Hot on the heels of the GAO report today suggesting the Bush administration is playing fast and loose with the Iraq benchmarks comes a letter to Congress urging scrutiny over how the administration is quantifying allegedly-improving security in Iraq. The liberal National Security Network writes today that "US officials have recently claimed that violence is down and specifically civilian deaths in Iraq have decreased. No evidence has been provided to the public that supports this claim."

The letter -- signed by former Clinton Defense Secretary Bill Perry, Princeton's Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Clinton and Bush 43 counterterrorism aide Rand Beers, and six other security wonks -- urges disclosure of statistics underlying the claim. "Not only is accurate reporting the key to sound policy, it is also the responsibility of government to those who have lost loved ones to this horrific conflict."

Full text of the letter follows:

08.30.2007

Washington DC

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Harry Reid
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable Steny Hoyer
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable John Boehner
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Madam Speaker , Majority Leader Reid, Minority Leader McConnell, and Minority Leader Boehner,

Despite recent press reports that the GAO will soon report that “while the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," and the Associated Press indicates that, “sectarian violence has actually doubled in 2007,” US officials have recently claimed that violence is down and specifically civilian deaths in Iraq have decreased. No evidence has been provided to the public that supports this claim. This assertion follows a bloody month for civilians in Iraq including a bombing that killed more than 400 people and is the deadliest attack of the war.

As the Iraq Study Group stated in its report, "Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals." The ISG’s own findings, and other recent reports, indicate that civilian deaths in Iraq are routinely being underreported.

* "The average number of daily attacks against civilians remained about the same over the last six months" states a draft version of the Government Accountability Office provided to the Washington Post. [Washington Post, 8/30/07 ]

* The Associated Press has reported that sectarian violence has actually doubled in 2007 [AP, 8/26/07 ]

* Iraqi government has refused to report civilian death toll numbers to the United Nations agency responsible for collecting this information since January. This means more than 8 months of civilian deaths have gone unreported by an outside observer.

* The Iraq Study Group confirmed that in the past U.S. military officials routinely underreported civilian death. [McClatchy, 12/06/06 ]

* Disparities in death tolls reported by the government and eyewitness accounts cause some to charge that the government is intentionally downplaying or trying to cover up the number of dead. [Christian Science Monitor, 8/03/07 ]

* U.S. officials have claimed that death tolls have diminished in Baghdad, but have failed to provide documentation to the media that would support this assertion. [McClatchy, 8/15/07 ]

We write to respectfully suggest inquiry and attention into the exact nature and methodology that is being used to track the security situation in Iraq and specifically the assertions that sectarian violence is down. Not only is accurate reporting the key to sound policy, it is also the responsibility of government to those who have lost loved ones to this horrific conflict.

Furthermore, in order to make good policy going forward, it is imperative to American policy makers, Iraqi government officials, and the American people to have an accurate understanding of the impact of the President’s “surge” on Iraq’s civil war and the civilian population. Accurate portrayal of the scope of sectarian violence in Iraq is critical to making a complete assessment of the President’s escalation strategy, designed to provide space for political resolution to sectarian disputes. It is imperative that these statistics are accurately reported—and reported soon—as the Congress evaluates the White House’s September 15th report and the future of the US engagement in Iraq..

We owe it to the Iraqis, and to ourselves, to have as full accounting as possible.

Thank you for considering our views.

Mort Abramowitz
Former US Ambassador and Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation

Rand Beers
President, National Security Network
Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, 1998-2002

Morton H. Halperin
Executive Director
Open Society Policy Center

Harold Hongju Koh
Dean and Smith Professor of International Law, Yale Law School Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 1998-2001

William Perry
US Secretary of Defense, 1994-1997

John Shattuck
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 1993-98, Ambassador to the Czech Republic, 1998-2000, CEO, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation

Anne-Marie Slaughter
Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Dan Spiegel
US Ambassador to the UN Agencies in Geneva, 1993-1996

Jessica Stern
Academic Director, Program on Terrorism and the Law, Harvard University School of Law

Cc:
The Honorable Joseph Biden
The Honorable Richard Lugar
The Honorable Carl Levin
The Honorable John McCain
The Honorable Tom Lantos
The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
The Honorable Ike Skelton
The Honorable Duncan Hunter