The Strength of the Insurgency in Iraq

A New York Times article from a couple of days ago erred badly. I'm surprised no one has called them on it. They reported that attacks on American and Iraqi forces have doubled and claimed that the insurgency is clearly on the increase:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16 — The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest monthly total of the war, offering more evidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

and:

“The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels,” said a senior Defense Department official who agreed to discuss the issue only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for attribution.

The idea that the insurgency has gotten worse "by almost all measures" is amazingly off the mark. In fact, it is not worse according to the most obvious measures. To appreciate why this is so, you need to understand that measures taken over the short term are inherently noisy. So, looking at one month of casualty figures tells you very little in the same way that looking at the outcome of a single baseball game tells you very little about the strength of the two teams. To get a clear picture, you need to aggregate the numbers over time. Since we have complete data for the first 7 months of 2006 (January through July), I looked at what has happened over the first 7 months of this year compared to the immediately preceding 7 months (i.e., the last 7 months of 2005). Here is what I found:

US military fatalities are down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 57 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 73 per month). This is easily confirmed by going
here.

In addition, the number of US fatalities from IEDs is down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 32 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 42 per month), this despite the fact that more IEDs are being placed (incompetently, perhaps). This is easily confirmed by going here.

In addition, Iraqi military and police casualties are down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 177 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 243 per month). Again, you can confirm this yourself by going here.

It is hard to argue that the insurgency is gaining in strength, as the New York Times does, unless you ignore the most obvious measures (while ironically claiming that things are getting worse by almost all measures).

The NY Times article goes on to say:

The increased attacks have taken their toll. While the number of Americans killed in action per month has declined slightly — to 38 killed in action in July, from 42 in January, in part reflecting improvements in armor and other defenses — the number of Americans wounded has soared, to 518 in July from 287 in January. Explosive devices accounted for slightly more than half the deaths.

Is the number of wounded really soaring? In truth, the number of US wounded is down in the first 7 months of 2006 (average of 425 per month) compared to last 7 months of 2005 (average of 499 per month). This is easily confirmed by going here.

I am surprised that the New York Times cannot even be trusted to consult readily available data that can be easily examined to evaluate their judgment of the strength of the insurgency. At the very least, they should have a paragraph in their article that begins like this: "Despite many figures suggesting that the strength of the insurgency is, if anything, declining, our belief is that it is actually gaining in strength because the number of IEDs being planted is on the increase. The reason why many other indicators suggest a weakening insurgency is that..."

I have no idea how they'd complete that sentence, but that's what the reporters need to do if they wish to grapple with the actual evidence (big "if" there).

Later, I'll discuss what I've learned about civilian casualties in Iraq by performing similar analyses.