Internal displacement at all-time high after surge
The surge of US forces in Iraq since February has led to an increase in internally displaced Iraqis across the country, according to two humanitarian groups.
Statistics collected by one of the two humanitarian groups, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, indicate that the total number of internally displaced Iraqis has more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000, since the buildup started in February.
Those figures are broadly consistent with data compiled independently by an office in the United Nations that specializes in tracking wide-scale dislocations. That office, the International Organization for Migration, found that in recent months the rate of displacement in Baghdad, where the buildup is focused, had increased by as much as a factor of 20, although part of that rise could have stemmed from improved monitoring of displaced Iraqis by the government in Baghdad, the capital.
I have to admit that I find the argument from pro-surge supporters that the security situation has improved for Iraqi civilians to be completely dubious. Sure, there are some neighborhoods that have seen progress, but there are others like Dora that seem to have disintegrated again. This has happened with every operation in the war up to now; some areas benefit and others suffer as the warring parties find new turf. If anything is leading to civilian peace, ironically, it might be that there are no minority targets left in neighborhoods and towns across Iraq.
Kevin Drum analyzed the security situation this summer, comparing it to last summer, and found little or no signs of improvement. The Iraqi government stopped counting civilian deaths this spring so overall numbers are unreliable. But other metrics show little improvement in civilian security.
So what’s the upshot of all this? If we are going to make a realistic evaluation of the surge – even beyond the political futility in Maliki’s government – then we need to be skeptical of Administration claims that security has improved. If anything, the Yazidi catastrophe confirms that while mass casualty events may have dropped a bit in Baghdad itself, they are still common events elsewhere in the country. The bomb-makers aren’t going out of business in Iraq. And these internal displacement numbers show the security situation continuing to deteriorate as neighborhoods previously spared by the sectarian civil war now witness daily clashes and threats of expulsion.
If there has been any success at all with the surge, it’s been the rise of anti-AQI Sunnis, especially in Anbar but also in some portions of Baghdad and Diyala. This is a real accomplishment, regardless of the fact that it was driven by Sunnis themselves before the surge even began. Petraeus was smart enough to recognize a promising development in the Anbar Salvation Council and exploit it. The marginalization of AQI helps reduce the propaganda power of Iraq to jihadists overseas; AQI is more likely to recruit from the outside and trumpet its accomplishments elsewhere than run-of-the-mill nationalists.
But that’s the bulk of the surge’s achievement. Let’s not fool ourselves with talk about significant improvements in security for Iraqi civilians. The surge has had some positive results, but not many. And when you add the political developments, Iraq looks no closer to a peaceful resolution now than in February. Iraqi Sunnis and Shi’ites are in no mood to coexist peacefully, and are continuing to arm themselves (often with US aid) for the next phase of the civil war. That should be the final determinant on whether we should continue with this course.
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6 Responses to “Internal displacement at all-time high after surge”
OK, to separate the points Elrod raises into 2 segments:
(1) Kevin Drum’s metrics are meaningless. Case in point, apply the same Violence and Infrastructure metrics to the Second World War. By Kevin Drum’s metrics, in early 1945 – after the bloodbaths of Iwo Jima, D-day, Okinawa and the Battle of the Bulge, given the Allies’ staggering losses and the annihilation of Infrastructure on all sides (except the continental US) – the Allies were desperately losing World War Two.
Body counts and civilian bombings do not measure success in war.
(2) All time high internal displacement = US failure.
The two undeniably successful counter-insurgencies of the past century – the British in the BoEr War and in the Malayan “Emergency” – were characterized by massive displacement of civilians. In the Malayan counter-insurgency, the British displaced hundreds of thousands into camps.
In both cases, the British won.
Displacement has been a core technique of successful counter-insurgency ever since. The fact that it is occurring in Iraq may thus not be a sign of disaster. Stability did not come to the Balkans until the warring populations were separated…and it will not likely come to Iraq until the Sunni, Kurd and Shi’a populations are separated.
Just to add, there is the line – attributed variously to Disraeli or Twain: “There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.”
The use of metrics to measure success in war is a classic example of this.
In the Boer War, the British suffered over 20 thousand dead – the Boers under 10 thousand. Thus, of course, the Boers must have won.
I944 was the worst year of the Second World War for the Allies in terms of casualties. Thus, of course, the Allies were losing in 1944.
It is ironic that the Brookings Institute, and the anti-war Left, is resorting to the same pie-chart, body-count metrics as did McNamara and Co. in the Vietnam War.
Different wars, different agendas, same damned statistics.
The problem, though, MarloweC is that, well, isn’t the surge’s whole purpose of the surge to provide relative stability in certain areas for civilians so that the political process can take hold? If so, then these sorts of statistics are very much relevant. They don’t work, I agree, for 1944 WWII, because there were separate objectives that the Allies were achieving that required massive military and civilian casualties. However, increased civilian security is the objective here. Or are there other objectives to the surge that we are accomplishing to some degree and that I am overlooking? The main other one I can think of is damaging AQI. But the main way we are doing that is by having Sunnis in Anbar also fighting AQI finally, and it isn’t clear that large U.S. troop levels are an important part of this development.
The Iraqis are using the “surge” as cover for their own self-motivated ethnic cleansing.
Marlowecan,
Pacatrue is exactly right about the larger mission. This isn’t WWII and the goal isn’t the annihilation of some clearly defined enemy. It’s the creation of a multisectarian, stable and peaceful Iraq.
But if we accept your premise and go the Bosnia model then we need to come out and call for a tripartite partition of Iraq. If that’s the goal then internal displacement is a necessary (if painful) conjunction. But as far as I can see, the official US policy is NOT separation of Iraq into separate countries but rather creation of a centralized state. Given the current strategy, internal displacement is a sign of failure, not success.
And it’s worked so well for Isreal and the Palestinians to have separate zip codes.
Maybe it’s not our business to decide whether Sunni’s and Shias and Kurds (oh my!) should live on the same block. Hard to create a centralized state of Democracy in a culture that has always been held together with an iron fist, or robed arms. When our soldiers can’t tell friend from foe, or the enemy one week becomes the enemy’s enemy, we cannot stand down because they are too busy sneaking up. You watch videos that our troops post online ( that they were allowed too before the ban) and most of the footage makes your blood run cold.These are not the young Replicans sweating in 100+ heat. This should have been at the forefront of the plan, rather than the dog and pony show that Cheney and Bush have used to exploit this for their own misbegotten use.
To compare Iraq to WW2 and VN is completely false.
, misleading and typical of our presidunce.