The fudging of the numbers is an enduring political behavior. We of course do the same thing in Afghanistan to paint the picture we want people to believe. This is one reason I'm strongly opposed to our over reliance on measures of effectiveness, it is just another vehicle for the brass to mislead the American people and Congress, which in turn provides more support for ill conceived policies and strategies. Until we as a nation learn to value the truth we will not effectively evolve our approaches to address serious security problems whether they be crime or insurgencies.