Spinning Iraq

It appears the US military has begun to take a different tack in its announcements of "successes." Instead of announcing the insurgents killed each day in each operation, the new strategy seems to be to withhold the announcements of insurgent kills until a bigger, more headline grabbing number has accumulated. Today's example:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 100 insurgents last week in the town of Ramadi in the rebel heartland of Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

I first noticed this new media strategy on Saturday(bottom.)

To me, this echoes the desperate attempts to show success through body counts in Vietnam.

Also of interest, Reuters found it necessary to try and confirm this announcement(they couldn't.) That questioning of announcements from the podium is a telling story in itself.

This tactic has been successful on one front. The fact that another US soldier was killed(2,406) yesterday and tortured and bound bodies continue to turn up around Baghdad was not Reuter's headline story out of Iraq.

(Or maybe it's just the recurring "turning point" rhetoric that brings back echoes of Vietnam. I imagine a political cartoon with Bush walking on a square road with turning point signs at each corner with Bush back at the start.)