Pentagon flips policy on enemy death count

How charming. Now that the approval ratings for the ill advised occupation of Iraq are in the dumper, the Pentagon suddenly decides that it's okay to release "enemy" body counts in order to "prove" how successful their failed strategies are in "winning'" the war on terror.

The numbers of course are meaningless. The soldiers can't tell an "insurgent" from an innocent bystander unless it happens to be an old lady or a kid. I notice they're not including those statistics in their new accounting policy. I already told you about one such count that was disputed by eyewitness testimony.

Even more interesting however is that no one at the Pentagon is willing to admit they gave the order to release the figures.

Military spokesmen in Washington and Baghdad said they knew of no written directive detailing the circumstances under which such figures should be released or the steps that should be taken to ensure accuracy.

Instead, they described an ad hoc process that has emerged over the past year, with authority to issue death tolls pushed out to the field and down to the level of division staffs.

Sounds so military doesn't it? Just whoever feels like releasing figures for the day can do so? So how do think that works? The PR guy looks at the latest polls and calls Charlie Company saying something like, "Hey buddy. We need some good count. Could you go out and kill us a bunch of insurgents before the morning edition?"