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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War / The Best Statistic

The Best Statistic

by John Cole|  June 23, 20088:51 am| 55 Comments

This post is in: War

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The best statistic you will read all day is this:

Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90% over the last year, according to Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders.

In May, 11 U.S. troops were killed by blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) compared with 92 in May 2007, records show. That’s an 88% decrease.

***

Ad hoc local security forces, known as the Sons of Iraq, have provided on-the-ground intelligence to U.S. forces looking for IEDs, said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commanded a division in Baghdad from February 2007 until May.

Each member of the security forces earns about $8 per day. Lynch has hired about 36,000 of them to man checkpoints and provide intelligence on the insurgency. He said about 60% had been insurgents.

At least the fatalities are down.

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Reader Interactions

55Comments

  1. 1.

    rafael

    June 23, 2008 at 9:05 am

    This is great news. And even though we’re basically paying tribute so they’ll be our mercenaries instead of killing us, I wish they’d thought of it earlier.

  2. 2.

    scarshapedstar

    June 23, 2008 at 9:06 am

    we’re basically paying tribute so they’ll be our mercenaries instead of while killing us

    Fixed.

  3. 3.

    Zifnab

    June 23, 2008 at 9:08 am

    So the insurgents have decided to take the bold move of not blowing themselves up. Awesome.

    And employing large numbers of disaffected youths at living salary is far more effective than just rounding them up and throwing them in jail for indefinite periods of time. Brilliant!

    After 6 years of rooting around for a fucking clue, the Bush-lead military has finally stumbled upon a solution that isn’t a complete cluster fuck. Cheers to that, I guess.

  4. 4.

    cleek

    June 23, 2008 at 9:12 am

    awsm

    we can leave now?

  5. 5.

    4tehlulz

    June 23, 2008 at 9:14 am

    >>He said about 60% had been insurgents.

    “had been”? Just because they’re not bombing you, doesn’t mean they’re not bombing. Just sayin’.

  6. 6.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    June 23, 2008 at 9:16 am

    we can leave now?

    No, now we have to stay there for 100 more years, just to make sure North Korea or East Germany doesn’t invade.

  7. 7.

    TheFountainHead

    June 23, 2008 at 9:16 am

    Simple rule: If I don’t have a job and I can’t find a job and I can’t feed or support my family, I’m much more likely to consider blowing myself and others up.

    The fact that the Bush Administration went into Iraq without this rule in mind tells you just how little forethought they put into it.

  8. 8.

    Punchy

    June 23, 2008 at 9:16 am

    Isn’t this how things are supposed to work? People become disgruntled, and ultimately violent, when they cannot buy food for their family and provide for their kids.

    Give ’em a job, and they’ll start to behave. Promise them more, and you’ll buy their loyalty. Stop inprisoning them and stacking them in pyramids, and suddenly they hate you less.

    I’m not even a sociologist and I know this. WTF has the Bush team been consulting for the last 5+ years?

  9. 9.

    Lee

    June 23, 2008 at 9:17 am

    Um, how do we know those 60% aren’t just planting IEDs and then turning in the location so that they can get paid? While still planting some elsewhere that they don’t report on?

  10. 10.

    dslak

    June 23, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Give ‘em a job, and they’ll start to behave. Promise them more, and you’ll buy their loyalty.

    But how sustainable is this? Although it has some promise, it looks more like a short-term fix than a long-term solution. Is the Iraqi government going to take over funding and operating this, should the US leave?

  11. 11.

    eglenn

    June 23, 2008 at 9:20 am

    I’m not even a sociologist and I know this. WTF has the Bush team been consulting for the last 5+ years?

    Bolton
    Kristol
    Feith

    Q.E.D.

  12. 12.

    Wilfred

    June 23, 2008 at 9:28 am

    The next 6 months is critical.

  13. 13.

    dslak

    June 23, 2008 at 9:31 am

    The next 6 months is critical.

    I agree. Another Friedman Unit!

  14. 14.

    Brian

    June 23, 2008 at 9:38 am

    So does this make the entire adventure worth it?

  15. 15.

    Nim, ham hock of liberty

    June 23, 2008 at 9:39 am

    Give ‘em a job, and they’ll start to behave. Promise them more, and you’ll buy their loyalty. Stop inprisoning them and stacking them in pyramids, and suddenly they hate you less.

    To most of the human population, “The beatings will continue until morale improves” is an obvious bit of black humor.

    To the current administration, it’s a policy.
    Nobody could have predicted that it would not work, however.

  16. 16.

    Tim Fuller

    June 23, 2008 at 9:40 am

    First off, some lady just blew herself and about fifty Iraqis to hell and back in Iraq yesterday, so while I applaud our lower casualty rates, I understand it to be the result of payoff, bribes and our hunkering down in the Green Zone, more than any real progress. The Sadr guy is probably lying low, regrouping and rearming for a major strike against the Green Zone. Something that will be a huge public relations blow impossible to ignore that will quickly offset all this happy talk the thugs are throwing out there.

    One thing that I am aware of that gets seriously underreported is that the Iraqi public wants us out of their country at about the same percentage as Americans who believe that Bush is the worst POTUS in history. So they have achieved the same type of democracy we have over here. The kind where 80 percent of the people get ignored and pain, profit and pillage is rampant.

    War crimes for self admitted torture enthusiasts starting with Bush. Prima facie evidence of crimes against humanity need to be dealt with before I have any confidence that the American ideals of justice and law have any worth. At a minimum, Congress could take the day and a half to vote impeachment and get this warmongering clown out of office.

    Impeachment needn’t take more than the time it takes to call the votes. That’s a fact that the media doesn’t want you to hear. Under the premise that we don’t have any control over Bush in the last six or so months, are we saying there is NO LAW the man could break that would result in his removal?

    Could Bush stomp a war protester’s baby to death on live television without recourse? If the attorney general doesn’t define stomping a war protester’s baby to death as a crime (because it depends on what the meaning of ‘stomp’ is) then it looks like there is nobody else to stop him. The serial rationalizations that are being proferred about the inability to define something that has been defined for decades (war crime definitions) or even centuries (habeus corpus, evolution..) would be laughable if the consequences of continuing to ignore your own lying eyes weren’t so dire.

    Enjoy.

  17. 17.

    SpotWeld

    June 23, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Lynch has hired about 36,000 of them to man checkpoints and provide intelligence on the insurgency. He said about 60% had been insurgents.

    Not to sound too dense here, but isn’t that pretty much unavoidable? I mean I’ve gotten the impresssion that in Iraq (especailly the more contested urban areas) it was near impossible for any citizen to be non-involved. Either you worked with the insurgents (as dictated by your family/religious affiliations) and kept your family relativly safe, or you didn’t and accepted the fact you were now “part of the problem” as far as the local gang leaders were concerned.

    I really don’t want to make it sound too rosy, but the fact that citizens can actually see working with the US military as a vaiable and safe (or at least as safe and anything gets in Iraq) option… well, it’s sorta a good thing, right?

  18. 18.

    funfunfun

    June 23, 2008 at 9:54 am

    this is why the surge is brilliant: they gave the manliest name short of “the splooge” to basically paying off people who killed American troops. And because W did it, the very people you’d expect to be a wee bit upset about paying off American soldier-killing terrorists are madly in wuv with it.

    And the liberals spent all their time griping about the additional troops instead of the terrorist buyouts. Whoops! Rove got you again, kids.

  19. 19.

    jibeaux

    June 23, 2008 at 9:56 am

    awsm

    we can leave now?

    If you’d been reading your McCain doctrine, you’d know that getting the casualties down was actually a prerequisite to staying for 100 years.

    Violence horrible, we stay, violence acceptable, we stay, violence nonexistent, we stay.

  20. 20.

    Zifnab

    June 23, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Um, how do we know those 60% aren’t just planting IEDs and then turning in the location so that they can get paid? While still planting some elsewhere that they don’t report on?

    Because bombings are down by 90%

    Of course, knowing the way the military conducts business, its equally possible that “bombing” has been reclassified as ordinance dropped from an aircraft and “IEDs” are now only valid if they have a “Made in Iran” sticker on them. So its always possible that a great number of bombs aren’t being reported at all.

    Who knows?

  21. 21.

    joe

    June 23, 2008 at 9:58 am

    Good enough to allow us to carry out a withdrawal not ‘under fire,’ and to create the possibility of constructive political developments among the Iraqis.

    Not good enough to allow a long-term American military presence to continue without the insurgency eventually reigniting.

    A band-aid solution that could hold Iraq together “for now,” but not something that can form the basis of a stable political order.

  22. 22.

    D. Mason

    June 23, 2008 at 10:00 am

    And even though we’re basically paying tribute so they’ll be our mercenaries instead of killing us, I wish they’d thought of it earlier.

    Capitalism IS and always was the only way for us to win this “war”. Cadillacs instead of carpet bombs wins hearts and minds bitches.

  23. 23.

    Dennis - SGMM

    June 23, 2008 at 10:03 am

    Gosh, I wonder if things would gone better if L. Paul Bremer hadn’t fired the 400,000 man Iraqi army, the police, and the judiciary.

  24. 24.

    nightjar

    June 23, 2008 at 10:06 am

    jibeaux Says:

    awsm

    we can leave now?

    Nope, not till these guys say we can.

    And Happy b-day Mr. Cole.

  25. 25.

    Punchy

    June 23, 2008 at 10:09 am

    Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90% over the last year, according to Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders.

    So this totally eviscerates teh “Iran iz killin r tr00pz!” mantra that was to be the call for military action against them, right?

    I mean, if Iran isn’t bombing us no mo’, then we really dont have a reason to parking-lot Tehran, do we?

  26. 26.

    blakenator

    June 23, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Be very skeptical of this statistic because the US casualties are controlled by the number of patrols that go “outside the wire,” where they are the preferred targets. This tactic has been used before to reduce casualties when the populace in the US started to get antsy about high numbers. As for the “Sons of Iraq,” they are opportunists who are willing to take our bribes but they are not on “our side.”

  27. 27.

    Dennis - SGMM

    June 23, 2008 at 10:15 am

    I mean, if Iran isn’t bombing us no mo’, then we really dont have a reason to parking-lot Tehran, do we?

    Well, there is their need for McCain to win the elction.

  28. 28.

    D. Mason

    June 23, 2008 at 10:18 am

    I mean, if Iran isn’t bombing us no mo’, then we really dont have a reason to parking-lot Tehran, do we?

    Stupid Moonbat. If we leave Tehran standing where will all the gas trucks park to fill up on that $0.30/gallon gas they’re gonna bring us? huh? HUH???

  29. 29.

    dmbeaster

    June 23, 2008 at 10:31 am

    Gosh, I wonder if things would gone better if L. Paul Bremer hadn’t fired the 400,000 man Iraqi army, the police, and the judiciary.

    Agreed. Amazingly, in a recent Frontline interview, Bremmer stated (at 12 seconds into the clip):

    I think the decision not to recall Saddam’s army from a political point of view was the single most important correct move made in the 14 months we were there.

    Interestingly, Frontline suggests that Bremmer made the decision entirely on his own, and to date no one in Washington has taken responsibility for directing tha decision. Bremmer is a Chenney/Libby man, and he may have gotten the idea or directive from them as part of the “install Chalibi” effort that they were in favor of. Chalibi saw extreme anti-Baathism as the key to his success.

  30. 30.

    David Hunt

    June 23, 2008 at 10:39 am

    Stop inprisoning them and stacking them in pyramids, and suddenly they hate you less.

    I’m not even a sociologist and I know this. WTF has the Bush team been consulting for the last 5+ years?

    I believe they simply thought all that shit would never get out into the open…at least while they were in power. Plus the fact that they were planning on putting Ahmed Chalabi in power as a puppet dictator up until some ridiculously small amount of time before the invasion.

    Step 1) Flatten Iraq.
    Step 2) ????????
    Step 3) Profit!!

  31. 31.

    Joshua

    June 23, 2008 at 10:50 am

    What are the chances we are just doing the same thing we did in Afghanistan in the 1980s? I am being serious here. Nobody (who was in power) thought that we would be training and financing future enemies. I dunno, it just seems like the same shit happening again, and if it does happen again I have a feeling people will just brush over it, like this country and this media did after 9/11.

  32. 32.

    John S.

    June 23, 2008 at 10:50 am

    OT, but what the fuck is with the NYT story on Obama and his ‘nefarious’ ties to ethanol lobbying?

    When VeraSun Energy inaugurated a new ethanol processing plant last summer in Charles City, Iowa, some of that industry’s most prominent boosters showed up. Leaders of the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, for instance, came to help cut the ribbon — and so did Senator Barack Obama .

    I mean seriously, what the fuck? The media can’t be bothered to report on McCain’s entire staff consisting of lobbyists for dictators, big oil and kitten shull-fucking, but they breathlessly report on Obama’s (tenuous at best) ties with corn-growers? Just when I thought this election year couldn’t get any longer…

    And for the record, I think corn ethanol is a giant fucking waste of money and I am troubled that Obama seems to be on its cock.

  33. 33.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    June 23, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Isn’t this how things are supposed to work? People become disgruntled, and ultimately violent, when they cannot buy food for their family and provide for their kids.

    Remember, though, Republicans think people commit crimes because they are inherently bad,and/or possessed by demons.

  34. 34.

    Balconesfault

    June 23, 2008 at 11:08 am

    The insurgents who don’t kill me make me stronger.

  35. 35.

    nightjar

    June 23, 2008 at 11:10 am

    awsm

    we can leave now?

    cleek said this, pardon sir.

  36. 36.

    w vincentz

    June 23, 2008 at 11:30 am

    Those that ignore the lessons of history are condemed to repeat them.

    The present actions in Iraq are so similar to the “training” of the Vietnamese during “Vietnamization” during the Nixon reign.
    On a bright note, the oil contracts are about to be signed, giving access to Iraqi oil to Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell, and Total. This thirty years after Saddam nationalized the petroleum industry and kicked their asses out.
    Yup, “Operation Iraqi Liberation” has been and continues to be all about O-I-L.

  37. 37.

    Svensker

    June 23, 2008 at 11:30 am

    The media can’t be bothered to report on McCain’s entire staff consisting of lobbyists for dictators, big oil and kitten shull-fucking

    OMG!! Does AIPAC know about this?!?

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    June 23, 2008 at 11:43 am

    Each member of the security forces earns about $8 per day. Lynch has hired about 36,000 of them to man checkpoints and provide intelligence on the insurgency.

    So for the Awesome price of $105,120,000 a year, we have 36,000 people of uncertain reliability who we count on to tell us who the bad guys are.

    Yeah, there’s no conflict of interest here, baby.

  39. 39.

    TenguPhule

    June 23, 2008 at 11:45 am

    In May, 11 U.S. troops were killed by blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) compared with 92 in May 2007, records show. That’s an 88% decrease.

    The question is, did American patrols outside of the Green Zone decrease by around that amount too?

    Interesting that most of the bombs going off lately are catching more Iraqis then Americans.

  40. 40.

    Tony J

    June 23, 2008 at 11:46 am

    Who could have predicted that anti-Iranian Sunni factions opposed to the dominance of pro-Iranian Shia factions in Iraq would rein-in their attacks on US troops once the US started funding and arming them and openly planning for an attack on Iran?

    Why risk your life as an Insurgent when you can sit on your ass, rake in the cash, and wait for the US to officially declare you America’s new BFF in the War Against Iran?

    And so on.

  41. 41.

    w vincentz

    June 23, 2008 at 11:56 am

    As one attempts to sleep at night, repeat these words 100X:

    “We are NOT in a quagmire.” ___ Donald Rumsfeld

  42. 42.

    Helena Montana

    June 23, 2008 at 12:06 pm

    I have doubts concerning the veracity of any informtion that comes out of the Pentagon–or the Bush administration as a whole. Their track record as regards truth is…spotty.

  43. 43.

    Bubblegum Tate

    June 23, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    So, which wingnut blog will be the first to quote this and say, “This proves that we’re winning!” Have they already started with that?

  44. 44.

    w vincentz

    June 23, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    Bubble Gum,
    McSame just said what you said in your 12:28 post in his statement today in CA.

  45. 45.

    Calouste

    June 23, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    What are the chances we are just doing the same thing we did in Afghanistan in the 1980s? I am being serious here. Nobody (who was in power) thought that we would be training and financing future enemies. I dunno, it just seems like the same shit happening again, and if it does happen again I have a feeling people will just brush over it, like this country and this media did after 9/11.

    Chances? 100%.

    See further: Manuel Noriega, Ho Chi Min, Saddam Hussein, all of whom received considerable help from the US during their careers.

  46. 46.

    Longshot

    June 23, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Wow, imagine how much the bombings would be down if we hadn’t disbanded the Iraqi army!

  47. 47.

    Thom

    June 23, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    That is some which statisticizin’ right there. May last year had 92 IED deaths and May this year had 11 – so that means that “Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90% over the last year”? Fucking hell. In April there were 29 IED deaths and 52 overall. And May, 2007, was the worst month for deaths since 2004. And there have been 19 deaths so far this month – as many as the beautiful light and breezy 19 that the MSM refused to mention in all of May, 2008. Less death and injury in this unneccessary war is good, but that’s some weird numberwhackin. And none of this takes into account that al-Sadr could and just might snap his fingers and send it all to hell any time he wants.

  48. 48.

    Thom

    June 23, 2008 at 1:45 pm

    That first line – I have no idea. Change “which” to “weird.”

  49. 49.

    blt

    June 23, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    I’m sure folks already know this, but these programs of paying Iraqis to fight foreign jihadis instead of US troops, and to police their own neighborhoods in general, have been going on for some time.

    In fact, it will begin to phase out in the north this year.

    http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=62900&archive=true

  50. 50.

    Darkness

    June 23, 2008 at 2:28 pm

    Thank god. Give Bush the freakin’ victory and let’s go home.

  51. 51.

    Sleeper

    June 23, 2008 at 3:41 pm

    The problem with this is that is basically ensures a later and far bloodier conflict. We’re arming and paying former Sunni insurgents to go after “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” which is shorthand for “Sunnis who won’t play ball,” but once Anbar province and other Sunni areas are totally pacified, what then? Prime Minister Maliki is not going to find a heavily armed, independent Sunni army controlling western Iraq acceptable, and he’s going to send in the (Shia-dominated) New Iraqi Army in to disarm them, or we’ll have to do it. Best of luck with that. Essentially we’re putting off the civil war, but making sure that when it does happen the Sunnis will be much better armed for it.

    It’s possible, just barely, that this could be forestalled with a federation of Iraq that gives the Western Sunnis the same autonomy that the Northern Kurds have. But the Kurds are wading in oil, and there’s no oil out west, and as far as I know they have yet to come up with an oil profits sharing program.

    Maliki doesn’t seem the type to make this happen anyway. The recent “crackdown on Shia militias” was a naked attempt to crush a political enemy in time for provincial elections; if they were really looking to get rid of militias they might have disbanded their own, the Badr Corps, which actually has far closer ties to the Iranian Pasdaran than the Sadrists’ Army of the Mahdi. But then again the idea that Maliki is on our side in combating Iranian influence is pretty stupid anyway, since he more or less works for them.

    Christ. What a waste. Now I’m all pissed off again.

  52. 52.

    D-Chance.

    June 23, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    At least the fatalities are down.

    Good. Now, can we please raise the white flag, tuck our tail between our legs, and leave?

  53. 53.

    libarbarian

    June 23, 2008 at 9:01 pm

    Sleeper Says:

    The problem with this is that is basically ensures a later and far bloodier conflict. We’re arming and paying former Sunni insurgents to go after “al-Qaeda in Iraq,” which is shorthand for “Sunnis who won’t play ball,” but once Anbar province and other Sunni areas are totally pacified, what then? Prime Minister Maliki is not going to find a heavily armed, independent Sunni army controlling western Iraq acceptable, and he’s going to send in the (Shia-dominated) New Iraqi Army in to disarm them, or we’ll have to do it. Best of luck with that. Essentially we’re putting off the civil war, but making sure that when it does happen the Sunnis will be much better armed for it.

    You have a point but I think that, when people are really dying, a real and immediate 90% reduction in violence weighs heavily compared with possible deaths in the future.

    People who speak of inevitabilities regarding situations like Iraq are overconfident about their own talents of prognostication. A civil war might still be avoided. There are other players in Iraq apart from the US. Iran has no desire to see a long Iraqi civil war that sends refugees over their borders.

  54. 54.

    w vincentz

    June 23, 2008 at 9:14 pm

    Sleeper,
    To answer your question, “what then?”
    al Sadr is ready to install his theocracy. If not now, later. Al Malaki has been greeted with open arms in Terhan.
    If Sadr doesn’t exercise his power prior to the Nov elections, he will soon afterwards.
    The “invaders” must leave. The occupier’s presence is no longer welcome.
    And then? No, granting “democracy” to Iraq (a lie).
    No stealing the natural resources of the people that inhabit the country.
    If the USA doesn’t tuck tail and come home, it will result in the same fate as the USSR did in Afghanistan.
    Now? Later? Doesn’t matter. That fact was the same seven years ago, as it is now.
    Only fools would believe differently.
    The goose is cooked. Take it out of the oven!

  55. 55.

    Sleeper

    June 23, 2008 at 10:11 pm

    libarbarian Says:
    You have a point but I think that, when people are really dying, a real and immediate 90% reduction in violence weighs heavily compared with possible deaths in the future.

    The danger, though, is in mistaking the current brief lull in violence as some kind of invitation from the people of Iraq to occupy them for several decades. Rather than using the drop in violence to make plans for our withdrawal, we’re trying to ram through a SOF agreement that allows for dozens of permanent bases and immunity for our mercenary army deployed there. Almost as if we’re determined to provoke a fresh round of insurgent activity.

    A civil war might still be avoided.

    I agree, and I do think Sadr’s power has been eroded a bit over the past few months. But that’s not really a good thing, if we’re looking to limit Iranian influence in Iraq. Maliki and his backers in the SIIC (including their Badr Corps militia) are way, way closer to Tehran than the Sadrists (both the main group loyal to Moqtada, and the Fadhila offshoot) will ever be.

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