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Two Years Later, Sustained Dramatic Decline in Casualties in Iraq Demonstrates Surge Strategy Worked
Thursday, June 25, 2009
By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor


U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Curtis Shirey reloads a magazine during firing training at an unidentified location on June 5, 2009. (Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Robert C. Medina)

(CNSNews.com) – Two years after the U.S. military’s deployment of additional troops in Iraq went into full effect in June 2007, a dramatic and sustained fall in the number of combat fatalities among American servicemen can clearly be tracked back to the implementation of the “surge” strategy.

As the last U.S. combat troops prepare to leave the remaining cities in the coming days, the overall violence level in Iraq also remains significantly lower – likewise a trend that can be traced back to the surge – notwithstanding two particularly lethal bombings this month.

First announced by President Bush in January 2007, the “new way forward in Iraq” entailed the deployment of more than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq over the following months.

By mid-June, the additional brigades were in place and the main thrusts of what was known as Operation Phantom Thunder were launched two years ago this week, focusing on al-Qaeda, Sunni and Shia foes in Anbar, Baghdad, Babil and Diyala provinces.

By September, U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus was able to report to Congress that “the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met.”

A Cybercast News Service database of U.S. military casualties in Iraq since the war began in 2003 shows an unambiguous and steady decline in fatalities from the period of the surge and onwards. (see graph showing pre- and post-surge combat deaths; see graph showing combat deaths since the start of the war.)

From the summer of 2007, a slow decline in combat-related deaths was evident. From 98 in April and 121 in May the numbers fell, month by month – to 97 in June, then 69, 56, 43, 33, 29 and by December, down to 16, dipping below 20 for the first time since February 2004.

That December the Pentagon announced an 80 percent decline in the overall violence level, measured from the beginning of 2007.


Sgt. Elisabeth Keene of the 120th Combined Arms Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team makes a friend outside Forward Operating Base Mahmudiyah,south of Baghdad, on June 22. (Photo: Sgt. Mary Phillips)

A comparison of three snapshot months in 2007 – before, during and after the surge took hold – shows the pattern. From 78 combat deaths in January of that year, the number climbed to 97 in June but by December had fallen right back to 16.

While the database focuses on U.S. military casualties, fatalities among Iraqi armed forces – significantly higher than those of U.S. forces – also showed a clear post-surge decline, dropping from a high of 300 in May 2007 to below 100 by the end of that year, according to independent counts based on media reporting.

Similarly, the early months of 2007 saw almost 3,000 Iraqi civilians killed each month, but by year’s end the monthly toll had fallen to around 500, according to independent counts as well as estimates provided by the departments of Defense and State. That trend has continued, and January and May this year saw the lowest monthly civilian death tolls of the war – below 150.

The early months of 2008 witnessed an increase in U.S. fatalities, due in part to several particularly deadly attacks – the loss of six soldiers in a single improvised explosive device (IED) attack in Diyala on January 9; five soldiers killed in an IED attack in Mosul on January 28; five killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad on March 10; four killed in an IED attack in Baghdad on March 24; and four killed in a mortar and rocket attack in Baghdad on April 28.

From May 2008 onwards, however, the earlier downward trend resumed, and June last year was the last time that more than 20 combat deaths were reported in a single month, the database shows.

Indeed, for seven of the 11 months since then, the combat death toll has been in single digits. January and March this year, with four combat deaths each, were the least deadly months since the war began.


U.S. soldiers north of Baghdad on Monday, June 22, 2009. (AP Photo)

A new dawn for Anbar

The database figures for Anbar province, a key target of the surge, are noteworthy.

Iraq’s largest province and home to Fallujah and Ramadi – both seething hotbeds of insurgency and sites of major battles – Anbar has accounted for more U.S. loss of life since the war began than any other province, with the deadliest period stretching from mid-2004 to the end of 2006. (When combat- and non-combat fatalities are taken together, almost exactly the same number of deaths have occurred in Anbar and Baghdad provinces since March 2003 – 1,240 in Anbar, 1,239 in Baghdad.)

A significant turnaround in the Sunni province began with the drawn-out and costly battle of Ramadi during the latter half of 2006, and the formation of the anti-al-Qaeda Anbar “awakening movement.”

In January of 2007, violence levels in Anbar remained high, and the province accounted for the combat-related deaths of 24 U.S. personnel, or 30 percent of the total 78 deaths in combat across Iraq, the database shows. By June, the number had dropped to five (out of a total of 97) and by December to just one (of a total of 12).

Last September a major milestone was reached when a pacified Anbar was handed over to Iraqi control. Over the remaining months of 2008, two combat deaths occurred in Anbar – the death of a Marine in an IED attack in November, and another Marine killed while supporting combat operations in December.

This year in Anbar, two Marines and a sailor were killed while supporting combat operations on April 30; and a 54-year-old Navy commander was killed in an IED bombing in Fallujah on Memorial Day, along with a civilian attached to the army and a second civilian attached to the U.S. Embassy. Cmdr. Duane Wolfe oversaw reconstruction projects throughout Anbar province for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the three were killed while visiting a project.

Despite the recent deaths in Anbar, the province has come a long way since its darkest days, as reflected in the casualty database: Anbar alone accounted for 46 combat deaths in 2003, 326 in 2004, 223 in 2005, 317 in 2006, 142 in 2007 and 27 in 2008. (see graph showing casualty statistic in Anbar and five other key provinces.)


A boy inspects the aftermath of a car bombing in Baghdad, Iraq,on Monday, May 5, 2009. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Baghdad

Baghdad province, an area a little bigger than Rhode Island encompassing the capital and surrounding region, was another major surge target.

Baghdad witnessed a similar – if somewhat slower-to-emerge – pattern to Anbar’s during 2007. The province began the year as the deadliest for U.S. personnel, with 31 deaths in January (40 percent of the total). In June, Baghdad remained by far the most dangerous province, with 49 deaths (50 percent of the total), but by December, only four fatalities (25 percent of the total) occurred in the province.

As with Anbar, the dramatic drop off of combat-related killings in Baghdad since mid-2008 can clearly be seen in the database and graph.

Babil, Diyala

Babil, also known as Babylon, includes part of the “triangle of death,” a Sunni area south of Baghdad notorious at one stage for the ferocity of attacks against civilians and armed forces alike. Babil was another focus of the surge, with Operation Commando Eagle offensives between June and August of 2007 aimed at cleaning out the terrorist nests.

Fourteen U.S. soldiers were killed in hostile actions in Babil in 2005, 14 in 2006, 21 in 2007 (between April 28 and June 25), and four in the whole of 2008.

Last October, one month after Anbar, Babil was handed over to Iraqi authority. Between then and the end of May this year there has been not a single death in combat in Babil.

Diyala, the province located to the north-east of Baghdad and stretching to the Iranian border, was another surge target. Al-Qaeda forces had turned the area into a stronghold in 2006, declaring the city of Baqubah, about 50 miles from Baghdad, as the first capital of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq. An estimated 500 al-Qaeda fighters were believed to be in the city in early 2007.

U.S. military offensives began in March, and, as part of the broader surge campaign, Operation Arrowhead Ripper was launched in June of that year and by mid-August the city was largely secured.

U.S. combat fatalities in Diyala tell the story: 24 in 2005, 13 in 2006, 82 in 2007, 14 in 2008, and none in the first five months of 2009.


Five of Iraq’s 18 provinces remain to be transferred to Iraqi control. They are Baghdad, Diyala (north-east of Baghdad and stretching to the Iranian border), Salahuddin and Kirkuk (north and north-west of the capital) and Ninawa (in the far north-west, up to the border with Syria.)

The quieter provinces

Between July 2006 and October 2008 the U.S. and coalition allies, in stages, transferred 13 of the country’s 18 provinces to full Iraqi control. In order, they were Muthanna (Jul. 2006), Dhi Qar (Sept. 2006), Najaf (Dec. 2006), Maysan (Apr. 2007), Arbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Dahuk (May 2007), Karbala (Oct. 2007), Basra (Dec. 2007), Qadisiyyah (Jul. 2008), Anbar (Sept. 2008), and Babil and Wasit (Oct. 2008). (see enlarged map)

Apart from the four main surge provinces – Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala and Babil – the casualty statistics in other provinces are instructive.

Large parts of Iraq have not experienced significant violence. Not one U.S. combat death has been reported in Muthanna, for instance, although two soldiers were killed there in a vehicle accident in 2003. Wasit, too, has not accounted for a single combat death. A soldier died there earlier this year in a non combat-related incident. Arbil and Sulaymaniyah, both in the autonomous Kurdish region, have also no recorded U.S. combat deaths.

Najaf has witnessed 20 combat deaths over the course of the war, but none since January 2007. There have been 14 in Karbala (none since June 2007), nine in Qadisiyyah (none since June 2007), eight in Dhi Qar (none since March 2008), seven in Maysan (none since October 2008), six in Basra (most recently May 2009), and two in Dahuk (none since April 2007).


Soon it will be their turn: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Erik Borgeson, commander of the 12th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Division, Military Transition Team, talks with an Iraqi soldier in Mosul on June 11, 2009. (U.S. Air Force photo by Sr. Airman Kamaile Chan)

The final five

Of the provinces yet to be handed over to Iraqi authority – Baghdad, Ninawa, Salahuddin, Kirkuk and Diyala – two are relatively tranquil and the other three remain the deadliest for U.S. personnel, the database indicates.

Diyala has been combat fatality-free this year, while one fatality – the death of an Army sergeant in hostile fire – occurred in Kirkuk. Kirkuk saw 26 combat deaths in 2006, 19 in 2007 and three in 2008.

In contrast to Diyala and Kirkuk,15 combat deaths were reported in Baghdad, 14 in Ninawa and five in Salahuddin during the first five months of this year.

Baghdad city and Mosul – the capital of Ninawa, Iraq’s second biggest city and the site of an important offensive against al-Qaeda insurgents last year – are also among the last urban areas from which combat forces are due to withdraw by the end of June.

According to Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, most troops have already left the cities over recent months and the last of the pullout is on schedule.

A status of forces agreement drawn up late last year provides for U.S. troops to redeploy out of urban areas by the end of June; for all combat operations to end by the end of August 2010; and for all troops to withdraw from the country by the end of 2011. There are currently 134,000 American troops in Iraq. (see chart showing number of combat deaths by month and year since 2003.)

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki warned recently that attacks may increase in the coming weeks, with insurgents stepping up violence in a bid to undermine confidence in Iraqi security forces as the last U.S. forces leave the cities.

As Maliki predicted, recent days have seen two especially deadly attacks – a truck bombing near Kirkuk on June 20 killed 72 people, and a bombing in Baghdad’s Sadr City district on June 24 cost at least 62 lives.

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