success in iraq

Submitted by antarchi on May 30, 2010 - 11:06


UPDATED

Key facts and figures on an illegal invasion, in the eyes of the BBC. 7 years on, several billions later: guess which country?

Phone subscriptions. Improvement.
Food security. Improvement.
Car ownership. Improvement, 3 times over.
Electricity supply. Improvement (mostly, except the glitch in the last quarterly figure).
Gap between electricity supply and demand. Improvement.
Clean drinking water. Improvement.
Sewerage systems. Improvement.
Violence. Improvement.
Oil production. Improvement (though not compared to the 1979 peak)

... That's it. No more key facts or figures. Nothing else is relevant.

The Iraqis must be very grateful. Who would think that 7 years of blowing up a country could lead to such improvements right across the board.

The only hitch is that the BBC has chosen to grab little segments of time, different for each of the indicators, and very few of which begin at the beginning. The overall message of their ''facts and figures'' is that the figures show a vast improvement right across the board. But it''s a bit like cutting someone''s limbs off one by one, then counting the number of paracetamols he's taking now, compared to when we first cut off his little finger. Oh, and noting that between the cut-off of the right and left arm, we connected up the patient''s electricity supply again (for half an hour a day); and between the ear cut off and little toe cut off, the patient''s neighbour bought himself a car (because the US army blew the old one up).

In general, wars are well worth fighting, as long as we are the ones who start them. Then we can count the improvements. But we would never think of doing so for wars conducted by our enemies (or rivals). Those wars are Wars and no right can put them right - quite rightly. No matter how many telephone lines there are in Chechnya, nor how good their sewage systems are today, the BBC would never, ever run a page of 'facts and figures' containing only information on improvements. They would temper, balance, set the context, and make well sure that the War and devastation caused by war was up there from the start. As it should be.

And if the Russian government or Russian media tried to claim that billions spent on reconstructing the telecommunications system was anything to brag about, we would laugh our silly heads off.

*

Letter to the beeb:

Dear Steve Hermann

This is a lengthy complaint, but the page at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7856618.stm is full of inaccuracies and provides a thoroughly biased view of the ''key facts and figures'' concerning Iraq today. I would be grateful if you could respond to each point separately.

1. As a general comment, you offer a total of about 12 'facts and figures', each of which compares a key indicator with the same indicator at an earlier date. At least 10 of those comparisons give a positive view of the situation today compared to an earlier date (see my summary below). The page therefore gives the strong impression that as far as 'key facts and figures' are concerned, Iraq is doing well, and the 'millions of dollars which have been spent on rebuilding the country's infrastructure' have been spent to good effect. I wonder if you would be willing to run a similar story on the situation in Chechnya today, which was also devastated by a military invasion, and which has since had large amounts spent on reconstruction by the invading power. I have no doubt that a similar set of ''facts and figures'' could be found to show that matters have improved - at least since the high point of devastation.

2. One of the reasons why you have been able to show a steady improvement is that the dates you have selected differ for each of the indicators chosen. In order for the report as a whole to have any objective significance, you surely ought to have chosen a time period which is identical for each indicator. Why is it relevant, for example, that food security has improved since 2005? Why not take 2004, or 2001, or even 1990 as your starting point1? If 2005 is indeed a relevant starting date, then why not also take this date as a starting point for phone subscriptions, car ownership and electricity supply? How could it be relevant that sewerage systems have improved over the past year, without any information about the devastation of the sewerage system which the war itself brought about?

3. Another reason why it has been possible to show a steady improvement is that the indicators you have selected are not all ''key'', and nor do they include all indicators which most people would regard as 'key'. Is it really more relevant that phone subscriptions or car ownership have increased since the start of the conflict, than it is that about 4 million people have been displaced from their homes, and very few have returned? Is this not a key fact? Is it not key that most of these refugees or IDPs have seen little if any improvement in their living conditions, let alone in the possibility of returning to their homes? Why do you include no information at all about refugees, or about the exodus of medical staff from the country, the number of journalist deaths, the collapse of the healthcare system, the increase in cancers and other diseases, the increase in infant mortality rate, which is apparently greater than that of any other country in the world (Save the Children)?

What criteria were used in deciding which indicators were to be regarded as 'key' - and how were all of the above omitted?

4. The page begins with the statement that 'Iraq is holding an election, which it is hoped will allow the remaining US troops to leave the country at the end of the year'. If, by 'it is hoped' you mean 'the US Government hopes' - then why do you not say so? In fact the US Government has no intention of withdrawing remaining troops by the end of the year - Obama has made it clear that between 30,000 and 50,000 troops will remain (and that does not include private military contractors). So that statement appears to be incorrect. Unless, perhaps, you meant that 'the BBC hopes', or 'the UK Government hopes' - or something else? In any case, it is clearly not the case that everyone 'hopes', so this statement is highly ambiguous as it stands.

5. Why do you persist in using the IBC figures which, on their own admission, only count 'reported' deaths, and themselves admit that their count is less than the real number of civilian deaths? And yet this article states that 'The Iraq Body Count says 4,644 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2009...' In fact, the Iraq Body Count makes no such claim: they say only that they have *seen reports* concerning the *violent* deaths of 4,644 civilians. By presenting this figure as the total number of civilians killed, you are grossly misleading your readers. Your own journalists must be only too aware that a fraction of deaths are actually reported. And you yourself are certainly aware that there are other surveys which attempt to count the total number, reported and unreported, and whose methodology has been described by the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor as 'close to best practice'.

I would be grateful if you could let me have your reflections on the above points. As it stands, and with the heading you have given the article, it reads like a war propaganda piece. Of course that cannot be what your reporter intended.

Thank you for your attention

antarchi

Summary of claims made in the report, with comparative dates:

Phone subscriptions - 'pre-war levels' compared to now. Improvement.
Food security - 2005 to 2008. Improvement.
Car ownership - 2003, 2004, 2007. Improvement between each date.
Electricity supply -last quarter of 2008 to last quarter of 2009. Improvement.
And then a bit of 'balance' for electricity supply: 'But the quarterly figure was down 8% from the previous three months' ( '...breaking a run of quarterly rises since the beginning of 2008'. Improvement, in some sense).
Gap between electricity supply and demand - last 2 years. Improvement.
Clean drinking water - a year ago to now. Improvement.
Sewerage systems - a year ago to now. Improvement.
Violence - 2003 and 2008 compared to now (IBC figures, of course). Improvement.
Oil production - start of the invasion to now. Improvement. Comparison with 1979 peak - no improvement.

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Reply from News online (1)

Dear [*]
Thank you for your comments regarding http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7856618.stm

We in no way aim to paint a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq. We are aware that Iraq is in deep crisis on many fronts – violence, institutional weakness, corruption, shortages, sectarian tensions etc. We report on all this in detail as a matter of course.

The guide is intended to provide a snapshot of some key indicators to coincide with the election. I fully accept it is not a comprehensive survey that offers detailed, directly comparable, measures across time. We are, to a large extent, at the mercy of our sources of information. In this case they are varied and incomplete.

But the guide can perhaps show some broad trends - and these have been generally positive in some key areas – security, oil production and so on.

While the categories we offer – standard of living, electricity, violence etc – are less than comprehensive, they too offer a range of significant areas and paint a broad picture.

Controversy has surrounded all attempts to measure deaths and casualties from violence since the US-led invasion. We quote the IBC figures because the IBC is only organisation that has maintained a count since the invasion. Others have estimated the figure at a particular time. That said, the IBC counts reported deaths and then cross references them with official figures from Iraqi hospitals and ministries. We believe it is the best measure available - and have no reason to doubt the finding that the trend is downward.

Both Iraqis and Americans are hoping that most US troops will leave the country by the end of 2011. I have altered this sentence to allow for the fact than thousands of US military personnel will no doubt remain in Iraq.

We do accept that some measure of refugees and internally displaced people would be valuable and will, at the first opportunity, add a section on that subject to the guide.

Many thanks

Tarik Kafala

Middle East editor
BBC News website

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My reply:

Dear Tarik Kafala

Thank you for your response to my complaint. Unfortunately, you do not appear to have answered most of my questions. I will repeat them in the hope that you may have misunderstood what I was asking, and may now provide a response.

1. The second point in my letter asked about the differing time-scales for your indicators of 'success'. You say that you are 'at the mercy of [your] sources' - but my point is that inadequate (or unreliable) sources cannot be used as the basis for a 'facts and figures' article. By using different time-spans for each indicator, and by selecting what appear to be arbitrary starting points, you are providing no picture at all, let alone of 'broad trends'. Yet this is what the page pretends to do. You talk about 'snapshots' of key indicators, as if it doesn't matter when the snapshot was taken: any improvement, over any timescale, and irrespective of what went before or came afterwards is, on the presentation of this page, indicative of improvement overall.

To illustrate my point, supposing a doctor presented 'snapshots' of a patient''s progress which looked at the following indicators, and used them to suggest there was a 'broad trend' towards improving health:

- a reduction in body temperature between 2:00 am (104 degrees) and 10:00 am this morning (99 degrees)
- a reduction in the number of cancer cells between 2003 and 2006 (following chemotherapy)
- increased mobility between June 2004 and December 2007

Would you regard this as anything but highly misleading? How does the approach used on this page differ in any substantial way?

2. You have not explained why these indicators were taken rather than any others. This is particularly important since the page is headed 'key' facts and figures - in other words it pretends to cover facts and figures which are of most relevance. Is mobile phone ownership really key, when put beside increased cancers among children, ethnically divided areas, environmental pollution, or unemployment? I also note that despite the fact that you admit that information about refugees and IDPs would be 'valuable', and that it will be included 'at the first opportunity', nothing has so far been added (a full week later). Please could you make sure that this is done.

3. You miss my point about the formulation 'it is hoped' at the beginning of the page - although I appreciate the amendment to the page that not *all* troops will leave at the end of the year. But it is simply not correct to say that 'both Americans and Iraqis are hoping that most US troops will leave the country by the end of 2011'. In a survey you yourselves commissioned (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/13_03_09_iraqpollfeb2009.pdf) the following question was asked:

An agreement between the Iraqi and U.S. governments says all U.S. troops are to be withdrawn by 2011. Do you think U.S. forces should leave sooner than that, stay longer than that, or is this timetable about right?

46% of those surveyed felt that US forces should leave sooner. Your formulation completely ignores almost half of the population of Iraq who have been hoping that US troops will leave for a long time now - not to mention the Americans and other nationalities who have been hoping for the same thing. Why do you not say who it is that is doing the hoping, rather than adopting a formulation which is misleading and inaccurate?

4. You have also misunderstood my remark about the IBC figures. IBC themselves make the point that their figures do not pretend to capture all civilian deaths - and yet this is nowhere apparent in your presentation. You say that you believe IBC offers the 'best measure available'. I wonder what qualifies you to make this judgement, and on what grounds you discount the Lancet study, whose methods the BBC (and others) accepted in estimating (for example) deaths in the Congo. I am sure it is by now BBC policy to make no mention of the Lancet study, but you might at least, in referring to deaths according to IBC, make the point that unrecorded deaths simply do not feature, and that the IBC measure is one of the lowest estimates among many surveys which have been carried out into Iraqi deaths.

It is incredible that the effects of a war which has almost certainly killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, which has led to at least 4 million people leaving their homes, which has been declared illegal by almost every international lawyer (unless they were employed by the governments of the invading forces), and which has resulted in massive destruction of a whole country and people can be presented in such a calmly misleading and 'positive' light. I wonder again whether you would run this story if the invaders had been the Russians or the Iranians or the Chinese.

Thank you for your attention
...

'

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Second reply from News online

(After a complaint to the Editorial Complaints Unit)

Dear ...

You received a reasonably full reply to your first e-mail about the Iraq facts and figures article, and some changes were subsequently made to our piece. Your second e-mail seemed a restatement of the first. However, after discussion with the Editorial Complaints Unit, I am happy to revisit some of your points, though my responses may not satisfy your underlying concerns about the BBC's coverage of Iraq.

The information selected is based on a range of data, covering various timescales. If we had figures over comparable timescales, we would use them. However we disagree with your analogy of a doctor presenting "snapshots" of a patient. This is patently not the same thing and it is perfectly reasonable in our view to present a series of statistics from which readers can draw their own conclusions. As more recent information becomes available we can update our report.

As for the subjects chosen, we have added a section on refugees, as you suggested. Of the other areas you raise, I think we can add information of employment. I have not been able to find any data on environmental pollution and or numbers on ethnically divided communities. These are clearly important phenomena, but we do not have any data on them. We have reported on increases in cancer among children. This is not a nationwide trend, and there are no actual statistics on this. John Simpson has reported on this, and found only anecdotal evidence. We chose mobile phone ownership as because it is a measure that readers everywhere can relate to. I have also seen it used as a general indicator of standard of living in Africa, for example.

You criticises the phrase in the introduction, "it is hoped", because a BBC survey shows that 46% of Iraqis want US troops to leave sooner than 2011. This is unfair. The survey also, obviously, shows that 54% of Iraqis don't want US troops to leave sooner or want them to stay longer.

On the Iraq Body Count. The table clearly says "reported" deaths. We could add the word reported to the body of the text to make this doubly clear.

On the overall tone of the piece, we report at great length on the BBC News website about the difficulties that exist in Iraq, a point I made to you in my first reply. But we must also report some of the general trends, many of them positive. Our article does indicate a general improvement in several areas (violence is down, oil production and electricity supply up). It is not for us to deliberately seek out positive indicators, but it is reasonable to wish to present an accurate, fair and largely uncontroversial report. We are all too often accused of dwelling on negative aspects of the state of Iraq.

In my first reply, I conceded that there were shortcomings in the data we used, such as the lack of consistency over timescales. Also, for all our efforts it can never be totally comprehensive given the difficulties in obtaining relevant data. But that does not mean we should not have produced the report. I am unaware of anyone else taking exception to it.

So in response to your complaint, we have added a section on refugees and altered some wording about US soldiers remaining in Iraq. I have asked an experienced journalist to look again at the piece and see where it can be improved. He is working on:

o Adding some data on unemployment
o Adding some detail from the February 2009 BBC survey and linking to it
o Updating some of the indicators and measures we are already using in the piece - electricity, sanitation and refugees. All the rest is as up-to-date as we can make it

I would hope these updates will address some of your concerns. After all, the report will always, to some extent, be a work in progress. However, if you still have reservations you are, of course, welcome to pursue the matter with the ECU.

Regards,

Tarik Kafala
Middle East Editor
BBC News website

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My response (2):

Dear Tarik Kafala

Many thanks for this detailed reply, which does respond to most of my points - even if I do not always agree. I will not bother you again on this issue, but I would be grateful if the changes you mention could be made to the page concerned.

I would just pick up a couple of your responses, more for clarification than with any hope of changing your approach (or the wording on the page):

1. You refer to my concerns about the formulation "it is hoped", suggesting that it is a legitimate formulation since 54% of Iraqis do want US troops to leave within the time scale you are talking about. My point was that unless everyone 'hopes', you need to make it clear who is doing the hoping. (If you were reporting on opinion polls before the General Election in this country, you would be unlikely to say 'It is hoped that there will not be a Conservative government' - even if 64% of the population did indeed hope for that)

2. On the general tone, I would repeat a point I made in my first letter: that if an illegal war of aggression had been waged by Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, or another of our official 'enemies', the consequences of which had been to end the lives of almost certainly more than a million people (despite your faith in IBC), I do not think that it would be thought appropriate to produce a set of statistics almost all of which show an 'improvement' as a consequence. My complaint is partly that you do not think it necessary to mention certain facts, and partly about the difference between reporting on our wars and those of other countries. I would like to see objectivity across the board.

But I recognise that that is probably unlikely.

Thanks again for your time
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