Can we say that Iraq has turned the corner?

Submitted by Bird Dog on Sat, 08/09/2008 - 11:18pm. Tags:

That's a tough question. To me, it's pretty clear that the situation has stabilized and that the surge strategy is working. Peter Mansoor does a good job explaining why. Also, civilian casualties are about as low as I've seen (hat tip to Engram),

and same goes for military casualties.

These graphs are relevant because they measure how well the current counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy is doing. The change has been stunningly fast, as the Christian Science Monitor has noted. IED bombings are way down, which is a result of both improved intelligence and improved offensive operations against various insurgent and terrorist groups. Michael O'Hanlon reported that Iraqis are returning home, although not yet in significant numbers.

But Iraq today is a very different place than it was two years ago. Overall violence is down at least 80 percent since the surge began, and ethno-sectarian violence -- the kind that seemed to be sucking Iraq into all-out civil war in 2006 -- is down by over 90 percent. Through June, the number of violent civilian deaths has averaged about 700 a month in 2008, a lower rate than in any previous year of the war (with the possible exception of 2003). U.S. military deaths in Iraq have dropped from about 70 a month in early 2007 to about 25 a month now, and the death rate for the ISF has fallen by half, from 200 a month to about 100. Although refugees and internally displaced people are not yet returning home in large numbers, so few Iraqis are now being evicted that the net displacement rate is about zero.

Meanwhile, the three main culprits in the ethno-sectarian violence of 2006 have stood down and agreed to cease-fires or been crippled by military defeat. Sunni insurgents overwhelmingly switched sides over the course of 2007, signing on to cease-fires with the Iraqi state mostly through the Sons of Iraq program, which now includes over 100,000 participants, who provide local security in exchange for legitimacy and financial support. The Shiite militias, especially Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army (also know as Jaish al-Mahdi, or JAM), have seen their position undermined by a combination of Sunni realignment, U.S. and Iraqi military pressure, the increasing independence of splinter and rogue groups, and a backlash against their own parasitic exploitation of the civilians they were ostensibly defending. And the most violent actors -- Iraq's extreme chauvinist Sunni groups and AQI -- have been driven from most of western and central Iraq and are losing their remaining urban havens in the provinces of Diyala, Nineveh, and Salah ad Din thanks to a series of offensives by U.S. and Iraqi forces. AQI will surely continue to be able to precipitate occasional incidents of terrorist violence from these hideouts, but its ability to foment large-scale low-intensity warfare is now hugely diminished.

There is another major milestone that also tells the tale, and that's the Basra offensive last March. With the blessing of the Kurdish and Sunni blocs in the national government, al Maliki planned and launched an offensive that routed both criminal and Sadrist elements in Basra, Iraq's second largest city.

As our friend Blaise has mentioned a time or two, Basra is a vitally strategic location, and the offensive spelled the end for Moqtada al Sadr as a militant leader. The British were on the sidelines, perhaps for a reason, and not a good one.

With Basra pacified, al Maliki was able to go on to Sadr City and Mosul and points in between, and it emboldened him to take a more independent and defiant stance regarding coalition forces. Looking back over the last four months, it looks fairly obvious that al Maliki & Co. won and al Sadr & Co. lost. The junior cleric's militias have been neutralized, and just yesterday he announced that he had already ordered his militias to lay down arms, and that he would transform his militias into a "religious and social organization". With an agreeable Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA), al Sadr saves a little face and he will be able to enter the political process and perhaps run for election. I see no evidence of a civil war between the various Shiite groups.

A politically strengthened al Maliki demonstrated his independence by playing hardball in the SoFA negotiations. Good on him. It looks like we're getting close to an agreement:

They say the proposed timeline sets an initial target for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities and remain on their bases by June 30, 2009. The schedule could be amended depending on security conditions.

With the help of the Sunni awakening movements, al Qaeda still has teeth but is basically on its last legs, which is also testament to the current strategy.

There's another milestone that has occurred, and that's the critical mass of Iraqi forces at sufficient readiness and competence. O'Hanlon:

There are now some 559,000 security personnel, with about 230,000 in the Iraqi army alone, and those ranks are growing by at least 100,000 new soldiers and police a year. Some 55 percent of the units rank in the top two tiers of readiness, according to U.S. assessment methods, which have been improved to include evaluations of actual battlefield performance. (Even these units, however, still need significant coalition help in some areas, particularly for more complex operations.)

The size and competence of these Iraqi forces have allowed U.S. commanders to maintain population security even as U.S. troop strength has declined significantly since the surge. With more troops to cover the battlefield, whole Iraqi battalions can be pulled off the battlefield temporarily for training, further increasing their capabilities. At the same time, the United States has greatly expanded its advisory effort. The typical Iraqi division now has over 100 U.S. Army and Marine advisers, who stay with it even in battle, and Iraqi units are often teamed up with U.S. units of comparable or smaller size. The greater availability of troops enables many of these teams to begin deployments in quiet sectors, building both skills and working relationships before being sent to high-threat areas.

Just as important as the ISF's size and technical proficiency are the major changes that have taken place in the ISF's politics and leadership. Sectarian, corrupt, incompetent, and turncoat officers have been removed. Aggressive recruitment and new amnesty and de-Baathification ordinances have led to increases in both the number of Sunnis, especially in the officer corps, and the number of people with prior military experience in the forces. Now, about 80 percent of the Iraqi army's officers and 50 percent of its rank and file are veterans of Saddam Hussein's military, and one of the most capable units in the Iraqi army, the First Brigade of the First Infantry Division, is 60 percent Sunni.

The National Police is also improving, Badr and Fadhila militias are disappearing, and Sunnis are committed to the upcoming elections. There are four levels for evaluating the competence of Iraqi military brigades, as Bill Roggio has described:

• Level 1 is the highest rating, where units are fully independent in all aspects. This includes being able to plan and conduct operations without coalition support. It also means the units sustain themselves through their own systems, handle all maintenance and have every piece of equipment needed to perform any mission.

• Level 2 means units that are "in the lead" in the counterinsurgency effort. The units plan and execute their own operations, but they do require coalition support. This support is typically logistics, close-air support, indirect fire, medical evacuation and so on.

• Level 3 indicates units fighting alongside coalition units. An Iraqi company will be embedded with a coalition battalion. The company gets support from the coalition and operates with the battalion.

• Level 4 indicates units just forming.

The top two tiers are critically important because it means that Iraqis are doing the heavy lifting, and American forces are in support roles at the most. Doing the math, with 55% of Iraqi forces at Level 1 or 2, this means that over 126,000 in the Iraqi army are doing the job, which means that we'll be able to redeploy American forces without adversely affecting security. As to how many, we'll be hearing pretty soon.

So why am I not confident that Iraq has turned the corner? Because it's unclear whether or not these improvements are sustainable and irreversible, and people who should know (such as Petraeus and Crocker) continue to say that the situation is improving but fragile. On a personal note, back in March 2004 I wrote that Iraq had turned the corner, but then the four contractors in Fallujah were murdered, insurgency movements grew and security did not improve. So hey, maybe I'm a little gun-shy.

Also, there are some blips on the horizon. Who knows when all eighteen benchmarks will be achieved (Crocker has said that satisfactory progress has been made on 15 of 18), but the timing of when all eighteen will be accomplished is highly unclear. Another blip is the timing of upcoming elections, as the New York Times reported. Omar Fadhil has a good analysis of what happened, which is basically that the Sunni bloc inserted a poison pill into the legislation (Omar is a Baghdad-based Sunni), and because of this, the election will be probably be delayed into 2009.

Other challenges include integrating Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi government, handling returning refugees, and improving a fledgling and immature government. As long as we can help with those challenges, we should do so, as much as the upcoming SoFA will let us.

Update:Bing West is a Marine who wrote a book about COIN in Vietnam called The Village. He has a new book out on Iraq, called The Strongest Tribe, and below is his worthwhile synopsis.

By the way, if you haven't, I suggest you make the Small Wars Journal blog a regular stop on your daily Internet itinerary, and don't forget to say "hi" to Ken White, because he's a regular commenter there. For one reason or another, he gave up The Forvm in favor of SWJ, and it's our loss.
--

"I want America to know that I'm, like, totally ready to lead." -- Paris Hilton

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Let me put it this way... (#109254)

by M Aurelius on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 10:50pm

You can call me a surge skeptic.

I see some nice charts, but none that prove causation.

A lot has been going on. The country has become segregated, people separated according to their religion or ethnicity, so there are fewer clashes.

Also, and this is the main thing, the expectation is that one way or the other, Americans are going to be leaving within the next year or so. No point fighting your civil war while a third party is in the way.

Quiet need not mean peaceful. That's a big logical jump that you are making. These are two very, very different things.

Of course not!

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Also (#109257)

by Spartacvs on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 10:59pm

The nice charts don't plot the Awakening and payoffs to Sunni insurgents, Al Sadr's ceasefire or the ethnic cleansing and mass exodus of refugees. The US is totally blowing away all opposition in the power point war and we should expect nothing less?

GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.

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Can we say that Iraq has turned the corner?

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