US Troop Deaths in Iraq

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In a post this morning entitled Arguments Over Night of The Living Dead in Iraq, Juan Cole points out the obvious:

I personally find the controversy about Iraq in Washington to be bizarre. Are they really arguing about whether the situation is improving? I mean, you have the Night of the Living Dead over there. People lack potable water, cholera has broken out even in the good areas, a third of people are hungry, a doubling of the internally displaced to at least 1.1 million, and a million pilgrims dispersed just this week by militia infighting in a supposedly safe all-Shiite area. The government has all but collapsed, with even the formerly cooperative sections of the Sunni Arab political class withdrawing in a snit (much less more Sunni Arabs being brought in from the cold). The parliament hasn't actually passed any legislation to speak of and often cannot get a quorum. Corruption is endemic. The weapons we give the Iraqi army are often sold off to the insurgency. Some of our development aid goes to them, too.

The average number of Iraqis killed in 2007 per day exceeds those killed in 2006. Independent counts by news organizations do not agree with Pentagon estimates about drops in civilian deaths over-all. Nation-wide attacks in June reached a daily all-time high of 177.5. True, violence in Baghdad has been wrestled back down to the levels of summer, 2006 (hint: it wasn't paradise), but violence levels are up in the rest of the country. If you compare each month in 2006 with each month in 2007 with regard to US military deaths, the 2007 picture is dreadful.

I saw on CNN this smarmy Bush administration official come and and say that US troop deaths had fallen because of the surge, which is why we should support it.

Fallen? You be the judge. Figures in the graph posted above are from Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

UPDATE: The main stream media is putting out the message that "combat deaths in Iraq" have fallen in half during the surge (even while civilian deaths have risen). Of course, US Troop deaths fell last summer as well. In part the Bush administration is parsing the data by using combat deaths rather than troop deaths. But what are the real patterns?

1. Troop deaths fall in the summer in Iraq.
2. The number of US troop deaths in 2007 has exceeded deaths in 2006 in EACH AND EVERY MONTH.

Read Kevin Drum for more.

Universal Healthcare?

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More posters at Old American Century.

Farewell Alberto

From today's statement by House Democratic Cause Chairman Rahm Emanual:

“Alberto Gonzales is the first Attorney General who thought the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth were three different things."

Can This Be True?

Dave Ortiz - Nam Y. Huh/AP

With a four-game sweep against the White Sox, the Red Sox are 6-1 on their 10-game, three-city road trip. The Red Sox are 10-4 since Aug. 13 and head into a three-game showdown with the Yankees holding a 7 1/2-game lead in the American League East.

Boston scored 46 runs to 7 for Chicago in the four games.

Trends in US Troop Deaths in Iraq since "Mission Accomplished"

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The Bush Administration wants you to believe that the "surge is working." In fact violence is down! Really? What do you make of the above trend? Does it look up or down to you?

Today the AP is reporting that:

BAGHDAD - This year’s U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month’s Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.

The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings, which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes execution-style killings — largely the work of Shiite death squads.

The figures are considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual numbers are likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted. Insurgent deaths are not a part of the Iraqi count.

The findings include:

—Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year — an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.

—Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.

—Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.

—According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year, from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.

New Orleans: Two Years Later

The Internet Weekly Report

The AP is reporting that Bush will visit New Orleans next week to commmemorate "the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history" as well as the most unforgivable failure of the Bush Administration.

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - President Bush will return to the Gulf Coast next week, where hard times and resentment linger two years after Hurricane Katrina's massive strike.

Bush will fly into New Orleans on Tuesday after giving a speech about the Iraq war to the American Legion convention in Reno, Nev. On Wednesday, the anniversary of the storm, he is expected to examine recovery efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

The monster hurricane was the most destructive natural disaster in U.S. history. It swamped a beloved city, killed 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, destroyed or severely damaged more than 200,000 homes and made more than 800,000 people homeless overnight.

In New Orleans today, despite progress, signs of a shattered city abound. Neighborhoods are in ruins. Crime, inadequate health care and faulty infrastructure are pervasive.

The Bush administration is still dogged by charges of an inadequate response - first, for the way it handled the crisis, and more recently, for not spending more time on it.

What Do The Experts Say About Terrorism?

The Nonpartisan Survey of Foreign Policy Experts from the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy have just published their Third Semi-annual, Nonpartisan Survey on the Terrorism Index.

Wait a minute. Just who are these experts, you may well ask. Have a gander:

Madeleine Albright, Jon Alterman, John Arquilla, Ron Asmus, Scott Atran, Andrew Bacevich, Rand Beers, Dan Benjamin, Peter Bergen, Ilan Berman, Mia Bloom, Philip Bobbitt, Joseph Bouchard, Jarret Brachman, Paul Bremer, Matthew Bunn, Daniel Byman, Kurt Campbell, Ted Carpenter, Ashton Carter, Joseph Cirincione, Richard Clarke, Steve Coll, Roger Cressey, Sheba Crocker, PJ Crowley, Matthew Devost, Larry Diamond, Dana Dillon, Jim Dobbins, Daniel Drezner, Lawrence Eagleburger, R.P. Eddy, Robert Einhorn, Michael Eisenstadt, Ivan Eland, Clark Ervin, John Esposito, Douglas Farah, Michelle Flournoy, Steve Flynn, James Forest, William Frenzel, Aaron Friedberg, Jay Garner, Gregory Gause, Leslie Gelb, Fawaz Gerges, William Gertz, Larry Goodson, Slade Gorton, Mort Halperin, Gary Hart, Bruce Hoffman, John Hulsman, Jo Husbands, Robert Hutchings, Michael Jacobson, Larry Johnson, Robert Kagan, Kenneth Katzman, Geoffrey Kemp, Bob Kerrey, Daryl Kimball, Christopher Kojm, Lawrence Korb, Charles Kupchan, Anthony Lake, Anatol Lieven, Thomas Lippman, Jane Holl Lute, Robert Malley, Thomas Marks, John McCarthy, Mary McCarthy, Michael McFaul, Doris Meissner, Steve Metz, Bill Nash, Vali Nasr, William Odom, Charles Pena, Paul Pillar, Daniel Pipes, Christopher Preble, Charles Pritchard, David Rapoport, Susan Rice, Bruce Riedel, Barnett Rubin, Marc Sageman, Michael Scheuer, Steve Simon, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Gayle Smith, James Steinberg, Jessica Stern, Ray Takeyh, Raymond Tanter, Shibley Telhami, Jack Vessey, Edward Walker, Stephen Walt, William Wechsler, Lawrence Wilkerson, Jim Woolsey, Dov Zakheim, Jim Zogby.

Okay, what are their conclusions?

In the third Terrorism Index, more than 100 of America’s most respected foreign-policy experts see a world that is growing more dangerous, a national security strategy in disrepair, and a war in Iraq that is alarmingly off course.

And?

The world these experts see today is one that continues to grow more threatening. Fully 91 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percentage points since February. Eighty-four percent do not believe the United States is winning the war on terror, an increase of 9 percentage points from six months ago. More than 80 percent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade, a result that is more or less unchanged from one year ago.

snip

No effort of the U.S. government was more harshly criticized, however, than the war in Iraq. In fact, that conflict appears to be the root cause of the experts’ pessimism about the state of national security. Nearly all— 92 percent —of the index’s experts said the war in Iraq negatively affects U.S. national security, an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago. Negative perceptions of the war in Iraq are shared across the political spectrum, with 84 percent of those who describe themselves as conservative taking a dim view of the war’s impact. More than half of the experts now oppose the White House’s decision to “surge” additional troops into Baghdad, a remarkable 22 percentage-point increase from just six months ago. Almost 7 in 10 now support a drawdown and redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

Helluva job, Georgie!

Trends in Party Identification

Pew Research Center

The Economist has an interesting report on trends in party identification.

The obvious cause of the right's implosion is the implosion of the Bush presidency. Mr Bush has the worst approval ratings since Jimmy Carter—29% according to Newsweek and 31% according to NBC News. Only 19% of Americans think that America is headed in the right direction under Mr Bush. An astonishing 45% of Americans, including 13% of Republicans, support impeaching Mr Bush, according to the American Research Group.

The most obvious cause of the implosion of the Bush presidency is the disaster in Iraq. The Republican Party's biggest advantage over the Democrats has long been on foreign and defence policy. You voted Democratic if you cared about schools and hospitals. But you voted Republican if you cared more about keeping America safe in a dangerous world. September 11th 2001 turbo-charged that advantage. The Republicans used the “war on terror” to roll over the Democrats in elections in 2002 and again in 2004.

But the war in Iraq has buried this vital advantage under a mound of discredited hype (“mission accomplished”) and mind-boggling incompetence. A CBS News/New York Times poll found that only 25% of people approved of Mr Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq. An ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 63% of respondents did not trust the Bush administration to report honestly about possible threats from other countries. The damage is not limited to the Bush administration: a Rasmussen poll on July 25th-26th found that Mrs Clinton outscores Mr Giuliani as the candidate voters trust most on national security.

The article concludes:

The Republicans have failed the most important test of any political movement—wielding power successfully. They have botched a war. They have splurged on spending. And they have alienated a huge section of the population. It is now the Democrats' game to win or lose.

You can find more graphs on these trends at The Pew Research Center.

What is Really Going On in Iraq

Juan Cole of Informed Comment highlights from the essay in today's NY Times OpEd page written by soldiers currently serving in Iraq:

As Bill Maher has quipped, we have had a balanced set of commentaries on the Iraq War on television news. We have heard from the generals and the retired generals. Today at the NYT we hear from some specialists and sergeants. In a thoughtful, analytically precise, and informed essay, they lament the pie in the sky thinking in Washington, admit that 'hearts and minds' are not being won and are unlikely to be, and decry contradictory US policies trying to please everyone that end up alienating everyone. They point to the massive number of Iraqis displaced abroad and the similar number internally displaced, to the lack of electricity, services, potable water, and above all security. They highlight how unreliable they find the Iraqi military, which they think penetrated at the street level by Shiite militiamen and their supporters. They tell a chilling story of a US patrol hit by a roadside bomb between two Iraqi military checkpoints, and almost certainly set by their Iraqi 'allies' or with their knowledge. One of the six suffered a severe head wound while in action during the period they were writing the piece. We can't be too grateful for what these guys are doing for us. The essay is a major part of seeing through their duty to the American people, since in a democracy, for the people to have a clear-eyed view of the situation is essential to informed policy-making. I hope they will let us in the blogosphere know if we can help Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy and his family in the wake of his injury, which he is expected to survive.

This essay describes an Iraq I recognize from reading the Iraqi newspapers every day and watching Arabic satellite television. It has the Byzantine political intrigues, the seedy militiamen, the back-stabbing and deal-making, the electricity-deprived tenement dwellers baking in the August sun, the 4 million homeless families, the incommensurate political goals of the factions. It does not depict 'a war we could win.' Money graf:


'In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.'

How I Spent the Iraqi Parliament's Summer Vacation

Clay Bennett

See more Clay Bennett.

Spinning US Troop Casualties in Iraq

Juan Cole of Informed Content has a new column at Salon that discusses the latest Bush administration spin on the surge in Iraq. Predictably, the Bushies would have you believe that the surge is working despite the fact that the "political situation has deteriorated substantially."

What really caught my eye, however, is the trend of US Troop casualties in the month of July. The Bushies point to the death count of 80 as evidence that the surge is working because 80 US troops killed in action in Iraq is the lowest number since November '06 when 70 US troops were killed.

What does the trend look like when comparing the death count in July from previous years?

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For more information, see Foreign Policy and Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.