Fuzzy Baghdad Math

click to enlarge Can we do the math anymore? Not if the administration and the Iraqi government has it's way. There are moves afoot to ban reporters from bomb attack sites, stop publication of morgue statistics and continue the policy of discluding civilians in the causality numbers. Daily Kos Diarist BarbinMD has an excellent front page story on this very issue. But there is another problem with the body count that I really don't see being address in the mainstream media and that is the so-called surge. Are we really adding troops on the ground or is the real purpose of the surge is simply to replace the dead and the wounded? Yes, the death rate in Iraq is lower than Vietnam, but the number of critically wounded is historically high. So all those dead and wounded soldiers need to be replaced at some point. But do we really know? With the BushCo propaganda machine in full swing against the Democrats, it is damn near impossible to find real data or troop exchanges. So I going on gut instinct here and say we are really just replacing troops lost in combat with just a tinge of new folks for the so-called surge. This is a good time to review my "gut instinct" policy - under the Bush Administration, however bad things appear to be, in reality they are five times worse. Your mileage may vary.