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November 29, 2005

Objective reality...it sucks in Iraq

My post from earlier today outlined why the "good news" in Iraq isn't why we're there. As a companion to that piece, I offer evidence that the rosy scenario some would like to have painted isn't supported by the numbers:

The latest figures issued by the Department of Defense and other U.S. and Iraqi official sources reveal an insurgency still raging unabated in which the number of total casualties inflicted on U.S. troops is once again climbing, and where the insurgents appear to be switching resources from targeting Iraqi security forces to carrying out Multiple Fatality Bomb (MFB) attacks.

As of Monday, Nov. 14, the total number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the start of U.S. operations to topple Saddam Hussein on March 19, 2003, was 2,106 according to official figures issued by the Department of Defense, a rise of 45 in 14 days.

Improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, continued to account for more than half the total casualties inflicted on U.S. troops -- an ominous indicator that the technical expertise of the insurgents is steadily advancing.

The rate of deaths showed a grim and consistent upturn on figures over the previous two weeks. The loss rate was just under 3.25 U.S. soldiers killed per day, a significant rise on the 2.4 killed per day during the previous 11 day period. But it was still much better than the figures in late October when 30 were killed during a five-day period, a rate of six per day.

So there's a little good and a lot of here. US soldier deaths in Iraq are escalating, but not as bad as they were at the end of October. Iraqi security forces seem to be targeted less as well.

Alarmingly, IEDs are apparently becoming more sophisticated.

Okay...so they're inflicting damage on us. But we must be kicking the crap out of them, right?

Well..yes and no.

The Iraq Index Project also notes that the U.S. estimates of the number of is urgency combatants killed remains very rough and approximate. The estimates are rounded off at 3,000 per month for the three months of August, September and October.

There is good reason to greatly look at the the accuracy of these estimates: If correct they would mean that the insurgency lost 9,000 troops in only three months when other U.S. military estimates have calculated that there are never more than 20,000 insurgents active at any one time.

Those figures, therefore, would if true mean that the insurgency had lost almost 50 percent of its active and experienced manpower in less than three months, a rate of attrition that has only been seen historically in the closing stages of counter-insurgency operations when the guerrilla movement is literally disintegrated and rapidly losing its ability to inflict casualties. There has been no sign whatsoever of that process so far in Iraq.

I've said before that this thing in Iraq is a hydra. You cut off one head and more show up to replace it. If the numbers from the government are accurate, we should have obliterated the insurgency by now. Instead attacks are escalating.

We can't afford to allow the war sympathizers to blow sunshine up our skirts about Iraq. It's a complicated quagmire of a mess.

Posted by Carla at November 29, 2005 04:27 PM