Opinion: Baghdad campaign has mixed consequences
Major General William Caldwell, the US military commander in Baghdad, said this week that the daily Baghdad murder rate had dropped 46% from July to August. The drop in violence in the capital is testimony to the impact that a concentrated US military presence can have on the security situation in a given area. However, it also points to the difficulty of withdrawing such forces and the impact on security in other areas.
The relatively good news from Baghdad contrasts with overall trends in the country. The US Defence Intelligence Agency released figures on August 17 showing that the number of anti-occupation bombings rose to record levels (2,625 roadside bombings undertaken or attempted) in July. The rise of anti-occupation roadside bombing attacks is significant: although US forces are less numerous and less visible than they were six months ago, a professionalised cadre of insurgents continues to seek them out and target them with increasingly lethal roadside bombs.
Sectarian violence continues at high levels in many parts of the country. The fact that the anti-occupation strand of violence has in parallel continued unabated has two principal implications:
* The growing number and lethality of these kind of attacks, and often their location, point to increasingly aggressive and constant anti-occupation activity by small Shia insurgent cells affiliated with the Mahdi Army, the militia loosely associated with Moqtada al-Sadr.
* The continuing growth in anti-occupation attacks will complicate the White House’s efforts to maintain support for a major US military presence in Iraq, and will hasten calls for partial or complete withdrawal by 2007. Anti-occupation attacks will also focus attention on the question of whether a high-visibility US military presence is productive or counter-productive.
The White House’s policy remains that US forces will only "stand down" when Iraqi forces "stand up". According to US and Iraqi government figures, Iraqi security forces now exceed 275,000 troops, approaching the 325,000 target for the end of 2006. According to President Jalal Talabani, Iraqi forces will assume primary responsibility in all provinces by the beginning of 2007.
Standards of performance suggest this will not occur, as illustrated by the recent failure of the joint US-Iraqi ‘Operation Forward Together’ in Baghdad:
* Launched on June 14, it quickly dissolved into chaos as the Iraqi security forces showed themselves to be too inexperienced to handle the co-ordination of a 75,000-strong counter-insurgency and law enforcement operation.
* In recent months, the best Iraqi units have succeeded in re-establishing security in some of Baghdad’s worst neighbourhoods, such as Haifa Street, but the quality of Iraqi forces remains too uneven for an Iraqi-led city-wide crackdown.
* Of around 45,000 Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, only 8,500 are relatively reliable cross-sectarian Iraqi Army troops. The rest are less reliable Iraqi National Police forces which are lightly armed, less well-trained, and beset by sectarian and factional militia influence.
The failure of the Iraqi-led first stage of Operation Forward Together is only the latest in a long series of trial-and-error attempts to field Iraqi security forces, stretching back to the first battle of Fallujah in May, 2004. As in previous cases, the White House believes it has a very strong political and military rationale for stepping in to support the Iraqi government, particularly in the central battleground of Baghdad:
* Politically, the US administration will seek to boost the domestic and international credibility of the Iraqi government, as well as create ‘space’ for political movement by freezing the security environment and preventing further deterioration. The existence of the cross-sectarian Iraqi government is the key difference between Iraq and a country undergoing full-blown civil war.
* Militarily, Washington accepts that Iraqi security forces have failed to ensure Baghdad’s security since US forces reduced their presence and visibility in the capital before the December elections. It sees no near-term alternative to re-establishing a US presence in the capital, preferably without fuelling further anti-occupation resistance.
A boosted US military presence in Baghdad has restricted sectarian and factional violence, albeit at great risk to US forces. Key US military tasks include:
* Proactive policing. The US military takes the view that sectarian violence is a generated problem – that is, certain elements (Salafist terrorists and Sadr-related militias) are deliberately stoking the conflict. It has accelerated its targeting of these elements in Baghdad since late July.
* Separation of combatants. Certain fault-lines between neighbourhoods are particularly violent in Baghdad, and heavily-armoured US forces have moved to establish checkpoints in these areas or man barriers between neighbourhoods.
* Supporting Iraqi forces. All these activities are being undertaken in close partnership with Iraqi forces. The failure of Operation Forward Together was partly ascribed to the weakness of Iraqi command, control, communications, logistics, and air support – all of which the US military will now provide in greater measure.
The US military is aware that the return of high-profile US military forces in Baghdad could have counterproductive consequences:
Read the rest at the Gulf Times
The relatively good news from Baghdad contrasts with overall trends in the country. The US Defence Intelligence Agency released figures on August 17 showing that the number of anti-occupation bombings rose to record levels (2,625 roadside bombings undertaken or attempted) in July. The rise of anti-occupation roadside bombing attacks is significant: although US forces are less numerous and less visible than they were six months ago, a professionalised cadre of insurgents continues to seek them out and target them with increasingly lethal roadside bombs.
Sectarian violence continues at high levels in many parts of the country. The fact that the anti-occupation strand of violence has in parallel continued unabated has two principal implications:
* The growing number and lethality of these kind of attacks, and often their location, point to increasingly aggressive and constant anti-occupation activity by small Shia insurgent cells affiliated with the Mahdi Army, the militia loosely associated with Moqtada al-Sadr.
* The continuing growth in anti-occupation attacks will complicate the White House’s efforts to maintain support for a major US military presence in Iraq, and will hasten calls for partial or complete withdrawal by 2007. Anti-occupation attacks will also focus attention on the question of whether a high-visibility US military presence is productive or counter-productive.
The White House’s policy remains that US forces will only "stand down" when Iraqi forces "stand up". According to US and Iraqi government figures, Iraqi security forces now exceed 275,000 troops, approaching the 325,000 target for the end of 2006. According to President Jalal Talabani, Iraqi forces will assume primary responsibility in all provinces by the beginning of 2007.
Standards of performance suggest this will not occur, as illustrated by the recent failure of the joint US-Iraqi ‘Operation Forward Together’ in Baghdad:
* Launched on June 14, it quickly dissolved into chaos as the Iraqi security forces showed themselves to be too inexperienced to handle the co-ordination of a 75,000-strong counter-insurgency and law enforcement operation.
* In recent months, the best Iraqi units have succeeded in re-establishing security in some of Baghdad’s worst neighbourhoods, such as Haifa Street, but the quality of Iraqi forces remains too uneven for an Iraqi-led city-wide crackdown.
* Of around 45,000 Iraqi security forces in Baghdad, only 8,500 are relatively reliable cross-sectarian Iraqi Army troops. The rest are less reliable Iraqi National Police forces which are lightly armed, less well-trained, and beset by sectarian and factional militia influence.
The failure of the Iraqi-led first stage of Operation Forward Together is only the latest in a long series of trial-and-error attempts to field Iraqi security forces, stretching back to the first battle of Fallujah in May, 2004. As in previous cases, the White House believes it has a very strong political and military rationale for stepping in to support the Iraqi government, particularly in the central battleground of Baghdad:
* Politically, the US administration will seek to boost the domestic and international credibility of the Iraqi government, as well as create ‘space’ for political movement by freezing the security environment and preventing further deterioration. The existence of the cross-sectarian Iraqi government is the key difference between Iraq and a country undergoing full-blown civil war.
* Militarily, Washington accepts that Iraqi security forces have failed to ensure Baghdad’s security since US forces reduced their presence and visibility in the capital before the December elections. It sees no near-term alternative to re-establishing a US presence in the capital, preferably without fuelling further anti-occupation resistance.
A boosted US military presence in Baghdad has restricted sectarian and factional violence, albeit at great risk to US forces. Key US military tasks include:
* Proactive policing. The US military takes the view that sectarian violence is a generated problem – that is, certain elements (Salafist terrorists and Sadr-related militias) are deliberately stoking the conflict. It has accelerated its targeting of these elements in Baghdad since late July.
* Separation of combatants. Certain fault-lines between neighbourhoods are particularly violent in Baghdad, and heavily-armoured US forces have moved to establish checkpoints in these areas or man barriers between neighbourhoods.
* Supporting Iraqi forces. All these activities are being undertaken in close partnership with Iraqi forces. The failure of Operation Forward Together was partly ascribed to the weakness of Iraqi command, control, communications, logistics, and air support – all of which the US military will now provide in greater measure.
The US military is aware that the return of high-profile US military forces in Baghdad could have counterproductive consequences:
Read the rest at the Gulf Times
posted by iraqnam at 1:36 PM
<< Home