Who was actually watching the spigot on Iraqi returnees?

The “flood” of Iraqi refugees returning – as evidence, along with declining violence figures put out by the Iraqi government and the U.S. military, that the “surge” is paying “dividends” (and what other terminology would come instinctively to Republicans?) -- has apparently been a bit, shall we say, inflated for political purposes? I assume Petraeus is a good tactician as a military officer, but one thing he does seem to know is P.R. – and that propaganda on the home front is part of maintaining a counter-insurgency. Some citizens of a free country tend to look askance at the collateral damage – “unfortunate” -- that their own soldiers are inflicting on people who think they are patriots. Petraeus gets it: if he can show “success,” those “liberals” can be neutralized as naysayers who don’t want us to “win” anyway. He knows how to manipulate the media, too. It’s almost certain that Petraeus has complete control over every bit of data coming from anywhere in Iraq. Doesn’t mean it’s false, but count the cards.

Some Iraqi lawmakers said that overly broad figures were being used intentionally.
“They are using this number because they want to show that Maliki is succeeding,” said Salim Abdullah, a lawmaker and member of the largest Sunni bloc, known as the Accordance Front, referring to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. “But this does not make the number correct. I think dozens of Iraqis return home daily, but not 1,600.”

A half-dozen owners of Iraqi travel agencies and drivers who regularly travel to Syria agreed that the numbers misrepresented reality. They said that the flow of returnees peaked last month, with more than 50 families arriving daily from Syria at Baghdad’s main drop-off point. Since Nov. 1, they said, the numbers have declined, and on Sunday morning, during a period when several buses used to appear, only one came.

P.S. Halleluyah for a change for some actual reporting.