Of Course This Means Petraeus Is Full Of It By: Mark W Adams

Petraeus has abandoned his counterinsurgency doctrine of patience and the simple "clear, hold and build" strategy as outlined in his COIN manual (pdf) opting instead for bombing neighborhoods where bad guys can't be ferreted out.

CLEAR-HOLD-BUILD

COIN efforts should begin by controlling key areas. Security and influence then spread out from these secured areas like an oil spot. The pattern of this approach is to clear, hold, and build one village, area, or city, and then to expand to other areas, reinforcing success. This approach aims to develop a long term, effective HN government framework and presence that secures the people and facilitates the meeting of their basic needs, thereby reinforcing the legitimacy of the HN government. The primary tasks to accomplish clear-hold-build are—

• Provide continuous security for the local populace.
• Eliminate insurgent presence.
• Reinforce political primacy.
• Enforce the rule of law.

To create success that can spread, a clear-hold-build operation should not begin by assaulting the main insurgent stronghold or by focusing on areas where the population overtly supports the insurgents.

But throughout Wingnuttystan, they are hailing the "success" of the current tactics and declaring the war all but won on the basis of the reduced casualty count of the last month. But there's a reason for this aberration, and they are ignoring what the troops are doing and the increase in Iraqi deaths over the same period.

Oh, and we've already reached a new record for US casualties, and it's only October. "But, but . . .but --Shut Up!" It's a simple matter of counting and comparing:

First of all, the assertion that US troop deaths have fallen is extremely misleading. In fact, It is only late October and already more US troops were killed in Iraq in 2007 than in all of 2006. Indeed, 2007 will almost certainly hold the record for the year of the most US military deaths since the war began.

According to the Iraq Casualties Site, these are the yearly numbers of death of US military personnel in Iraq:

Year US Deaths
2003 486
2004 849
2005 846
2006 822
2007 832

It is true that October is on track to be the least deadly for US troops since March of 2006.

It is, however, not clear why exactly US troop deaths have fallen so much in October. It is possible that they are being given few military missions and spending more time on base.

--Juan Cole

Airstrikes. It really is simple. We're raining hell from above -- on urban neighborhoods, collateral damage (that would be innocent men, women and children) be damned.

In other words, in the first nine months of 2007, Air Force planes dropped munitions on targets in Iraq more often than in the previous three years combined.

More telling still, the number of airstrikes soared most dramatically at about the same time that U.S. troop fatalities declined.

Take this week's bombing of Sadr City where we killed at least 49 people from the air and missed the one man we were trying to get. In some more civilized time, bombing a building resulting in the indiscriminate deaths of mostly children and civilians would be considered a war crime -- as is being investigated by the Maliki government. Our claim that our targeting is so precise that we can hit a heavily populated slum and only take out gunman and no civilians is absurd on its face.

It's not just Iraq, but we're doing this in Afghanistan too, and civilian deaths are on the rise.

The battle of the blogosphere will not be as bloody, and should center around a new argument, what should always have been the center of discussion. Instead of mindlessly chanting that Petraeus is saintly and untouchable because he's getting results (US GI casualties are indeed down); or insisting that he is a political tool of the White House and a duplicitous monster -- we can ask the question of whether these developments bring us closer to closing out this horrible chapter in our history. When you encounter this "we're winning so you American-hating libs are losing" drivel, change the argument to the goals of the mission, but don't ignore the ALL the facts on the ground.

We need to ask, now that we have some real data, whether it's working, and what goal is it working towards. Mind you, this is a higher level question than most war apologists are capable of addressing coherently. Moreover, many on the left get too distracted by the minutiae to make this THE question.

To be fair, on first blush this looks like a very positive development. But of course, if reduced US casualties is your measure of success in Iraq, quite a few of us on the left have been suggesting a fool-proof way of reducing troop deaths in Iraq to zero . . . so, that's obviously not a mutually acceptable definition of what we're trying to accomplish.

I have to conclude, therefore, that in the overall scheme of things, while a good thing for the families of US service men and women, it's not so good if you are an Iraq civilian who hasn't the means or desire to leave. Sounds like a draw at best, Petreaus' surge is meaningless and no longer even attempting the mission he went there to accomplish.

If we're going to bunker down and let the Air Force do the heavy lifting, I don't see much reason to keep such large force in Iraq when they would be just as effective redeployed and reduced in numbers. The problem has always been, if you study Patreaus' COIN Field Manual, is that even the increased number of troops sent in the surge are still inadequate to the parameters that mission requires.

It would take almost all the troops we have in the country just to pacify Baghdad itself. Add in the mercenaries like Blackwater and you're still just barely there when it comes to manpower -- and this violates another tenant of the COIN Manual, unity of command. Blackwater is run out of the State Department, the Iraqi police are useless and infiltrated by militias, and the Iraqi Army still doesn't seem effective and checks in with Maliki before taking Patreaus' orders.

It's a mess operationally. Petraeus really has no choice but use a blunt instrument like airstrikes without more boots on the ground, but of course this is not only counter to counterinsurgency doctrine, or the idea of winning hearts and minds, it's also against international law.

But if you hadn't figured it out already, Neuremberg trials are held by victors against the vanquished. And since no one will answer for the war crimes being committed in our names, we all will pay a price for permitting it to happen, even those of us typing into the ether that it must stop. I'd settle for Bush and his clan being exiled to his new pad in Paraguay -- which conveniently prohibits any American from being extradited to the International Criminal Court via our extradition treaty with them.

And you thought Bush was stupid.