The Ten Thousand?

Hmm. After a couple years of hearing estimates of the enemy insurgent strength in Iraq at 20,000, in the last few days I've read a couple references to 10,000 enemy.

What gives? I know that these are estimates and highly imprecise, but what has led to an apparent decrease in the number cited (by a couple writers anyway)?

The fighting seems to be raging as much as before. So are the less committed fading away leaving the hard core killers to continue the fight? Did we change our methodology?

Whether 10,000 or 20,000, this is a small rebellion. As I've said repeatedly, this is based out of 15 to 20 percent of the population (and the real supporters are only a fraction of this number of Sunnis), and so the Shias and Kurds won't lose to them. The Sunni Baathists, "nationalists," and jihadis are only effective out of proportion to their numbers because of the vast amounts of money available and the arms scattered throughout Iraq from the Saddam era.

I will look for more authoritative references and reasonings for the numbers as the weeks go on.

UPDATE: Strategypage notes that the less committed Sunnis are the ones fleeing Iraq completely or to pure Sunni areas. This could bolster my thought that the less committed Sunnis (who would have been the source of the less effective fighters) have left Iraq or moved to safer areas where they would not participate in attacks, while the remaining hard core Sunnis continue to support the smaller number of thugs who would have killed the most anyway. (Plus, we are taking the fight to the enemy more than earlier in the year.)

The post also notes that ethnically cleansing the Sunnis from Iraq would be the consequence of our withdrawal before we can anchor a democratic experiment in the heart of the Arab Moslem world. I've mentioned that before, too.