Petraeus: How Many Times Do I Have to Defend My Stats?

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) didn’t have much success in getting Gen. Petraeus to go into more detail about how he’s derived his statistics for civilian casualties and sectarian attacks. Petraeus reminded Smith — who misspoke by claiming Petraeus didn’t present his total-casualty stats — that he’s presented Congress with the statistics that he has. But notice that Petraeus doesn’t answer Smith’s question about how Shiite-on-Shiite attacks or other, murkier “ethno-sectarian violence” (to use the general’s phrase) gets classified.