Politicians, generals are lying to Americans

The long-heralded report by Gen. David Petraeus didn't surprise me in its content. Asking a military leader to report on the war in Iraq is like asking a used car salesman if there's anything wrong with the car. There's a certain self-interest involved.

It's curious that the general says the report is his alone, yet his office has been a party in daily conference calls with the White House political team to coordinate message strategy — more specifically to "sell the surge." And the results of their discussions were to mislead the American public with a series of doctored statistics. For example, when reporting on violence in the country, they devised new definitions which exclude deaths by car bombs, and assassinations (unless the victim was shot in the back of the head, and not the front).

While the general claimed we are making major progress, an independent GAO report ordered by Congress found that the "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007." And in August they actually worsened, with civilian casualties rising, according to the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times.

The reality is that this summer is the bloodiest yet for our troops. More died every month this year compared to the same month last year.

A massive ABC/BBC poll found that without exception, every civilian polled in Baghdad, the primary target of the "surge", believes that it has made security worse.

How much longer will Americans tolerate being lied to? How many more Americans and Iraqis will have to die in this ill-conceived and hopeless cause?

LARRY MOONEY

Sandpoint