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 | | From: | Harry Krause | | Subject: | OT: More evidence Iraq war is lost | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:14:45 -0500 |
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 | Analysis: Iraqi Insurgency Growing Larger, More Effective
By Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Sunday 23 January 2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The United States is steadily losing ground to the
Iraqi
insurgency, according to every key military yardstick.
A Knight Ridder analysis of U.S. government statistics shows that
through
all the major turning points that raised hopes of peace in Iraq,
including the
arrest of Saddam Hussein and the handover of sovereignty at the end of June,
the insurgency, led mainly by Sunni Muslims, has become deadlier and more
effective.
The analysis suggests that unless something dramatic changes - such
as a
newfound will by Iraqis to reject the insurgency or a large escalation
of U.S.
troop strength - the United States won't win the war. It's axiomatic among
military thinkers that insurgencies are especially hard to defeat
because the
insurgents' goal isn't to win in a conventional sense but merely to survive
until the will of the occupying power is sapped. Recent polls already
suggest
an erosion of support among Americans for the war.
The unfavorable trends of the war are clear:
- U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts have risen from an
average of
about 17 per month just after President Bush declared an end to major combat
operations on May 1, 2003, to an 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. Iraqi civilians have
suffered
even more deaths and injuries, although reliable statistics aren't
available.
- Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when
statistics
were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 in October. Air
Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the multinational forces' deputy operations
director, told Knight Ridder on Friday that attacks were currently
running at
75 a day, about 2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during the
assault on Fallujah, but nearly as high as October's total.
- The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero
in the
first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13 per month.
- Electricity production has been below pre-war levels since October,
largely because of sabotage by insurgents, with just 6.7 hours of power
daily
in Baghdad in early January, according to the State Department.
- Iraq is pumping about 500,000 barrels a day fewer than its
pre-war peak
of 2.5 million barrels per day as a result of attacks, according to the
State
Department.
"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. "We are not winning, and the security trend lines could almost
lead you to believe that we are losing."
The combat numbers are based mainly on Defense Department releases
compiled
by O'Hanlon in an Iraq Index. Since the numbers can fluctuate significantly
from month to month, Knight Ridder examined the statistics for fatalities,
wounded and mass-casualty bombings using a technique mathematicians call a
moving average - averaging the number of attacks in one month with the
number
of attacks in the two months immediately preceding it in order to better
reveal
the underlying trend.
Lessel said that since the U.S. assault on the former rebel
stronghold of
Fallujah in November, "we have been making a lot of progress" against the
insurgency.
He said the number of attacks, bombings and kidnappings is down from
November, experienced insurgent leaders are being arrested or killed,
U.S. and
Iraqi forces remain on the offensive and more Iraqis have been providing
intelligence on insurgents.
Other indications that "things are turning around" include surveys that
show 80 percent of Iraqis wanting to vote in the Jan. 30 elections and more
than 90 percent opposing violence as a solution to the crisis. In
addition, the
recruitment and training of Iraqi security forces are being stepped up,
Lessel
said.
"I don't want to paint too rosy a picture. We still have an
insurgency that
has a lot of capabilities," he said. "When you ask is the insurgency
growing,
you have to ask is it growing in terms of popular support, and I don't
see that
happening."
There are some additional bright spots.
In the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad and the southern town of
Najaf,
the scene of intense fighting last year with Shiite Muslim rebels,
millions of
dollars are pouring into reconstruction efforts.
Both places are now relatively peaceful and are counted as
victories, with
the danger of a spreading insurgency backed by Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority
largely thwarted.
Some 14 million Iraqis, mostly Shiite, are registered to vote in
the Jan.
30 elections for an interim 275-seat National Assembly. They'll choose among
111 slates comprising 7,785 candidates.
Roughly 1,500 U.S.-funded reconstruction projects are employing
more than
100,000 Iraqis, and the insurgents' campaign of attacks and threats has
failed
to deter sign-ups for Iraq's new security forces.
These developments, however, have had little impact on the broader
trends
that have moved against the United States through all the spikes and
lulls in
violence.
Most worrisome, the insurgency is getting larger.
At the close of 2003, U.S. commanders put the number of insurgents at
5,000. Earlier this month, Gen. Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, the director
of the
Iraqi intelligence service, said there are 200,000 insurgents, including at
least 40,000 hard-core fighters. The rest, he said, are part-time
fighters and
supporters who provide food, shelter, funds and intelligence.
"Many Iraqis respect these gunmen because they are fighting the
invaders,"
said Nabil Mohammed, a Baghdad University political science professor.
The insurgents "are getting smarter all the time. We've seen a lot of
changes in their tactics that say, one, they're getting help from
outside, and
two, they're learning," said Sgt. 1st Class Glenn Aldrich, 35, of Houston, a
16-year Army veteran, after spending an hour recently greeting Iraqis on
a foot
patrol through a Baghdad neighborhood.
The resistance has grown despite suffering huge casualties to
overwhelming
U.S. firepower. Exact statistics aren't available.
Insurgent attacks have shifted from small groups of men shooting at
tanks
with AK-47s to powerful car bombs and roadside explosives, and well-planned
assaults, kidnappings and assassinations.
American soldiers have subdued Sunni hotbeds such as Fallujah and
Samarra.
Yet these military victories have failed to achieve the broader goal of
weakening the resistance.
Guerrilla fighters leave behind a rear guard force to fight while
moving
the bulk of their fighters and leadership elsewhere. During and after the
Fallujah battle in November, for example, Mosul and several Sunni
neighborhoods
in Baghdad became more violent.
Some Iraqis say these aggressive U.S. military moves are
counterproductive
because mass destruction and the killing of Iraqis create more recruits
for the
insurgency.
"The insurgency will grow larger," said Ghazi Bada al Faisal, an
employee
of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and a Fallujah resident. "The child whose
brother and father were killed in the fighting will now seek revenge."
Some defense analysts are calling for a new strategy and more troops.
"We can only control the ground we stand on. We leave, and it falls
apart,"
said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst at the
Washington Center for Near East Policy.
White proposes sending 20,000 more troops.
But the Bush administration hopes to replace U.S. troops with
well-trained
Iraqis.
In late 2003, Iraqi recruits, many of them young and looking for a
paycheck, were pushed through a week or so of training, given guns and
uniforms
and then declared graduated.
During the first major fight in Fallujah in April, many of them
fled. In
the second Fallujah confrontation, in November, they fought behind the main
lines of battle and were infamous for spraying gunfire erratically and
without
warning, but fewer left their posts.
Even so, an entire national guard battalion in Mosul went absent
without
leave in November. Much of the Mosul police force simply collapsed under
fire.
Bush administration officials say the program to train and equip
new Iraqi
security forces of more than 272,000 members is making progress.
Yet several independent experts said it would take at least two years
before there are any meaningful numbers of Iraqi forces with
counterinsurgency
skills and as many as five years before the U.S. goal is attained.
"I think you can achieve success, but it will take a while and,
unfortunately, there will be a lot more blood," said Peter Khalil, who was a
senior security adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq.
Of course, success isn't assured and the United States will be
forced to
deal with an elected Iraqi government that may set limits on what U.S.
troops
can do - and could even ask them to leave.
U.S. military officials had repeatedly, and accurately, predicted more
violence in the approach to the elections, which is likely to bring to
power a
Shiite-dominated government after nearly a century of Sunni rule in Iraq.
Yet hopes that the election might lead to less violence have
recently given
way to more dire warnings, with expectations that Sunni insurgents who feel
disenfranchised in the new Iraq will turn their guns on the elected
government.
"I think that we will enter a different but still dangerous period
in the
post-election time frame," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S.
forces
in northern Iraq, said on Jan. 15.
Bush has vowed to stay the course.
The Pentagon dispatched retired U.S. Army Gen. Gary Luck this month to
examine the training of Iraqi forces and to put a fresh eye on the
anti-insurgent campaign.
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| | From: | Tuuuk | | Subject: | Re: More evidence Iraq war is lost | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 20:28:26 -0500 |
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| krause,, I bet your Vietnam Vet buddies would be pissed at you again,,, they
saved your ass there and this is how you thank them.,,,,
Tell me,, when did you have time to read all this online news when you
earlier looked out your window,, claimed it to be too miserable outside,,
not even the critters were going to get fed today, you were not even going
to shovel the 2 or 3 inches on your walkway that could have saved someone
from flipping yet you had time to go outside (hmmm) and get to the liquor
store,,, you know the upscale liquor store that has one of those coolers,,,
lol,,
krause,,, you are a coward and a liar,,,,
Something tells me you are off the meds here and little bit lost,,, confused
as they say in the old folks homes (of which you refuse to visit),,,,,, its
ok there krause,, the homecare people act as good parent substitutes,,,
lol,,,,,,ouch,,, ooo krause,,, you're the limit man,,, Vietnam man,,,
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
news:w_mdndQWaKBbjmncRVn-og@comcast.com...
> Analysis: Iraqi Insurgency Growing Larger, More Effective
>
> By Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay
> Knight Ridder Newspapers
>
> Sunday 23 January 2005
>
> BAGHDAD, Iraq - The United States is steadily losing ground to the
> Iraqi
> insurgency, according to every key military yardstick.
>
> A Knight Ridder analysis of U.S. government statistics shows that
> through
> all the major turning points that raised hopes of peace in Iraq, including
> the
> arrest of Saddam Hussein and the handover of sovereignty at the end of
> June,
> the insurgency, led mainly by Sunni Muslims, has become deadlier and more
> effective.
>
> The analysis suggests that unless something dramatic changes - such as
> a
> newfound will by Iraqis to reject the insurgency or a large escalation of
> U.S.
> troop strength - the United States won't win the war. It's axiomatic among
> military thinkers that insurgencies are especially hard to defeat because
> the
> insurgents' goal isn't to win in a conventional sense but merely to
> survive
> until the will of the occupying power is sapped. Recent polls already
> suggest
> an erosion of support among Americans for the war.
>
> The unfavorable trends of the war are clear:
>
> - U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts have risen from an
> average of
> about 17 per month just after President Bush declared an end to major
> combat
> operations on May 1, 2003, to an 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. Iraqi civilians have
> suffered
> even more deaths and injuries, although reliable statistics aren't
> available.
>
> - Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when
> statistics
> were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 in October. Air
> Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the multinational forces' deputy operations
> director, told Knight Ridder on Friday that attacks were currently running
> at
> 75 a day, about 2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during the
> assault on Fallujah, but nearly as high as October's total.
>
> - The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero in
> the
> first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13 per
> month.
>
> - Electricity production has been below pre-war levels since October,
> largely because of sabotage by insurgents, with just 6.7 hours of power
> daily
> in Baghdad in early January, according to the State Department.
>
> - Iraq is pumping about 500,000 barrels a day fewer than its pre-war
> peak
> of 2.5 million barrels per day as a result of attacks, according to the
> State
> Department.
>
> "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. "We are not winning, and the security trend lines could
> almost
> lead you to believe that we are losing."
>
> The combat numbers are based mainly on Defense Department releases
> compiled
> by O'Hanlon in an Iraq Index. Since the numbers can fluctuate
> significantly
> from month to month, Knight Ridder examined the statistics for fatalities,
> wounded and mass-casualty bombings using a technique mathematicians call a
> moving average - averaging the number of attacks in one month with the
> number
> of attacks in the two months immediately preceding it in order to better
> reveal
> the underlying trend.
>
> Lessel said that since the U.S. assault on the former rebel stronghold
> of
> Fallujah in November, "we have been making a lot of progress" against the
> insurgency.
>
> He said the number of attacks, bombings and kidnappings is down from
> November, experienced insurgent leaders are being arrested or killed, U.S.
> and
> Iraqi forces remain on the offensive and more Iraqis have been providing
> intelligence on insurgents.
>
> Other indications that "things are turning around" include surveys
> that
> show 80 percent of Iraqis wanting to vote in the Jan. 30 elections and
> more
> than 90 percent opposing violence as a solution to the crisis. In
> addition, the
> recruitment and training of Iraqi security forces are being stepped up,
> Lessel
> said.
>
> "I don't want to paint too rosy a picture. We still have an insurgency
> that
> has a lot of capabilities," he said. "When you ask is the insurgency
> growing,
> you have to ask is it growing in terms of popular support, and I don't see
> that
> happening."
>
> There are some additional bright spots.
>
> In the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad and the southern town of
> Najaf,
> the scene of intense fighting last year with Shiite Muslim rebels,
> millions of
> dollars are pouring into reconstruction efforts.
>
> Both places are now relatively peaceful and are counted as victories,
> with
> the danger of a spreading insurgency backed by Iraq's Shiite Muslim
> majority
> largely thwarted.
>
> Some 14 million Iraqis, mostly Shiite, are registered to vote in the
> Jan.
> 30 elections for an interim 275-seat National Assembly. They'll choose
> among
> 111 slates comprising 7,785 candidates.
>
> Roughly 1,500 U.S.-funded reconstruction projects are employing more
> than
> 100,000 Iraqis, and the insurgents' campaign of attacks and threats has
> failed
> to deter sign-ups for Iraq's new security forces.
>
> These developments, however, have had little impact on the broader
> trends
> that have moved against the United States through all the spikes and lulls
> in
> violence.
>
> Most worrisome, the insurgency is getting larger.
>
> At the close of 2003, U.S. commanders put the number of insurgents at
> 5,000. Earlier this month, Gen. Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani, the director
> of the
> Iraqi intelligence service, said there are 200,000 insurgents, including
> at
> least 40,000 hard-core fighters. The rest, he said, are part-time fighters
> and
> supporters who provide food, shelter, funds and intelligence.
>
> "Many Iraqis respect these gunmen because they are fighting the
> invaders,"
> said Nabil Mohammed, a Baghdad University political science professor.
>
> The insurgents "are getting smarter all the time. We've seen a lot of
> changes in their tactics that say, one, they're getting help from outside,
> and
> two, they're learning," said Sgt. 1st Class Glenn Aldrich, 35, of Houston,
> a
> 16-year Army veteran, after spending an hour recently greeting Iraqis on a
> foot
> patrol through a Baghdad neighborhood.
>
> The resistance has grown despite suffering huge casualties to
> overwhelming
> U.S. firepower. Exact statistics aren't available.
>
> Insurgent attacks have shifted from small groups of men shooting at
> tanks
> with AK-47s to powerful car bombs and roadside explosives, and
> well-planned
> assaults, kidnappings and assassinations.
>
> American soldiers have subdued Sunni hotbeds such as Fallujah and
> Samarra.
> Yet these military victories have failed to achieve the broader goal of
> weakening the resistance.
>
> Guerrilla fighters leave behind a rear guard force to fight while
> moving
> the bulk of their fighters and leadership elsewhere. During and after the
> Fallujah battle in November, for example, Mosul and several Sunni
> neighborhoods
> in Baghdad became more violent.
>
> Some Iraqis say these aggressive U.S. military moves are
> counterproductive
> because mass destruction and the killing of Iraqis create more recruits
> for the
> insurgency.
>
> "The insurgency will grow larger," said Ghazi Bada al Faisal, an
> employee
> of the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and a Fallujah resident. "The child
> whose
> brother and father were killed in the fighting will now seek revenge."
>
> Some defense analysts are calling for a new strategy and more troops.
>
> "We can only control the ground we stand on. We leave, and it falls
> apart,"
> said Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst at the
> Washington Center for Near East Policy.
>
> White proposes sending 20,000 more troops.
>
> But the Bush administration hopes to replace U.S. troops with
> well-trained
> Iraqis.
>
> In late 2003, Iraqi recruits, many of them young and looking for a
> paycheck, were pushed through a week or so of training, given guns and
> uniforms
> and then declared graduated.
>
> During the first major fight in Fallujah in April, many of them fled.
> In
> the second Fallujah confrontation, in November, they fought behind the
> main
> lines of battle and were infamous for spraying gunfire erratically and
> without
> warning, but fewer left their posts.
>
> Even so, an entire national guard battalion in Mosul went absent
> without
> leave in November. Much of the Mosul police force simply collapsed under
> fire.
>
> Bush administration officials say the program to train and equip new
> Iraqi
> security forces of more than 272,000 members is making progress.
>
> Yet several independent experts said it would take at least two years
> before there are any meaningful numbers of Iraqi forces with
> counterinsurgency
> skills and as many as five years before the U.S. goal is attained.
>
> "I think you can achieve success, but it will take a while and,
> unfortunately, there will be a lot more blood," said Peter Khalil, who was
> a
> senior security adviser to the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq.
>
> Of course, success isn't assured and the United States will be forced
> to
> deal with an elected Iraqi government that may set limits on what U.S.
> troops
> can do - and could even ask them to leave.
>
> U.S. military officials had repeatedly, and accurately, predicted more
> violence in the approach to the elections, which is likely to bring to
> power a
> Shiite-dominated government after nearly a century of Sunni rule in Iraq.
>
> Yet hopes that the election might lead to less violence have recently
> given
> way to more dire warnings, with expectations that Sunni insurgents who
> feel
> disenfranchised in the new Iraq will turn their guns on the elected
> government.
>
> "I think that we will enter a different but still dangerous period in
> the
> post-election time frame," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of U.S.
> forces
> in northern Iraq, said on Jan. 15.
>
> Bush has vowed to stay the course.
>
> The Pentagon dispatched retired U.S. Army Gen. Gary Luck this month to
> examine the training of Iraqi forces and to put a fresh eye on the
> anti-insurgent campaign.
|
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| | From: | NOYB | | Subject: | Re: More evidence Iraq war is lost | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 18:19:28 -0500 |
|
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|
"Harry Krause" wrote in message
news:w_mdndQWaKBbjmncRVn-og@comcast.com...
>
> A Knight Ridder analysis...
You really seem to like this Knight Ridder analysis. Got anything more
substantiative?
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| | From: | Jim | | Subject: | Re: More evidence Iraq war is lost | | Date: | Mon, 24 Jan 2005 02:37:54 GMT |
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|
| Colin Powell said we are losing the Iraq war.
NOYB wrote:
> "Harry Krause" wrote in message
> news:w_mdndQWaKBbjmncRVn-og@comcast.com...
>
>
>> A Knight Ridder analysis...
>
>
> You really seem to like this Knight Ridder analysis. Got anything more
> substantiative?
>
>
>
|
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| | From: | NOYB | | Subject: | Re: More evidence Iraq war is lost | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:59:09 -0500 |
|
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|
"Jim" wrote in message
news:6cZId.3965$YD5.3048@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> Colin Powell said we are losing the Iraq war.
Powell never said that publicly. The claim in some liberal news outlets
that Powell told the President that "we're losting" is hearsay based on
"unnamed sources".
|
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| | From: | Harry Krause | | Subject: | Re: More evidence Iraq war is lost | | Date: | Sun, 23 Jan 2005 22:14:56 -0500 |
|
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| NOYB wrote:
> "Jim" wrote in message
> news:6cZId.3965$YD5.3048@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
>>Colin Powell said we are losing the Iraq war.
>
>
> Powell never said that publicly. The claim in some liberal news outlets
> that Powell told the President that "we're losting" is hearsay based on
> "unnamed sources".
>
>
Heheh...down, down, down..,gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.
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