900 And Counting

July 22, 2004

The fact that four Americans were killed in Iraq on Tuesday found itself mentioned in the 19th paragraph on an inside page of the New York Times today, meaning that not only did those two marines and two soldiers die for nothing, but their deaths won’t even contribute much to the rising American disgust over Bush’s Iraq misadventure. More U.S. soldiers died yesterday, and the pace is continuing. An AP story puts it thusly :

American soldiers in Iraq have been dying at a rate of two a day since Iraqis regained political control on June 28 a drop from the deadliest months of violence before the handover but still about the same rate overall as in the 16 months since the U.S. invasion.

The U.S. military death toll now has reached 900, and the number of American soldiers injured is approaching 6,000.

There are also signs that the insurgency in Iraq is on the verge of turning the quagmire into something much worse. One on hand, U.S. forces and their partners in the ersatz Iraqi quisling army are finding themselves personnel non grata in city after city in Iraq, not just in Falljuah. To demonstrate American might, it now appears as if U.S. forces are about to launch an all-out assault on Samarra, north of Baghdad, in a raid that could make the Alamo look like a picnic. First, the Knight Ridder story this week :

After more than a year of fighting, U.S. troops have stopped patrolling large swaths of Iraq's restive Anbar province, according to the top American military intelligence officer in the area.

Most U.S. Army officers interviewed this week said the patrols in and around the province's capital, Ramadi—home to many Iraqi military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein—have stopped largely because the soldiers and commanders there were tired of being shot at by insurgents who've refused to back down under heavy American military pressure.

While American officials in Ramadi wouldn't provide exact figures for the change in numbers of patrols, there's obviously been a significant drop.

After losing dozens of men to a "voiceless, faceless mass of people" with no clear leadership or political aim other than killing American soldiers, the U.S. military has had to re-evaluate the situation, said Army Maj. Thomas Neemeyer, the head American intelligence officer for the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division, the main military force in the Ramadi area and from there to Fallujah.

"They cannot militarily overwhelm us, but we cannot deliver a knockout blow, either," he said. "It creates a form of stalemate."

In the wreckage of the security situation, Neemeyer said, U.S. officials have all but given up on plans to install a democratic government in the city, and are hoping instead that Islamic extremists and other insurgent groups don't overrun the province in the same way that they've seized the region's most infamous town, Fallujah.

"Since Ramadi is the seat of the governate, we worry that if they could unsettle the government center here they could destabilize the al Anbar province," said Capt. Joe Jasper, a spokesman for the 1st Brigade.

The apparent failure of a long line of Army and Marine units to bring peace to the province, which makes up about 40 percent of Iraq's landmass, will be a major challenge for Iraq's new government and could prove to be a tipping point for the nation as a whole. Increasingly, Iraq is a place in which cities or part of cities have been taken over by insurgents and radicals.

To show how operations in Anbar have changed, Jasper sketched a map on a piece of paper.

Pointing to a neighborhood outside the town of Habbaniyah, between Fallujah and Ramadi, he said, "We've lost a lot of Marines there and we don't ever go in anymore. If they want it that bad, they can have it."

Looking up at a map on the wall, Neemeyer flicked his laser pointer across a large piece of land between Ramadi and Fallujah. "We don't go into that area anymore," he said. "Why go there when all that happens is we get hit?"

Many of those interviewed in Ramadi recently said they'd welcome a Fallujah-like rule by insurgents.

If they want it that bad, they can have it? They want the whole country that bad. Can they have that, too? According to the Washington Post,  they can’t have Samarra, at least—but we’ll see:

Tens of thousands of people have fled Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, in recent weeks, expecting a showdown between U.S. troops and heavily armed groups within the city, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources.

Samarra is now controlled by a volatile mix of tribes and gangs, some split along religious lines, and supporters of ousted president Saddam Hussein, according to interviews with numerous Samarra residents who have fled to Baghdad. On July 8, some of those groups launched an attack in which a car bombing was followed by a fierce volley of mortar fire. Five U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi National Guardsman were killed and 40 people were injured.

U.S. military planners complained in private that Fallujah was a bad deal, allowing the city to become a rallying point and stronghold for guerrilla forces.

"It's the lily pad theory. Fallujah exports itself to Samarra, which exports itself to the next place," said Lt. Col. James Stackmo, an intelligence officer for the division, headquartered in Tikrit. "In Samarra, there's probably 100 to 300 fighters who are holding the town hostage. We're not going to allow a militia in Samarra. We're not going to do it."

The U.S. military will try to mount a joint operation with Iraqi security forces, officials said. Under the plan, U.S. forces would likely seize Samarra in a powerful assault, then have Iraqi National Guard or police officers patrol the city.

In fact, cities all over Iraq are totally outside the control of either the U.S. forces or the government of Iraqistan. Not only Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, but other population centers in central Iraq are virtually self-contained city-states. The Kurds run their little enclave all by themselves. Parts of Baghdad are no-go zones for Americans. And in the south, fascist Shiite militia and armed gangs controlled by Iranian-backed mullahs and the likes of Ayatollah Sistani run things without any help from Baghdad.

Nice going, George.