Distinguishing the Insurgency from Sectarian Violence in Iraq

As I discussed in my last post, Bob Woodward wants the American people to believe that Bush is misleading the nation on Iraq. A CBS News story says this:

According to Woodward, insurgent attacks against coalition troops occur, on average, every 15 minutes, a shocking fact the administration has kept secret.

A shocking fact the administration has kept secret? Please. As I noted, information about the number of attacks on American troops -- including this particular statistic of one attack every 15 minutes -- is not secret. Instead, it is very publicly available in the form of a big graph on page 22 of the Iraq Index (published by the Brookings Institution). In fact, that's probably where Woodward himself got the information. Some secret. The Iraq Index has been publishing attack statistics for a long, long time for anyone who is interested. I cannot remember how long the exact graph that Woodward apparently refers to has been there, but graphs just like it have been there for months on end. Therefore, the claim that this is top secret information is simply false (to put it as mildly as possible).

Woodward seems to be exploiting the emotional reasoning of liberals who are perpetually enraged at Bush. When you are angry, the details don't matter. You'll accept any argument so long as it reflects badly on Bush. The New York Times pulled this same stunt about a month ago in an article reporting 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.
...
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.

Just like Woodward is doing now, the New York Times chose to focus on a single statistic -- the number of attacks -- while ignoring the much more obvious indicators that they surely would have highlighted had they also shown a strengthening insurgency (the number of troops killed, the number wounded, the number killed by IEDs in particular, etc.). But since these obvious indicators point in the other direction (i.e., to a weakening insurgency), both the New York Times and Bob Woodward pretend that the following information does not exist:


On all 4 of these important dimensions, 2006 was slightly less violent than 2005. It's hard to reconcile that with hysterical claims of a secretly worsening situation caused by a strengthening insurgency. Woodward and the Times can get away with ignoring results like these (i.e., the relevant results) because they know that there is a large group of angry anti-Bush readers who are mentally prepared to uncritically accept their claims. Everyone's heard that "things are getting worse" in Iraq, so the claims that the insurgency itself is strengthening just makes perfect sense to them. They read, then they rage.

But it doesn't make sense. It's important to draw a distinction between the mostly Sunni insurgency that is fighting what they see as the US occupation of Iraq (and fighting for a better political posture once the situation finally stabilizes) and the Sunni-vs.-Shiite sectarian violence that you read about every day. Despite what Woodward wants you to believe, the insurgency shows no signs of gaining in strength (unless you preposterously zero in on one single statistic and completely ignore all of the much more relevant ones). What actually is worse this year in Iraq is sectarian violence, not the insurgency. Sectarian violence is not caused by the presence of American troops. Instead, even the editors of the New York Times understand that US troops are preventing Sunni-vs.-Shiite slaughter on a massive scale. They recently said:

The current situation will get worse if American forces leave.

No kidding. And what they mean is that Sunnis and Shiites will start killing each other in even greater numbers. If you are to the left of even the editors of the New York Times -- that is, if you favor the withdrawal of American troops -- you need to re-think your position.

Although Woodward seems to want you to believe that American troops are facing a more violent insurgency in Iraq (and that Bush is keeping that top secret), it is really Sunnis and Shiites who are facing a more violent environment because they are increasingly going after each other. When you see a story like this:

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed 34 people and wounded 35 others -- many badly burned -- in Baghdad's Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, police said.

...it is an example of Sunnis killing Shiites. The Sunnis like using the car bomb. When you see a story like this a few days later:

BAGHDAD - Police recovered a total of 35 bodies, mostly bound and tortured, in Baghdad in the 24 hours to Wednesday evening, police and Interior Ministry sources said.

...it is an example of Shiite militias retaliating against Sunnis using their preferred method (the Shiites use torture, followed by execution).

These two stories capture what is worse now in Iraq compared to before. The important point is that this kind of violence has nothing to do with the presence of American troops. It's not that a Shiite sees an American soldier and then flies into a fit of rage which he then takes out on a Sunni. Instead, the Shiites and Sunnis have a longstanding animosity towards each other, and they are expressing that hatred in violent ways. And that's what has gotten worse since al Qaeda made good on its pledge to incite sectarian violence by bombing the Golden Mosque in February:

I'll update this graph soon now that the September stats are nearly available. For the moment, the point is that al Qaeda knew that increased sectarian violence would lead to demands for a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. We know that because they said as much. Pretty much on cue, John Kerry and Russ Feingold said:

Our troops have done their part; it's time for the politicians in Iraq and the United States to do their job. What Hawai'i's senators supported was a plan to undermine the insurgency by simultaneously pursuing a political settlement and the military drawdown of American forces, including the redeployment of U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the end of 2006 leaving only essential U.S. troops to complete the mission of training Iraqi security forces.

But this talk of withdrawing troops is made with reference to the anti-American insurgency only, with no mention at all of sectarian violence when that is the real problem. In other words, like Bob Woodward, they gloss over the most important detail -- the one that undermines their position. The insurgency is not getting worse, but sectarian violence has gotten worse. If we leave, it will get worse still, and the Iraqi experiment in democracy could easily fail. And that's why calls for a timetable for withdrawal reflect a strategically unwise, anti-humanitarian attitude.