The analyst said he and other intelligence watchers know the Sunni enemy grew to about 70,000 based on battlefield evidence since 2004. ...
The military does not believe all 70,000 insurgents are day-to-day participants. Many are part time.
“History tells us that for every shooter there are 10 to 12 auxiliary people,” the analyst said.
This claim that the enemy has grown makes no sense. The analyst notes that recently, the estimates had held at 20,000 enemy. For a while late last year I noted a couple quotes of 10,000. With the enemy losing control of areas, is it really possible that the enemy could have more than tripled its numbers?
On the earlier numbers, I assumed based on military comments that we were talking 20,000 shooters full time (or 10,000 shooters as it seemed to be judged at one time) but didn't really know how the numbers were being calculated. How does one judge the numbers?
If the new number of 70,000 includes all full and part-time fighters plus support people as the analyst states, then calling shooters 9% of the total, we'd have 6,300 shooters in that mix involved in 100 contacts per day. This could be a reduction to just a third of the old strength if the old number just meant shooters as it surely seems. It would also mean that the old number of 20,000 meant a total of 220,000 shooters and supporters back then.
If the old number was shooters and supporters, then the 20,000 Sunni insurgents in the past would have included only 1,800 shooters. Our casualties per year have been remarkably stable if the enemy has more than tripled in size. And the enemy, until a few recent big attacks, has rarely struck in larger than platoon size elements (30-50 insurgents). It seems extremely unlikey that this small number could be accurate to allow for a growth in strength of the enemy.
Let's look at numbers from Barry McCaffrey's recent report (which is amazingly upbeat given that he's seemed rather loopy of late):
In total, enemy insurgents or armed sectarian militias (SCIRI, JAM, Pesh Merga, AQI, 1920’s Brigade, et. al.) probably exceed 100,000 armed fighters.
That's a lot. But remember that the Pesh Merga exclusively protect the Kurdish provinces and at one time numbered 70,000. They are on our side. I find it hard to believe there are fewer now.
Sadr (JAM) adds 10,000 to 40,000 as the usual figures cited. SCIRI is separate but let's just lump them in here. And keep in mind that some provided a useful local defense function even as others attacked us or Sunni civilians.
This is already 80,000 to 110,000 possible, exceeding the total estimate. So let's call the Shia militias at only 10,000. This leaves room for only 20,000 or so Sunni Arab enemy. And the report says 500 are foreign jihadis and 2,000 are local al Qaeda. So that's 17,500 left for the other Sunni Arab forces. Since the Kurdish and Shia militias are talking about shooters only and not total shooters and supporters, it makes sense the others are speaking of shooters too.
So is the single analyst's number of 6,300 shooters right? Do the numbers McCaffrey cite mean there are 20,000 Sunni Arab fighters of all stripes? Which is the same as the traditional number that has been cited the last few years? And if there are more Shia militias than the minimum I'm using for calculation purposes, we have even fewer Sunni Arab enemy.
Remember too that the Sunni Arabs with money--the ones perhaps more likely to back the insurgency to reclaim their gravy train--have fled abroad. Perhaps 20% of all Sunni Arabs have fled Iraq. Surely, this represents a higher percentage of the potential enemy recruits. Yet they've more than tripled their numbers anyway by this one analyst's numbers?
I have no idea how many insurgents and terrorists are operating in Iraq (as I write about here and here) and I bet the enemy doesn't know how many people they have either. This sounds more like a definitional issue more than anything.
But as I've often argued, attrition of the enemy isn't the way to end the insurgency. They replace losses as our side does. The key is to choke off the ability and desire to replace losses. In other words, we need to do to the enemy what our Congress is trying to do to our forces.
And if the current analyst's own figure is to be believed, the enemy has actually shrunk to a third its former size rather than grown. For years we could not dent the numbers since the enemy replaced losses. But with Sunni Arabs fleeing Iraq and Sunni Arabs defecting to fight jihadis, the number of shooters seems to have dropped rather a lot rather than increased as the cited analyst claims. The political trends are sapping the ability to replace losses from inside Iraq. Which explains why the jihadis are stronger now relative to the native insurgents.
I don't know. It seems like the trend is the opposite of what the analyst claims. But I'm hardly an expert numbers cruncher.
