[NYTr] The Real Story Behind the "Falling Casualty Rate" in Iraq

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Daily Kos - Nov 5, 2007
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/11/5/22022/5007

The Real Story Behind the Falling Casualty Rate in Iraq

by Brandon Friedman

As U.S. casualties have continued to drop, many people on the anti-Bush
side of the aisle have begun to quietly panic in recent days over this
question: "Could George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan have possibly been
right about the surge?"

Simply put, the answer is no.  The surge is not working and George W.
Bush and Frederick Kagan were not right.  Despite what right-wing blogs
are saying, and despite what conservative observers are noting, the
plunge in violence is actually the result of an Iraqi political
decision made by and implemented by Iraqis—and the drop has little to
do with the "surge"—an infusion of 30,000 troops (which wouldn’t fill a
Major League stadium) into Baghdad, a city of six million people.

What’s happening is really simple—and it’s happening in plain sight, in
the traditional media.  But it just so happens that, as far as I can
tell, no one is connecting the dots.  

When someone tells you that the "surge" is working, you must walk them
through this chain of events:

On August 7, 2007, near the end of America’s bloodiest summer in Iraq,
the New York Times reported the following:

    Attacks on American-led forces using a lethal type of roadside bomb
said to be supplied by Iran reached a new high in July, according to
the American military.

    The devices, known as explosively formed penetrators, were used to
carry out 99 attacks last month and accounted for a third of the combat
deaths suffered by the American-led forces, according to American
military officials.

    "July was an all-time high," Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2
commander in Iraq, said in an interview, referring to strikes with such
devices.

    Such bombs, which fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate
the armor on a Humvee and are among the deadliest weapons used against
American forces, are used almost exclusively by Shiite militants.

The "Shiite militants" described by the New York Times were, in fact,
members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.  And, as we all saw this past
summer, Muqtada’s fighters were really doing a job on American
forces—despite the troop increase which began earlier in the year.

That was on August 7th.  And remember, this was during a summer
throughout which we were bombarded with news of Iranian/Shia efforts to
kill Americans and destabilize the Iraqi government.  

Then, barely three weeks after the New York Times article ran, 50
Muslim pilgrims were slaughtered in sectarian fighting in Karbala.  In
response, Muqtada al-Sadr announced that he had

    ordered his militia to suspend offensive operations for six months.

No one saw this coming.

    The surprise statement regarding his notorious Mahdi army, which is
responsible for much of Iraq's sectarian blood-letting, not only caught
British and American commanders off-guard but appeared to have
surprised Baghdad officials too. Mowaffak al-Rubbaie, Iraq's national
security adviser, said Baghdad would only welcome the move if Sadr's
lieutenants stop attacks and their attempts to "blow up" the Iraqi
government.

    "I will see on the ground what is going to happen," he said. "It is
good news if it is true. If it happens it will reduce violence in the
country a great deal."

When this news was reported on August 30th, no one really believed it,
much less expected the implementation of an actual cease-fire on the
part of Iraq’s Shia fighters.

On September 1st, even the U.S. military admitted that this could be an
important—if not the important—development in the situation on the
ground in Iraq.  According to CNN,

    "Muqtada al-Sadr's declaration holds the potential to reduce
criminal activity and help reunite Iraqis separated by ethno-sectarian
violence and fear," the U.S. military said. :: An end to Mehdi Army
"would also be an important step in helping Iraqi authorities focus
greater attention on achieving the political and economic solutions
necessary for progress and less on dealing with criminal activity,
sectarian violence, kidnappings, assassinations, and attacks on Iraqi
and coalition forces," the military said.

When that was said by the U.S. military on September 1st, the "surge"
was never mentioned.  It was all about an Iraqi decision that would
succeed or fail on Iraqi actions.  The U.S. military was only observing.

Lo and behold, U.S. troop deaths began plummet.  American deaths
dropped from 84 in August, to 65 in September, to 38 in October—the
lowest tally for a single month in over a year and a half.

Having argued for months that Iranian-supplied Shia fighters were the
most serious threat to U.S. forces in Iraq, those same forces had
suddenly stopped fighting.  And it showed.  

On November 2nd, the Washington Post reported that

    The number of explosively formed projectiles (EFPs) that have been
detonated or found in Iraq has dropped by nearly half in recent months,
from a peak of 99 in July to 53 last month, Lt. Gen. Raymond T.
Odierno, the commander in charge of day-to-day military operations in
Iraq, said yesterday in a videoconference with Pentagon reporters.

But rather than recognize this for what it was, notable Republicans and
other right-wingers immediately began to spin the story as if this was
the result of the "surge":

    McCain told students at Coastal Carolina University that the United
States has had "astonishing success" in Iraq as a result of the
military strategy now in place.

Notice that Senator McCain never mentions the fact that our gravest
enemy in Iraq--the Mahdi Army--has quit fighting.  On November 3rd, the
Los Angeles Times, reported of President Bush:

    At the graduation ceremony, the president said that since the troop
increase reached full strength in June, the number of roadside bombs
had been cut by half. He said U.S. military deaths were at their lowest
in 19 months.

Again, no mention of Muqtada al-Sadr, his Mahdi Army, or their decision
to stop killing Americans.  Instead, it was all about the "troop
increase."  

Even the London Times got in on the spin, stating explicitly:

    This has not been an accident but the consequence of a strategy
overseen by General David Petraeus in the past several months.

Unfortunately, no one seems to be calling our elected officials or the
traditional media on this nonsensical idea that the "Petraeus strategy"
should be credited with stanching the flow of blood.  No one seems to
notice that, as with everything else in Iraq, the Iraqis are going to
do what they want, when they want.  When al-Sadr lays down his arms,
there will be relative peace.  When he takes them up, Americans will
die in dozens.

Regardless, the fortunes of Iraq will turn on Iraqi decisions made in
Baghdad and Najaf, not in Washington, D.C. and the halls of Congress.
As this situation shows, peace in Iraq lies in the hands of Iraqis.  It
cannot—and will not—be forced by Americans at the point of a gun.