This update from Baghdad sounds pretty grim, but I gather that mainly from the tone of the article, written by the Times' David Cloud and Damien Cave:
Three months after the start of the Baghdad security plan that has added thousands of American and Iraqi troops to the capital, they control fewer than one-third of the city’s neighborhoods, far short of the initial goal for the operation, according to some commanders and an internal military assessment.
The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods.
In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face “resistance,” according to the one-page assessment, which was provided to The New York Times and summarized reports from brigade and battalion commanders in Baghdad....
Violence has diminished in many areas, but it is especially chronic in mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods in western Baghdad, several senior officers said. Over all, improvements have not yet been as widespread or lasting across Baghdad, they acknowledged.
It's possible, I suppose, that things are going according to plan. Just slower than expected. But, as is my custom with all things Iraq, I have my doubts.
The U.S. troop death-rate during this time has, as would be expected, increased in Baghdad since the war was escalated. What's not mentioned here, though, is why the process is going slower than expected, which may have to do with the fact neighborhood violence in Baghdad could have a similar dynamic to violence in the rest of the country. Specifically, as fighters are pushed out of one area of the city and directly into another, one part of Baghdad might experience relative calm while the overall violence in the city doesn't change much.
What also isn't mentioned here, is that there hasn't been a noticeable drop in overall casualties in the rest of the country. This is something that might have been expected if we were redeploying troops within the country and not advancing the war by adding soldiers to the fray who weren't there before.
I think the world's accumlated knowledge on how to halt an insurgency is: you can't whack a mole in just part of the mole-holes. And the moles reproduce rapidly.
Overwhelming force is needed and we don't have enough men in arms to do that in a nation of 25 million. Especially if the guys we are training to help have a second job at night (and sometimes in the day) as insurgents bombing our troops.
Not good news, indeed.
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | June 04, 2007 at 09:22 AM