U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks
…Within weeks of the kickoff of the Baghdad security plan, the U.S. military’s top spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, boasted that the murder rate in Baghdad had fallen by 46 percent and attributed most of the fall to the new security sweeps.
On Thursday, Caldwell revised the figures, posting a statement on the website of the Multi-National Force-Iraq that the murder rate had dropped even more – by 52 percent from July.
That claim was immediately contradicted by the morgue figures, which trickled out in accounts by various news organizations citing unnamed officials.
Johnson said he couldn’t comment on morgue figures and declined to release the raw numbers on which Caldwell’s claim was based. He said the numbers were classified and that releasing them might help “our enemy” adjust their tactics.
“We attempt to strike the right balance, being as open and transparent as possible without providing information that places our troops or Iraqi civilians at undo risk by the enemy adjusting their tactics for greater impact,” he said, in explaining the decision not to release the figures.