts acts of sectarian violence, because, according to the military, "[i]f a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian .... If it went through the front, it's criminal":

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"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."

Moreover, the Post noted that Petraeus told The Australian newspaper "that sectarian attacks had decreased 75 percent 'since last year.' " However, the article also noted that, according to the Multi-National Force in Iraq (MNF-I), Petraeus compared his current figures with those of December 2006 and that, by March 2007, "before U.S. troop strength was increased under Bush's strategy," attacks had already dropped by at least 62.5 percent:

When Petraeus told an Australian newspaper last week that sectarian attacks had decreased 75 percent "since last year," the statistic was quickly e-mailed to U.S. journalists in a White House fact sheet. Asked for detail, MNF-I [Multi-National Force-Iraq] said that "last year" referred to December 2006, when attacks spiked to more than 1,600.

By March, however -- before U.S. troop strength was increased under Bush's strategy -- the number had dropped to 600, only slightly less than in the same month last year. That is about where it has remained in 2007, with what MNF-I said was a slight increase in April and May "but trending back down in June-July."

Petraeus's spokesman, Col. Steven A. Boylan, said he was certain that Petraeus had made a comparison with December in the interview with the Australian paper, which did not publish a direct Petraeus quote. No qualifier appeared in the White House fact sheet.

The Post further reported that Petraeus made an addition to the most recent National Intelligence Estimate which, according to Petraeus, "reflect[ed] recent improvements" in security. But the article added that "[a] senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it 'odd' that 'marginal' security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months":

When a member of the National Intelligence Council visited Baghdad this summer to review a draft of the intelligence estimate on Iraq, Petraeus argued that its negative judgments did not reflect recent improvements. At least one new sentence was added to the final version, noting that "overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks."

A senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it "odd" that "marginal" security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months. He attributed the change to a desire to provide Petraeus with ammunition for his congressional testimony.

The intelligence official in Washington, however, described the Baghdad consultation as standard in the NIE drafting process and said that the "new information" did not change the estimate's conclusions. The overall assessment was that the security situation in Iraq since January "was still getting worse," he said, "but not as fast."

In addition to noting that statistics on violence in Iraq compiled by the Associated Press and the GAO contradict those of the military, the Post reported that according to MNF-I, the U.S. military's statistics on sectarian violence do not include Sunni vs. Sunni or Shiite vs. Shiite violence, "except in certain instances":

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.

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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.

The GAO report found that "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007," a conclusion that the military said was skewed because it did not include dramatic, up-to-date information from August.

Media critic and blogger Greg Sargent recently noted that CNN anchor Kyra Phillips also hyped Petraeus' upcoming assessment of Iraq as more significant than other reports. During a September 4 discussion of the GAO's recently released progress report on Iraqi benchmarks -- which found that "[i]t is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased" -- Phillips asked if the GAO report "really hold[s] weight when everybody is really wanting to hear from General Petraeus and what he has to say?"

From the September 6 "Post Politics Hour" chat on washingtonpost.com:

Rockville, Md.: Did Couric's visit to Iraq for CBS Evening News made any impact on our views? I thought it much better than I expected. No "Dan Rather in the foxhole" that I expected. What do they say on the Hill?

washingtonpost.com: Iraq Tour of Duty Holds Surprises, 'No Heroics' for CBS's Katie Couric (Post, Sept. 4)

Lois Romano: I think the only report that matters now on the Hill right is the greatly anticipated report by General Petraeus--which will give assessment of the conflict. What Katie saw will have little impact on the process.

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Anonymous:" I think the only report that matters now on the Hill right is the greatly anticipated report by General Petraeus -- which will give assessment of the conflict." Why do you think that is the case? It strikes me the other two reports released this week are exponentially more reliable and informative, so why is Petraeus's "the only report that matters"?

Lois Romano: Because it the report that the politicians will latch onto and the media will emphasize. I don't mean to suggest the other reports are not important- I think everything will be considered as a whole. But the Petraeus report will likely create the most fanfare.