Casualties in Iraq, June 2008

I missed the June update on casualties in Iraq, so let's take a look:





A while ago, people were fond of asking this question: if you knew then what you know now, would you still have supported the invasion of Iraq? I think now might be a good time to ask a similar question of those who opposed the troop surge. Specifically, if you knew how successful it would turn out to be, would you have still opposed it?

Barack Obama's answer would appear to be "yes," and that really amazes me. In a new op-ed, he says:

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.

As an aside, political accommodation was very definitely not the stated purpose of the surge, but that's another story. This is not even a debatable point, but it seems that when a politician on the left regurgitates a standard canard that originated on the left, the media quickly forgets its obligation to check the facts. In case you are wondering, the purpose of the surge, according to George Bush, was to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq because our failure to do so would have catastrophic consequences for our own national security. Bush also said that a reduction in sectarian violence would give Iraqi politicians a chance to move forward on the political front, but he did not come close to saying that this was the main purpose of the surge. Either I am right about this or Barack Obama is right to say that the stated purpose of the troop surge was to achieve political accommodation in Iraq. How do you decide? You just read the speech in which Bush -- the man who ordered the surge against great opposition (from Obama and others) -- actually stated the purpose of the surge:

As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire, and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

Our military forces in Anbar are killing and capturing al Qaeda leaders, and they are protecting the local population. Recently, local tribal leaders have begun to show their willingness to take on al Qaeda. And as a result, our commanders believe we have an opportunity to deal a serious blow to the terrorists. So I have given orders to increase American forces in Anbar Province by 4,000 troops. These troops will work with Iraqi and tribal forces to keep up the pressure on the terrorists. America's men and women in uniform took away al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan -- and we will not allow them to re-establish it in Iraq.

Well, I guess these words don't count if you think that the al Qaeda angle in Bush's speech was just another big lie. Is that why the media can't seem to get this straight? And is that why Obama has it wrong? I wish someone who thinks that Obama is right and that I am wrong about the purpose of the troop surge would explain this to me. Am I citing the wrong evidence? Am I misreading the speech? I wonder.

In any case, the real question on my mind today is this: if you knew how successful the surge would turn out to be (look at my charts above), would you have still opposed it? That is, are you comfortable with the idea that tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis would have surely perished in the God-forsaken bloodbath that would have undoubtedly followed our quick departure? Remember, the fighting at the time had nothing at all to do with a lack of political accommodation. Instead, al Qaeda was relentlessly sending its suicide bombers against innocent Shiite civilians. Here is one of many such attacks, and it is a special one in my mind because it is the very attack that prompted Harry Reid to declare that this war is lost:

Suspected Qaeda bombs kill nearly 200 in Baghdad

18 Apr 2007

BAGHDAD, April 18 (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants killed nearly 200 people in a wave of car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday, including one that was the single deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

A combination of car bombs and suicide bomb attacks were used to kill these innocent Shiites. Here is the Wikipedia story on this attack, and the entry includes this summary table:


Always remember to investigate the suicide bombers of Iraq before you formulate a strong opinion of what happened there. Find out who they are, what they were trying to accomplish and how many people they have killed. After you do that, then form an opinion about whether or not the hellacious violence in Iraq amounted to a civil war.

The suicide bombing attacks in Iraq occurred one after the other for a long time, and American and Iraqi security forces were simply unable to stop them. So, in late February of 2006, Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army took matters into its own hands and started slaughtering Sunnis in Baghdad by the thousands every month. This had the effect of reducing (but not eliminating) the suicide bomb attacks. That's what was happening, and neither side cared at all about revenue sharing bills or amnesty for former Baathist officials (i.e., neither side had the slightest interest in political accommodation). Al Qaeda wanted to instigate sectarian violence (that's how they'd demoralize America and topple the democratically elected government of Iraq), and the Mahdi Army was only too happy to comply with their wishes. Once the Mahdi Army entered the picture, the Sunnis were in big trouble. At this point, even if the Sunnis decided that al Qaeda was bad for them (which they eventually did), Muqtada al Sadr was unlikely to call off his vengeful and ferocious killing spree.

Or is that how one can justify opposition to the surge? That is, do you imagine that, in the absence of the surge, the Sunnis would have fully distanced themselves from al Qaeda (even in Baghdad) and that Muqtada al Sadr would have responded by calling off his dogs and by supporting the elected government of Iraq (instead of seeking to empower himself)? I have never heard anyone try to make that case, but if that's what you believe, perhaps you can feel good about yourself for having opposed the surge. This is not the argument that Obama makes. He very definitely believed that sectarian violence would continue to worsen even with the addition of more troops:

We cannot impose a military solution on what has effectively become a civil war. And until we acknowledge that reality -- we can send 15,000 more troops, 20,000 more troops, 30,000 more troops, I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that that is going to make a substantial difference on the situation on the ground.

This was not an unreasonable position at the time. I, myself, had doubts about the effectiveness of the surge because I thought that al Qaeda would just continue its suicide bombing spree wherever the extra troops were not. America's will was flagging, and it seemed to me that al Qaeda had the upper hand. I'm glad to say that I was wrong to think that al Qaeda could not be stopped. Barack Obama does not appear to feel the same way. I am sure that he is glad that al Qaeda has been crushed, but I do not see the slightest hint that he appreciates the fact that he may have been wrong to propose withdrawing our troops at the height of violence in Iraq. Doesn't that reflect the kind of bullheaded mindset that people on the left simply hate about George Bush?