By The Numbers

The Pentagon's numbers that is. Get ready for a ration and a half from these clowns. Washington Post (09.06.07):

"The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends."

Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq

Whether a death is counted or not depends on where you were hit. "'If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian,' the official said. 'If it went through the front, it's criminal.'"

It's not counted if it's too hard to count. From a spokesman for Multi-National Force: "'Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances,' the spokesman said, 'we do not track this data to any significant degree.'"

They're also not counting "(a)ttacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda...."

Great, huh.