The Real Story Behind the Falling Casualty Rate in Iraq

AlterNet. Posted November 12, 2007.

The Real Story Behind the Falling Casualty Rate in Iraq
By Brandon Friedman
DailyKos

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.

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