RSS 2.0 FeedIs The Surge Actually Working ?
by Doug MataconisThe Washington Post seems to suggest that the answer is yes:
NEWS COVERAGE and debate about Iraq during the past couple of weeks have centered on the alleged abuses of private security firms like Blackwater USA. Getting such firms into a legal regime is vital, as we’ve said. But meanwhile, some seemingly important facts about the main subject of discussion last month — whether there has been a decrease in violence in Iraq — have gotten relatively little attention. A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that “civilian deaths have risen” during this year’s surge of American forces.
A month later, there isn’t much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 — down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.
During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say — so far, with stunningly little success.
Of course, not everything is rosy:
This doesn’t necessarily mean the war is being won. U.S. military commanders have said that no reduction in violence will be sustainable unless Iraqis reach political solutions — and there has been little progress on that front. Nevertheless, it’s looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus’s credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq’s bloodshed were — to put it simply — wrong.
So does this mean the surge — the increase in American troops in high risk areas — is actually working ? Well, it seems that the answer is yes and no. Clearly, it’s worked to the extent that the overall level of violence has decreased significantly. But that was only part of the goal. The other part — increased political stability in Iraq — clearly isn’t working, and it’s unclear how it can work unless the Iraqis themselves put their differences aside and create a working government. If that’s not possible, then it would seem that the only viable solution would be the one proposed by Joe Biden and Sam Brownback — a weak national government presiding over three essentially separate states.
In either case, if the Post is right that the violence in Iraq has turned a corner, the real impact of the “better numbers” will be to make withdrawal far less politically urgent for whomever takes the oath of office in 2009.
Watch what happens once the troops start rotating home in the spring and then tell us how great the surge was.
The government’s a dysfunctional mess, the Sunnis are still disenfranchised, and the Kurds are provoking war with the Turks. The surge is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Comment by UCrawford — October 14, 2007 @ 7:34 pmThe purpose of the surge was to provide the Iraqis time to get their political affairs in order. By this measurement alone, the surge has failed.
The question is, what next?
Comment by Kevin — October 14, 2007 @ 7:39 pmAnd I suppose you’ll argue that it’s our responsibility to partition them. And that we are responsible for presiding over the inevitable relocation that will take place once the sectarian groups start forcibly evicting Shi’a from Sunni areas and Sunni from Shi’a areas. I’m sure that’ll work out well, considering how we’ve done a bang up job of keeping the violence down for the last four and a half years.
And who’s going to carry this out? Once we start the spring troop rotations and send 30,000-40,000 troops home we’ve got nobody left to send because the units back home aren’t ready to take their place.
http://www.slate.com/id/2173902/
Where’s the manpower going to come from to pull this off, Doug? Or the resources, considering the military’s current equipment shortage, (which were bad back in January and are even worse now)?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/AR2007012901584.html
Maybe we should just trust the Iraqi police forces to handle security for this partition plan:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article576433.ece
By all means, Doug, explain how the logistics and on-the-ground realities of the interventionist foreign policy you so favor are magically going to fix themselves and make Biden’s plan possible. Or why it’s even our responsibility to try it.
Comment by UCrawford — October 14, 2007 @ 7:44 pmI didn’t read anything about refugees. When sectarian violence has succeeded in chasing out one sect, the violence will go down.
That said, it’s nice that we’ve managed to reach a level of violence of more than a year ago.
Comment by rho — October 14, 2007 @ 7:55 pmI must say, I didn’t expect the surge to have much of an effect, and the jury is still out, as far as I’m concerned. But the evidence from the last few weeks is certainly heartening.
As others have already pointed out, the reduction in violence is only the first requirement of the long-term solution: political accommodation among the three parties in Iraq. And that is not happening as yet. Worse, we have achieved peace in Sunni areas by arming the local militias — which means that, if there is a civil war, it will be all the more horrific.
Comment by Chepe Noyon — October 14, 2007 @ 7:56 pmRho,
The refugees will happen once partitioning begins. We’ve already seen it in Kurdish areas…once the Kurds consolidated power they started forcibly evicting Arabs from their homes:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/04/19/MN111472.DTL
And the Shi’a ran death squads to evict Sunni from Shi’a neighborhoods, possibly aided by Iraq’s Interior Ministry:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120300881.html
The surge kept the violence down for a bit, but once the troops rotate home in the spring that comes to an end and you’ll see the refugee problems start again because the government has never resolved any of the issues that contribute to the violence.
Iraq may very well partition itself in the future, but it’s going to be a very bloody process and it’s not going to be in our interests to be involved because it’s very likely to turn into a shooting war. Biden’s plan is the worst kind of wishful thinking and it’s not our responsibility to determine the Iraqis’ course for them.
Comment by UCrawford — October 14, 2007 @ 8:12 pmHarpers had a better article about how the activity of the death squads spiked once Bayan Jabr (member of SCIRI and the Da’wa Party) took over the Interior Ministry from Falah al-Naqib.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/08/0081159
Comment by UCrawford — October 14, 2007 @ 8:14 pmAs others have noted, it’s a failure until the Iraqis have a working government. And the Brownback-Biden partition is a bad idea, at least according to what the Iraq Study Group found when they looked at the populations of the country. Besides, it ought to be a matter of self-determination, let the Iraqis work out if a three state solution is best.
Comment by Seer — October 14, 2007 @ 8:23 pmI think whomever needed to be killed has been killed in 2005 and 2006. The surge is way too late and I’m skeptical that it would have been of any help when the real sectarian violence was going on.
I don’t know if the surge is working. It may be because of the surge policy, but I can name other factors contributing to the drop in violence, too. But the drop in violence hasn’t done anything for political progress. The Iraqi government is looking more and more like an illegitimate government incapable of reaching any consensus.
Comment by TanGeng — October 15, 2007 @ 7:56 am