Dis-Strib-Ute

In the Sunday paper today, the Star Tribune provided its customers yet another fair, balanced, informative look at the situation in Iraq. (I know a sarcastic tone of voice doesn't translate well in this medium, so you'll have to use your imagination a bit.)

Now, in fairness to the Strib, the article is from the Associated Press. (Are we sure AP doesn't stand for Against Progress? All Putrid?) Still, I doubt the Strib just took the article off the wires and blindly threw it unread into the paper. The contents fit the Strib's general outlook on Iraq, and their general approach to keeping its readers informed. That approach being, All The Bad News That's Fit To Print. To balance the bad news with the good news would be actual journalism, and the Strib has strict policies against that sort of thing.

The headline the Strib ran (in the dead tree edition) with the article was "Troops treated to New Year's show." Yet, it took six paragraphs of doom and gloom to get to the little blurb about some New Year's entertainment for the troops. That part of the story got four paragraphs. Then, the article took another seven paragraphs for doom and gloom, ending with seven paragraphs on Iraqi politics.

What was the doom and gloom?

Bombings and shootings killed at least 20 people across Iraq on the final day of the year Saturday...

A U.S. soldier died Saturday from wounds inflicted by a mortar attack in Baghdad...

Gunmen raided a house south of Baghdad, killing five members of a Sunni Arab family.

A roadside bomb in the capital killed two policemen and another bomb killed five members of the Iraqi Islamic party near their headquarters in Al-Khalis, 10 miles east of Baqouba, police said.

Police also said they found the bodies of six men who had been blindfolded, shot and dumped at a sewage plant in southeast Baghdad.

A mortar round killed a policeman in Baghdad, and gunmen fatally shot the owner of a supermarket in the capital, officials said.

There was a quote from an Iraqi citizen, I'm sure just pulled at random without regard for its editorial bent.

Some Iraqis in Baghdad said their New Year's Eve wish is that U.S. troops will pull out.

"God willing, the occupation of our country will end and we will get rid of the Americans," said Noor Ali, who was shopping at a Baghdad store.

In an especially one-sided example of not providing a complete picture, there was this paragraph on the US death toll:

That put the U.S. military death toll for the year at 841 -- five short of 2004's record total despite political progress and dogged U.S. and Iraqi efforts to quash the insurgency. A total of 846 U.S. military personnel died in 2004 and 485 in 2003.

Ok, get it? We're just spinning our wheels in Iraq. We try and try, and beat our heads against the brick wall of the insurgency, and we're getting nowhere. We still lost the same number of troops as we did in 2004. Implication: We might as well pack up and go home because we're not accomplishing anything.

Sigh.

I'm not saying these are lies. Far from it. As I said in this post, the enemy still has some fight in him. The enemy still has a civilian population to support and shelter him.

But, where is the balance? Where is the journalistic integrity to point out the insurgents and terrorists are crushed into paste whenever they take on the US military in combat? That the only weapon the insurgents really have are the random attacks from IEDs, weapons that have no strategic value? That the insurgents have turned to attacking soft civilian targets instead for the shock value, hoping to intimidate the Iraqi people? (As I pointed out in this post, the Iraqi people are increasingly providing helpful information. They are not backing down.)

When the insurgents and terrorists fight the US military, they are losing foot soldiers at a rate that might be as high as 20:1. Those are not sustainable numbers for the bad guys.

I can't possible regurgitate four months of posts here to point out the progress that is being made. Bill Roggio has a recent post that does a nice job of summarizing the encouraging signs, though.

The Iraqi Security Forces continue to assert themselves on the battlefield and are taking control of the battlespace. In Northern Iraq, an Iraqi Battalion has assumed control of the Mahkmur region, which was under the control of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. In Samarra, the Special Police Commandos of the famed "Lions Brigade" patrol the streets and are increasingly effective.
....
The insurgency and al-Qaeda have has basically lost out west towards the Syrian border. Lt. Col. Dale Alford, the battalion commander of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines, the unit responsible for the Al Qaim region on the Syrian Border, emails:

"It is quiet out here because we have crushed the insurgents in this area. The Marines of 3/6 are doing well and we have settled down after a hard three months of fighting and are now doing the hard work of counter-insurgency warfare; patrolling, raids, meeting with local leaders, etc. Also, lots of reconstruction to do. We are involved in trying to stand up a government and police force, all while recruiting, training and working with the Iraqi Army. Tell everyone who will listen that we are winning this thing. I know you have heard this, but it will take time. The Iraqi Army is getting better everyday. Counter-insurgency’s are by definition a long process."

The progress of the Iraqi Forces is one of the important stories of 2005. It has allowed effective operations like Steel Curtain to be conducted.

Between Dec 17 and Dec 31 alone , 132 terrorist suspects were captured in northern Iraq.

As for the US casualties, the numbers were high in November and October becuase of the many offensive operations conducted. But the numbers in December were the lowest since July.

Security Watchtower points out this:

According to the Brookings Institute, a progressive thinktank, U.S. troops wounded have dropped from 618 in October to 274 in December, the lowest figure since February 2004. Another positive trend includes the number of Iraqi security forces (police & military) killed in combat (159 in December), which has dropped for the fifth consecutive month from 304 in July, a nearly 50 percent reduction. The number of civilians killed has also dropped, with the December estimate at 149-261, considerably fewer than 1,414-2,475 killed in August 2005 and the lowest total since February 2004. Multiple fatality bombings have dropped from 41 in November to 12 in December.

There is so much more as well. Construction, building local political processes, building utilities, building the Iraqi economy, and on and on.

The State Dept puts out a weekly Iraq Status Report that's available in PDF from the main page of the DoD website. For instance, here is the report for December 28.

Every week the report takes a qualitative and quantitative look at a myriad of things, such as security, oil production, electricity production, education, health care, the economy, and so forth. A enterprising journalist (or blogger) could follow that from week to week and track the progress being made.

Another regular publication work tracking is Eye on Iraq, and it is available here. It highlights success stories in Iraq. The Dec 27 issue talks about a soldier's brave deeds in saving the life of an Iraqi boy, Iraqis receiving medical care from the US military, and a large amount of weapons uncovered.

There is far more to the story of Iraq than the selected bits the Strib and the MSM ladle out to us. Don't go looking for the complete story there. You won't find it.