[NYTr] Baghdad crackdown merely shifting the violence; "Progress?"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via CNN - Aug 25, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20440397/

Baghdad crackdown merely shifting violence

Iraqi deaths down from peak but still running at double ’06 pace

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD - This year’s U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing
violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from
sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace
from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters
drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after
U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more
than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year
ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional
30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the
Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in
next month’s Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway,
but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be
even more perilous and unpredictable.

The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police
and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings,
which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes
execution-style killings — largely the work of Shiite death squads.

Many deaths still go unreported
The figures are considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual
numbers are likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted.
Insurgent deaths are not a part of the Iraqi count.

The findings include:

—Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths
throughout the country compared with last year — an average daily toll
of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.

—Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in
the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this
year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and
sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006.
The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.

—Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and
police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July,
bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.

—According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of
displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year,
from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.

Military disputes findings
However, Brig. Gen. Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational
planning for the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said violence in
Iraq “has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June
2006.”

He offered no statistics to back his claim, but in a briefing with
reporters at the Pentagon on Friday he warned insurgents might try
intensify attacks in Iraq to coincide with three milestones: the sixth
anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the beginning of
Ramadan and the report to Congress.

The U.S. military did not get all the additional American forces into
Iraq until June 15, so it would be premature to draw a final
statistical picture of the effect of the added troops.

But initial calculations validate fears that the Baghdad crackdown
would push militants into districts north of the capital, including
Diyala province where U.S. force and Iraqi soldiers have conducted
major operation to clear its main city, Baqouba, of al-Qaida in Iraq
fighters.

Violence surging in north
In July, the AP figures show 35 percent of all war-related killings
occurred in northern provinces. The figure one year ago was 22 percent.

The final death count for August also will likely be further oriented
to the north after the savage Aug. 14 attack by suspected al-Qaida
truck bombers near the Syrian border in Ninevah province. At least 500
villagers from the Yazidi sect were killed in the deadliest civilian
attack of the war.

In the first months of this year, many extremists fled to Baghdad and
regions to the north after Sunni tribesmen in Anbar, the sprawling
desert province west of the capital, turned on their erstwhile al-Qaida
allies.

Forecast: ‘More spectacular attacks’

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington, said many militants are trying to
hang onto footholds in central Iraq.

“Most of the force shifts are still in the Baghdad ring and Diyala,” he
said in a recent interview, predicting more spectacular attacks in the
days leading to next month’s report to Congress by U.S. commander Gen.
David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

“Will it lead to more bloody attacks as they try to exploit the
American political debate? Yes.”

Nora Bensahel, a military analyst at the Rand Corp., said that northern
Iraq had become increasingly destabilized over the past few months.

The insurgents have made a “concerted effort to concentrate attacks in
other parts of the country,” Bensahel said, in part to escape the
increased U.S. troop presence in Baghdad and in part to give the
impression that no place in Iraq is safe.

Mostly, she said, the insurgents have shifted their focus to the
Baghdad suburbs, but they are particularly keen to undermine the notion
that northern Iraq is a “success story” for Washington and its key
Iraqi partners — including the Kurds who have maintained a
near-autonomous state in the north since the early 1990s.

Staging attacks in the north “has a symbolic effect,” she said.

Quandary for U.S. forces

And beyond that, Bensahel said the tactic puts the United States in a
difficult situation.

“There isn’t an ability to move north in any significant numbers
without abandoning Baghdad” — a change in strategy that Washington is
not prepared to make, she said.

But a huge problem also looms in the south, the center of Shiite
political and spiritual influence and the site of Iraq’s main oil
fields.

There are daily gunbattles between the Mahdi Army militia — loyal to
radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi
Council, the powerhouse Shiite political party that controls most of
the bureaucracy and police forces in southern Iraq.

This month, the governors of two southern provinces loyal to the
Supreme Islamic Council were killed in roadside bombings.

Fears of a southern split

The clashes are expected to grow more intense as Britain draws downs
its forces in southern Iraq over the coming months. The effect of the
shrinking British presence is already being felt, said Cordesman in an
assessment released Aug. 22.

“The end result was to turn the four provinces in southeastern Iraq
over to feuding Shiite factions whose actions were mixed with
corruption, extortion and links to criminal activities,” he wrote.

And there are increasing signs that whole regions of the south are
inclined to seek increased autonomy from the center — moves that many
Iraqis fear could lead to partition of the country.

In Najaf — the spiritual heart for Shiites around the world — the
provincial spokesman, Ahmed Deibel, told AP early this month that the
gas turbine generator there had been removed from the national
electricity grid. The unilateral action has contributed to several
nationwide power blackouts.

He said the provincial plant produced 50 megawatts, while the province
needed at least 200 megawatts.

“What we produce is not enough even for us. We disconnected it from the
national grid (Aug. 1) because the people in Baghdad were getting too
much, leaving little electricity for Najaf,” he said.

The No. 2 U.S. commander, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, has also expressed
fears of a big insurgent attack in the final days before the report to
Congress, but also claimed the offensives have shaken militant fighters
in Baghdad and environs.

“Due to the constant pressure and depletion of their leadership,
extremists have been pushed out of many population centers and are on
the move, seeking other places to operate within the country,” Odierno
said last week.

“As a result, we are now in pursuit of al-Qaida and other extremist
elements, and we’ll continue to aggressively target their shrinking
areas of influence,” he said.

“Over the coming weeks, we plan to conduct quick-strike raids against
remaining extremist sanctuaries and staging areas,” Odierno said.

© 2007 The Associated Press.