‘Surge’ brings surge in combat deaths

As I and others predicted back when Bush first proposed his plan to “surge” more troops into Iraq and to do so with a plan that would distribute them more widely throughout the country, that surge is now resulting in increased combat-related deaths of US soldiers– and also, most likely, of Iraqis as well. (Though that latter aspect doesn’t get reported much in the US MSM.)
This piece of good reporting from Sudarsan Raghavan and Tom Ricks in yesterday’s WaPo perfectly illustrates what has been happening. It tells how on Monday insurgent fighters organized and implemented a well-thought-out plan to attack an “outpost” in Sadah, in Diyala province, that had been newly set up as part of the US generals’ troop-distribution plan:

    As U.S. soldiers fired a hail of bullets, the first suicide bomber sped toward their patrol base. Reaching the checkpoint, the truck exploded, blasting open a path for the second bomber to barrel through and ram his truck into the concrete barrier about 90 feet from the base. The second explosion crumbled walls and parts of a school building, killing nine American troops and injuring 20.

The reporters quoted military spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly as giving these details about the operations that a squadron from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Regiment had been undertaking in Sadah:

    Four weeks ago, U.S. soldiers battled insurgents from town to town, eventually clearing them out, Donnelly said. Then, they set up the patrol base in an old school.
    “The purpose was not to allow the enemy to come back,” Donnelly said. “Once we had this patrol base, we wanted to take the fight to the enemy, and to gain trust and confidence of the population. That’s what it takes to win this counterinsurgency fight.”
    A U.S. military official in Iraq said a “T-wall” — concrete barriers around the outposts — was built “just a couple feet away” from the Sadah school building, which the official called a “giant” mistake. “Those [barriers] are really, really heavy. They crushed the building,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly. Several soldiers’ remains were found beneath the rubble, the official said, adding that the attack was “devastatingly effective” and “very well-coordinated.”

So let’s step back and understand this. The guys from the 82nd Airborne (which is wellknown as very gung-ho, aggressive outfit… not well-suited or well trained to do ‘peacekeeping’ operations at all) fought their way through a number of other towns to get to Sadah, then they set up their “forward outpost” in what was described as “an old school.”
How old of a school, anyway? Maybe it was being used as a school until just a few weeks ago. Why would the US military imagine it would not offend local Iraqis to see US troops establishing a highly fortified military base in a school building– which would just about wreck any hopes that the school could be reopened for educational purposes any time in the foreseeable future?
Whose idea was it to use a school building for this?
And then, to protect themselves, the 82nd Airborne guys put into place these huge and heavy T-walls… and the insurgent planners figured that the T-walls’ weight could itself be used as a lethal weapon against the US soldiers inside.
(Operationally somewhat similar to Al-Qaeda’s use of fuel-laden US civilian airliners, and the design/engineering characteristics of certain high concrete buildings, to inflict 2,000 casualties in New York in September 2001. In both cases, the plan also depended on having operatives of steely self-control prepared to die in the course of the operation. The big difference was in the choice of target: civilians in New York; but in Sadah, Iraq it was members of an occupying military force.)
Raghavan and Ricks write this about these combat outposts:

    Once housed in vast, highly secured bases, many [US troops in Iraq] now live in hostile neighborhoods inside isolated combat outposts, the linchpin of a counterinsurgency plan designed to wrest control of the capital and other hot spots from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
    Military tactical experts say such combat outposts, where soldiers are expected to interact with area residents and gather intelligence about potential enemies, are the most effective way of preventing car bombings and other attacks in the long term. Paradoxically, this approach is making U.S. soldiers more vulnerable as they rely more than ever on the Iraqi police and army — and the support of the local population — for their safety.

The idea that from behind these massive blast-walls the troops in such outposts are supposed to venture out to “interact with area residents” in any constructive way at all is absolutely laughable… Or would be, if it this whole “surge” plan were not so tragic for everyone concerned.
Three key facts about the US army currently occupying Iraq absolutely prevent the current “surge” from having any helpful effect in de-escalating tensions and restoring a measure of calm to the country:

    1. The vast bulk of the US military is not trained or oriented properly for anything like peacekeepings operations. They are trained and oriented as warfighters. Three weeks of quick “cultural awareness” seminars can’t reverse that entire mindset, which is heavily backed up by operating systems, norms and equipment, systems, ROEs, etc.
    2. There are not nearly enough of them to do the job. This might sound paradoxical. But if there were more US Army troops on the ground, closely connected and able to back each other up, then they would not be strung out in isolated outposts like the one in Sadah, where the handful of troops inside are so isolated and vulnerable that they feel they need high concrete walls to protect them. Those walls have two effects: (a) they wall the outpost off fro,m any possibility of having constructive interaction with the Iraqi neighbors; and (b) as we saw in Sadah, they can themselves be used by insurgents with lethal effect.
    3. These US troops are far too casualty-averse to do the kind of risk-taking, area-control tasks required for the “surge” plan to work.

Personally, as a US citizen, I am glad our soldiers are casualty-averse; and I’m glad that there are not more of them in Iraq than at present.
But in the circumstances– which also include an extremely high level of political fogginess about what the “surge” was supposed to achieve– this surge was doomed from before the time it was launched. It was yet another arrogant, lethal, and politically motivated roll of the dice by a commander-in-chief who back in November/December seemed to choose it merely as his own ill-considered alternative to the sober and diplomacy-focused recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.
It was as if President Bush, caught in a gunfight in a Western saloon, perhaps realized at some level that the fight was not then going in his favor, but was determined that if he had to exit the saloon he would do so with all guns blazing.
Because of that decision, the rate at which US soldiers are leaving Iraq in body-bags has risen. And the casualty rate among Iraqis caught up in all these localized gunfights throughout the country has doubtless also risen.
The surge was a lethal and tragic mistake.
In addition, when– as is absolutely inevitable– the time comes when the President realizes that he needs to find a way to negotiate the exit of the US troops from Iraq, the modalities of extricating these small groups of soldiers from all these widely distributed combat outposts will be even more complex than a simple withdrawal from a few massive bases would have been.
(For another WaPo story, on a combat outpost that got blown up by insurgents before the US troops could even move in, read this.)

15 thoughts on “‘Surge’ brings surge in combat deaths”

  1. Compare the above sobering critique of the status of the surge with what happened on the late-great PBS NewsHour last night:
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june07/diyala_04-24.html
    The outrage begins when Judy Woodruff disingenuously does not mention that one of her two “guests” – Frederick Kagan – was a key cog pushing the notion of a “surge” rather than the Baker-Hamilton approach. She merely referred to Kagan’s base at AEI as a “conservative” organization.
    They then pair Kagan with a badly “outgunned” Captain Carter – just back from a year in Iraq. (My first question for him would have been, how’s your Arabic?)
    Captain Carter ends up attributing the increasing violence to the stepped up counter-insurgency effort (even though earlier he had propounded the tired “whack a mole” theory – that the surge in Baghdad had caused the “enemy” to take advantage of weaker forces elsewhere)
    In other words, Carter is all too close to another shop-worn Rumsfeldian pearl — that more American deaths must mean that we’re winning. Because counter-insurgency, to be effective, is a “contact sport.” e.g., fewer casualties then would mean we’re losing cuz we ain’t contacting the enemy….
    This is yet another low-light in the increasingly sad history of the NewsHour…. The decent producers there should be ashamed. Next time I see one of those call-ins for supporting PBS, I’ll cite this episode specifically as an example of why I’ll decline….
    Somebody at PBS is obviously more impressed by the money and power from AEI…. (as they have been since 2002) as such, we’ll just call it the “Neocon Hour.”

  2. Chaps
    I know the post is about the surge.
    However has anyone looked at what is going on in Somalia?
    They were told before Christmas not to interfere in the area. So true to form they went in with Guns Blazing.
    Now the Ethiopians can’t get out, the African Union havent sent enough troops and the place is descending back into Anarchy.
    This has enormous potential to become a total nightmare. Still it will give the Marine Expeditionary Unit on the Bataan something to do.

  3. here’s a report from earlier in the week on how our US troops are acting in Diyala….
    Troops in Diyala Face A Skilled, Flexible Foe
    On another recent night raid near Muqdadiyah — based on a tip from the Iraqi police — U.S. soldiers rolled out in six Humvees expecting to find a half-dozen al-Qaeda in Iraq members in a meeting. Instead they found a crying mother and her terrified 13-year-old boy. “Tell him, since he’s the oldest one in the house, he’s the man of the house, he needs to man-up and stop hiding behind his mother,” 1st Lt. Christopher Nogle, 23, of Orlando, instructed his interpreter. The boy covered his face and sobbed. It was 3 in the morning. He said he didn’t know where his father had gone. “Does he love his father?” Nogle asked. “Does he want to see him again?” The small barefoot boy shook with fear and said nothing. “Ask him where his father hides his weapons,” Nogle demanded. “I swear to God I don’t know,” the boy said. “He is not a man, he is scared,” said his mother, who was also wailing. “He needs to quit crying. He’s responsible for everybody in here right now since his father left; his father abandoned everybody else,” Nogle told the boy through his interpreter. “Tell him when his father comes back later tonight or tomorrow that he needs to have a talk with his father, that his father is doing very bad things and it’s getting the whole family in trouble.” Before the soldiers left, an Iraqi police officer brandished two large buck knives in front of the boy’s face. Nobody was arrested.
    …..Commanders said the near-total exodus of men was typical. “We’ve seen no military-aged males before. It’s a trend,” Col. Sutherland said. There were few clues as to where the men of the village went or why they left. The soldiers found one hint written in rusty English on a piece of paper taped to a computer screen. “We didn’t runaway because we are terrorist,” the note said. “We run away because we afrad of you.”
    link:
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/21/AR2007042101467_pf.html

  4. hey, I see you put that report on your del.icio.us list
    I emailed the Lt. in the article, and don’t have permission to share the response. But, he does have something in common with the 13 y. o. he confronted: His mother came to his defense also – since the Lt emailed my email to his mother. pretty amazing….

  5. Now the Ethiopians can’t get out
    It’s more that they don’t want to get out. The Ethiopians’ security objective in Somalia is to make sure that the southern part of the country never, ever coalesces into a coherent state that might threaten the Ogaden as in the 1970s or attack Ethiopia’s northern allies. Anarchy in Mogadishu suits them fine, and they’re more than willing to take a few casualties and flatten civilian neighborhoods to keep a hostile government from returning to power. They might change their mind when the suicide bombers start detonating in downtown Addis Ababa, but by then it will be much too late.
    Under these conditions, the number of African Union troops doesn’t really matter. A couple of AU battalions with a peacekeeping mandate can’t do anything but stand by when Ethiopia and the ICU want to fight.

  7. Do you got real stories guys and girls about your hero in Iraq?
    This the answer
    “At the hearing, the chairman of the House panel, Henry Waxman, accused the government of inventing “sensational details and stories” about Tillman’s death and Lynch rescue. After she arrived home, Lynch set the record straight in a book called “I Am a Soldier, Too.”
    “At first I didn’t even realize … the stories that were being told,” she said. “It was quite a while afterwards, and then I found out. It was a little disappointing. And I knew that I had to get the truth out there because, one, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself … knowing that these stories were portraying me to do something that I didn’t.”
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/25/earlyshow/main2725423.shtml

  9. There’s a superb dissection of yesterday’s NY Times story on Somalia here. The author nails the Times for printing the invented “fact” that this whole problem started when the Islamists in Somalia “declared war” on Ethiopia.
    The Times article was a disgrace, but it’s not just the Times. Our media has failed to provide any real perspective on the US role in Somalia.

  11. A Somali: “The government is trying to destroy business as we know it.”
    Some Yank is busy in there trying to Bremerise the place.

  14. Judy
    Actually I read your news with a great sense of relief.
    The story of so many Jewish families in Vienna and Berlin and Warsaw is one of leaving it too late.
    This talented young woman has a lot to offer the world. Perhaps some University will offer her a scholarship to study something relevant to putting the place back together again.
    Tell any journalists you know.

  15. واأسفاه على وطن يرمونه حجرا ويرمي لهم رطبا
    في المزاد وقفت أرى عجبا…
    يبيعون كل شئ الدين والحطبا….
    ولم استغرب بضاعتهم فهم اشياؤهم ندبا…
    حتى جاء صائحهم يحمل لنا طلبا…
    من يشتري وطنا ؟……أنهكته دماء بنيه فصار محطما خربا؟
    قلت من؟ …. قالوا العراق … فأجهش صاحبي ومادت اوداجه غضبا..
    فقلت: بكم تبيعونه ؟ قالوا … بنخلة تحمل لنا رطبا..
    قلت ….! ألم يكن به نخل وماؤه جاوز الحجبا…
    ألم يكن فيه الرافدان خيرهما جاوز الركبا ؟
    قالوا بلى ….. لكن فيه اناس اظلّمت بصيرتهم
    فخانوا عهده …فأهلكوا …فلم يبق منهم
    غير السيف والتربا
    ذبحوا حتى الامام به وبغوا فداسوا ضمائرهم وصيروا أمرهم عجبا
    قلت به أحفاد الرشيد؟ قالوا…بلى
    قلت به بعض من صلاح الدين؟
    قالوا….بلى
    قلت جدهم كان الامام على؟ قالوا بلى
    قلت لديهم أئمة اهل البيت؟ ومقام أبراهيم…..!
    وقبر سلمان وصحبه النجبا؟ قالوا بلى
    قلت أبلى الله سريرتهم … واوقدهم نارا صاروا لها حطبا
    يا شمس… من علَّم اهلي بالبصرة الحقد واللعبا؟؟
    يابدر ابكي لنائحتي… فانا عراقي أستحي من فعل مغتصبي
    وأنتحبا
    يبكي العراق على أخياره…. زمنا مغصوب يبكي من غصبا
    السياب يطوي صحائفه ويلعن كل تأريخ أمته.. ويلغي كل ما كتبا
    اليوم قد اعلن التتار عودته… وصار لزاما علينا أن نرتدي حجبا
    لا صيَّر الله ارضا تقطع أثدائها.. وتسقي أبنائها السم مضطربا
    فوا أسفاه على وطني… يرمونه حجرا… ويرمي لهم
    رطبا
    فوا أسفا على عراق يذبح بسيف بنيه
    وفي صدره جرح بات ملتهبا
    الدكتور محمد الداوود

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