The Political Chase

Stockman and Bender’s analysis of Iraq

Farah Stockman and Bryan Bender have an excellent piece in the Boston Globe on the war in Iraq. The timing is also perfect since General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are scheduled to give Congress a report on the war tomorrow.

Overall, the piece is a superb high-level analysis on how successful the surge has been (or not) and primarily references facts and metrics, rather than anecdotal evidence — the administration’s gold standard for reporting since the war began.

From a quantitative perspective, the piece highlights two items — suicide bombings and Iraqi casualties, mostly civilians — that reportedly top military officials rely on for determining success or failure.

The number of Sunni insurgents who blew themselves up with suicide vests doubled between last December and February. There were 10 such attacks in December, 16 in January, and 20 in February, compared with just six in October and eight in November of last year. Last month, the attacks declined to 10 - roughly the level they were when Bush announced the surge in January 2007. . .

Meanwhile, explosive-laden cars and trucks detonated with a driver at the wheel - considered a separate type of suicide attack - hit 17 last month after just one in February and five in January. . .

Overall, Iraqi deaths rose from a low of 568 in December and 541 in January to roughly 721 in February to more than 1,082 in March, according to statistics compiled by Iraq’s ministries of health, interior, and defense and confirmed by Smith. The vast majority were civilians. . .

US troop deaths have also crept up, from 23 in December - the lowest number since 2004 - to 40 in January, 29 in February, and 38 in March, according to icasualties.org, a website that tracks the deaths of US service members in Iraq through Pentagon press releases. Deaths are still lower than their monthly peak last year of 126 deaths in May.

Indeed, the numbers are telling and not readily discredited with anecdotal evidence, which the Bush administration will surely rely on for its rebuttal. Furthermore, when the authors report anecdotally, they frequently deliver a direct blow in George Bush’s belly. For example:

"The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity, as the president claims," retired Lieutenant General William E. Odom told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week.

Odom said it "placed the United States astride several civil wars and it allows all sides to consolidate, rearm, and refill their financial coffers at the US expense."

The United States now faces the difficult choice of drawing down troops - and risking a return of major violence - or continuing to keep a large troop presence in Iraq that backs factions that are in open conflict with one another, said Martin Indyk, who served as assistant secretary of state for near east affairs during the Clinton administration.

"If we draw down our forces further, all of these factors that we have managed to suppress are going to emerge in full force," Indyk said. "But if we don’t, these forces are going to develop in all sorts of ways we can’t control."

Unfortunately, that also lands a direct hit on getting out of Iraq anytime soon.

The public’s focus on Iraq has dropped significantly since the presidential campaigns when into full swing. Only 28 percent of Americans realized the American casualties in Iraq were approaching 4,000 last month. Not good, and I am also guilty to a degree. I read, but post little on the matter.

I would like to know how realistic are the promises made by the Democratic presidential candidates. To varying degrees, I think there is considerably more pandering than truth-telling. But I believe neither candidate’s approach is nearly as far off as John McCain’s Iraq and Iran Forever Plan.

Getting out of Iraq will be bloodier than most probably perceive today and will cost many more lives than anyone currently imagines. It simply will not be a matter of folding up a tent and going home.