Reports recently highlighted contractor casualties:
The death toll for private contractors in the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has topped 1,000, a stark reminder of the risks run by civilians working with the military in roles previously held by soldiers.
Clearly, the press is trying to paint the war worse than they've done thus far, by reporting casualties hitherto unconnected to our reported losses. They have a point. If we didn't have contractors doing jobs previously done by troops, we'd have suffered some of these losses.
And there are a lot of contractors:
In Iraq, their number is estimated to be close to 130,000 -- not much less than the 157,000 U.S. troops presently deployed to the country. Their work ranges from driving fuel trucks, cooking meals and cleaning toilets to servicing advanced weapons systems and guarding senior U.S. officials.
So if we should count these guys when tracking the price of war, shouldn't we also count these contractors as part of the forces fighting the insurgencies? After all, if they weren't there, we'd need troops to do the jobs. And if we had troops doing those jobs, we'd count them as US forces in Iraq.
So what do we have in Iraq to fight the enemy?
--160,000 US troops.
--345,000 Iraqi troops and police.
--140,000 Iraqi Facility Protection Service guards.
--20,000 Coalition.
This totals 665,000 troops. And we aren't done yet.
--Say 70,000 Kurdish forces.
--Add in local militias and tribes fighting on our side. This could be tens of thousands.
But let's ignore the Kurds and other militias to be safe.
However, we could add the 130,000 contractors who would need to be US troops if they didn't exist. If they were US troops they wouldn't have suffered as many casualties, but they would be counted as part of our forces.
So we have 795,000 security forces equivalents to protect or police 27 million Iraqis. That's about 2.9%. This is above the 2% number considered the minimum for success in counter-insurgency.
But this is too simplistic, as this post discusses and I've long argued. Not every area needs the same ratio. Let's ignore the Kurdish areas secured by Kurdish militias and call it 25,000,000 Iraqis to protect. There are 11 million in the Shia south. This area doesn't need nearly as many troops to protect them. Call it half the minimum. So we'd need 110,000 to guard this area.
The real area of contention is the mixed area of Baghdad and the north plus Sunni Arab Anbar province. These 14 million people could have 685,000 security forces allocated--4.9%. This is well above the 2% considered standard.
The only reason these numbers haven't ended the war as yet is the fanaticism of the enemy and the ample money that has always been available to pay Sunni Arabs for attacks. Syrian and Iranian support for violence doesn't help, either. And our domestic opposition keeps giving the enemy hope for victory, too. The problems we have aren't numbers related.
Still, despite these problems, I've consistently thought we are winning this war. Looking at the numbers gives me no worries about this assessment.
My only number worries are the 535 members of Congress.
