The U.S. military has a special intelligence team in Baghdad that determines whether Iraqi civilian deaths were sectarian or criminal violence. The effort is in part to evaluate the U.S.-led coalition's and the Iraqi government's battle to rein in the insurgents and evaluate progress, a Washington Post correspondent reported Tuesday.U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Dan Macomber told the newspaper a manual gives instructions that include such examples of bound and tortured bodies, which are classed as sectarian. A group of bullet-riddled bodies, however, is considered to be non-sectarian and more likely the result of an armed robbery, Macomber said.
Car-bombing victims are generally classed as sectarian deaths based on where they exploded, he said.
However, statistics and attributions vary from different government, military and aid agencies, the Post said. Accordingly, earlier this month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report it "could not determine if sectarian violence had declined" since the U.S. troop buildup began in the spring because of the disparity in reports.