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Posted on 01/23/2005 8:34:00 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The United States is steadily losing ground to the Iraqi insurgency, according to every key military yardstick.
A Knight Ridder analysis of U.S. government statistics shows that through all the major turning points that raised hopes of peace in Iraq, including the arrest of Saddam Hussein and the handover of political sovereignty at the end of June, the insurgency, led mainly by Sunni Muslims, has become deadlier and more effective.
The analysis suggests that unless something dramatic changes, such as a newfound will by Iraqis to reject the insurgency or a large escalation of U.S. troop strength, the United States won't win the war.
It's axiomatic among military thinkers that insurgencies are especially hard to defeat because the insurgents' goal isn't to win in a conventional sense but merely to survive until the will of the occupying power is sapped. Recent polls already suggest an erosion of support among Americans for the war.
The unfavorable trends of the war are clear:
• U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts have risen from an average of about 17 per month just after President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, to an average of 82 per month.
• The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 808 during the same period. Iraqi civilians have suffered even more deaths and injuries, although reliable statistics aren't available.
• Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when statistics were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 in October. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the multinational forces' deputy operations director, told Knight Ridder on Friday that attacks were currently running at 75 a day, about 2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during the assault on Fallujah, but nearly as high as October's total.
• The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero in the first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13 per month.
• Electricity production has been below pre-war levels since October, largely because of sabotage by insurgents, with just 6.7 hours of power daily in Baghdad in early January, according to the State Department.
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"All the trend lines we can identify are all in the wrong direction," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy-research organization. "We are not winning, and the security-trend lines could almost lead you to believe that we are losing."
The combat numbers are based mainly on Defense Department releases compiled by O'Hanlon in an Iraq Index. Despite the numbers, Lessel, the Air Force general, said that since the U.S. assault on the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah in November, "we have been making a lot of progress" against the insurgency.
He said the number of attacks, bombings and kidnappings is down from November; experienced insurgent leaders are being arrested or killed; U.S. and Iraqi forces remain on the offensive; and more Iraqis have been providing intelligence on insurgents.
Other indications that "things are turning around" include surveys that show 80 percent of Iraqis wanting to vote in next Sunday's national-assembly elections and more than 90 percent opposing violence as a solution to the crisis. In addition, the recruitment and training of Iraqi security forces are being stepped up, Lessel said.
"I don't want to paint too rosy a picture. We still have an insurgency that has a lot of capabilities," he said. "When you ask is the insurgency growing, you have to ask is it growing in terms of popular support, and I don't see that happening."
There are some additional bright spots:
• In the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad and the southern town of Najaf, the scene of intense fighting last year with Shiite Muslim rebels, millions of dollars are pouring into reconstruction efforts. Both places are now relatively peaceful.
• Some 14 million Iraqis, mostly Shiite, are registered to vote in next Sunday's elections for an interim 275-seat National Assembly. They'll choose among 111 slates comprising 7,785 candidates.
• Roughly 1,500 U.S.-funded reconstruction projects are employing more than 100,000 Iraqis, and the insurgents' campaign of attacks and threats has failed to deter sign-ups for Iraq's new security forces.
These developments, however, have had little impact on the broader trends that have moved against the United States through all the spikes and lulls in violence.
Most worrisome: the insurgency is getting larger.
At the close of 2003, U.S. commanders put the number of insurgents at 5,000. Earlier this month, Gen. Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, the director of the Iraqi intelligence service, said there are 200,000 insurgents, including at least 40,000 hard-core fighters. The rest, he said, are part-time fighters and supporters who provide food, shelter, funds and intelligence.
"Many Iraqis respect these gunmen because they are fighting the invaders," said Nabil Mohammed, a Baghdad University political-science professor.
The insurgents "are getting smarter all the time. We've seen a lot of changes in their tactics that say, one, they're getting help from outside, and two, they're learning," said Sgt. 1st Class Glenn Aldrich, 35, of Houston, a 16-year Army veteran who has been doing foot patrols in a Baghdad neighborhood.
The resistance has grown despite suffering huge casualties to overwhelming U.S. firepower, although exact statistics aren't available.
Insurgent attacks have shifted from small groups of men shooting at tanks with AK-47s to powerful car bombs and roadside explosives, and well-planned assaults, kidnappings and assassinations.
American soldiers have subdued Sunni hotbeds including Fallujah and Samarra. Yet these military victories have failed to achieve the broader goal of weakening the resistance.
Some Iraqis say these aggressive U.S. military moves are counterproductive because mass destruction and the killing of Iraqis, such as what happened in the two battles for Fallujah, create more recruits for the insurgency.
"The insurgency will grow larger," said Ghazi Bada al-Faisal, an employee of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and a Fallujah resident. "The child whose brother and father were killed in the fighting will now seek revenge."
Some defense analysts are calling for a new strategy and more troops.
"We can only control the ground we stand on. We leave, and it falls apart," said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst at the Washington Center for Near East Policy.
White proposes sending 20,000 more troops, but the Bush administration hopes to replace U.S. troops with well-trained Iraqis.
In late 2003, Iraqi recruits, many of them young and looking for a paycheck, were pushed through a week or so of training, given guns and uniforms and then declared graduated.
Bush administration officials say the program to train and equip new Iraqi security forces of more than 272,000 members is making progress. Yet several independent experts said it would take at least two years before there are any meaningful numbers of Iraqi forces with counterinsurgency skills and as many as five years before the U.S. goal is attained.
"I think you can achieve success, but it will take a while and, unfortunately, there will be a lot more blood," said Peter Khalil, who was a senior security adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq.
Of course, success isn't assured and the United States will be forced to deal with an elected Iraqi government that may set limits on what U.S. troops can do — and could even ask them to leave.
Hopes that the election might lead to less violence have recently given way to more dire warnings, with expectations that Sunni insurgents who feel disenfranchised in the new Iraq will turn their guns on the elected government.
"I think that we will enter a different, but still-dangerous period in the post-election time frame," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said last week.
lets do some research:
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IRAQ INDEX
Tracking Reconstruction and Security
in Post-Saddam Iraq
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The Iraq Index is a statistical compilation of economic and security data. This resource will provide updated information on various criteria, including crime, telephone and water service, troop fatalities, unemployment, Iraqi security forces, oil production, and coalition troop strength.
The index is designed to quantify the rebuilding efforts and offer an objective set of criteria for benchmarking performance. It is the first in-depth, non-partisan assessment of American efforts in Iraq, and is based primarily on U.S. government information. Although measurements of progress in any nation-building effort can never be reduced to purely quantitative data, a comprehensive compilation of such information can provide a clearer picture and contribute to a healthier and better informed debate.
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Afghanistan Index |
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Michael O'Hanlon spearheads the Iraq Index project at Brookings, with assistance from Senior Research Assistant Adriana Lins de Albuquerque. O'Hanlon is a Foreign Policy Studies senior fellow and served on a U.S. government delegation to Iraq to review post-war progress.
Brookings Institute Iraq Index
OK that seems to work!
Getting interesting....
I think Reuters is cherry picking the data.....see pg3...
A big peak in Nov and Dec then a sharp drop off into Jan....
A Lie....Look at Jan....
Need help with this PDF document....
Thanks for the info.
Does January's total skew the @ twenty month average?
I think they calculated the averages thru December and don't want to count Jan cause it will dramatically change their story.... look at the steep drop off ....
ping!
BTW I don't know if anyone posted it, but on the ticker on CNN today (NOT a story) it was reported that Afghanistan's poppie (heroin) pruduction was down 30-70% (!) last year due to the US crackdown. Funny, all we heard in 2002-2003 was how production was back to normal after the invasion... Guess they aren't trumpeting this info out of a simple error.
Well they can hope can't they? LOL
When you see a piece like this one.....their is no doubt that someone has an agenda...
I don't even pay attention to these media reports anymore. The Iraq war was won months ago after our troops decimated Sadr's militia while at the same time convincing the Shiites in Najaf and Karbala that we were the good guys. Right there that sealed the deal This whole thing that is going on with the Sunnis is meaningless at this point. All one has to do is look at the math to figure that out. The Sunnis are only 15% of the population and they going up against the Shiites and Kurds who are now well-armed. At this point, it is simply impossible for the Sunnis to prevail. All they can do is go out with bang by blowing up civilians and the few remaining police stations that are left that haven't yet figured out how to protect themselves against car bombs.
I agree all the way. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be open to all sorts of criticism on the occupation--even if it's illegit, it gives us an opportunity to research the charges.
Some stats I have show 951 combat deaths from March 03-Nov 04 at about 44 per month.
Does that help?
Another view of casualty stats is available here:
http://icasualties.org/oif_a/Lunaville.htm
It may put things in a different perspective.
Now you've gone and done it. You inserted a logical question into the brewing cauldron of emotional 'talking point' responses!
Any "charges" from the MSM are to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism......all of 'em. They are our enemies. You should know that by now. You want to give 'em quarter, have at it. As for me, they are guilty until proven innocent. They have put themselves in that position, not me.
Do you think traitor is too strong a term for the MSM?
FGS
NO!!!
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