Nearly 1,000 U.S. troops died in Iraq between last Memorial Day and today, versus around 800 the year before, according to the Associated Press. The rather bleak story quotes President Bush saying he anticipates this higher casualty rate to continue as the surge into Baghdad ramps up. "It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August."
Is it worth it? Last Memorial Day I would have said that the previous year's casualties were squandered in light of the decaying security in Iraq. But things are different now. It's still too soon to say for sure whether General David Petraeus' surge plan and his re-emphasis on classic counter-insurgency tactics are going to make a lasting difference in Iraq. But the early indicators are all positive:
Why the apparent progress? Petraeus has hired good advisers who have made realistic assessments of Iraq's problems and proposed realistic plans towards realistic goals. Those plans entail a renewed reconstruction effort and the dispersing of U.S. forces from big, isolated fortresses into small neighborhood bases -- which are more vulnerable but enable coalition troops to do daily foot patrols, like beat cops, to spot infiltrators and suspicious activity. The idea is to slowly get more Iraqis working while "creat[ing] more space for compromise and political reconciliation," in the words of Dr. David Kilcullen, Petraeus' main counter-insurgency adviser.
These are sound ideas. Still, there are unanswered questions:
“It’s a multi-year activity that we’re talking about," Kilcullen says. But as retired General Barry McCaffrey pointed out after his recent trip to Iraq, coalition forces will simply exhaust themselves in another three years and will withdraw. Will Iraq be ready by then to stand on its own?
Update: Some folks have wondered about sources for this story. Much of the info came from Kilcullen. I checked the Baghdad murders at Iraq Body Count, which gives us 13 abduction-murders per day in April 2007 and 26 per day in April 2006. That year saw several days with more than 100 bodies discovered. As for the oil numbers, Kilcullen says that production has recently reached pre-war levels of 2.6 million barrels per day, an improvement over this spring. He added that the capacity goal was 3 milion. So there we have it: goal of 3 million, production of 2.6, exports at around 2. The disconnect is due to continued sabotage and technical problems on the pipelines ... and management problems on the export end. In my original post, I mistakenly swapped "exports" for "production," an error I corrected above. Sorry about the confusion.
Update 5/29/07: Danger Room hero John Robb from Global Guerillas disputes the oil figures and adds more bad news:
