With Republicans losing power in almost every branch of government, the GOP has tried to use a few key issues to champion their cause. One issue brought up extensively during the presidential campaign was the troop surge in Iraq and its supposed key role in lowering violence in Iraq. Senator McCain even suggested that he would be a better commander-in-chief for Afghanistan's drastically different situation because he would use the "surge principles" that supposedly succeeded in Iraq. However, it is possible that the surge was only one factor in the reduced violence and may not have even played that large of a role. Several other factors included in the decrease in violence were the retrieval of a key map, the “Anbar Awakening,” ethnic cleansing in mixed Shia’a/ Sunni neighborhoods and an on-and-off ceasefire with the Mahdi Army. Obama's response in the debate included points about the Anbar Awakening and the Mahdi Army ceasfire, to which McCain fired back, "I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what happened." In addition to decreasing violence, these factors helped to complicate analysis of the decrease. A study of GIS also helps to pinpoint more specific causes of the decrease in violence and suggests that surge certainly wasn’t as important as the Republicans suggested.
A lucky break in a raid of an Al-Qaeda command-and-control center in Taji, a city north of Baghdad, led to the retrieval of an extremely important map. This map outlined Al-Qaeda’s plan to use a belt of cities around Baghdad as logistical hubs and staging areas from which to attack coalition forces. This data made it evident that in order to stabilize Baghdad, the insurgents in these belt cities would have to be targeted. "A lot of people thought what we needed to do was put everybody into Baghdad to secure the population," says Odierno(Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, second-in-command in Iraq). "But what we really thought was causing the sectarian violence were the car bombs, the indirect fire [from mortars and rockets] and the suicide bombers. And we really thought their supply networks were in these belts." The troop surge certainly would not have been nearly as successful without the new strategy; however, it did help provide additional manpower to bring the fight to the belt cities. Unfortunately there was still not enough manpower to maintain an adequate presence in every city, although they dispersed their forces widely enough that it almost seemed that way. Eventually Odierno decided to keep 3 soldiers in Baghdad for every 2 in the belt cities and violence dropped.
Also coinciding with the surge was the “Anbar Awakening,” a shift of loyalty of Sunnis in the Anbar province that proved essential to the recent security gains. Prior to the surge, Al-Qaeda committed grisly atrocities against Sunnis in Anbar, including women and children, who refused to join Al-Qaeda’s jihad. This drove the Sunnis into the arms of the Americans who were only too happy to help. The resulting local uprising gave the U.S. a model with which to turn tribes, clams and entire neighborhoods against insurgents. Over 125 U.S. sanctioned local armies that together number at least 60,000 have registered their names and had their retinas scanned in exchange for cash, weapons and logistical support. A time lapsed GIS map shows that after the surge and Anbar Awakening, attacks have dropped, but also have moved primarily to areas near the Iranian border. With Sunni militia’s turning on them and their belt city activity disrupted due to the retrieval of the key map, Al-Qaeda and other insurgents have been forced to the Iranian border where they can easily procure weapons, and base attacks from within Iran.
Time Lapsed Map (Data points turn red after surge).
Muqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, once a powerful force of around 60,000 that was a shadow government in parts of Baghdad has been in an occasional broken ceasfire that began during the surge. Odierno believes the ceasefire has accounted for a 15-20% drop in attacks on U.S. forces from 2007-2008. Al-Sadr’s true nature is difficult to ascertain however, and the potential for the resurgence of violence from the Mahdi Army remains. While Al-Sadr has called for his former militia to now fight as a political party, it is possible that he is waiting the U.S. to leave and is using the calm to re-arm. During a four year siege of Sadr City, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed his senior "Special Groups" leader and at least a 1,000 militiamen, as well as capturing 7 "special group" members that were responsible for providing explosively formed penetrators used in armor-piercing roadside bombs, and used a guided missle to destroy a command-and-control center. Sadr also lost control of much of Basrah after a joint British-Iraqi-U.S. campaign. The latest cease fire came only after U.S. forces repelled the Mahdi Army's month long attempt to stop a key concrete barrier in Sadr City from being built. On May 10th, Al-Sadr ordered the cease-fire after losing 13 "special group" members on May 8th and 9th 2008 to U.S. special forces providing security for the engineers finishing the barrier. Two cease-fires were broken by Sadr during the conflict, one started June 2004 ended in August the same year, while the other started August 2007 and lasted all the way until March 2008. By declaring a ceasefire in August 2007, Al-Sadr was able to wait out the peak of the surge and use the time to purge his army of unruly elements. Both the ceasefire started August 2007 and the current ceasefire give false data about the security of Iraq. Although they both decreased violence, neither decreased the potential for violence as Muqtada Al-Sadr is able to call up an insurgency at any time.
Because of the dangerous conditions in Iraq, collecting consistent data can be quite a challenge. Four professors from UCLA found an ingenious way around this problem. Using satellite imagery they measured nighttime light output from different neighborhoods in Baghdad as well as several other cities across Iraq. After correlating this information with known ground-based data of ethno-sectarian makeup and violence from each measured neighborhood or city, they came to some interesting conclusions. Nighttime light output should increase as an area becomes more stable, allowing infrastructure to rebuild and repair. Therefore, nighttime light output data is a tool to assess the quality and stability of life in neighborhoods with little bias.
In Baghdad, the surge coincided with a net decrease in light output. However, light output varied from neighborhood to neighborhood. The neighborhoods of East and West Rashid experienced the greatest decline in nighttime light output during the surge. These neighborhoods were historically mixed with a Sunni majority but experienced increased segregation and a sharp drop in total population between 2006-2007, the year before the implementation of the surge. Meanwhile, Sadr city, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Baghdad, but heavily Shi’ia experienced a slight increase or no change in nighttime light output as well as New Baghdad (heavily Shi’ia) and Al Mansour (heavily Sunni by 2007). The decline in light output corresponded with a map of ethno-sectarian violence and neighborhood ethnic cleansing. In addition, cities such as Mosul, Tikrit and Karbala all had light output increases during the period of the surge. These cities had neither Baghdad’s level of ethno-sectarian levels of violence nor an increased troop presence as a result of the surge and provide a sort of control group with which to measure Baghdad against.
This data suggests that the surge had little effect on increased stability or the drop in violence. Rather, the horrific ethno-sectarian violence that the surge was implemented to stop effectively separated different groups, limiting local targets for violence. Essentially, the surge occurred right after large groups of Sunni’s fled from Shi’ia death squads, choosing to escape the country entirely or retreat to their few enclaves. Ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods, not an increased U.S. troop presence reduced stimulus for violence by creating a more homogenous, predominantly Shi’ia population and by segregating warring factions.
While the decrease in violence is promising for Iraqis, unless the decrease is permanent, the surge will have failed. So far, it seems that it has only partially affected the violence and some situations has had no discernible effect. Instead, the drop in violence seems tied to tenuous ceasefires, the armament of militants that could switch sides again and ethnic cleansing. Particularly disturbing is the recent upsurge in violence as coalition troop levels draw down. This suggests that the surge merely smothered ethno-sectarian conflict rather than forming bonds between different groups. The ethnic cleansing that helped the surge appear successful caused fresh slights and wounds to enemies with plenty of both. Now that our manpower is lessened, a conflagration could erupt from the smothered conflict. The fate of a country hangs in balance and if the U.S. falsely believes it has solved the conflict, there is little hope for a peaceful Iraq. Rather than allowing increased Sunni-Shi’ia segregation, we need to promote a healthy role in the government to both groups and help the two groups to find peace through dialogue instead of mutual annihilation. While our military is powerful, it will never be possible to force peace upon a country. The future of Iraq depends on our ability to negotiate successfully with people like Al-Sadr, ensure that Sunni militias don’t devolve into gangs, attack insurgents on our terms and establish more harmonious relations between Sunnis and Shi’ias. It is dissapointing that Senator McCain and the rest of the GOP used the decrease in violence in Iraq to champion their supposed clairvoyance about the troop surge without properly evaluating its effects. However, it is more important to understand that the surge did not fix the situation in Iraq and that we must create peace not through force, but instead genuine dialogue that can help soothe the festering wounds that drive conflict onwards.