Pentagon Report Gives Lie to Surge Success
Reprinted for Monday readers:
An article on how the schedule for turning Iraqi provinces over to the Iraqi army and police for security purposes has slipped to August 2008 notes of a new Pentagon report:
' The Pentagon report cited a litany of problems with the police. For example, it said as few as 40 percent of those trained by coalition troops in recent years are still on the job. Also, due to combat loss, theft, attrition and poor maintenance, a "significant portion" of U.S.-issued equipment is now unusable.'
Just to underline what is said here, 60 percent of the policemen who got even the very minimal training on offer to them have disappeared from the force; and not much is left of the weaponry ("equipment") that the US gave the Iraqi police.
The report is here (pdf).
The report also has two graphics that should make us very suspicious about all the declarations that the troop escalation or 'surge' has significantly reduced violence in Iraq. I cut the graphs in half, so they show only 2006 and 2007 and relabled them, but you can scroll down at the pdf link above to see the originals. I did not modify them in any other way.
The first graph shows average daily casualties (dead and wounded badly enough to go to hospital) by month in Iraq.
This graph shows that there was no significant reduction in daily casualties in Iraq this summer. June saw a dip, mainly in civilian Iraqi casualties; coalition and Iraqi security force casualties were as bad as ever. Since the reduction in civilian casualties was not sustained, it is not significant, and could just have been a fluke (a few car bombs in markets failed to kill as many people as usual, e.g.) Somewhere around 150 persons continued to be killed or wounded every single day according to this chart, with a very minor daily reduction in the hot months of the summer when it is harder to fight.
The second graph gives the number of attacks per month. Obviously, a lot of attacks produce no casualties. Mortars land uselessly in the desert, e.g.
This graph shows that with regard to attacks May and June (when the 'surge' was well under way) were two of the most violent months ever since the US occupation of Iraq began. The June average was 177.8, the highest ever seen. July was more like the violent fall-winter 2006 than it was like the slightly less violent summer.
The graph does show a reduction in attacks for August, but what I notice is that the reduction in attacks did not come with regard either to Iraqi civilians or Iraqi security personnel, which seem the same height as previous months. The only significant reduction for August was with regard to attacks on coalition forces. (Since troop casualties do not seem to have been down very much for August, this statistic suggests that there were fewer attacks but they were more deadly. That is not good news.)
The Pentagon is trying to give us the impression that August was a 'trend', but statistically that is silly, since it was just one month and what came before it was pretty horrible. The dip in attacks in August does not seem to have come with much of a dip in casualties, in any case. And if all that is happening is that fewer US troops are being attacked, but similar numbers are being wounded or killed, I'm not sure that is even significant. Since some of the attacks were on the British in the south, changes in the way they were deployed could have had a small impact on these statistics.
The Pentagon tells us that violence in Baghdad is back down to the levels of summer, 2006. But whether that is true or not, the generalization cannot be made for Iraq, by the Pentagon's own statistics. If you do a three-month rolling average for months prior to September, whether you look at numbers of attacks or numbers of casualties, there has not been a significant improvement with regard to violence in the country as a whole.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/24/2007 12:11:00 AM
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13 Comments:
Conveniently for the administration, these graphs weren't released until AFTER Petraeus gave his report; otherwise, congress members and journalists would have been able to question the general using these statistics, which seem to paint a different picture than what was presented by Petraeus, and later by Bush himself. Sadly, Congress is so easily manipulated and complacent, instead of demanding to see statistical proof BEFORE the general was scheduled to give his report on the situation in Iraq.
By this stage of the game,if the information comes from the government (any branch),it cannot be believed.A healthy scepticism is beneficial to the political discourse.But when a significant portion of the population views any utterance from their government as untruthful,we got trouble in River City.
Post has been clipped (its up in clipmarks) and reposted on my blog. Excellent work professor.
Juan posted about "all the declarations that the troop escalation or 'surge' has significantly reduced violence in Iraq." I'm not aware of any generals saying that, or the Baghdad embassy.
As to problems with the local police, the Iraqi government is responsible for paying and equipping the local police. However often the government doesn't have the funds for weapons and ammunition, so in Anbar at least the US military has provided the local police with Ak-47's, ammunition and vehicles. Juan calls that "arming the local tribes", since most Sunni's distrust the central government.
Excellent work. The question is, will the mainstream media give us this kind of thoughtful, honest analysis?
ref : “The second graph gives the number of attacks per month...”
missing from these data, professor, are the number of attacks by occupation & mercenary forces against Iraqi civilians, regular soldiers = de facto militia members, and irregular ‘insurgents’ = counter-occupation guerillas & criminal gangs.
insofar as deriving from American Department of Defense data... any conclusion regarding "the level of violence" before / after the ‘surge’ being some function of total attacks & casualties : the occupier's data = point -of- view would be but half the violent story, n'est-ce pas?
=> the conceit implicit of Americans (and their data) is that “violence” occurs only when Iraqis attack either Occupation Forces or themselves = rival factions.
otoh, American occupation forces: busting down doors during residential raids; sweeping thousands of civilians into jails without due process; firing wildly at any and all Iraqis in apparent collective punishment during aggressive patrols, convoys and checkpoint operations; using heavy cannon and aerial bombardments in urban areas to counter snipers or guerilla / street gangs; et cetera ~ somehow, in the American mind ~ none of these = their attack metrics contribute to “the level of violence” in IRAQ.
it's amazing how well the American Right has been able to steer the public conversation away from facts and evidence... if it weren't so fiendish and demented, it'd be hilarious (in the tragic sense)
We have been watching these graphs quite closely since the DoD began releasing their quarterly reports "Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq". You can download the others here: http://www.defenselink.mil/home/features/Iraq_Reports/index.html.
In the course of doing Q & A’s after screening Meeting Resistance we are always asked the question, “Well, isn’t the Iraq war all about the Sunni killing Shi’a now?” People can be forgiven for thinking so and for believing the underlying conclusion that American troops remain in Iraq in order to prevent that from happening. During this months testimonies on the Hill there was hardly a mention of violence directed against the occupying forces and their Iraqi allies.
We took the graph from the last report and scaled it up so that it was reasonably measurable and totalled up the June ‘04 to May ‘07 figures. Unfortunately, the figures themselves are not readily available to make this process easier. The resulting percentages of targeting show that overall 74% of attacks are directed at Coalition troops, 16% at Iraqi Security Forces and 10% against civilians. In an earlier report these attacks were described as “significant incidents” which, in military terms would probably be regarded as effective enemy fire. These do not seem to be mortars landing in the desert but – for the anti-coalition attacks – a quite serious amount of violent energy overwhelmingly being directed at the hardest targets in Iraq. What is also interesting is that, give or take a couple of points, the attacks on civilians have grown proportionately with the anti-occupation attack numbers.
There is other information that can be gleaned from these charts, especially in conjunction with others say, in the Brookings Index. We can see that the attacks against civilians were quite rare before the Sadr uprising (you need to look in earlier reports for that), that there was no spike in violence after the Samarra bombing (the peak was in July ‘06) and, of course, that civilians who die in Iraq are not necessarily the target of of attacks.
Back to the latest report. The reducing numbers of attacks against coalition troops for June, July and August could also be due to the mass arrests of mostly Sunni males who make up the nationalist groups and only target the coalition. Even the forays in Sadr city to hunt down “rogue elements” of the Mahdi Army – defined as being those that attack US troops – shows that to be the primary focus of operations in Iraq, leaving the sectarian terror groups and institutions free to continue the slaughter.
The House Oversight committee investigation of the State Department Inspector General is apparently moving in an interesting direction.
I Think Henry Waxman kicked over the right Blackwater 'rock' and is hot on the trail of those missing Glock pistols destined for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which turned up on the streets of Turkey:
AP - Blackwater Denies Smuggling Allegations
By DAVID SCOTT – September 22 2007
Blackwater USA denied Saturday any involvement in illegal weapons smuggling, responding to reports the private security contractor is a target of federal prosecutors.
“Allegations that Blackwater was in any way associated or complicit in unlawful arms activities are baseless,” the company said in a statement. “The company has no knowledge of any employee improperly exporting weapons.”
Officials with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press on Friday that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors. While the officials said the case was in the early stage, they added the auditors have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges.
George Holding, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, has declined to comment, as have Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.
Officials in Washington said the smuggling investigation grew from internal Pentagon and State Department inquiries into U.S. weapons that had gone missing in Iraq. Turkish authorities protested to the U.S. in July that they had seized American arms from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels.
[In Full]
What strikes me the most is the comparison of the two graphs : while the number of civilians victims is much higher than the number of victims among the Iraqi forces and so called coalition trooops, the higher number of attacks concerns so called coalition troops (aka US troops).
his undermines the US discourse bedevilling the resistance as attacking civilians. In fact, most of the resistance attacks are targetting the US troops; even attacks against Iraqi forces - whose ranks should be as numberous as US troops - are much lower too.
If there are more casualties among civilians it's only because, by definition, they build the most vulnerable group, unlike the well protected US troops, or even the Iraqi forces (raw data would be needed to draw more conclusions concerning the Iraqi forces).
Further, it remains to be seen, how many among the civilian casulaties result indirectly of attacks against US troops or Iraqi forces not directly targetting civilians.
So much for US propaganda.
One need be no friend of Blackwater to recognize that "unprovoked shootings" are probably an inevitable hazard of guarding vehicles or convoys that traverse roads or zones prone to stealth attacks. The assailants will never wear uniforms, wave flags, or wave and say, "Here we are." Call it a crime, but waiting for definite signs could mean falling for traps. Unfortunately, the scenario fits a Sergio Leone movie.
But is would be curious to know the financial or strategic benefit of hiring mercenaries, verus troops, for guard duty. Mercenaries get higher pay, but how do the death and disability or post-service benefits compare? Do uniformed troops also have a problem with taking orders from State, CIA, or USAID personnel?
"Stay the course" means to keep US forces on top of the security situation until 2009. If the Iraqis stand up by then, fine. If they do not, well, that will be someone else's problem.
Bush, Cheney, Rice, Petraeus, Odierno, and Gates will all retire and glide to greener vistas. Every board, foundation, network, institute, club, or wonk works will court and reward them.
It's two months later, and now nobody can deny the improvement. Civilian casualties are way down, coalition casualties are way down, roadside bomb attacks are way down, and Iraqi refugees are moving back into Baghdad in droves.
So much for defeatist propaganda.
Part of the improvement is because Iran has apparently ceased sending bombs to the bad guys in Iraq, and the supply of those bombs is running low. (Isn't it interesting how that welcome change coincided with U.S. sabre rattling?) But the "surge" obviously is also playing a big part in the success story.
One of the lessons of that success is that having too few troops on the ground results in more casualties, rather than fewer. So if the American Left gets its way, and forces premature reductions in troop levels, Coalition casualties are likely to go up, rather than down. The question is whether that rather obvious fact bothers the anti-war activists. They say they care about the troops' safety, but do they really?
Dave
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