Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The public relations campaign ahead of the Surgin’ General’s report this September has been fierce. The White House and its surrogates have been beating the drums about the military successes of the "surge". Those who are opposed to Mr. Bush’s "surge" have been arguing that even though there has been military progress in Iraq, without political reconciliation the "surge" will have been a failure. Thus the battle lines in Washington have been drawn and the talking points drawn up. The White House, which previously had dismissed casualty counts as merely "snapshots", is now embracing a perceived lull in violence in Iraq in July.

One measure of the violence in Iraq is the death count. The death count does not tell the whole story of the ravaging of Iraq – to do that one has to consider the breakdown of civil society, the massive population flight out of Iraq, the ethnic cleansing and sectarian dismemberment of Iraq, etc. However, the White House and its allies have now hung their hat on the violence levels in Iraq to justify the surge. So let us look at the numbers.

In the seven months of the surge, January to July of 2007, the number of reported Iraqi civilian deaths was 13,236. In the same period (January to July) in 2006 the Iraqi civilian death toll was 5757. One might argue that violence in Iraq did not deteriorate until much later in 2006 after the February 2006 bombing of the al-Askari mosque in Samarra. So let us take a look at the numbers from the second part of 2006: in the seven months from June 2006 to December 2006 the number of Iraqi civilian deaths was 12,608. The surge has not reduced the number of civilian deaths, even compared to the second half of 2006.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of Iraqi civilian deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The month-to-month trend in civilian deaths, with monthly spikes and lulls, is similar in 2007 as in previous years, the only difference is that more Iraqis are getting killed.

The Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) death toll also does not show any improvement. In the seven months between January 2006 and July 2006 the number of ISF killed was 1238. Between January and July of this year the ISF death toll was 1383; between June 2006 and December 2006 the number of ISF killed was 1202.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of ISF deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The surge has made no difference in death tolls for the ISF.

The US military death toll has been just as disheartening. The US military death toll between January 2006 and July 2006 was 397. In the seven months of the surge, between January 2007 and July 2007, the number of US military servicemen and women killed was 655. In the seven months between June 2006 and December 2006 the US military death toll was 529. The seven months of the surge have been bloodier for the US military than comparable periods in 2006.

The chart below shows a month-by-month comparison of US military deaths between 2006 and 2007:

The month-to-month death toll for the US military during the surge has been significantly greater than the same period in 2006. The White House and the proponents of the surge like to point to the reduction in US military deaths in June and July to bolster their claim that the surge is working. Yet, comparing the month-to-month trend between 2006 and 2007 we see that there was a similar decline in US military death toll in the same period last year, without the "surge". That lull last year gave way to a bloodier second half for the US military in 2006. More disheartening are the partial numbers from the month of August 2007and the increasing complexity of attacks against the US military. As was the case last year, we may indeed be headed into a bloody August in Iraq.

Looking at the death tolls in Iraq there is little cause for optimism. Iraq remains a very violent place. The numbers suggest that Iraq is more violent now than it was last year, in spite of the "surge". There is very little in the numbers to suggest that the surge is working, even by the very limited military goals the White House has set for its public relations gambit. It is a macabre game being played with real lives that have been lost. We need to ask ourselves if the numbers cited above are worth any more Friedman units.

[The charts above are drawn from casualty statistics from iCasualties. The charts and tables can be downloaded here.]

From the outset of the Iraq invasion the Bush Administration has acted as a force of instability in Iraq. Continued American presence in Iraq will only add to further instability. The smart kids in Washington are warning against a "precipitous withdrawal". Instead, the adults are talking about an "orderly withdrawal" from Iraq that will take up to 18 months. In the mean time, the Surgin’ General, David Patraeus, has embarked on a strategy that will make that withdrawal a failure.

For four years the Bush Administration has armed Shiite militias in Iraq – a strategy that had made political reconciliation in Iraq a non-starter. Recently the Bush Administration has begun arming Sunni militias in a bid to "buy time for political reconciliation":

U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation.

American generals insist they are not creating militias. In contracts with the U.S. military, the sheiks are referred to as "security contractors." Each of their "guards" will receive 70 percent of an Iraqi policeman’s salary. U.S. commanders call them "concerned citizens," evoking suburban neighborhood watch groups.

But interviews with ground commanders and tribal leaders offer a window into how the United States is financing a new constellation of mostly Sunni armed groups with murky allegiances and shady pasts.

This new strategy, much hailed in Washington as a sign of progress, is setting the stage for a bloody confrontation between Shia and Sunni in the wake of an American withdrawal. Far from creating conditions for political reconciliation this strategy is in effect arming both sides of a civil war. This strategy of arming both sides in a civil conflict will serve to further delay an American withdrawal from Iraq. This strategy, and the entire "surge" in general, is predicated on the misguided notion that the violence in Iraq must be brought under control first before national reconciliation can take place. What Mr. Bush and his Surgin’ General ignore is that the violence is being driven by political divisions, not causing it. By arming both sides the prospects of national reconciliation becomes even more remote. What is hailed as "success" by the so-called "pundits" who got us into this mess is in fact creating conditions for continued failure in Iraq.

There is a well-established protocol for pacifying conflict zones that the Bush Administration would do well to consider. It is known as Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR). DDR is an integrated program to pacify conflict zones after political reconciliation efforts have begun. It consists of first disarming the combatants and the civilian population. Second, the armed factions are demobilized and given compensation or other assistance as they transition to civilian life. Finally, the demobilized armed parties are provided training and income generating activities as they reintegrate into civilian life. For DDR to succeed it must be well-funded and undertaken under the umbrella of political reconciliation. The Bush Administration made a half-hearted and ill-funded attempt at DDR when it disbanded the Iraqi army in the early days of the occupation without any attempt at political reconciliation (most notably undermined by its ill-conceived debaathification program). Without a comprehensive DDR plan the disbanding of the Iraqi army became one of the major failures of the American occupation of Iraq. According the United Nations guidelines on DDR, this failure was entirely predictable:

In the short term, the failure to disarm and demobilize former combatants effectively may contribute to an immediate relapse into war. In the medium and long term, incomplete or ineffective reintegration of ex-combatants into civil society may lead to armed criminality by those former soldiers who have no other means of earning a living. In States where internal structures for civil order have already been weakened by an internecine conflict, this increase in armed criminality would be a further detriment to consolidating peace.

Today the Bush Administration is further fueling the conflict by its short-sighted arming of both Shia and Sunni combatants in Iraq.

In the past four years the United States has become a party to the civil conflict in Iraq. It is almost certainly no longer in a position to broker a political reconciliation in Iraq. The past four years of conflict and the counter-productive strategies of the Bush Administration may have made the possibility of political reconciliation without a bloody settling of scores all but impossible. But if there is any hope of averting a bloody collapse of Iraq it lies in political reconciliation. It may be time for the Bush Administration to politically and militarily disengage from Iraq and transition responsibility to a third party such as a regional working group or the United Nations. Under the auspices of this third party a renewed effort can be made to secure regional cooperation and begin the process of political reconciliation. It may also set the stage for the withdrawal of American troops and the beginning of DDR under an international force without an American face.

However, for political reconciliation to begin the Bush Administration must first stop arming the warring sides in Iraq. The alternative is a continued, counter-productive and bloody occupation of Iraq.