"Ding, Dong...."

Now that Saddam Hussein is dead and buried, I wanted to express just a couple thoughts on Iraq. I've been avoiding Iraq in general mostly because people like Mike, and Reality-based Educator do such a good job covering it, rarely do I feel I have something to add. But Iraq is still in my mind day in and day out as much as ever.

So now that this "milestone" (as Bush calls it) has come and gone, I wonder if it actually means anything. As Mike pointed out, it was supposedly a milestone when Saddam was captured. Here is what Bush said on that day:

In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq.

Bush is not so optimistic this time this time saying:

Saddam Hussein's execution is an important milestone for Iraq, but will not stop the violence there.

This, then, is another of those rare occasions where I agree with George Bush (at least about the violence). Another milestone will most likely occur today, when American Military fatalities reach 3,000. The fact that this happens on the last day of the year, and on the day that Saddam is buried probably will not escape media scrutiny. Also, December is now the deadliest month of 2006 for American forces, the third deadliest month of the war, and it also marks the end of a four-month period that will be the second deadliest four-month period since October 2004-January 2005, the latter just marginally edging out the former.

Looking back at my first post on the subject, I assumed that we would see troop drawdowns because the admininstration would not have the political will to change the structure of the military or pull troops from other arenas. I was completely wrong. One assumption I made that was completely right was that it is illogical to go down the same road in terms of troop deployment as we could expect no change in the situation on the ground. I argued that there should either be a major escalation or a drawdown, but that if the same number of troops (roughly 150,000) were to remain in Iraq, we could expect about 2.3 per day to be killed and the situation on the ground to be largely unchanged.

That was a year ago. Now we have the essentially unchanged situation, although by all accounts, the slaughter of Iraqis is on the increase. American troops are being killed in roughly the same numbers (although right now they are suffering more losses, but not unprecidented levels in this war).

So the most illogical thing in the world to me is this idea that 15,000 more troops is going to make a damn bit of difference. That will bring the troop level back up to the levels that we saw earlier in the war that did not prevent the looting, did not quell the insurgency, did not prevent the sectarian violence, and did not prevent the suicide and car bombings that have been devestating to the Iraq people.

Why does anyone think that things are going to change? Operation "Together Forward" was a total failure. I had hoped that sending the Stryker units into Baghdad would have some effect. As we know know, it did not. So why would 15,000 troops have any effect now?

I've said it over and over again, and I will say it again now: the numbers can be tweaked, the leaders can be killed, surges can be made, but without a major change in strategy (either a withdrawl or an escalation in orders of magnitude), the insurgency will continue, and Amercians will continue to lose about 2.3 soldiers per day.

Great strategy.