Report: U.S. can't win Iraq war

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Report: U.S. can't win Iraq war

Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- An analysis of a U.S. newspaper group concludes the United States is headed toward defeat in the Iraqi war.

The Knight Ridder Newspapers analysis of U.S. government statistics shows the Sunni Muslim insurgency in Iraq steadily gaining on the U.S. military, the Detroit Free Press, owned by Knight Ridder, reported Saturday.

Among factors cited:

-- U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts rose from an average of about 17 per month in May 2003 to a current average of 82 per month;

-- The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 808 during the same period;

-- Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003 rose from 735 a month to 2,400 in October;

-- The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero in the first few months of the U.S.-led occupation to an average of 13 per month; and

-- Electricity production has been below prewar levels since October.

"All the trend lines we can identify are all in the wrong direction," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research organization.

 

How come there is no link to the actual study? How come the three links shown at the bottom are an ad for Bill Clinton's "My Life", 'President Hillary Clinton' bumper stickers, and another for Hillary t-shirts?

Things are ugly in Iraq...no doubt...but this piece is using that ugliness for propaganda. The terrorists are trying to delay or stop free elections. When these elections occur, regardless of how imperfect they may be, we will see a change in the nature of the attacks.

Maybe they need to mention how the 'sunni insurgents' (nice euphemism) are become hated by the rank and file populace of Iraq.

[edit] Sorry Rags, just noticed your second link. Doesn't change my analysis though. Make sure to read the last section of the Knight-Ridder report...it's what matters.

 

I sincerely hope that you are right, Hack. After seeing this morning's news and hearing that al-Zarqawi and his mob have declared "war on democracy" in Iraq, I have little optimism about the US's ability to win the peace and stabilise the country. My principal concern is that he has specifically attempted to drive a wedge between Sunnis and Shi'ites by presenting the democracy offered by the election as a way of installing a pro-American Shi'ite government that will oppress and possibly even destroy the Sunni population and their way of life. And any "imperfections" in the election process will only give these murderers more reasons (and probably more compelling ones) to fight and spread their anti-democratic doctrine.

But like I said, I really do hope you're right, Hack; no-one wants to see more people fight and suffer and die in this debacle.

BTW - Despite the Clinton advertising, the window in the middle of the story was throwing up non-piss-taking Bush re-election memorabilia when I checked it out... ironic, huh?

 

Hacken,
the link with the summary is from the Washington Times ... not really a liberal outlet.

And don't bash Knight Ridder, it's about one of the few press houses in the US that have been reporting relatively accurate on the war - much better than the New York Times, LA Times or Washington Post - a bright spot.

The study is, read carefully, 'A Knight Ridder Newspapers analysis'. That is, the study is just that article from Detroit Free Press.

What the study says is what even conservative critics say very openly for more than a few months. The numbers are fact and the trends are undeniable too, so what? You want to tell me they are reading it wrong and that more US casualties, more enemies and increase in violence is a actually sign for US *success* ??! Bad new not necessarily are propaganda.

[ January 24, 2005, 08:16: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

If the British could not overcome terror in N.I. matching violence with violence then the US will definately not be able to do the same in Iraq.

Cival war will be a way of life due to the bitter repression of the Iraqis.

Take N.I. as an example. Though Republicans and Unionists have things more or less equal (there will always be a certain amount of descrimination on both sides) the Republicans are still bitter about events that were before their time! Maybe even before their parents time.

The British never treated the Republicans anywhere near as badly as the US forces treated the Iraqi's. No I am not saying every Marine was guilty but it will leave enough of an impact to last for generations.

 

Granted. It'll be interesting to see what happens post-election, though. If the attacks continue to escalate, then yes, we're in a lot of trouble. If they begin to decline, it may be salvagable.

 

That's sounds about right

the new and improved Vietnam for the new millenium

and the idiot from the christian right leads the new crusade against the muslims

for the holy grail contained in the black gobbit of oil

 

Huh, I mean, just look at this junk - " This week's good news from Iraq" right from la-la-land:

Bold claims. So everything's getting better then?

Well, at the same time it is reported that US troops in Iraq have shifted resupply OPs from road supply to air supply - less effective and more expensive - for reasons of lack of road security as a result of guerrilla activity

And according to the polls in Iraq the Iraqis still despise US troops more than insurgents and still want them out

Nevermind - just spin away the bad news and maximise the good.

 

We have hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq alone. How many insurgents die for each American? Attrition favors us, there are likely fewer insurgents than there are US soldiers. And, even if not, we kill far more of them than they do of us, one can be sure.

The military does not define "wound" as anything severe. It could be anything from, literally, a broken toe (more than enough to receive a Purple Heart, in fact) to a missing arm.

If more of them attack us, more of them die, there are fewer of them...

This is not engendering support from the populace, I feel, and hurts the terrorists more than it helps them.

Polls? What polls, conducted by whom, in what area, and who is interviewed?

These are bad trends, I admit, but they may be showcasing a new desperation on the part of the insurgents. They know that after the first election occurs, their quest will be FAR more difficult, so they are going to increase the intensity and frequency of their attacks as a result.

 

While this is true, one of the lessons of vietnam is that you can't simply win a war through attrition. We lost 60,000 troops. The Vietnamese lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 million. But who pulled out, in the end?

At the same time, it doesn't help America--if we're not keeping the Iraqis secure, then...

 

@ Rags

Why is the article you sited at the beginning of this thread considered to be more accurate than

"Huh, I mean, just look at this junk - " This week's good news from Iraq" right from la-la-land: "

??

 

The key of a war of attrition is to afford your casualties and to have the ability to replace them faster than your enemy replaces his casaulties, it doesn't matter if you are losing more troops as long as you can afford them. Just see Vietnam, as Amaster wrote, or the eastern front in WW2. For each dead insurgent, there will be another one who will replace him immediately (a relative who wants revenge, someone who doesn't tolerate the american presence anymore etc.), does the same happen for each dead marine?

 

Because the first one is a sober assessment of numbers and the extrapolation of a trend based on that where as the second one is all about maximise the good, and minimise the bad and about to persuade that everything's going fine.

That, however, is in direct contradiction to the facts on the ground - such as the fact that the US lost control over Mosul right after they ground down Fallujah and that US forces prefer not to use Iraq's roads if possible. So to say, the second link ... guess what ...

In the US view each incident in Iraq fits into a certain logic: the attacks in the Sunni triangle must be the work of supporters of Saddam Hussein or of international terrorists linked to al-Qaida; Muqtada al-Sadr’s resistance is explained by the involvement of Iran, classified as part of the axis of evil; each armed action is further proof that "they" hate western values.

For every 'bad guy' the US kill several more are created each time an apartment block is bombed or a village is subjected to search and destroy operations.

However, there are other far simpler ways of understanding the drama in Iraq. Iraqis are happy to be rid of a loathsome dictatorship and free of the sanctions that for 13 years drained the life out of Iraq. All they want now is a better life, freedom and independence. But the reality is that no promises made about postwar reconstruction have been kept. There are still widespread power cuts, insecurity and increased poverty.

Therefor, don't be too surprised, as I told you two years ago already, if the Iraqis are NOT grateful for the US efforts.

That it has gone a little better now and that that's a success, as the blogger wants us to make believe should actually puzzle us - hey, it's 2005 now. Isn't the war over for a while now? Isn't that a little long?

Iraqis have no interest in living under an occupation that they suspect of being interested only in oil and regional strategic domination. The days of colonialism are over. The 1920 revolt against the British has been celebrated in Iraq over the decades and has as strong a hold on the popular imagination as the Resistance and the Liberation have in France.

Iraqis share an aspiration to independence with other nations and we do not need to plumb their psychology or their souls, or submit the Qur’an to detailed analysis, to understand it. The behaviour of the Iraqis is entirely rational.

 

Short answer: Yes. You have no idea how many recruits the US army turns down each year, primarily from my area. The casualties for the US forces haven't gone over 2000 yet, and the war has the popular support (at least in and around my area) that Vietnam lacked. We can afford the casualties, and if the SWORDS (robotic killing machines in another topic) become feasible, how do you think that will impact the casualty rate?

This is also a different war than Vietnam, if only because of the terrain. More US troops died to booby traps than to enemy fire (I don't have a source on this, a veteran I know said it to me once). Booby traps in Iraq don't exist. Also, the battles are primarily in urban areas and the desert, unlike in Vietnam, where it was in the jungle - visibility of less than five meters most times. In Iraq, you can see for miles in all directions if you're in a suitably high spot. Also, the Iraqis don't have a powerful group of countries backing them, like the Vietnamese did (meaning the Soviet Union and China, if you're unfamiliar with the history of that war), nor do they have the above-par combat training that the Vietnamese had.

Also, the enemy simply has fewer men than the Vietnamese did. They mobilized as a country, whereas the Iraqis aren't even mobilizing significant fractions of cities, yet.

 

I voted against Bush, I thought the way he cheerlead the country and its allies into Iraq was deceitful, and I think his administration hasn't missed an opportunity to put politics before policy, to vast detriment to the occupation, Iraqi civil order, the US's reputation abroad, and the US armed forces.

That being said, I think alot of you guys are seriously overplaying the negatives in Iraq, and I predict serious egg on your faces in the near future when things turn out better than you expect.

The insurgency draws its manpower and funding from an increasingly minute fraction of the country, and that fraction is becoming more and more desperate. Where once they claimed to represent all of Iraq, they now openly declare themselves the enemies of democracy (as, of course, democracy is un-Islamic), and that all Shiites are apostates. The Shiite insurgency (remember Moqtada's vast Mahdi brigades?) has faded into the woodwork, and the Shiite leadership, as well as the Kurds, openly support US presence in Iraq. Let me repeat: a clear majority of Iraqis and their political leadership support US presence in Iraq up to the point that the ING and IP have the strength to maintain civil order.

So when you guys talk about "the Iraqis" you need to be a little more specific...

It's well known now that the insurgency is a mixture of Sunni Baathists (though by no means all of them) and Sunni Islamists (again, though not all of them). These guys won't be happy until they regain the control they had under Saddam, which, I'm afraid to say, will never happen (and even if it did, the alliance between secular Baathists and fundamental Islamists would break apart in no time). Also, their range of operation is severely limited to Baghdad and its surrounding (Sunni-majority) environs; while they are occasionally able to carry off an attack outside of the Sunni triangle, whether on oil infrastructure or Shiite or Kurdish targets, these attacks are seen by most Iraqis as rank Sunni aggression, not a "popular insurgence." Within their areas of operation (and this has to be said loosely: the ability to create chaos in a given area does not constitute control), they basically terrorize other Sunnis to keep them from any kind of collaboration (voting, etc). Note that all of your stories about how out of control things are in Iraq focus on the same places...

The most the insurgency can hope for in the near future is an election where so few Sunnis vote (whether by choice or by threat) that they can convince more Sunnis (not just in Iraq) that the vote was flawed. But note that many of the Sunni political leaders who are boycotting the election (and remember, there's still a significant number of Sunnis who are participating in the election) are still trying to insert themselves into the process of writing the constitution, and are pushing for representation in the democraticly elected government (by a system of setting aside seats for Sunnis).

I still think the US rushed to war, and have made many, many terrible mistakes in waging the war. But I also think that those of you are banking on the failure of the US in Iraq, and are so ready to buy the "US oppressor vs. noble Iraqi resistance" line that you'll believe anything, are heading for disappointment.

 

I didn't call the Iraqi insurgency 'noble', just rational.

The US reaction on actual Iraqi resistance was a shocked and awed 'how ungrateful' - which is plain idiotic, but tells a tale on how the US want to be perceived, perceive themselves and perceive the world.

As said, in the US view each incident in Iraq fits into a certain logic: the attacks in the Sunni triangle must be the work of supporters of Saddam Hussein or of international terrorists linked to al-Qaida; Muqtada al-Sadr’s resistance is explained by the involvement of Iran, classified as part of the axis of evil; each armed action is further proof that "they" hate western values.

The behaviour of the Iraqis, resisting a foreign occupier, is entirely rational.

The point is that the insurgency can be defeated - but only by Iraqis. And if that happens there will be a terrific deathtoll, somewhere in the high hundrets of thousands, much like in 1990s Algeria when the gvt quelled the islamist movement that was so bold to win an election.

The US can't be willing to be involved in such a slaughter, I seriously hope so, only to keep face and stay the course.

 

@Slith

Does the number of recruits remain at the same level of the previous years now that they know that there are many chances to be sent in a war zone? And if the american army has an unlimited pool of replacements why did Powell visit Europe begging for troops? Also, can the american government afford the political cost of the casaulties and the economic cost of the war? The war perhaps has popular support now but is the american society willing to accept a war, which perhaps is going to last for 2 or 3 years?

 

Which US reaction? I, for one (thanks knowing a few Arabists, reading sites like juancole.com, and, well, common sense), wasn't surprised by the resistance. The Bush administration and its supporters certainly were surprised, but that's because they ignored the experts who didn't give rosy predictions, and then softpedaled the war to the populace. Even the "liberal media" bought it. The whole "Mission Accomplished" thing was laughable. So I kinda agree here. But...

...how does it follow that this Baathist-Islamist alliance isn't the force behind the insurgency? All of the evidence point to this explicitly. Who else do you think is involved?

Moqtada's resistance is pretty much pacified at the moment, and not just by the US, but by the Shiite religious and political establishment as well.

Again, you are being sloppy here in your use of "the Iraqis." If you were to say "The behavior of the former Baathist Sunni Iraqis, who held the levers of power during Saddam's regime, is entirely rational in resisting the foreign occupier," I might agree. However, for the Shiites or Kurds to support an insurgency that openly curses the idea of democracy precisely because that democracy would empower the Shiites and Kurds, an insurgency which openly calls them dogs and apostates, an insurgency that openly targets its leadership for assassination, would seem to me deeply irrational. And so, the Shiites and Kurds rationally bide their time until they can democratically claim power and give tacit support to the current US presence in Iraq. If the Shiites alone decided that US forces should go, believe me, the US would be gone. But they haven't demanded it so it hasn't happened.

Well, that's why they have the ING and the IP, and they're still training more. I think the hope is that Iraqi civil structure establishes itself enough after the elections that the insurgency begins to give up, much like Moqtada's militia. Worst case: the Sunni areas are isolated from the rest of Iraq.

The current insurgency has no chance at all at winning any elections as long as the Shia and Kurds (and even many of the Sunnis, who must be terrorized into staying home) can vote. So what does Algeria have to do with this??

 

Probably not, but the number is still, per month, much higher than the casualty rate, I would assume. Just from my school, in the last three weeks, I know of nine seniors who have applied.

I would guess that he wants more of an appearance of foreign support. Also, he wants to be able to send some exhausted US troops back to their homes, sending in fresh meat. Fresh troop morale is, as a rule, higher than garrisoned troops in a war situation.

For better or worse, have you seen a significant negative impact on the Republican party or Bush in particular?

It's a definite possibility. It's already lasted that long, and there haven't been popular protests. (When I say "popular," I mean large, televised, and agreed with/supported by a significant portion of the country.)

 

U.S. Apparently Underestimated Size of Insurgency, Top Commander Says