The number of Iraqi security forces killed in September rose by nearly a third to 159 compared with the same period last year, Associated Press figures showed Tuesday. U.S. troop deaths for the same period fell by nearly 40 percent to 25.
The figures are a sign that U.S. military is increasingly relying on the Iraqis, including U.S.-allied Sunni fighters, to take the lead in operations so they can assume responsibility for their own security and let the Americans eventually withdraw.
Overall civilian casualty figures remained relatively low despite a spate of deadly attacks in Baghdad and surrounding areas during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which ends Tuesday for Sunnis and Thursday for most Shiites.
Turning over security duties to Iraqis and pulling our forces back from the daily fight has always been the plan. That is COIN 101.
The "surge" was necessary because the Iraqi security forces weren't good enough relative to the enemy to allow us to continue with our policy of raising and training Iraqi ground units to hold what we cleared. Had our will to win held firm, I think that the path we were on--as bloody as it was--would have led to Iraqi forces large enough and good enough to hold ground in the face of terrorism. But the November 2006 elections sped up our Washington clock relative to the Baghdad clock, and made it impossible to continue that slow pace of making the Iraqi government forces better than the enemy.
The surge sent our troops to both attack the enemy more comprehensively and hold our gains until the Iraqis could hold them. This helped the terrorist/insurgent--Iraqi government balance of forces by knocking the enemy down while also buying more time for the Iraqis to build more units, train units, and gain experience to get stronger.
The Iraqis aren't as good as our troops in either training or equipment, so they suffer more casualties than we would doing the same job. But the continued lower level of Iraqi civilian casualties show they are doing the job well enough.
The surge was always about a temporary change of mission to deal with the crisis of fall 2006. It has always been about enabling the original mission of turning over the fight to the Iraqis. The surge did this far better and faster than I hoped, and now we are back to gradually turning over responsibilities to the Iraqis while making sure we don't need to step in and help out.
This is what winning looks like.
