Nowhere to run to...

By Libby

WaPo is running a series called Elusive Goals and this one on establishing security painted a bleak picture of life for the average Iraqi. This graf really set me off.

While statistics assessing the strife in Iraq are murky, one set -- unofficial Interior Ministry and morgue data provided to The Washington Post -- indicates that the number of Iraqis who died violently in August was less than half the number in January. The statistics echo the assertions of U.S. military officials that such deaths are down, although a Government Accountability Office report on Iraq released Tuesday said it was "not clear if sectarian violence has been reduced."

At the same time, the number of Iraqi corpses found dumped on street corners was higher in August than before the security offensive began and the number of Iraqis leaving their homes has increased significantly in recent months.

So in other words, they don't count the corpses as having died violent deaths because nobody saw them get killed? What? They just happened to die and their relatives left them on the street rather than bother with a funeral? Of all the things that bother me about this occupation, the failure to acknowledge the Iraqi war dead strikes me as one of the most egregious failings.

People speak of progress and success because the death toll drops from 1,500 to 1,000 a month as if the lower number isn't still a horrible atrocity. Worse yet, the dead may be the ones who have the best of it. At least they don't have to suffer the daily fear anymore or the indignity of being forced from their homes.

The military tells us the people are moving back into their neighborhoods as the surge establishes security. A local real estate agent calls out that lie.

"The security plan has failed in the neighborhoods. This is why they are moving," Thabit said. "I have not seen anyone moving back to their homes."

People are begging him for apartments in the few safer enclaves of Baghdad that are left after receiving death threats and worse. Yet Petreaus calls this signs of normal life. I'd call it anything but normal.