Iraqi Terrorists Are Losing
CENTCOM commander GEN John Abizaid tells Congress (Washington Post account) that the Iraqi insurgency is weakening. I was just interviewed on KLBJ-AM (Austin, Texas) about this article and the decline of the Saddam/Zarqawi terrorists.
An interesting paragraph:
Insurgents fielded only “around 3,500″ fighters on election day, he said, citing U.S. intelligence estimates. Earlier U.S. intelligence had put the number of core Iraqi and foreign fighters at as many as 20,000.
Here’s some background to this report: Our command expected an increase in terror attacks in November 2004 and January 2005– attacks coinciding with first the US and then the Iraqi national elections. Saddam’s pals and Zarqawi were operating on a “Tet” template of sorts. They couldn’t win it in the field, in the streets or at the ballot box, so they sought to win it in the press and translate the press victory into political victory. Their terror attacks were not intimidating the Iraqi people– and we saw that January 30.
For my thoughts on Syria and the lapsing grip of fear, follow this link. I look forward to a cup of tea in Free Damascus.
UPDATE: I see Glenn’s linked to this post. After I returned from Iraq I gave a couple of speeches –both in November. I said that in the long-term I was very optimistic about Iraq, given what I saw militarily and politically. There were clearly doubters in the audiences. Perhaps those doubts will now decline. Roger L. Simon says Dan Schorr of NPR has concluded Bush may have been right–well, Schorr tends to follow the lead of the NY Times.
UPDATE 2: Comment 1: see the post on this site referencing the NY Times’ capitulating editorial. Just scroll down.
Has the NYTimes conceded that Bush may have been right? Ive been keeping my eye out for such an acknowledgement, but one hasn’t been forthcoming, at least to the best of my knowledge…
Comment by AndyStevenson — 3/2/2005 @ 8:37 am
Y’all, Schorr is saying he may have been right. He’s still hedging strategically. All the anti-Republican media outlets are mouthing this hollow platitude. Kinda like the Dems are mouthing scripture these days. A new “Bush-Screwed-It-All-Up” angle is on display at the WAPO http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050228-084038-2488r.htm “>today. Its gist: America has alienated Russia, Iran, EU3, and China and this will cause their “entente” against us. Usually DeBorchgrave’s editorials stun me with their thoroughness but this one is full-o’ holes. Today’s BBC has this headline: German jobless rate at new record In it they describe Germany’s “hightest jobless rate since the 1930s.” Schroeder/Fischer may not be in power for much longer. The EU3 may be the EU2+Poland soon. His piece also completely ignores China’s extraordinary dependance on America’s import markets. This battle has too many fronts, the WTO, the U.N., NPT Enforcement, U.S. Congressional import policy, and GATT enforcement, that DeBorchgrave’s piece just doesn’t seem to want to consider. -Steve
Comment by Steve — 3/2/2005 @ 9:26 am
Yesterday’s editorial in NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/opinion/01tue1.html? … Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises - each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power. Washington’s challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.
Comment by Former CNN Watcher — 3/2/2005 @ 9:41 am
Caught a piece of Chris Matthews Hardball last night. They were briefly on the Iraq insurgency. He used the phrase “growing insurgency” at one point. I’ve heard that term hundreds of times mid ‘03. I guess it’s like the “brutal Afghan winter” and other phrases that continue to be used with little challenge long after they’ve passed the expiration date.
Comment by Buckland — 3/2/2005 @ 9:46 am
I agree, Buckland. It’s never an insurgency , it’s always a “growing” insurgency. And there are never attaks in Iraq, there are only “mounting” attacks. I think “mounting” is the media’s favorite word in relation to Iraq. In the meantime, from what I can see from my admittedly unexpert analysis, things are pretty much the same as they’ve been for months. Which makes it a sort of glass half-full, glass half-empty situation. The situation doesn’t seem to be getting overwhelming and unequivocally better but neither does it seem to be getting overwhelmingly and unequivocally worse. But it makes better copy to speak of “mounting” attacks.
Comment by kcom — 3/2/2005 @ 10:42 am
The rising tide of freedom is the best phrase to use to counter all the nay-sayerw such as Matthews and all the other doom and gloom people who have fallen in love with their vocabulary of ‘quagmire’, ‘mounting attacks’, ‘increasingly bold insurgents,’ etc., etc. Let them stay with their stale liturgy; it makes a nice background for highlighting the ever increasing march of democracy in the mid-East and elsewhere. Russia may be derelict in sticking to some of the necessary things, such as a non=controled, totally free press, but it is still a far cry from what it was before the Fall of Gorbochev and the Berlin Wall. Sometimes freedom takes two steps foreward and one back, but the direction is still foreward.
Comment by Marlowe Anderson — 3/2/2005 @ 11:12 am
A three-month rolling average of troop deaths per day in Iraq since Bush Declared “Mission Accomplished”: Jul-03 1.4 Aug-03 1.4 Sep-03 1.3 Oct-03 1.3 Nov-03 2.1 Dec-03 2.2 Jan-04 2.3 Feb-04 1.3 Mar-04 1.4 Apr-04 2.4 May-04 3.0 Jun-04 3.0 Jul-04 2.1 Aug-04 2.0 Sep-04 2.4 Oct-04 2.5 Nov-04 3.3 Dec-04 3.1 Jan-05 3.8 Feb-05 2.9 Don’t know why anyone would term that trend “growing”.
Comment by Phil Martin — 3/2/2005 @ 1:21 pm
Following on Phil, for my conversations with my liberal friends: am I right in thinking that in peacetime that US troops average about a death per day, due to accidents and equipment failures? I remember being surprised by how freaking hazardous aircraft carrier duty is in normal circumstances….
Comment by BadLiberal — 3/2/2005 @ 1:54 pm
BadLiberal asked “am I right in thinking that in peacetime that US troops average about a death per day, due to accidents and equipment failures?” Following, by year, are total military deaths due to causes other than hostile enemy action or terrorist attacks (i.e., due to accidents, homicides, suicides, illnesses or undetermined causes) and the average numbers of such deaths per day. The number in parentheses is the total full-time equivalent military strength for those years. 1995 - 1,033 / 2.83 per day (1,661,928) 1996 - 954 / 2.61 per day (1,613,310) 1997 - 817 / 2.24 per day (1,573,995) 1998 - 823 / 2.25 per day (1,534,183) 1999 - 795 / 2.18 per day (1,519,930) 2000 - 757 / 2.07 per day (1,523,876) 2001 - 835 / 2.29 per day (1,537,116) 2002 - 990 / 2.71 per day (1,564,066) Accidents usually account for slightly more than half of these. Here are the numbers for accidents alone: 1995 - 538 / 1.47 per day 1996 - 527 / 1.44 per day 1997 - 433 / 1.19 per day 1998 - 445 / 1.22 per day 1999 - 436 / 1.19 per day 2000 - 400 / 1.09 per day 2001 - 422 / 1.16 per day 2002 - 538 / 1.47 per day I am not sure whether the Iraq numbers cited by Phil Martin are for total deaths or hostile deaths only, but as of January 29, 2005, non-hostile deaths accounted for 24% of deaths in Iraq (347 out of 1,429). These 1,429 deaths include those in the initial invasion. From May 1, 2003, delineated as the end of major combat operations, to January 29, 2005, there were 1,290 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, of which 973 were hostile deaths. This averages to 1.53 hostile deaths per day and 2.02 total deaths per day.
Comment by Dave — 3/2/2005 @ 3:12 pm
[…] 0:22 am Head of CENTCOM Gen. Abizaid has testified before Congress and elsewhere. His comments are nicely condensed here with analysis… […]
Pingback by » GEN. ABIZAID SPEAKS — 3/2/2005 @ 3:35 pm
By the way, this is what might have constituted a “growing” trend: 1964 - 0.6 deaths per day 1965 - 5.1 deaths per day 1966 - 16.8 deaths per day 1967 - 30.6 deaths per day 1968 - 45.3 deaths per day After 1968, the slow disengagement began: 1969 - 31.8 deaths per day 1970 - 9.6 deaths per day 1971 - 6.5 deaths per day 1972 - 1.8 deaths per day Those are casualties in the Vietnam War, including hostile and non-hostile deaths (non-hostile deaths were about 17-18% of the total). By comparison, in 1943, the U.S. Army ground forces averaged about 36 battle deaths per day and Army Air Corps took about 14 per day. In 1944, this grew to 315 battle deaths per day for the ground forces and 45 per day for the Air Corps.
Comment by Dave Danner — 3/2/2005 @ 4:23 pm
What did he do? Take a census? Yesterday I read quotes from another top brass saying it would be 7-12 years before we started getting out of there. I hope we can lower troop levels by the end of 2005, but I wouldn’t put money on it.
Comment by John Gillnitz — 3/2/2005 @ 4:35 pm
What is this “tet” template? At that time the United States claimed that the communists were incapable of a serious offensive. Naturally this failed prediction did further erode public confidence since it was one of a series of failed predictions. The tet offensive did shatter the combat units of the NLF. They did remain effective in espionage and logistics. However it certainly did not break the military arm of NVA. They continued to confront US troops and mount serious offensives. The Republican president allowed himself to be defeated after the alleged “big American victory” of Tet under LBJ. Conservatives have continually decried the use of Vietnam metaphors and yours is incoherant. If one wants an analogy of this situation then Vietnam in the late fifties is an example. At that time there was little military activity of significance, but the government was continually undermined by terror. Officials were routinely asssinated, the people lost faith that it could rule. This is happening, many of the local governing councils have resigned out of fear, a small number of the individuals being murdered make the headlines. This process may or may not dissipate. The vast majority of guerilla actions are defeated, but these people are not playing for the press. This is only marginal. American had to leave Vietnam because it’s military was demoralized. The army admits to a thousand fraggings of officers and non coms, think how many happened? Remember how the vets were unwelcome in many American Legion and VFW posts because the were supposed to be junkies who lost the war? Do you remember the figurs on heroin usage? No. Because your only knowledfge is rose colored lies. I don’t know if we shall succeed or fail. I do know that General Meyers and others fear that this insurrection will continue for years. This is common among people who think in terms of history not instant gratification, they continue. They will seek to undermine the capaciy of the Iraqi people to defend and govern themselves. If this happens they will wear down the US army more rapidly than it was when Nixon oversaw it’s destruction. Into Iraq, out of Iraq, year after year for soldiers with family with few new troops to replace them… We hope this will not happen, we hope that the current signs do reflect positive changes, we celebrate the possibility. But those who actually care about success will be guarded with such predictions. We’ve had too many already. Cautious, very cautious optimism is the way to go. And preparation for the worst.
Comment by H Lee — 3/3/2005 @ 11:01 pm
Actually the vast majority of insurgencies have not been defeated; the USSR in Afghanistan, the French in Indochina, Algeria, and Cameroun, wars in Rhodesia, and Namibia, the Portuguese wars in Africa, the Britishh in Aden are just a few examples of an insurgency “winning”. Also I think the metric for measuring deaths in Iraq should be killed per thousand per year (which is around 6 per 1,000 US troops in Iraq). The war in Iraq should not be compared to Vietnam, but rahter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan where the Soviets had a similar number of troops (110,000) and a similar number of killed per year (10 per 1,000). In Vietnam the number of US troops killed per thousand is around 20. Most insurgencies do last from 7 to 13 years, so the probablity that the US will reduce troops in Iraq in the next few years is not realistic. Finally as to the size of the insurgency keep these numbers in mind; in the Malayan Insurrection which last 12 years there were around 5,000-8,000 insurgents, together they mamanged 21,000 incidents in 12 years. In Iraq there are that many incidents in a single year. So is the size of the insurgency 5 to 10 times greater than the Chinese Communists in Malaya or are they 5 to 10 times more efficent than those insurgents? Either way don’t bet on a drawing down of US forces or a decrease in hostile action for some time to come
Comment by James — 3/5/2005 @ 12:57 pm
“ At that time the United States claimed that the communists were incapable of a serious offensive […] The tet offensive did shatter the combat units of the NLF.” This probably indicates, in a nutshell, the difference in the leftist and rightist viewpoints about battle. If the jihadis were to mount a series of co-ordinated attacks which completely failed to achieve their objectives, in which Coalition and Iraqi forces killed three-quarters of their number and destroyed their ability to offer military resistance ever again, lefist commentators would call that a “serious” offensive. Rightist commentators would not.
Comment by John "Akatsukami" Braue — 3/5/2005 @ 2:13 pm