# What is the REAL situation in Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2004, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643 "2004-09-29T08:00:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/61 "2004-09-30T11:44:11Z")
Well, here we go with **Rune** and **Brutus** making Venn diagrams which look like plates of spaghetti. (Set A: All Muslims, Set B: Muslims who bombed WTC, Set C: Muslims in Imam Ali shrine: any union or intersection operation being valid). The [shrine in Najaf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshed_Ali) is not just “any of a gazillion buildings”. One might just as well direct a few Hellfires at the Kabah in Mecca. We must ask what the _realistic consequences_ of such an action would be before carrying it out. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/62 "2004-09-30T12:45:57Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > You _may_ note that I did not mention ‘bombing’ exclusively. > > Even if the bombers were dropping rubber duckies, and did not one bit of damage to their targets (which is hardly the case according to the Bombing Survey), the bombing campaign drew off _millions_ of Germans to the AAA crews and infrastructure, not to mention the thousands of 88s that would have no doubt found gainful employment cracking open tanks. Acutally, the crews of the German air defenses were largely women and children and men unfit for service at the front, so in that way it is not exactly a spectacular second front (and for this reason it also did not draw many guns away from the front). In terms of drawing fighters from the (eastern) front and switching production from tactical attack aircraft to fighters it definitely had an impact. Still, I find the WWII analogies to be trite at best. We could have the entire population and government of Iraq howling for mercy and begging to surrender and it would not make one bit of difference to the terrorists. To insurgents fighting the occupation, perhaps, but not to the terrorists and dead-enders. We have a chicken and egg problem here. It is all very well for Rumsfeld to say that the problems will continue until the Iraqis get sick of being killed and come over to our side but until US/Iraqi government provided security is a reality or even considered a probablility in the combat zones there is little payoff to cooperating with occupation/Iraqi government forces. You make feel that little rape, torture and murder at Abu Ghraib are no big deal but this war will be won or lost on the propoganda front, not on the battlefield in Iraq. Extirpating the Iraqi insurgency with the wrong front or at too high a cost will exacerbate the terrorism problem even if it makes Iraq quiescent. Right now we are losing about 2 soldiers a day.\* Estimates are that about 20 Iraqi civilians a day are being killed by the fighting.\*\* It is also estimated that we, the good guys, are killing about twice as many civilians as the enemy is.\*\*\* (I find this number plausible because as far as I can tell, the enemy has the advantage in choosing when and where to fight (and where to hole up when not wishing to fight)). I have a hard time finding numbers of insurgents killed. Andrew Sullivan suggests about 10 insurgents killed per US soldier killed. If true then the US is killing approximately 7 civilians for every 10 insurgents killed, at a cost of 1 US KIA. Do we have a prayer of bringing the Iraqi population around if we kill bad guys and bystanders with roughly equal fervor and value Iraqi civilian life (in whose name we are fighting) as being worth 15% of an American life. (Yes, I know the insurgents don’t fight fair and I know that it is dangerous and bloody work fighting them.) I hope I am wrong and the current flurry of violence is merely the storm before the calm. I just find so many of these numbers depressing. **Liberal** According to your numbers, the (new-school) lefty liberal hellhole that is New York City had 9 murders over the course of 1 week. Scaling it up to Iraq size I get 9 murders/week x 1 week/7 days x 22 million in Iraq/8 million in NYC = 3.5 murders per day if Iraq were NYC. So the present conflict in Iraq is _only_ an order of magnitude more deadly to civilians then is NYC. As my numbers do not include the “normal” murder rate for Iraq this freedom tax is pretty much a result of the current conflict. \*To be accurate, ~2 soldiers a day are dying. Seven or eightl times that number are wounded in action and more still are non-combat casualties, so we are losing somewhat more than 2 per day in terms of boots and rifles. \*\* [Web Page Under Construction](http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9753603.htm) This was just the first google source I found. \*\*\* According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health. YMMV ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/63 "2004-09-30T13:07:30Z")
> [@MMI](#): > > Acutally, the crews of the German air defenses were largely women and children and men unfit for service at the front, so in that way it is not exactly a spectacular second front (and for this reason it also did not draw many guns away from the front). In terms of drawing fighters from the (eastern) front and switching production from tactical attack aircraft to fighters it definitely had an impact. That doesn’t jibe. In 1944, 1/3 of all German artillery production was of anti-aircraft guns, 1/5 of all ammunition produced was for AA guns, about half of all signals and radar equipement was going to the AA effort, and two million people were dedicated to the AA effort. That’s pretty significant, in and of itself, and of top of all that, you get the obvious damage and disruption to industry and transportation, and the divertion of air assets to (try to) protect Germany. Not shabby by any stretch. And like I said, that’s a lot of 88mm rounds not heading towards tanks. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/64 "2004-09-30T14:19:59Z")
Quick check in from Bdad. We are all pulling out to a neighboring country. From there I’m going home to DC as I was only out on TDY. I don’t know when we will return to our offices here. If today’s events don’t show that things are spiraling out of control here, then I don’t know what will. Byeee. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/65 "2004-09-30T14:26:46Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > That doesn’t jibe. In 1944, 1/3 of all German artillery production was of anti-aircraft guns, 1/5 of all ammunition produced was for AA guns, about half of all signals and radar equipement was going to the AA effort, and two million people were dedicated to the AA effort. That’s pretty significant, in and of itself, and of top of all that, you get the obvious damage and disruption to industry and transportation, and the divertion of air assets to (try to) protect Germany. Not shabby by any stretch. And like I said, that’s a lot of 88mm rounds not heading towards tanks. If the crews of the anti-aircraft guns used for German home front strategic air defense were not suibtable for front line service (as I have asserted without referencing any backup 🙂 ) then replacing the Flak with an 88 mm Pak or 105 arty is not going to help the situation at the front - they would not necessarily be a spare crew. Artillery pieces tended to be far enough behind lines that they only were lost when the front lines collapsed and no transport was available. The Germans also used vast quantities of Flak at or near the front lines. Unless you have a breakdown of how much of the AA was for defending front line and rear echelon assets it’s hard to say how much the increase in AAA production for use in cities hurt the front line effort. Also, vast quantities of the increase in AAA production was for 20 and 37 mm tubes, much better at fighting tactical air craft than heavy bombers. 1943 is the peak year for heavy flak, with approx 6k built (or 13% of the total Flak production). In 44 heavy flak production falls while light flak increases, so 4k heavy flak barrels are produced, 6.5% of the total. Whether the cities are merely saturated with heavy Flak by this point and no further production is necessary I don’t know. I also think it is somewhat hard to separate out the effects of the post 1943 rationalization and ramping up of German war production. Yes, production of 88’s were through the roof, but so were 75mm Infantry gun production and heavy PaK production. Everything went way up (although only impressive by German standards, by everyone else’s total war standards it was a pretty pathetic ramp-up, in no small part due to the strategic bombing command). I wasn’t really challenging the fact that the strategic air campaign was a military drain on Germany even absent ground level strategic effectiveness. I merely feel that a much better indicator for this is in aircraft production (switching from multi-engined tactical attack planes to single-engine fighters) and allocation (something like 60% of luftwaffe strength drawn off to fight the heavy bombers), which had (in my opinion at any rate) a more clear impact on the war in that it allowed gave away any airpower advantage the Germans had in the edge. If we want to continue this discussion we should probably open a new thread and start comparing websites and other sources. I’ve hijacked/redirected your analogy far enough 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/66 "2004-09-30T14:28:11Z")
Have a safe voyage. I salute you. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/67 "2004-09-30T14:38:09Z")
Thanks for your (unfortunately brief) contribution here, **madmonk**. Be safe. (For the record, "[today’s events](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3702710.stm) which **madmonk** referenced.) ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/68 "2004-09-30T14:46:53Z")
> [@MMI](#): > > …Also, vast quantities of the increase in AAA production was for 20 and 37 mm tubes, much better at fighting tactical air craft than heavy bombers. 1943 is the peak year for heavy flak, with approx 6k built (or 13% of the total Flak production). In 44 heavy flak production falls while light flak increases, so 4k heavy flak barrels are produced, 6.5% of the total. Whether the cities are merely saturated with heavy Flak by this point and no further production is necessary I don’t know… One last hijack-extension: [Cite.](http://www.ww2guide.com/flak.shtml) Heavy guns from 39-44: 2,600 3,164 3,888 4,772 8,520 10,600 Light guns: 6,700 8,290 9,020 10,700 17,500 19,360 And this blurb: > [@](#): > > In January of 1944 there were 20,625 FLAK guns (7,941 heavy guns and 12,684 light/medium guns) with 6,880 searchlights defending Germany. Stationed on other fronts were another 9,569 anti-aircraft guns and 960 searchlights, these totals do not include Army and Navy FLAK units. Neat info on that site. ---
**Author:** ![Brutus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Brutus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brutus)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/69 "2004-09-30T14:48:08Z")
P.S. Those are totals at the end of the year, not yearly production figures. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/70 "2004-09-30T16:25:02Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@Squink](#): > > > > The New York Times produced a nice map showing action over the past month: [30 Days, 2368 attacks](http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2004/09/28/international/29ATTACK-GRAPH.html) > > There were over 990 attacks in Baghdad alone. > > Countrywide, attacks included 272 RPG incidents, 40 vehicle bombs, and 799 home made bombs. > > > [@Liberal](#): > > > > New York City had 440 felonious assaults last week, and 9 murders, 52 rapes, and 485 robberies. In the past 28 days, there’ve been 48 murders, 153 rapes, 1,907 robberies, 1,600 felonious assaults, and 3,830 grand larcenies. > > > [@Liberal](#): > > > > But that’s rather the point. New York, which is governed to death on multiple levels by stacks of bureaucracies weighing probably six sextillion tons, sounds like hell on earth when you spit out the numbers. Meanwhile, Bagdad is in de facto anarchy, occupied by a foreign force, and seething with terrorists. You’d likely expect violence. I mean, violence is violence — whether it is being carried out by muggers hidden in the shadows of tall buildings, ideologues cowering behind civilian mosques, or government thugs sent by Saddam to kill and torture your family. As far as I can tell, Baghdad has it’s share of these sorts of more mundane types of violence (muggings, rape, carjackings etc.) _in addition to_ the more spectatcular types of violence (car bombings and rocket attacks etc) that NYC currently lacks. > [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > Civil war won’t break out for a number of reasons. A prediction that hopefully is accurate. I’m not so sure about your assessment of the insurgency’s “_main_ fuel.” > [@Brutus](#): > > No, Vietnam is what you get when you have certain areas and methods ‘off limits’, and fight something less than a total war. The last war we fought with our gloves truly off was WW2, and the last war we utterly and completely won was WW2. Since the infrastructure of Iraq is already hobbled, what would total war look like in this instance? ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/71 "2004-09-30T16:35:37Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > One last hijack-extension: Nay sir, I claim that honor for my own self (just to give you my source for your off-line amusement) [http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/GermWeapProd.html#monthly](http://orbat.com/site/sturmvogel/GermWeapProd.html#monthly) ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/72 "2004-09-30T17:26:08Z")
No wonder it’s so hard to learn about the ‘real’ situation in Iraq. Everyone is playing [hide the salami:](http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040930/REPOSITORY/409300368/1013/NEWS03) > [@](#): > > The Bush administration, battling negative perceptions of the Iraq war, is sending Iraqi Americans to deliver what the Pentagon calls "good news"about Iraq to U.S. military bases and has curtailed distribution of reports showing increasing violence in that country. ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/73 "2004-09-30T20:23:58Z")
> [@Ramanujan](#): > > having said that, thanks a ton for your perpsective, **madmonk28**. even if we can’t be sure things are as you say (overall–i have no reason to doubt your presentation of facts), it’s still invaluable to get this sort of first person account. You can be quite convinced of it that things are as **madmonk28** describes. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/74 "2004-09-30T20:39:49Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Quick check in from Bdad. > > We are all pulling out to a neighboring country. From there I’m going home to DC as I was only out on TDY. I don’t know when we will return to our offices here. > > If today’s events don’t show that things are spiraling out of control here, then I don’t know what will. > > Byeee. I hope for you that you go indeed to a safer place. I didn’t see you posting earlier in the SDMB. So even when you are leaving now, it is never too late to thank you for being there in an attempt to help the people of Iraq. I don’t agree on your idea that a civil war is inevitable, although that was the inevitable scenario I had in mind as soon as the Murderous Lunatic In The White House started even talking about invading Iraq. But I fully agree that Iraq is such a mess that it shall take a miracle to bring things more or less under control. Take care. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/75 "2004-09-30T21:01:42Z")
**Equipoise** You are completely right that the women of Iraq are very much victims of this situation. There wer always situations wher women were oppressed and in danger, but now all the long oppressed (under Hussein) religious fanaticism is now free to flourish, meets with the tribal and blood feud traditions and with other cultural influences that all are in favour of a patriarchal society. A combination of all of this together with the present situation of lawlessness is a recipe for disaster for women in Iraq. It is one of the things anyone who is just a little bit informed about this region has warned and predicted it would happen, the minute the lunatics in the USA started talking about this invasion. Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/76 "2004-09-30T21:05:22Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > No wonder it’s so hard to learn about the ‘real’ situation in Iraq. Everyone is playing [hide the salami:](http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040930/REPOSITORY/409300368/1013/NEWS03) Why is that a bad thing? Is it not appropriate for a commander to safeguard the moral of his men? ---
**Author:** ![Aldebaran](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Aldebaran](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aldebaran)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/77 "2004-09-30T21:27:57Z")
Liberal The OP asks what the “real situation” is in Iraq. The real situation in Iraq is that there are people who get killed daily because the USA invaded that sovereign nation and keep it under US occupation = these people died/die because of the presence of the USA military in that nation = they would not be dead/dying if the USA would not have invade that sovereing nation in order to occupy it. Same counts for all the non Iraqis dying in Iraq because of the invasion/occupation of that sovereign nation by the USA, if they are citizens of the USA or citizens of other nations. (I leave out here all the rest of the life-endangering problems and other difficulties and distruction this invasion/ocupation created and keeps creating). Do you agree that those people died/die because of this invasion and occupation? How does all of this ongoing killing of people who would not be killed if the USA would not have invaded Iraq go along with your moving description of GW Bush as The Peacemaker? Or do you want to say that is was not Bush who ordered to invade Iraq because it is not Bush who actulally is president of the USA? Salaam. A ---
**Author:** ![razorblade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@razorblade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/razorblade)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/78 "2004-09-30T21:35:55Z")
Of course, to compare Baghdad’s level of violence to New York’s, we have to take into account the difference in population size - Baghdad has about 5.75 million residents, New York City has about 21 million. Multiply the casualties in Baghdad by 3 or 4 and imagine that many casualties in NYC on a daily basis. We can do the same for the whole US vs all of Iraq. There are about 25 million people in Iraq and about 290 million people in the US. For the sake of simplicity, multiply the number of casualties in Iraq by 10 to get the equivalent number of casualties per capita for the US. Of course, this is a good example of damn lies and statistics but it does bring things into a certain kind of perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/79 "2004-09-30T21:36:14Z")
I condemn the invasion, and I call upon the US to withdraw all troops and government agents from Iraq and from everywhere else in the world as well — immediately. Tonight. But what does that have to do with whether, on principle, a commander ought to safeguard the morale of his troops? ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643/80 "2004-09-30T21:50:22Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Why is that a bad thing? Is it not appropriate for a commander to safeguard the moral of his men? Why is it a bad thing that the people who are actually fighting this fight are not being given _all_ the information they might need to actually win it? You can’t seriously be questioning that, can you? ??!!??!! You don’t think the troops might, I don’t know, _need to know_ about potential dangers and risks they’re facing? You think safeguarding _morale_ is more important than safeguarding _lives_? You don’t think the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces has an _obligation_ to report _honestly_ to his troops? You don’t think the contractors who are working to rebuild Iraq have a right to know the _truth_? They should be kept in the dark as to the actual dangers they face so that unlike **madmonk** , they can’t escape while they still have a chance, if that’s the course they feel is safest? Lord have mercy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-real-situation-in-iraq/266643.md?page=5)