Effects of the surge on security
U.S. soldiers take cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Al Doura section of Baghdad March 7, 2007
By March 2008, violence in Iraq was reported curtailed by 40-80%, according to a Pentagon report.[148] Independent reports[149][150] raised questions about those assessments. An Iraqi military spokesman claimed that civilian deaths since the start of the troop surge plan were 265 in Baghdad, down from 1,440 in the four previous weeks. The New York Times counted more than 450 Iraqi civilians killed during the same 28-day period, based on initial daily reports from Iraqi Interior Ministry and hospital officials.
Historically, the daily counts tallied by the NYT have underestimated the total death toll by 50% or more when compared to studies by the United Nations, which rely upon figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry and morgue figures.[151]
The rate of US combat deaths in Baghdad nearly doubled to 3.14/day in the first seven weeks of the “surge” in security activity, compared to previous period. Across the rest of Iraq it reduced slightly.[152][153]
An Iraqi woman looks on as U.S. soldiers search the courtyard of her house in Ameriyah, Iraq. Searching houses for weapons is a common counter-insurgency technique used in Iraq.
On August 14, 2007 the deadliest single attack of the whole war occurred. Nearly 800 civilians were killed by a series of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Qahtaniya. More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. US officials blamed al-Qaeda. The targeted villagers belonged to the non-Muslim Yazidi ethnic minority. The attack may have represented the latest in a feud that erupted earlier that year when members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl called Du’a Khalil Aswad accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on camera-mobiles and the video was uploaded onto the internet[154][155][156][157]
On September 13, 2007 Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed in a bomb attack in the city of Ramadi.[158] He was an important US ally because he led the “Anbar Awakening”, an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that opposed al-Qaeda. The latter organisation claimed responsibility for the attack.[159] A statement posted on the Internet by the shadowy Islamic State of Iraq called Abu Risha “one of the dogs of Bush” and described Thursday’s killing as a “heroic operation that took over a month to prepare”.[160]
US Fatalities in Iraq by month. The decline in deaths following the surge has been highlighted in red.
There was a reported trend of decreasing US troop deaths after May 2007,[161] and violence against coalition troops had fallen to the “lowest levels since the first year of the American invasion”.[162] These, and several other positive developments, were attributed to the surge by many analysts.[163]
Data from the Pentagon and other US agencies such as the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that daily attacks against civilians in Iraq remained “about the same” since February. The GAO also stated that there was no discernible trend in sectarian violence.[164] However, this report ran counter to reports to Congress, which showed a general downward trend in civilian deaths and ethno-sectarian violence since December 2006.[165] By late 2007, as the U.S. troop surge began to wind down, violence in Iraq had begun to decrease from its 2006 highs.[166]
Reports from the ground dispute that the surge had a significant effect on security in Iraq. While life in Baghdad improved in 2007-08, the main reason this was that the battle for Baghdad in 2006-07 between the Shia and the Sunni populations was won by the Shia, who as of September 2008 controlled three-quarters of the capital. These demographic changes appeared permanent; Sunni families who try to get their houses back faced assassination. Thus the war against the US occupation by the Sunni community, who had been favoured under Saddam Hussein, had largely ended. The Sunni have been largely defeated, not so much by the US army as by the Shia-led Iraqi government and the Shia militias.[167]
Entire neighborhoods in Baghdad were ethnically cleansed by Shia and Sunni militias and sectarian violence has broken out in every Iraqi city where there is a mixed population.[168][169][170] This assessment is supported by a study of satellite imagery tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night. The interpretation of the data was that violence had declined in Baghdad due to ethnic cleansing and that intercommunal violence had reached a climax as the surge was beginning. John Agnew, an authority on ethnic conflict and leader of the project stated “The surge really seems to have been a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.”[171][172]
Investigative reporter Bob Woodward cites US government sources according to which the US “surge” was not the primary reason for the drop in violence in 2007-2008. Instead, according to that view, the reduction of violence was due to newer covert techniques by US military and intelligence officials to find, target and kill insurgents, including working closely with former insurgents.[173]
In the Shia region near Basra, British forces turned over security for the region to Iraqi Security Forces. Basra is the ninth province of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be returned to local security forces’ control since the beginning of the occupation.[174]
Classic.