17 |
Civilian casualties
than
statistics from other sources, which only goes to show how
estimates can vary
enormously
according to the method of collection. There is considerable
debate
amongst the
scientific community over the accuracy of the
figures.”
233.
General David
Petraeus, Commanding General MNF‑I, presented Congress
with
his
assessment of the US troop surge on 10 September
2007.148
He
highlighted the
“considerable
data collection and analysis … using a methodology that has been
in
place for
well over a year and that has benefitted over the past seven months
from the
increased
presence of our forces living among the Iraqi people” which
underpinned his
assessment,
and offered Congress statistics on the number of violent civilian
deaths and
“ethno‑sectarian”
deaths.
234.
Colonel Steven
Boylan, Gen Petraeus’ spokesman, provided details of
that
methodology
to The
Washington Post later that
month.149
Col Boylan
reported that
the
statistics quoted by Gen Petraeus drew on data which combined
“unverified” Iraqi
reports and
coalition Significant Activities reports (SIGACTS).
235.
A 2008 RAND
report, sponsored by the Office of the US Secretary of
Defense,
considered
the argument for documenting civilian casualties.150
The report
stated:
“Because
protecting the population is one of the central tenets of US
COIN
[counter‑insurgency]
doctrine, it can be surmised that trends related to Iraqi
civilian
fatalities
should be a chief concern for the U.S. military.”
236.
RAND reviewed
a number of studies of civilian casualties, including the
two Lancet
studies,
the 2008 Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS) Study Group and IBC. RAND
went
on to
present its own dataset, which combined the RAND Terrorism
Knowledge Base
with the
IBC dataset. RAND drew a number of observations and conclusions
from the
consolidated
dataset, including that:
•
The US
military had devoted considerable effort to defeating
Improvised
Explosive
Device (IEDs), yet IEDs accounted for only 5 percent of
civilian
fatalities
in 2006. Firearms accounted for 58 percent of civilian deaths in
2006.
RAND
concluded that while measures to defeat IEDs might save coalition
lives,
they might
not be useful for reducing civilian fatalities; the coalition and
the Iraqi
Government
needed to implement measures to counter the types of attacks
that
were
claiming civilian lives.
•
The
insurgency was specifically targeting the Iraqi Government and the
Iraqi
economy.
Over 30 percent of insurgent attacks were aimed at these two
aspects
of the
Iraqi polity.
148
Gen David
H. Petraeus, Commander, MNF‑I, Report to
Congress on the Situation in Iraq,
Washington,
D.C.: U.S.
House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs and the
Committee on Armed
Services,
10-11 September 2007.
149
The
Washington Post, 22
September 2007, Statement
by Colonel Steven A. Boylan, spokesman for
General David
Petraeus, commander, Multi‑National Force‑Iraq, to the Fact
Checker.
150
RAND,
2008. An Argument
for Documenting Casualties: Violence Against Iraqi Civilians
2006.
211