Reality-Based Reconstruction

From Juan Cole:

Major Battle North of Samarra Leaves Dozens Dead
Or Does It?

...Iraqi gendarmes of the Interior Ministry, supported by American troops, discovered a guerrilla training camp on the shores of Lake Tharthar in central Iraq. In the subsequent engagement, they claim to have killed 85 guerrillas. Al-Zaman says that 12 Iraqi policemen were killed in the encounter, in return. This area, the district of Hilwah, lies between Samarra, Tikrit and Ramadi, and the lake area-- populated by fishermen-- has been used by guerrillas as a base and to transport weapons. It is a marshy area difficult of access for outsiders.

Agence France Presse, on the other hand, managed to get some independent journalists up to the lake, north of Samarra, and they found 40 guerrillas still there. The guerrillas denied that 85 of their fellows had been killed by the Iraqi army, but admitted that 11 had been killed by US aerial bombardment. (American news organizations such as CNN refuse to report news that is only carried by AFP, because they consider it to have inadequate journalistic quality-control. But reports like this one are not being done by US wire services in Iraq, and if we don't take AFP seriously, we essentially may as well just believe whatever Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib and the Pentagon claim.

Unfortunately, the US military is filtering our news from Iraq, and we only hear about a fraction of the violence that actually takes place there. What we do hear is often imbued by a kind of US boosterism (such as the recent faintly ridiculous claim that Fallujah is the safest city in Iraq-- as though it were still an inhabited city). Even if it were not exaggerated, this report about the Tharthar Camp would mean more in the context of all the violent incidents that occurred on Wednesday, but we don't have access to most of those. That such battles signal a "tipping point" in the counter-insurgency struggle strikes me as highly unlikely. Another question: Are these gung-ho gendarmes killing Sunni jihadis from a Shiite background? Are they getting intelligence via the Badr Corps?...

If there's difficulty evaluating the scorecard at this level, expect even more obfuscation regarding (thanks to Today in Iraq ) something bound to raise Big Time Dick's ire: Iraq's interim government is refusing to make payments on some contracts with foreign companies including Raytheon Co. and A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S because they overcharged or failed to deliver everything they promised...

What are these fine contractors going to do? Turn out the lights? Break some kneecaps? Withdraw their protection?

'The reconstruction of post-war Iraq is in danger of becoming "the biggest corruption scandal in history", Transparency International has warned...

Publishing its annual report, TI said there was evidence of "high levels" of corruption in post-war Iraq. ..

Foreign contractors should be bound by anti-corruption laws while the management of Iraq's oil revenues needed to be much more transparent and accountable, Transparency International said in its Global Corruption Report 2005...

Transparency International is a Berlin, Germany-based private organization dedicated to monitoring and exposing corruption in international business.

One of their most interesting facets- and tools- is their database for tracking dirty international business down.

So even if the FBI can't build a searchable database, and John Poindexter's TIA is more interested in how much money you make, it's good to know the Europeans have what they need to track criminals.