ABC: What Dropoff? August Death Total in Baghdad Morgue Triples

[grytpype]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/fromthefrontlines/

What Dropoff? August Death Total in Baghdad Morgue Triples

We took an interesting phone call today from an official at the Baghdad morgue. We get these calls every day – a daily tally of the violence. But this one was particularly sobering.

It turns out the official toll of violent deaths in August was just revised upwards to 1535 from 550, tripling the total. Now, we’re depressingly used to hearing about deaths here, so much so that the numbers can be numbing. But this means that a much-publicized drop-off in violence in August – heralded by both the Iraqi government and the US military as a sign that a new security effort in Baghdad was working -- apparently didn’t exist.

...

[al bupp]

1. Once again reality trumps faith /nt

[rodeodance]

2. we kept hearing from Generals and WH how grand things were going and

the media just went right along with it.

[bvar22]

3. These guys are busy as little beavers "Catapulting their Propaganda".

Have I told you today "How Much I Hate these People"!---Thanks MM.

[gratuitous]

4. I'm sure that ABC News will give this heavy play

Not.

They've already reported on the civilian deaths in Baghdad. So what if the number has increased by a factor of three? Five hundred or fifteen hundred dead Iraqis, what's the difference? It's not like any of them had been to EuroDisney recently, so who cares?

But just wait until you see their new docu-drama, The Road to 9/11! That'll get your mojo working for the next Two Minute Hate!

[Cobalt-60]

10. Those damnable East Asians

We'll show them a thing or two!

[hedgehog]

5. A lie travels around the world

while the truth is still tying its shoes.

[jpak]

6. Democracy is "messy" indeed

And it's good to see some of the MSM doing a little fact checking (even though it may be a fluke).

Too bad ABC didn't "fact check" their 9/11 Docu-lie...

[Supersedeas]

7. you mean the propoganda that you accepted wholeheartedly is false??

[Phredicles]

8. "revised upwards"? I wonder if the LA Times will print a correction; they

cheerfully ran the articles about the "dropoff" alongside others about the usual collections of bodies, without a hint of awareness of any contradiction.

[Eugene]

9. Now they're resorting to bald face lies and outright hoaxes.

Along with the suppressed morgue statistics, throw in the
last week's three-month-old #2 capture story and a recycled
"al-Qaeda leadership crisis" intelligence find.

Iraq is coming apart and BushCo can't keep up appearances
for even a week at a time.

K&R

[rodeodance]

11. Iraq deaths multiply in new August count (1,536),

Iraq deaths multiply in new August count

By RAWYA RAGEH, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Baghdad recorded more than 1,500 violent deaths in August, according to final figures released by the Health Ministry this week — nearly three times the preliminary figure the same ministry had released last week. The figure is a sharp contradiction of U.S. and Iraqi claims that a security crackdown led to a steep drop in deaths in the capital.


Instead, the number of deaths in the capital in August was roughly the same as during July, before the U.S.-led security crackdown began, the Health Ministry officials said.
..........

The discrepancy also highlights the fact that after more than three years of war, Iraqi officials still have no reliable system for counting casualties — leaving death tolls uncertain and varying sharply and with no explanation even within one ministry.

Deputy Health Minister Hakem al-Zamly this week put the August violent death count for Baghdad at 1,536, based on figures from the city morgue. That is roughly the same as the figure for July for Baghdad provided by the same ministry.

[Nimrod2005]

12. What a god damn mess this is....Tragedy!

[hedgehog]

13. If this information was corrected on NBC's Nightly News

I didn't hear it.