More On Contracts

(Or "are you smarter than a fifth grader?" Talking Barbie says "no".)

My contractors in Iraq article has benefited greatly from many insightful commenters. Those of us who've actually been to Iraq - or even just served in the military are aware of the important roll contractors play in everything we do. Obviously we understand the impact they have on our operations - so we tend to view any blatant effort to misinform the American public on the topic as an attack worthy of response. (We are military, after all.)

It's worth examining the tactic used in this particular attack, evident from the first paragraph of the AP story:

Military contracts in the Iraq theater have cost taxpayers at least $85 billion, and when it comes to providing security, they might not be any cheaper than using military personnel, according to a report released Tuesday.

Looking into the actual CBO report cited in the AP story we discover almost immediately that there's additional deception involved in the first line.

Government (Defense, State, US Aid) contracts in the Iraq theater total $85 billion, DoD ("military") contracts account for the majority ($76 billion) of the total. Of that number, $54 billion is spent in Iraq, the remainder in neighboring countries ("the Iraq theater") ostensibly directly related to operations in Iraq. I'm not sure why one of the accurate statements that "Military contracts in the Iraq theater have cost taxpayers at least $76 billion" or "Government contracts in the Iraq theater have cost taxpayers at least $85 billion" weren't used. Congress - and the American people - should debate the expense, but likewise that debate should be grounded in fact - not something that sort of approaches fact. The CBO report presents the available facts - the authors should be commended. The AP skews them and renders much of that effort moot. That the skew is slight in this example is all the more puzzling - but the reader's concern for this level of detail will reflect their concern for how their money is spent and by extension the degree to which their opinion on the subject should be taken seriously.

So thus far in sentence one of the AP story we've seen numbers fudging and weasel words. But there's another deceptive technique employed in that opening line - surprisingly it will be exposed for what it is in paragraph 12 of the AP report:

The CBO estimated Tuesday that $6 billion to $10 billion has been spent on security work, and that the prices paid are comparable to a U.S. military unit doing that work.

Simply put, while the first paragraph is arguably "true", the twelfth is important: it provides actual facts and enables the author, editors, and publishers a defense against any claims that they didn't. After all, it's hardly their fault if a reader doesn't get their message, is it?

But paragraph one is interesting because it combines two facts

A. America is spending a lot of money on contracts in and around Iraq.

B. America uses security contractors in Iraq.

to create a factual (albeit deceptive) statement (A+B). For some reason they then hammered in the deceptive "Military" (vice "government") claim in the first fact, and the weasel word "might" in the second.

Why? One answer might be gleaned from what's thus far missing from the full algebraic expression A+B=?. (If you missed it, what's missing was the =? part. Sorry for the math, but this is an article about economics, right?) In an opinion piece an author would have suggested an answer and attempted to convince readers to agree, in a news story they might present all options or none, along with arguments for and against various solutions. In the AP story the author insists that both A and B equal something they do not - this increases the potential difficulty of solving the equation correctly.

And that's the first paragraph.

Other examples of using this technique can be found elsewhere - the sharp reader probably knows them when he or she sees them.

Here's one that was popular at the start of the surge:

A. Marines serve 8-month tours in Iraq, many are on their third or fourth.

B. Soldiers serve 12-month tours, during the surge that was increased to 15. A few are shipping out for their third tour.

"Soldiers and Marines are serving more and longer tours in Iraq, and as the Army extends tour lengths to 15 months some are preparing to deploy for their fourth or fifth rotation in Iraq"

Add in Air Force four-month tours and you can have all sorts of fun with that one.

Here's another that seems to be replayed frequently:

A. Thousands of Soldiers get re-enlistment bonuses. Infantrymen - the bulk of the Army's numbers - can get up to a maximum of $10,000 depending on their rank, experience, and length of reenlistment.

B. A very few other soldiers - those in extremely difficult to fill specialties that require lengthy training or unique and rare qualifications - can qualify for very large bonuses up to a $40,000 maximum, again based on rank, experience, and length of reenlistment.

"In an effort to retain thousands of soldiers needed during the unpopular Iraq war, the Army is increasingly offering cash bonuses of up to $40,000 to maintain it's depleted ranks."

Factual, even if they don't add up to whole truth. Again, this sort of stuff doesn't really matter - unless it shapes the national debate. But surely our elected representatives are a bit too sharp to be hoodwinked and bamboozled by this sort of first grade math problem, right? Surely they wouldn't accept that sort of ignorance and assist its further spread? Surely they know the facts about the American military....