Thomas Engelhardt wrote in left-liberal journal The Nation that "Numbers in Iraq are a slippery matter at best, though again, why anyone pays serious attention to US military numbers from that country is a mystery. On countless occasions in the past, these have been ridiculous undercounts of disaster."[30] The Washington Post stated on September 25 that "Apparent contradictions are relatively easy to find in the flood of bar charts and trend lines the military produces. Civilian casualty numbers in the Pentagon's latest quarterly report on Iraq last week, for example, differ significantly from those presented by the top commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in his recent congressional testimony."