Iraq and Terrorism

by hilzoy

Marc Lynch, writing in TAP, asks a very good question:

“Much of the conventional wisdom about the Sunni areas now seems to come from the impressions formed by politicians and journalists on stage-managed visits to Iraq, or by carefully crafted press interviews with “former insurgents” hand-picked by American military handlers. But we don’t need such a mediated view. Leaders of the major Iraqi Sunni groups actually speak quite often and quite candidly to their own people, though: in open letters, in official statements posted on internet forums, in the Arab and Iraqi press, and in statements released on al-Jazeera and other satellite television stations. What they say in such statements, in Arabic, when addressing their own constituencies, might be considered a more reliable guide to their strategy and thinking. So what are the major Iraqi Sunni leaders saying?”

Luckily, unlike me, Marc Lynch speaks Arabic, and so can answer this question:

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by hilzoy

From the Washington Post:

“The U.S. military’s claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration’s claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers — most of which are classified — are often confusing and contradictory. “Let’s just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree,” Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month’s pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. “If a bullet went through the back of the head, it’s sectarian,” the official said. “If it went through the front, it’s criminal.””

Here are some of the things we know about these statistics: they don’t include Sunni-on-Sunni violence, or Shi’a-on-Shi’a violence. They don’t include car bombings. There are unexplained changes in the figures from one report to the next. They don’t seem to take seasonality into account.

More discussion below the fold.

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by hilzoy

In anticipation of the Petraeus report, I’ve put thirteen* ways not to think about it below the fold.

* (OK, actually only eight. But how could I not invoke Wallace Stevens?)

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by hilzoy

From the NYT:

“An independent commission established by Congress to assess Iraq’s security forces will recommend remaking the 26,000-member national police force to purge it of corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings, administration and military officials said Thursday.

The commission, headed by Gen. James L. Jones, the former top United States commander in Europe, concludes that the rampant sectarianism that has existed since the formation of the police force requires that its current units “be scrapped” and reshaped into a smaller, more elite organization, according to one senior official familiar with the findings. The recommendation is that “we should start over,” the official said.

The report, which will be presented to Congress next week, is among a number of new Iraq assessments — including a national intelligence estimate and a Government Accountability Office report — that await lawmakers when they return from summer recess. But the Jones commission’s assessment is likely to receive particular attention as the work of a highly regarded team that was alone in focusing directly on the worthiness of Iraq’s army and police force.”

Start over. On the entire national police force. This is hardly encouraging news, though it’s not a surprise either, especially not after “the working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad” obtained by the Nation, which says the following about the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), which is in charge of the police force:

MOI is a ‘legal enterprise’ which has been co-opted by organized criminals who act through the ‘legal enterprise’ to commit crimes such as kidnapping, extortion, bribery, etc.”

Meanwhile, the National Security Network has compiled a list of problems with assessing the administration’s claims that violence in Iraq has been reduced:

“For the past month, the Bush Administration and General Petraeus have asserted that a drop in violence is evidence that the “surge” is working. Unfortunately, the evidence is difficult to validate. Underreporting civilian deaths is, sadly, nothing new. A number of U.S. agencies differ with the Administration’s assessment that sectarian violence is down and in fact there are inconsistencies within the Pentagon’s own reporting. The Iraq Study Group concluded that in the past car-bombs that don’t kill Americans, murders, and inter-ethnic violence were not tracked in order to demonstrate reduced violence. Recent analysis indicates that some of these trends continue. More importantly, the military has refused to show the public any evidence to support the claim that violence is down.”

The full list of issues with the numbers is worth reading in its entirety. One item is particularly striking:

“There were significant revisions to the way the Pentagon’s reports measure sectarian violence between its March 2007 report and its June 2007 report. The original data for the five months before the surge began (September 2006 through January 2007) indicated approximately 5,500 sectarian killings. In the revised data in the June 2007 report, those numbers had been adjusted to roughly 7,400 killings – a 25% increase. These discrepancies have the impact of making the sectarian violence appear significantly worse during the fall and winter of 2006 before the President’s “surge” began.”

Spencer Ackerman reports this as well, with useful graphs. As he points out, this might be an artifact of a change in methodology. In any case, it would be nice if the Pentagon explained what accounts for a 25% increase in its own figures for the same month.

It would also be nice if the administration would share with us its basis for the claim that violence in Iraq is coming down. But from where I sit, it doesn’t seem to be true. (See, for instance, Kevin Drum.)

And it certainly won’t go down if the Iraqis have to disband their police force.

[UPDATE: More on the Pentagon’s numbers below the fold.]

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by publius

I know that O’Hanlon is the wanker du jour, but let’s not ignore this op-ed by relatively-liberal Democrat Brian Baird. Basic story — Baird voted against the war, but recent events persuaded him to speak out for more time. As a result, the Washington Post gets to write lines like this: “[T]he administration indicated their belief that the political debate in Washington has moved in the administration’s favor this month, pointing in particular to a number of Democrats who have spoken positively of some security improvements in Iraq.”

I have a veritable treasure chest of “wanker”-derived adjectives, but I’m not going to use them. Baird seems like a good guy, and frankly, I suspect many of his ideological fellow travelers might be having similar thoughts — especially those who don’t read blogs. So rather than attacking him, I want to explain in the most substantive, non-snarky way I can the problem with Baird’s position (which includes his speaking out publicly).

1 – Understand that Bush will never leave. It’s clear that the administration will keep the maximum number of troops in Iraq until they are forced to do otherwise. As Josh Marshallsomeone I read explained [I think Josh Marshall, but I couldn’t find the link], the administration’s incentives are now distinct from the nation’s incentives. They are playing out the clock in hopes that something — anything — will turn their way before they leave. The good faith supporters of this strategy cling to the hope that something will change. The bad faith supporters (Kristol) see the writing on the wall and want to buy time to push the eventual withdrawal to a Democratic administration that can be blamed for “losing.” Both positions, however, are irresponsible, even if for different reasons.

2 – The debate is not stay or leave, but stay or start leaving. The political (and military) reality is that it’s not remotely possible to withdraw rapidly. Baird’s op-ed is doing a bit of strawman attacking. The most that could happen — and only then with collapsed GOP support — is that we can begin the process. That’s what the upcoming debate is about — whether or not Congress can muster the numbers to force the beginning of a withdrawal. Bush, of course, will not budge unless forced.

3 – The only way to force Bush to start leaving is through political pressure to Congress. Democrats simply don’t have the numbers to force anything on this President. GOP support has to collapse. This will only happen if the GOP feels political heat on Iraq.

4 – There is a brief window of time to force Bush’s hand. Fall 2007 was gearing up to be the administration’s most vulnerable window. It’s not just the timing of the Petraeus report, but the very nature of the appropriations process that makes this a unique, if fleeting, opportunity. It’s pretty much now or never. If Bush can survive the next month or two, he’s home free and can dump our (admittedly humiliating) withdrawal off to the next President.

5 – Bush needs to buy time. All Bush needs to do is buy some time, primarily with congressional GOP members. He’s just got to squeak through. Accordingly, the plan is to seize on anything that can buy that time. What people like O’Hanlon and Baird don’t (but should) realize is that they’re playing squarely into the administration’s hand by providing Congressional Republicans cover. Their op-eds let Republican legislators go on TV (or go to a state fair back home) and say, “Even Democrats are saying we need more time.” It’s difficult to overstate the political consequences of Baird and O’Hanlon’s actions. At the very least, they’re creating doubt within the minds of the public (often busy people who don’t have time to read up on Brookings’ comings-and-goings) by generating unfavorable talk show debate agendas. And, even worse, they’re releasing steam from the political pressure cooker — the one source of pressure that could actually lead to change.

Ok, fine, you say. But what if Baird and O’Hanlon really mean it? Are you asking them to be blind ideologues who should ignore facts and their deeply-held beliefs? It’s a fair question. After all, if it’s truly a bad idea to withdraw even one troop, then Baird and O’Hanlon are doing the right thing. Apparently, Baird and O’Hanlon really believe that we should keep them there for the indefinite future. So again, if that’s what they truly believe, what’s wrong with them saying so?

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