Cooked Books: Iraqi Figures On Returning Refugees Are "Massaged"

New York Times:

Last week, Iraq's minister of displacement and migration, Abdul-Samad Rahman Sultan, announced that 1,600 Iraqis were returning every day, which works out to a similar, or perhaps slightly larger, monthly total.

But in interviews, officials from the ministry acknowledged that the count covered all Iraqis crossing the border, not just returnees. "We didn't ask them if they were displaced and neither did the Interior Ministry," said Sattar Nowruz, a spokesman for the Ministry of Displacement and Migration.

As a result, the tally included Iraqi employees of The New York Times who had visited relatives in Syria but were not among the roughly two million Iraqis who have fled the country.

The figures apparently also included three people suspected of being insurgents arrested Saturday near Baquba in Diyala Province. The police described them as local residents who had fled temporarily to Syria, then returned.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Nova16]

The displaced Iraqis are returning amid shouts of glee and garlands of flowers from their fellow Iraqis just as the Bush pentagon employees were greeted after the "shock and awe" and the preemptive invasion that turned this nation into a killing field and money pit as a result of the biggest foreign policy disaster in our history. I am sure each returnee is anxious and excited to take advantage of the fresh water and electric power that Saddam provided for them before Bush took it away.

[fourex]

ResidentApe, "They only want to wave the white flag, appease our enemies and stab our allies in the back."

Allies don't murder, accomplices do.

[ResidentChimp]

The surrender monkeys are grasping at straws and trying to minimize any good news coming from Iraq. They only want to wave the white flag, appease our enemies and stab our allies in the back.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Figures don't lie, but liars figure, and I
figure if they go ahead and impeach Bush and
company, then they can start going after the
rest of the people whose bright idea it was
to undertake this war to begin with.
http://www.impeachbush.org

[WilliePilgrim]

Can the term "black Iowans" actually be plural?
Just kiddin'...­really.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

And how many of the nominally deservedly counted returning Iraqis are not able to return to their homes due to ethnic cleansing, but rather, are returning to other neighborhoods?

[fourex]

Bush the pathological liar just can't help himself. No matter how mundane or insignificant the detail, Bush just has to lie.

[loki]

Being as the Iraqi Gov is basically inserted by the Bush Gov, what else could you expect but lies.

[Horst]

I knew the New York Times was doing poorly and losing readers...­but I had no idea its reporters were emigrating to Iraq in such large numbers.

[gappytoofcondi]

How about saving web space by reporting on what has been accurately protrayed by the MSM and the WH?

Right! There would be an empty space.

[Not Blind]

I was in Jordan last summer and saw refugee camps overflowing with Iraqis. They left with nothing but what they could carry. The Jordanian government, like Syria, simply can not keep them indefinately. Providing food, water, sanitation and medical care is too costly, given the numbers of people, not to mention many displaced Palestinians.
Both Syria and Jordan reluctantly, have to persuade as many as possible to return to their homeland. The refugees can't just live forever in those camps either. They have to go home because there's no life for them in Syria or Jordan: visa requirements, job and educational opportunities limited (if non-existent). They are not returning because they feel safer, but because they have no where else they can go and live their lives.
If we were a truly compassionate nation, we would allow these refugees to emigrate here. We did so with Jews after WWII, with the Vietnamese after the war there. We have an obligation to these displaced refugees, to give them the same.

[hannabanana]

This reminds me of my habitually lying neighbor. She lies about negative things that happen to her to make them seem worse or minimal depending on who she's talking to, and she lies about positive things that happen to make them seem better then they actually were.

The point is she, like the retardo in the White House and the Iraqi government, lie regardless of circumstances and nothing they report can be taken as accurate.

[ljsfolly]

There are probably many reason why they are returning but the lie of safety is what it is. Our administration is hungry to show the government "they elected" to be the one succeeding without doing the actual work to force reconcillation within the country. It is obvious to the world that the Iraqi government isn't working and many representatives have left and abandoned their offices. Syria and Iran are not the havens they thought they would be either so they go back to no homes , no money, no jobs.

[prochange]

I saw a report on Al Jazeera about the returning Iraqis. Most of them have run out of money and cannot stay in their respective host countries anymore. They do not consider Iraq being safer, but they have nowhere else to go and at least Iraq is their homeland and familiar.

[Gumby123]

It's amazing how a bunch of whining losers will lament good news from Iraq.