Despite Saddam Hussein's capture this weekend, many are still pessimistic about controlling the levels of violence in Iraq.
Yet, this pessimism largely depends on the numbers one relies on. Take what has become a surprisingly controversial number:
Baghdad's murder rate (search). Some assert that in October Baghdad had one of the highest murder rates in the world, while others point to numbers that it was below even the U.S.'s own murder rate. The political overtones are obvious, not just in terms of the Bush administration's successes but as people try to explain why the numbers are as high or as low as they are.
This June, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld started the ruckus when he said: “You've got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month.” Some were bothered simply because this indicated that Iraq was being handled well. Others were upset that a country where civilians were able to freely own machine guns could have a lower murder rate than our own nation’s capital where even handguns are banned. The claim did not sit well with those pushing to renew the assault weapons ban (search) in our own country.
The apparently low crime rate was all the more surprising because Saddam had let all of Iraq’s criminals out of jail before his government was removed. In addition, Iraq is still in turmoil: Iraqi police are new to their jobs and terrorist attacks stretch them thin.
On the other side, a New York Times op-ed by two Brookings Institution (search) researchers, Adriana Lins de Albuquerque and Michael O’Hanlon, claims that Baghdad’s murder rate is among the highest in the world. Supposedly Baghdad’s annualized murder rate from April to October this year ranged from an incredible 100 to 185 per 100,000 people -- a number, they pointed out, that averaged several times greater than the rate in Washington, D.C.
Even an op-ed in the U.S. edition of the Wall Street Journal by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey says that Rumsfeld is in “denial” when he claims the “crime levels” are comparable in the two cities. An AP story points to bodies in the morgue and claims, "Baghdad is in the midst of an unprecedented crime wave."
Yet, according to the Wall Street Journal Europe, the U.S. Army 1st Division in Baghdad reports that the numbers fell continually from a
Keep reading...it gets muddier. high of 19.5 per 100,000 in July to only 5 per 100,000 in October. The October rate is actually lower than the 5.6 U.S. murder rate in 2002. By contrast, the New York Times’ latest numbers for October claim to show a murder rate of 140 per 100,000 -- a difference of 28-fold!
