Iraq’s morgue stats belie McCain’s praise

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On a two-day visit to Iraq, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared after a short walk in a market that Baghdad was becoming safer under a new security plan. But after his departure, Iraqi merchants and U.S. military officials said his upbeat assessment is far from the reality they experience every day.

McCain, who left Iraq on Monday but remained in the region, declared that “things are getting better in Iraq,” and that he was “pleased with the progress that has been made.” But new morgue statistics obtained by the Washington Post paint a more complicated picture and underscore the country’s precarious security environment.

“This is the most dangerous area,” said Ahmad al-Aghaedi, the owner of a small shop that sold light fixtures on Tuesday in the city’s Shorja market, which McCain visited. “There are snipers everywhere. Just three days ago, before the delegation arrived, they shot someone.”

U.S. and Iraqi forces launched the security offensive in February. In March, violent deaths dropped in Baghdad, according to Iraqi morgue and police statistics. But violence rose elsewhere in Iraq, fueled largely by suicide bombings.

In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down just 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed.

The number of Iraqi police officers killed across Iraq nearly doubled from 171 in February to 331 in March, according to Interior Ministry statistics. Meanwhile, the numbers of unidentified bodies found across Baghdad are rising again, suggesting an increase in sectarian-motivated death-squad killings.

In the first three weeks of the security plan, from Feb. 14 to March 7, 125 unidentified bodies were reported. But in the next three weeks, ending March 31, they nearly doubled to 230, according to the morgue data.

Statistics are often inexact here, with several ministries handing out different sets of data. Citing a security official who collected data from the defense, health, and interior ministries, the Reuters news agency, for example, reported this week that a smaller number of people had been killed, 2,078, which it said represented a 15 percent rise over February.

U.S. and Iraqi officials said in interviews that while U.S. and Iraqi forces have focused their security efforts largely on Baghdad, violence is spreading to other parts of Iraq, and that they have noticed a rise in sectarian killings in recent weeks.

A U.S. military official on Tuesday described McCain’s comments about Baghdad’s safety as “a bit of hyperbole.”

“Sectarian-motivated killings were down sharply at the beginning of last month, though they have spiked a bit lately,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “Things are indeed better in Baghdad, for now. It’s just a very fragile situation that could turn at any moment.”

In the Shorja market – where McCain and three other congressional Republicans went Sunday for one hour – most shops were closed on Tuesday by 2:30 p.m.

Thin crowds walked the street, which was fortified by concrete barriers and razor wire. Iraqi soldiers in a Humvee were positioned at one end of the street.

Another member of the delegation, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., declared it was “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”

But merchants on Tuesday said they fear for their lives, despite the drop in killings in Baghdad last month reflected in the morgue data.

They said that the only reason McCain and his delegation could stroll through the market was because of the heavy security that accompanied their visit.

“The force was extraordinary,” said Hassan al-Aghaedi, Ahmad’s brother.

His brother Ayad, he recalled, told members of the delegation, “Once you closed the road, the economic center of Baghdad died.”