Outside the Beltway

Surge Working? Good News from Sadr City

James Joyner
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ABC News’ Terry McCarthy reports that things are really looking up in Sadr City, where the troops are meeting little resistance, the streets are “definitely more crowded,” the number of dead bodies are “dropping sharply,” and other positive signs. And things are positively booming in Kurdistan.

Excellent news, indeed. Then again, the recent car bombings in Baghdad have been quite deadly and there’s hardly a guarantee that the quiet in Sadr City will sustain itself once American troops leave, as they inevitably will. Still, we’ll take it.

via Bruce McQuain

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7 responses to “Surge Working? Good News from Sadr City”

  1. Matt T Avatar
    Matt T

    Whack a mole.

  2. Edgardo Avatar
    Edgardo

    Excellent, indeed. But not news; it has been going on for some time, certainly for more than a month. I hope you don’t get the news from ABC.
    Yes, you should be concerned about what may happen if American troops leave, but you should be more concerned about the many Americans that have not taken the excellent “news” and that are willing to do anything to prevent an American victory.

  3. Tlaloc Avatar
    Tlaloc

    Excellent, indeed. But not news; it has been going on for some time, certainly for more than a month. I hope you don’t get the news from ABC.
    Yes, you should be concerned about what may happen if American troops leave, but you should be more concerned about the many Americans that have not taken the excellent “news” and that are willing to do anything to prevent an American victory.

    Look here:

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm

    Scroll down to the bottom where you see US casualties by month. Feel free to pretend that represents progress, but the fact are not on your side.

    Now look here:

    http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

    scroll down and look at the bottom graph on the left hand side. This is the number of civilian casualties per month. Again, feel free to try and spin this as progress.

  4. legion Avatar
    legion

    Then again, the recent car bombings in Baghdad have been quite deadly

    Let’s see…
    – Advertise for weeks that we’re sending troops in to “pacify” Sadr City – check
    – Administration notes drop in violence and deaths in Sadr City – check
    – Administration and MSM fail to connect dots to increase in violence and deaths in other cities during “surge” – check
    – Claim vindication of “strategy”, demand two more Friedmans before pulling troops out – TBD
    – Continue cycle until next election; blame Democrats – TBD

  5. fester Avatar
    fester

    Correct me if I am wrong, the Sadrists have pretty much went to ground a week or so before the first US reinforcements were actually deployed, so I have doubts about the validity of US troops entering Sadr City without coming under massive fire as proof that the surge is working.

    Right now it seems to me [I know a massive qualifier] that the type of violence going on in Baghdad has changed in composition. Previously, it was Shi’ite on Sunni tit for tat, with the Sunni using car bombs as their preferred weapon of choice, and the Shi’ites the power drill. The current violence seems to have a marked Sunni fingerprint to it — large scale mass casualty explosive events.

    So does Sadr or his leadership cadre have sufficient control over most elements of the Mahdi Army to actually have them ramp down their operations, demonstrate that the government and the US still can not stop the Sunni car bombings, and further delegitimatize the government?

  6. McGehee Avatar
    McGehee

    Correct me if I am wrong, the Sadrists have pretty much went to ground a week or so before the first US reinforcements were actually deployed

    …because they knew the surge was coming. Does that alter the calculation at all?

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