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Study Says Violence in Iraq Has Been Underreported    [

    Warning Over Spiraling Iraq Refugee Crisis
    By Matt Weaver and agencies
    The Guardian UK

    Thursday 07 December 2006

    The surging violence in Iraq has created what is becoming the biggest refugee crisis in the world, a humanitarian group said today.

    A report (pdf) by Washington-based Refugees International said an influx of Iraqis threatened to overwhelm other Middle Eastern countries, particularly Syria, Jordon and Lebanon.

    Last month, the UN estimated that 100,000 people were fleeing the country each month, with the number of Iraqis now living in other Arab countries standing at 1.8 million.

    Today's report came as George Bush and Tony Blair were due to discuss the situation in Iraq, which the bipartisan Iraq Study Group yesterday described as "grave and deteriorating".

    Refugees International said the acceleration in the numbers fleeing Iraq meant it could soon overtake the refugee crisis in Darfur.

    "We're not saying it's the largest [refugee crisis], but it's quickly becoming the largest," spokeswoman Kristele Younes said. "The numbers are very, very scary."

    Ms Younes said the most pressing concern was to prevent other countries from sending Iraqis back to the violence that had forced them to flee their homeland.

    The report revealed Iraqi refugees were facing tough restrictions in other Arab countries, preventing them from finding work or gaining access to healthcare and other public services.

    Jordan has all but closed the door to Iraqis, and has stopped renewing residency permits for the approximately 500,000 already there.

    The kingdom's restrictions have made Syria - which does not require entry visas from Arabs - the leading destination for refugees from Iraq, with around 2,000 entering the country each day, the UN said.

    Refugees International called on the west to "lead an international initiative to support Middle Eastern countries hosting Iraqi civilians".

    "The United States and its allies sparked the current chaos in Iraq, but they are doing little to ease the humanitarian crisis caused by the current exodus," Kenneth Bacon, the organisation's president, said.

    The US State department claimed Washington had funded programme to help "the most vulnerable Iraqis" in Jordan and Syrian, and planned to expand that next year.

    "Iraq's neighbours have showed great generosity in permitting significant numbers of Iraqis to enter and remain, and we continue to call on them to provide temporary asylum," a spokeswoman said.

    Meanwhile, Mr Bush's chief spokesman, Tony Snow, yesterday suggested a new US strategy for Iraq could be revealed in the next few weeks.

    Appearing on CNN's Larry King Live, he said: "Maybe by the end of the year, the president can announce a new way forward."

 

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    Study Says Violence in Iraq Has Been Underreported
    By Jonathan S. Landay
    McClatchy Newspapers

    Wednesday 06 December 2006

    Washington - The Bush administration routinely has underreported the level of violence in Iraq in order to disguise its policy failings, the Iraq Study Group report said Wednesday.

    The bipartisan group called on the Pentagon and the director of the U.S. intelligence community to immediately institute a new reporting system that provides "a more accurate picture of events on the ground."

    The finding bolsters allegations by Democratic lawmakers and other critics that the Bush administration has withheld or misconstrued intelligence that conflicted with its Iraq policy while promoting data and claims that supported its positions.

    Those allegations date back to President Bush's contention before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that Saddam Hussein was hiding illegal nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. His claim proved to be unfounded.

    Bush and his top officials have denied the allegations and accused the news media of exaggerating the violence between Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Muslims, minority Kurds and other groups.

    The office of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, declined comment, saying it was studying the report.

    On page 94 of its report, the Iraq Study Group found that there had been "significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq." The reason, the group said, was because the tracking system was designed in a way that minimized the deaths of Iraqis.

    "The standard for recording attacks acts a filter to keep events out of reports and databases," the report said. "A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count."

    "Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report continued.

    The finding confirmed a Sept. 8 McClatchy Newspapers report that U.S. officials excluded scores of people killed in car bombings and mortar attacks from tabulations measuring the results of a drive to reduce violence in Baghdad.

    By excluding that data, U.S. officials were able to boast that deaths from sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital had declined by more than 52 percent between July and August, McClatchy newspapers reported.

    The ISG report said that U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence on one day in July. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light more than 1,100 acts of violence," it said.

    The panel cited other problems with intelligence that it said have hampered U.S. policymakers' comprehension of the Sunni insurgency or the role being played by Shiite militias and death squads.

    U.S. officials have "been able to acquire good and sometimes superb tactical intelligence" on al-Qaida in Iraq, and there has been an improvement in the collection of information from human sources, it said.

    But the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have failed to invest enough personnel and funds into understanding "the political and military threat to American men and women in the armed forces," the report continued.

    The panel also noted a shortage of proficient Arabic speakers, a problem that the administration and intelligence officials have been urged to correct since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.