Explaining the Drop in Iraqi War Dead (It Wasn't the Surge)

[tekisui]

Source: Consortium News

The Iraqi government has announced that the civilian death toll for November – 88 – was the lowest since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, marking a two-year decline in killings that has corresponded with a less aggressive American military strategy and a pullback of U.S. troops to bases on city outskirts.

Yet how this welcome drop in bloodshed is interpreted – or misinterpreted – has become a troubling element in President Barack Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan by sending some 30,000 additional U.S. troops to support an offensive into Taliban-dominated Helmand Province.

The prevailing wisdom in Washington is that President George W. Bush’s decision in early 2007 to “surge” troops in Iraq – a policy implemented by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus of the Central Command – led to the decline in Iraqi violence. Therefore, the thinking goes, a “surge” should be tried in Afghanistan.

However, there’s an opposite way of reading the same data – that Bush’s “surge” increased the Iraqi violence in late spring 2007, including a spike in U.S. casualties, and that only a political-military decision to pull back from offensive operations that summer began the gradual reduction in the killing. That drop has grown dramatic since mid-2009 when U.S. forces withdrew to bases on the edge of the cities.

If one reads the data that way – seeing a correlation between fewer American troops on patrol and less overall violence – Obama’s Afghan decision could be viewed as likely to increase the disorder in Afghanistan, not tamp it down.

Clearly, in an endeavor as complicated as war, it is difficult, if not impossible, to dissect from recent events exactly what achieved a specific result. But there is logic behind the notion that pulling back U.S. and other occupying military forces could do some good in bringing greater stability to war-torn countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

It’s widely recognized that nationalism – or at least hostility to foreigners – has been a powerful recruiting tool for insurgents throughout history, even for extremists who otherwise might have little appeal to a population.

more: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/120109.html

[FormerDittoHead]

1. Thank you. I was going to check out the 'way back machine' today about this...

You've saved me the trouble of finding out.

Not unlike the hawks to dredge up this lie as basis for current action...

[tekisui]

2. That anyone tries to use Iraq as a positive model on anything

amazes me.

[BeFree]

3. Basically

The day the US announced its intention to leave Iraq the violence began to ebb.

Look for something different in Afghanistan.

[theoldman]

4. If you really want to know what worked in Iraq you have to read a few books.

I think "The Gamble" did a good job of explaining how we changed our strategy in Iraq. If all you read is the media news you will not know half the story.

[thereismore]

5. I think Petraeus is responsible for this latest strategy. It worked in Iraq, why not in Afuckistan.

I agree with your reading.

[Lilith Velkor]

6. The splurge (as in bribing the militias) was what did it n/t

[YouTakeTheSkyway]

7. To some extent, I agree with your assessment:

any surge will almost certainly result in more confrontations in the immediate future, as the U.S. military attempts to gain a strong position from which it can negotiate with Taliban factions. Personally, I (and many others) view this as a necessity if we're ever going to get out of Afghanistan without handing al-Qaeda it's biggest PR victory yet. You can't make these kinds of negotiations from a position of weakness. If you do, you'll get extremely poor results.

With that said, I seriously question the credibility of your article. Attacks in Iraq fell by 50% in 2007, long before the U.S. began pulling back from the cities. What seems to be a more likely explanation for this is a number of factors, none of which were cited by that article. Let me explain. The increased number of troops the surge provided allowed the U.S. military to shift the way in which its troops were deployed in the heavily populated urban areas. Instead of returning to their bases at night and allowing the insurgents to retake the streets, the U.S. military began to establish numerous smaller bases around the cities, living side by side with the Iraqi people, providing them protection 24 hours a day, thus helping to gain their trust. At the same time, greater outreach was made to tribal leaders to basically say "hey, look, we're doing everything we can to stop the attacks on your people, maybe we can work together on some things". And most important of all, we reached out to insurgent leaders, fracturing the Sunni resistance and turning many of al-Qaeda in Iraq's former allies against them.