New York Times Gives Michael O'Hanlon Opportunity To Publish More Questionable Iraq Assertions
September 4, 2007 -- 10:30 AM EST // //
So the editors of The New York Times have given the Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon an opportunity to publish yet another piece today touting his claim that the surge is showing signs of military success.
Times readers are surely grateful to the paper for doing this, since many of them have probably forgotten the views on this matter O'Hanlon expressed on the paper's Op-ed page just over a month ago, and they probably needed a refresher.
At any rate, in The O'Hanlon Times today, O'Hanlon concedes "political paralysis" in Iraq. This is more forthright than the assessment offered in his earlier effort, which basically sidestepped the political question entirely. And he does allow that "Iraq is not now on a trajectory toward sustainable stability," which appears to be a euphemism that means, "we're failing in our mission."
Nonetheless, O'Hanlon again argues that the surge is showing military success -- or "military momentum," as he puts it. His evidence, which is included in an accompanying chart, is "culled from official Iraqi and American sources and press reports," he tells us.
But O'Hanlon doesn't tell his readers what these sources and press reports are, so they have no way of gauging the accuracy of his claims. O'Hanlon writes:
Overall, civilian fatality rates are down perhaps one third since late 2006, though they remain quite high. There are also signs that roughly six of Iraq’s 18 provinces are making significant economic and security gains, up from three a year ago. The story in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province is by now well known: attacks in the city of Ramadi are down 90 percent, and the economy is recovering. But there is progress in several regions with more complex sectarian mixes as well.O'Hanlon's claim that "civilian fatality rates are down perhaps one third since late 2006," is an intriguing one. Because the data he provides in the piece's accompanying chart (which contains no specific sourcing) doesn't support it. Rather, the only data he provides on civilian fatalities says that "Iraqi civilian deaths" fell from 3,000 in August 2006 to 2,500 last month. That's a decline of one-sixth, not one-third. And at any rate, August 2006 is not "late 2006." O'Hanlon provides no other data on this question, so we have no way at all of evaluating his claim.
As for the unnamed "press reports" he "culled" this data from, presumably they don't include this one from the Los Angeles Times, or this one from the Associated Press, or this one from The New York Times, all of which reported that civilian fatalities are up across Iraq.
And as for the six other provinces where "significant economic and security gains" are being made, O'Hanlon doesn't provide specifics. While the accompanying chart does contain a few stats claiming scattered categories of general improvement (though again with no sourcing whatsoever), there are no specific stats or evidence to back up his rather sweeping claim.
Finally, it's worth noting that The O'Hanlon Times billed this latest piece as an "update." This presumably is meant to explain why the paper is granting him its prized Op-ed platform yet again, at precisely the moment when the PR efforts of the White House and war supporters are about to crank up into overdrive. (editor's note -- see update below.)
But billing this as an "update" has the unfortunate effect of making it sound as if O'Hanlon is some kind of disinterested observer, who's merely sharing the latest objective data, rather than someone who advocated relentlessly for both the invasion and the surge and is about as far from a disinterested observer as one can be.
But hey, at least he wasn't allowed to describe himself as a war "critic" this time.
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Update: This is much worse than I originally thought. Blogger Moon of Alabama points out that this isn't really an Op-ed in the technical sense, but a regular recurring feature in The Times where O'Hanlon provides a quarterly "update" for on the Op-ed page, complete with chart. So I was wrong to speculate on the Times's motives for billing this an "update." I've made a few corrections to the above to reflect this.
But these "updates" do amount to Op-ed pieces, complete with "Op-charts," as the paper bills them. And the larger point -- that this "update" conveys the impression that this is the work of a disinterested observer providing readers with objective data -- becomes far more obvious if you scroll through all of O'Hanlon's past updates. It also raises anew the question of why the paper offered him the chance to pen an Op-ed proclaiming the war winnable when he's had regular access to its pages for so long -- and when he's being regularly presented by the paper as a kind of Oracle of Objective Knowledge about Iraq. I mean, is there an O'Hanlon saturation point? How much O'Hanlon is too much O'Hanlon?
That these are regular, of course, doesn't change the fact that today's was at odds with his own stats and wasn't sourced in any way -- this, right as the big debate kicks into high gear. Meanwhile, Moon of Alabama makes the case that these "updates" have been regularly misleading right here.
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