Articles by Herschel Smith

Somewhere on the Crest Trail, Sandia Mountains, New Mexico, November 16, 2006.  Hiking at 10,000 feet elevation kept me winded most of the time.

It is extremely difficult to earn a PhD in Engineering.  While PhDs in other disciplines read hundreds of books, perform research and author and verbally defend dissertations, engineering is still a cut above and a category apart from other fields.  To earn a PhD in engineering most often means not only the above, but additionally four to five years in graduate school, along with complicated research and most often computer modeling.  A typical PhD candidate might write the source code, debug and validate a computer code consisting of 100,000 lines of FORTRAN and/or C++ for the purpose of modeling some esoteric problem that possibly only he and his thesis advisor knows about and understands.  The investment in time and resources (monetary) often create circumstances in which it is not worthwhile for U.S. students to go this far with their education.  The pay that a BS or MS graduate in engineering can earn over four or five years, modified by the time value of money, has decreased the number of students in the U.S. seeking advanced degrees in engineering.  Of course, this creates the need for other PhD candidates to fill the gap in order to keep programs open.

Enter the foreign student.  It has for some time been recognized that foreign students are comprising an increasing fraction of the PhD students in U.S. universities.  In fact, universities themselves are aware of the problem and know that it is important, along with the U.S. government, to track such students and be aware of their intentions (will they stay in the U.S. or return to their homeland?).  The “sensitive” disciplines are: nuclear technology, cyberterrorism, chemical and explosives technology (munitions), and biological terrorism, with nuclear technology being the most sensitive.

But this alleged knowledge of who is earning advanced degrees in the U.S. has not held in abatement the increasing number of foreign students in sensitive disciplines, many from surprising countries.  According to a study entitled “The Importance of Foreign Ph.D. Students to U.S. Science,” the authors point out that concerning the sensitive fields of nuclear and organic chemistry, chemical and nuclear engineering, bacteriology, biochemistry, biotechnology research, microbiology and neuroscience, and atomic, chemical, molecular and nuclear physics, approximately 10% of the degrees awarded in these areas were awarded to students from 26 countries that are on the State Department “watch” list as being state sponsors of terrorism, including Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia, Egypt and Jordan.

Jordan is ostensibly an ally in the global war on terror.  In fact, the newly released “Militant Ideology Atlas” from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point notes that the most influential jihadist cleric in the world today, al-Maqdisi, resides in Jordan.  Also, we have covered the Iranian push for nuclear weapons technology.  In further demonstration of the Iranian duplicity in claiming that the pursuit of nuclear technology is for peaceful purposes, CNN, the Telegraph, UPI and the Strategy Page are all covering the Iranian weapons exchange for Somalian uranium that was recently exposed by the IAEA.

Development in U.S. nuclear forensics technology includes, in part, signature methods to ascertain the origin and history of radioactive materials.  For example, materials irradiated in reactors have trace constituents that are informative of the original target composition, reactor type and irradiation history.

For my readers who have written before to complain that the prose on this web site that “issues forth from my pen” (e.g., concerning snipers) informs the enemy of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities, they should consider the fact that (in this instance) Iran already knows U.S. vulnerabilities and forensic capabilities, and is attempting to exploit them by purchasing uranium from Somalia.  In the future, when a nuclear device explodes in a U.S. city or somewhere in the Middle East, presumably Israel, if the uranium was deemed to be originally from Somalia, Iran has a alibi, or at least, so they think.

Pointing out U.S. vulnerabilities is the honest thing to do, and ignoring them the dangerous and unethical thing.  Henceforth, when we observe developments in nuclear technology, chemical and biological warfare capabilities, and the other myriad things that can cause mass injury and death to American citizens, we should keep in the forefront of our thinking: “The U.S. has possibly aided the enemy by training him to kill us.”

There is a flurry of combat activity occurring near Baghdad and in the al Anbar Province. 

On Monday, November 13, eleven insurgents were killed in three related incidents in Ramadi.  Coalition Forces observed a small number of insurgents emplacing an improvised explosive device.  The insurgents were engaged by Coalition Forces with small arms fire, killing two.  The three remaining insurgents returned to the emplacement site and Coalition Forces fired one tank main gun round, killing all three insurgents.  There were secondary explosions, and the remains of the IED continued to burn for about an hour.

Following an IED attack on a Coalition vehicle four hours later in the same vicinity, four insurgents were killed after they attempted to take mission essential equipment from the vehicle.  Two of the insurgents were killed by small arms fire and two were killed with one main gun tank round.  This event occurred during curfew hours.

In a separate incident Nov. 14 in the same vicinity, three insurgents were observed emplacing an improvised explosive device.  They were engaged with small arms fire and a main tank gun round.  Two insurgents were killed.

On Tuesday, November 14, the same day as the operations were being conducted in Ramadi, a Coalition Forces air strike killed three terrorists (MNF Web Site implies al Qaeda) in Yusifiyyah (Youssifiyah).  Coalition Forces tracked the terrorists’ movement on a dirt road on the outskirts of Yusifiyya.  Based on intelligence that linked the vehicle and the three terrorists to a local vehicle-borne improvised explosion device facilitation network, Coalition aircraft engaged and destroyed the vehicle with precision fires.  Youssifiyah is a rural area twelve miles south of Baghdad.

Also on November 14, one Soldier and three Marines died in combat operations in the al Anbar Province.

On Thursday, November 16, Coalition Forces killed nine terrorists and detained nine suspected terrorists during a raid just south of Yusifiyah.  As Coalition Forces approached the targeted area, they called out for people to exit the buildings. Ground forces noticed several armed individuals in a nearby wooded area maneuvering against them.  Close air support was called in to mitigate the threat to the Coalition Forces ground team.  Coalition aircraft engaged the terrorists with precision fires.Several of the terrorists killed were wearing suicide vests.

The al Anbar Province remains the most dangerous part of Iraq, and security is not being achieved in part due to the lack of support by the Iraqi government.

The Shiite-dominated central government is starving Iraqi security forces in the Sunni heartland of the resources needed to fight the insurgency, according to American officers.

In Anbar province, a Sunni region west of Baghdad, many police officers haven’t been paid for three months. “It’s difficult to ask a man to risk his life if you can’t even pay him,

The talking points of Bush’s plan have been leaked to the press.  The Guardian is reporting the story:

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make “a last big push” to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations.
Mr Bush’s refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said.

Although the panel’s work is not complete, its recommendations are expected to be built around a four-point “victory strategy” developed by Pentagon officials advising the group. The strategy, along with other related proposals, is being circulated in draft form and has been discussed in separate closed sessions with Mr Baker and the vice-president Dick Cheney, an Iraq war hawk.

Point one of the strategy calls for an increase rather than a decrease in overall US force levels inside Iraq, possibly by as many as 20,000 soldiers. This figure is far fewer than that called for by the Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain. But by raising troop levels, Mr Bush will draw a line in the sand and defy Democratic pressure for a swift drawdown.

The reinforcements will be used to secure Baghdad, scene of the worst sectarian and insurgent violence, and enable redeployments of US, coalition and Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country.

Point two of the plan stresses the importance of regional cooperation to the successful rehabilitation of Iraq. This could involve the convening of an international conference of neighbouring countries or more direct diplomatic, financial and economic involvement of US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

“The extent to which that [regional cooperation] will include talking to Iran and Syria is still up for debate …

Point three focuses on reviving the national reconciliation process between Shia, Sunni and other ethnic and religious parties. According to the sources, creating a credible political framework will be portrayed as crucial in persuading Iraqis and neighbouring countries alike that Iraq can become a fully functional state …

Lastly, the sources said the study group recommendations will include a call for increased resources to be allocated by Congress to support additional troop deployments and fund the training and equipment of expanded Iraqi army and police forces. It will also stress the need to counter corruption, improve local government and curtail the power of religious courts.

Let us at TCJ be the first out of the gate to say that this plan will fail.

First, 20,000 more troops is not nearly enough.  We need 220,000.

Second, talks with Syria and Iran will only embolden these two countries, with Iran being the most worrisome.  At at time when the U.S. should be working hard to set boundary conditions and stipulations for Iran’s behavior in the Middle East, to talk with them would undercut the U.S. position to the point that warnings will lose all force and the U.S. will lose all respect.

Third – and this point also addresses Abizaid’s testimony today before the Senate in which he said that more embedded U.S. troops with the Iraqi army and police would hasten turnover – we are still refusing to face the socio-religious landscape in Iraq.  The history of Shi’a-Sunni relations is almost as old as Islam, and just as violent.  This factious warring is getting worse, not better.  Ilan Berman, vice president for policy at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, states that “We have a ringside seat not only to radical Islam’s war with us, but to what’s really emerging as a civil war between radical Sunni Islam and radical Shia Islam.”  There is no lack of ability to police or wage war among either the Sunni or Shia.  The problem is not one of incompetence.  It is one of religious war.

Fourth, more money would have helped two years ago and with a stable Iraq.

There is much confusion over the recently released International Atomic Energy Agency (hereafter, IAEA) report on the Iranian nuclear program.  The International Herald Tribune is reporting that the “International Atomic Energy Agency experts have found unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and have asked Tehran for details, an IAEA report said Tuesday.”  Reuters is reporting that “IAEA inspectors detected bits of plutonium in samples of particles of highly enriched uranium (HEU) taken earlier from containers at the Karaj atomic waste facility near Tehran.”

To gain clarity on these issues, one needs access to documents and analysis other than main stream media reports and disjointed accounts of the situation.  The IAEA has a page devoted to formal statements on Iran.  The story begins long ago, but it is necessary to go back at least to January of 2006 to understand the November report.

In January of 2006, IAEA inspectors found some high enriched Uranium particles at locations where Iran has declared that centrifuge components had been manufactured, used and/or stored.  In the same report, the IAEA said “in order to clarify differences between findings by the Agency and statements made by Iran, a number of plutonium discs were brought by the Agency back to to Vienna for further analysis to determine the exact isotopic composition of the plutonium.  The Agency’s analysis showed, in particular, that the Pu-240 content measured on eight of the discs was significantly lower than the Pu-240 content of the solution from which the plutonium deposited on the discs was said to have originated.”

In a report on August 31, 2006, the IAEA reiterated the complaint (lodged in earlier reports) that Iran had refused to cooperate in ascertaining the origin of the high enriched uranium particles found and discussed in the February report.  The IAEA also confirmed the laboratory results of the sample, stating that “Analysis of the environmental samples taken from equipment at a technical university in January 2006, referred to in paragraph 25 of GOV/2006/27, showed a small number of particles of natural and high enriched uranium.”

The IAEA prepares reports for board review prior to meetings, and the board decides on release of the reports to the public as one of the functions of the meeting.  The November 14, 2006 report (GOV/2006/64) has not been formally released yet, but Vital Perspective has obtained the report and has posted a link to it.  In this report the IAEA divulges that the test results had been communicated to Iran: “Under cover of the Agency’s letter of 16 October 2006 … Iran was provided with a detailed assessment of the results of further analysis of the samples taken from the containers at Karaj, and was requested to provide further clarification of the presence of the HEU particles and clarification of an additional finding of plutonium in the samples.  On 13 November 2006, Iran provided a response to that request, which the Agency is currently assessing.”

Iran’s reponse is nothing but a subterfuge.  Nothing technical, detailed, meaningful or substantive is contained in the response.  Further, there is technical falsehood contained in the response.  From the Reuters article cited above, Iran has included this in their reponse: “the HEU could have come from spent fuel from a Tehran light-water research reactor.”

The IAEA has found a plutonium ‘vector’ (i.e., isotopic composition) on certain components that is different from the alleged source.  They have also found highly enriched uranium particles, leading to significant concerns over the enrichment process.  As we have discussed before, highly enriched uranium does not come from spent fuel.  Low enriched uranium (5% or lower) is used to fuel and operate commercial light water reactors, but highly enriched uranium (>> 90%) is used for only two purposes: Naval reactors (Submarines and Aircraft Carriers), for which Iran does not have the technology, and nuclear weapons.  HEU has these two purposes, and no more.  HEU comes from the enrichment process, not from spent fuel.

Finally, we have covered the issue of Iran’s heavy water reactor and the fact that the alleged medical use of heavy water is a lie.  Heavy water will be used, upon completion of Iran’s reactor, to create plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Despite the hyperventilating media reports, the discovery of HEU particles and plutonium is nothing new.  There is no need for a new discovery.  The old ones – and the test results, and Iran’s refusal to come clean about them – is enough.

Central Command (CENTCOM), responsible for operations in the Middle East, East Africa and Central Asia, is currently located in Tampa, Florida.  In what I see as a high stakes gambling move, the U.S. is moving CENTCOM to Qatar.

The United States will shift the headquarters of the Army’s Central Command to a new and expanded facility in Qatar, the US ambassador said here on Tuesday.

“Qatar and the US are cooperating towards building a new headquarters for the US Central Command. Camp Al Sayliyya has been the temporary base for several years. The two countries will expand the facilities at the Al Udeid airbase,” Chase Untermeyer told a press conference.

[ … ]

“In fact there are plans to build more infrastructure at the Al Udeid airbase not just by the US, but also by the Government of Qatar … Now the Qatari Air Force operates out of the civil airport and at some point, in one or two years, they will operate from Al Udeid airbase, which means construction of extra facilities,” Untermeyer said.

Without going into detail on US troops in Qatar and the long-term objectives, the US envoy said: “We have a very strong military relationship with Qatar, but we are guests here, so I would not define how permanent our presence is.”

He said the bases do not host combat troops, but provide logistical support to the US Air Force and used as transit points for the military.

This move parallels the construction of the gigantic U.S. embassy in Baghdad, a mammoth $592 million facility.  Despite protestations to the contrary from all sides, the U.S. will have a presence in the Middle East for years to come.  Moreover, it is likely that the U.S. will not deploy forces completely out of Iraq or the Middle East for decades.

Just in case you object, the U.S. adminstration says, “you want to bet?”

In Options for Iraq, I cited the Stratfor position that the most likely change in strategy in Iraq involves a redeployment of troops, while still remaining in Iraq, but without the responsibility for day-to-day security operations.

There now appears to be growing consensus among Republicans and Democrats to shift U.S. troop involvement from a combat to an advisory role.  Evolution to an advisory role is far short of the prediction by Stratfor – and far short of what the Iraqis need – which involves responsibility for border security, militarily assisting the Iraqis, and generally keeping Iran and Syria in their respective places.  A shift of U.S. troop responsibility to advisors is not likely to happen, but this consensus does show that neither party is willing to entertain a continuation of the current strategy.

It appears as if the Iraqi administration recognizes the seismic change in U.S. politics and is attempting to accomodate it, while still retaining the services of U.S. troops in more than merely an advisory role to the Iraqi troops.  Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, recognizes the necessary shift away from security operations by U.S. troops.

One of the most important changes “is to reduce the manifest presence of the foreign forces in the streets of Iraq’s cities. The departure of the foreign forces from inside the cities, in particular Baghdad, is important and will boost the security situation” in Iraq. He added that it is also important “to give more responsibilities and authorities to the Iraqi security forces to carry out military operations alone or with the foreign forces in the way of training and preparation.” He said: “We want acceleration in equipping, training, preparing, and arming the Iraqi security forces instead of waiting for a long time. What they are talking about achieving in years can be achieved in months.”

John Robb at Global Guerrillas is also suggesting that this redeployment of U.S. troops to bases in Iraq is a likely outcome of the recent U.S. elections.  John goes on to say that the effects in Iraq will be disastrous, while not phasing the U.S. electorate:

The US will withdraw to bases in Iraq (a completion of a trend that began last year to limit casualties) and many (perhaps half) of the US forces in Iraq will be withdrawn over the next year. This will likely be the only policy change that all decision makers can agree on. As a result, violence in Iraq will spike as unsupervised Iraqi troops are unleashed on civilians and guerrillas decimate isolated Iraqi units. It won’t matter to most of the people in the US as long as US troops aren’t involved.

There are now more than 500,000 Iraqis, mostly Sunnis, who have fled to Syria.  The Strategy Page observes that “Despite a lot of bravado on the Internet, the Sunni Arabs are losing. Not just in body count, but in terms of sharply decreasing Sunni Arab population. The Shia Arab death squads are killing more Sunni Arabs than the terrorist bombs are killing Shia Arabs … Meanwhile, parts of Anbar province, where some pro-Saddam tribes continue to offer bases for terrorists, look like a combat zone. Towns have a bombed out, shot-up and abandoned look. Anbar is being abandoned, as Sunni Arabs flee the country from both Anbar and Baghdad. While some Sunni Arab towns and neighborhoods can organize private guard forces, even these are helpless against police or soldiers moonlighting as Shia death squads … For the Iraqi Shia Arabs, the departure of the Americans won’t change anything. It was nice having them, their money, and their deadly soldiers around. But the Shia Arabs have enough guns, and people trained to use them, to deal with the Iraqi Sunni Arabs. The Americans have served their purpose, and it’s time for them to go.”

Since Iraq is at the present a Land of Many Wars, U.S. military actions against sects in Iraq necessarily have had unintended consequences.  Warring against the Shia alienates them and reminds them that the U.S. could not be trusted in the first Iraq war when we left them to be slaughtered by Saddam’s forces.  Warring against the Sunnis reminds them that it was their religious sect that was in power before the war.  The Sunnis want the U.S. to put an end to the death squads, and the Shia want the U.S. to kill the Saddam loyalists.

The salient question at the present is exactly whether the U.S. has a dog in this sectarian fight?  It is also important whether al-Qaeda will continue to remain in the Anbar Province if the U.S. forces redeploy to Kurdistan.  Without U.S. forces to fight, who will they war against?  And if the answer is the Iraqi army, then since they are dominated by Shi’ites, the questions is raised once again “does the U.S. have a dog in this sectarian fight?”

As we have discussed, a rapid increase in U.S. force projection and relentless offensive operations against the insurgents can to some extent bring stability to the region.  But in the absence of this, since the trend slope of U.S. casualties in Iraq is positive, and since the insurgents are seeing marked success against U.S. troops as snipers, the only viable option left for the U.S. is to redeploy north and restrict the power of Syria and Iran.

In a recent post entitled Political Dog Wags the Military Tail, I covered the issue of Iraqi politics and how it has undermined the U.S. war effort.  Two core political problems face us in Iraq at the present.  First, the system of government that has been set up is not conducive to stability.  Prime Minister Maliki is just that – a Prime Minister, and member of parliament (or a so-called “special member of parliament”).  The parliamentary model is designed to be held together by a coalition in a multi-party system, and Maliki is beholden to the power of the Shia, and in particular the more radical elements such as that led by Muqtada al-Sadr.  This dependence on al-Sadr prevents the Iraqi army or police from cracking down on the Shi’ite militias.

Stratfor recently released an analysis of the situation that closely follows this line of thinking:

Essentially, U.S. strategy in Iraq is to create an effective coalition government, consisting of all the major ethnic and sectarian groups. In order to do that, the United States has to create a security environment in which the government can function. Once this has been achieved, the Iraqi government would take over responsibility for security. The problem, however, is twofold. First, U.S. forces have not been able to create a sufficiently secure environment for the government to function. Second, there are significant elements within the coalition that the United States is trying to create who either do not want such a government to work — and are allied with insurgents to bring about its failure — or who want to improve their position within the coalition, using the insurgency as leverage. In other words, U.S. forces are trying to create a secure environment for a coalition whose members are actively working to undermine the effort.

The core issue is that no consensus exists among Iraqi factions as to what kind of country they want. This is not only a disagreement among Sunnis, Shia and Kurds, but also deep disagreements within these separate groups as to what a national government (or even a regional government, should Iraq be divided) should look like. It is not that the Iraqi government in Baghdad is not doing a good job, or that it is corrupt, or that it is not motivated. The problem is that there is no Iraqi government as we normally define the term: The “government” is an arena for political maneuvering by mutually incompatible groups.

The second core political problem that we face concerns where the U.S. stands in Iraqi politics.  The Small Wars Journal has an important discussion thread entitled Iraq: Strategic and Diplomatic Options.  Part of this discussion thread includes a link to a Newsweek commentary by Fareed Zakaria.  These insightful nuggets have been posted in the discussion thread:

Here is the tough question: What are America’s objectives in Iraq and how can we achieve them? More bluntly, what is to be done with the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops stationed there? What is their mission? If they have new goals, do these require more Americans or fewer? Not to tackle this issue is to present a doughnut document—all sides and no center.

In answering this question, we need to keep three factors in mind:

This is not our chessboard. The Iraqi government has authority over all the political issues in the country. We may have excellent ideas about federalism, revenue-sharing and amnesty, but the ruling coalition has to agree and then actually implement them. So far, despite our many efforts, they have refused. There is a desperate neoconservative plea for more troops to try one more time in Iraq. But a new military strategy, even with adequate forces, cannot work without political moves that reinforce it. The opposite is happening today. American military efforts are actually being undermined by Iraq’s government. The stark truth is, we do not have an Iraqi partner willing to make the hard decisions. Wishing otherwise is, well, wishful thinking.

Time is not on America’s side. Month by month, U.S. influence in Iraq is waning. Deals that we could have imposed on Iraq’s rival factions in 2003 are now impossible. A year ago, America’s ambassador to Iraq had real influence. Today he is being marginalized. Thus any new policy that requires new approaches to the neighbors and lengthy negotiations carries the cost associated with waiting.

America’s only real leverage is the threat of withdrawal. Many outsiders fail to grasp how much political power the United States has handed over in Iraq. The Americans could not partition Iraq or distribute its revenues even if Bush decided to. But Washington can warn the ruling coalition that unless certain conditions are met, U.S. troops will begin a substantial drawdown, quit providing basic security on the streets of Iraq and instead take on a narrower role, akin to the Special Forces mission in Afghanistan.

And one last thing: for such a threat to be meaningful, we must be prepared to carry it out.

It might come as a surprise to some, but the U.S. is under what is called by the U.N. Security Council a “security partnership” with the Iraqi government.  This means that the poitical will necessary by the U.S. administration to bring about security and stability in Iraq is enormous.  In order to accomplish this mission, the U.S. would essentially have to retake ownership of military operations without regard to the wishes of the Iraqi government or the U.N..  This would render the Iraqi government not just marginalized, but essentially impotent and an artifact of the past.  It isn’t likely to happen.  Even at this late date, with the right force projection (in the range of 400,000 troops), the war can be completely won, security brought to Iraq, and hostilities ended.  To do this would require clearing operations in the Sunni triangle similar to Fallujah, and the disarming of the Shi’ite militias.

Such a large commitment of troops doesn’t appear to be in the works, and so we are essentially left with only one option.  Stratfor appears to have landed on this option with their assessment:

We do believe that the ISG will recommend a fundamental shift in the way U.S. forces are used. The troops currently are absorbing casualties without moving closer to their goal, and it is not clear that they can attain it. If U.S. forces remain in Iraq — which will be recommended — there will be a shift in their primary mission. Rather than trying to create a secure environment for the Iraqi government, their mission will shift to guaranteeing that Iran, and to a lesser extent Syria, do not gain further power and influence in Iraq. Nothing can be done about the influence they wield among Iraqi Shia, but the United States will oppose anything that would allow them to move from a covert to an overt presence in Iraq. U.S. forces will remain in-country but shift their focus to deterring overt foreign intrusion. That means a redeployment and a change in day-to-day responsibility. U.S. forces will be present in Iraq but not conducting continual security operations.

The only two viable options for the U.S. in Iraq are to (a) increased troop levels and go on offensive operations against the enemy, with the enemy being defined as everything from the Shi’ite militias to the Saddam Fedayeen and al-Qaeda, or (b) withdraw forces to the north in Kurdistan, supporting the Iraqi army and police in offensive operations on an as-need basis.  This support would not include regular or routine “security” patrols, since these patrols are not bringing security to Iraq.  This presence in Kurdistan would have the side benefits of ensuring that Turkey and Kurdistan remain at peace and limiting the influence of Iran and Syria in Iraq.  In addition to assisting the Iraqi forces, the U.S. forces could then ensure security along the porous borders with Iran and Syria. 

The Shia want the U.S. in Iraq to destroy its enemy, the Sunni.  The Sunni want the U.S. in Iraq to destroy the Shia.  Our new strategy must oblige neither.  Bush has said that he is open to ideas from the Iraq study group led by James Baker, but has also indicated that he is skeptical of troop reductions.  Even the Iraqi administration knows that the immediate departure of U.S. troops from Iraq would have disastrous consequences.  It is unlikely that troops will be withdrawn, but an option is needed other than the continuation of “security patrols.”

As I have pointed out, the trend line slope for U.S. casualties is positive under the current strategy.  These casualties are occurring with regularity on security patrols.  Whatever strategy is pursued, Iraq must take responsibility for street security.  If we are going to war, then let’s war.  If we are going to re-deploy from Iraq, then let’s re-deploy.  What is not a viable option is to continue with the current strategy.

A graphical depiction of the casualties in Iraq is shown below.  Included on the graph are:

1. U.S. killed in action since the start of the war.
2. U.S. wounded in action since the start of the war.
3. Total (sum of U.S. killed and wounded since the start of the war).
4. Linear trend line using EXCEL function (“Add Trendline”).

Upon first glance it may seem that the data is rather random, but a more protracted analysis yields significant and useful fruit.

The trend for U.S. killed in action, while representing something profoundly tragic, statistically speaking, doesn’t tell the story of what is happening in Iraq.  The total of killed and wounded both closely tracks and is dominated by wounded.

Examination of the total shows that the first two months, i.e., the months of the invasion, were months of relatively low casualties compared to what we see today.  For the month of May 2003, after the regime was toppled, casualties were extremely low at 91 total killed and wounded.  But by September of 2003, the total killed and wounded at 278 was higher than any at other time preceeding it, including the invasion.

Major terrorism soon began, and the two spikes in the data for April and November 2004 represent the first and second battles for Fallujah.  If the second battle for Fallujah and the ostensibly huge victory the U.S. won were assumed to be the means to the end of the terrorism, then the month of May 2005 with a total killed and wounded of 648 should have been the final wakeup call to the administration and Pentagon that force projection was inadequate and troops needed to be added, and quickly.

At this point, no matter how administratively difficult it might have been to re-deploy troops from Japan and Europe to Iraq, it should have been obvious that the healing powers the U.S. believed to be there with democracy were merely a phantom.  It should have been obvious that al Sadr had to be taken out, the Sunnis were not going to go lightly from the scene of control over Iraq, and global terrorists were pouring into Iraq.

At Ramadan, beginning near the end of September and going though the end of October, there has always been a spike in the violence.

Finally, the trend line added in by EXCEL shows that there has been a general trend of increasing violence since the inception of the war.  It has a low correlation coefficient, but smoothing of the Fallujah data increases the correlation of the trend to the data.  There is no mistaking the fact that the adminstration and Pentagon have watched over three and a half years as violence has increased, and yet the force projection has either remained the same, decreased or barely increased.

In Why Rumsfeld Had to Go, we discussed the grand new approach to warfare, enabled and spurred by the use of technology, proxy fighters, political pressure, and financial persuasion.  Here is an eerie reminder of the overprediction of the power and usefulness of our technological advantage, from just before the Iraq war:

WASHINGTON — As the nation prepares for war with Iraq, military officials say space-based assets in Earth orbit are ready to give U.S. troops and their allies a significant edge over the enemy.

“Whether it’s Iraq or any other enemy of the United States and its allies, I would tell you that we’re so dominant in space that I would pity a country that would come up against us,” said Air Force Maj. Gen. Franklin J. “Judd” Blaisdell, director of space operations and integration.

“The synergy with air, land and sea forces and our ability to control the battle space and seize the high ground is devastating,” Blaisdell said March 12 during a Pentagon briefing for reporters. “I don’t believe that many of them understand how powerful we are.”

Unfortunately, structures, systems and components in space cannot kill guerrillas.  Group-think is a dangerous thing in any profession, but in the superlative degree as it regards war.