Casualties are a measure of combat intensity. Our spike in casualties in Europe from June 1944 to May 1945 was not an indication that we were losing World War II in Europe. Likewise, in Iraq, we lose more troops as we go after Sadr:
April saw 49 U.S. casualties in Iraq, the highest total in seven months. Does this mean, as some insist, that the enormous progress we have made since the start of the military surge is being lost?
As one who has spent nearly two years with American soldiers and Marines and British Army troops in Iraq - having returned from my last trip a month ago - here's my short answer: no.
We are taking more casualties now, just as we did in the first part of 2007, because we have taken up the next crucial challenge of this war: confronting the Shia militias.
In early 2007, under the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, we began to wage an effective counterinsurgency campaign against the reign of terror Al Qaeda in Iraq had established over much of the midsection of the country. That campaign, which moved many of our troops off of big centralized bases and out into small neighborhood outposts, carried real risks.
In every one of the first eight months of 2007, we lost more soldiers than we had the previous year. Only as the campaign bore fruit - in the form of Iraqi citizens working with American soldiers on a daily basis, helping uncover terrorist hideouts together - did the casualty numbers begin to improve.
Now we are helping the Iraqis deal with a much different problem: the Shia militias, the most well-known of which is "Jaysh al-Mahdi," known as JAM, largely controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr.
It has been apparent to me for several years that Sadr and his Iranian friends would the last threat to put down. Early in the insurgency I considered these militias as part of government forces since they defended their neighborhoods against Baathists and jihadis. I didn't like it that they existed but they did serve a useful role.
By early 2005, after the Baathists and jihadis were knocked back after the spring 2004 joint uprisings through the Second Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, it looked like the Iraqis would deal with Sadr as a political problem. But the government failed and in February 2006 the Shia thugs started murdering Sunni Arabs at a higher rate after the bombing of the Samarra Golden Dome. By spring 2006, with the Baathists defeated, I began to worry about the Shia thugs supported by Iran much more as an active threat as well as the foreign jihadis. Indeed, I assumed the surge would target the Shia militias to allow the Sunni Arabs to feel safe enough to switch sides.
As it turns out, Sadr stood down temporarily in spring 2007 and we went after al Qaeda in the surge to protect the Sunni Arabs who wanted to switch sides as well as protecting Shias who were the targets of the suicide bombings. Unfortunately, the Sadr stand down also allowed al Qaeda to kill more people until we could drive the jihadis away from Baghdad in the surge.
And now we must defeat Iran's proxy force that Sadr represents. We are working through the to-kill list, as I've mentioned.
Not that this will be mission accomplished. We still have to fight corruption and build rule of law to cement a real democracy in Iraq. And who knows, maybe an armed threat will arise that isn't on my radar screens--or anybody else's for that matter. Which means we fight that one, too (hopefully in just a supporting role). I count myself lucky simply to have one main problem at a time.
