From The Nation
By Tom Engelhardt

Whoa, let’s hold those surging horses in check a moment. Violence has lessened in Iraq. That seems to be a fact of the last two months — and, for the Iraqis, a positive one, obviously. What to make of the “good news” from Iraq is another matter entirely, one made harder to assess by the chorus of self-congratulation from war supporters and Bush administration officials and allies, as well as by the heavy spin being put on events — and reported in the media, relatively uncritically.

An exception was Damien Cave of the New York Times, who had a revealing piece on a big story of recent weeks: The return of refugee Baghdadis — from among the two million or more Iraqis who had fled to Syria and elsewhere — to the capital. This has been touted as evidence of surge “success” in restoring security in Baghdad, of a genuine turn-around in the war situation. In fact, according to Cave, the trickle of returnees — lessening recently — has been heavily “massaged by politics. Returnees have essentially become a currency of progress.”

Those modest returnee numbers turn out to include anyone who crossed the Syrian border heading east, including suspected insurgents and Iraqi employees of the New York Times on their way back from visits to relatives in exile in Syria. According to a UN survey of 110 families returning, “46 percent were leaving [Syria] because they could not afford to stay; 25 percent said they fell victim to a stricter Syrian visa policy; and only 14 percent said they were returning because they had heard about improved security.” And that’s but one warning sign on the nature of the story under the story.

A recent Pew Research Center poll of American reporters who have been working in Iraq finds that “[n]early 90 percent of U.S. journalists in Iraq say much of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit” and many believe that “coverage has painted too rosy a picture of the conflict.”

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