Upsurge/Downsurge in Violence
Revenge killings continue to plague Baghdad. In the first 12 days of July, 347 civilian deaths were reported by icasualties.org, a left-wing site that maintains a comprehensive catalogue of carnage (and nothing else) in Iraq. The bulk of these deaths are massacres – bombings and shootings of unarmed non-combatants.
For instance, a terror bombing on July 1 killed 66 people at a market in Sadr City, a Shi’ite slum in Baghdad. On July 9th, revenge-seeking Shi’ite death squads went on a shooting rampage in the al-Jihad neighborhood, a Sunni area of Baghdad, randomly killing 42 at fake “checkpoints”.
Phillip Robertson of Salon.com writes, “Iraq is accelerating toward civil war.”
But is it?
First, consider the baseline. The 341 recorded civilian killings in July equal 29 per day. This is well below the daily killings of Saddam’s Mukhabaret (Secret Police) – roughly 75 per day.
At the current rate, extrapolated through the remainder of July, sectarian violence will kill 896 – less than in March and May of ’06, but more than in January, February, April, and June. The highest monthly civilian death toll since the fall of the Baath regime was 1524, in August of 2005 – 70% higher than the extrapolated rate for this month.
Nonetheless, one can legitimately analyze the recent massacres as PART of a “spike” in the civilian death rate. Sectarian violence increased after the February ’06 bombing of the al-Askari shrine. Such incidents have consistently claimed 25-to-35 lives per day in ensuing months.
This was design, not accident. From February ’06 onward, it was the formal policy of al-Qaeda in Iraq to incite sectarian violence by the random slaugher of Shi’ite civilians.
But the sectarian slaughters are localized. The majority take place in some, not all, neighborhoods of Baghdad. In 14 of 18 provinces, there is no sectarian violence worth mentioning. And other evidences of Civil War are absent.
Civil War implies a breakdown in the force of the central government. But violence against the Iraq Security Forces, army and police, has not increased at all. The insurgency was killing ISF personnel at a rate of 300 per month in the summer of 2005. Over the first half of ’06, that rate is down to 171 per month. The extrapolated July rate is slightly less – 165 police and army deaths.
Then, there’s the crowning irony: coalition deaths in July are the lowest they have EVER been in the 40 months since the invasion was lauched – well under one per day. This is DESPITE the fact that the coalition presence has been beefed up in precisely the areas where the sectarian violence is most dangerous.
Even the mainstream media has been forced record the sharp drop in deadly assaults against U.S. troops. Writing in USA Today (07/11/06), Rick Jervis observes that armor-piercing roadside bomb attacks against the coalition declined from 20 per month in May to 9 in June.
So what can we infer regarding the state of the insurgency from the current pattern of carnage in Iraq?
- First, the insurgents no longer concentrate their attacks on the coalition.
- Second, they no longer challenge the domination of the ISF within Iraq.
- Third, they can maintain death counts only by slaughtering persons unarmed and impoverished.
Iraq has severe security problems, particularly in the capital. But it is not sinking into civil war. The terrorists who incite revenge killings no longer challenge the elected government for territory. The “death squads” that perpetrate revenge atrocities (thus accommodating al Qaeda) have neither the aspiration, nor means, to set up an alternative to the elected government.
In Iraq, the sectarian violence continues to smolder – but since March, it has increased neither in morbidity nor in territory.