Statistical Noise

For all the focus on our surge of forces in Iraq in 2007 that allowed our troops to disengage from routine combat in Iraq after largely defeating the armed threats to Iraq's new democracy, it helps to actually look at the number of our troops in Iraq over time to understand why I always asserted that the way the troops were used was more important than the numbers:

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11020270

The surge was simply never that dramatic in terms of added troop numbers. We could have won without the surge in troops, I judge, as long as we had the strategy.

Though the extra troops were perhaps necessary to beat the Washington clock that was speeding toward retreat at the time, since it surely would have taken more time since without the extra troopw we would have had to take some risks by thinning out on the ground in areas not the subject of the surge offensive in 2007.

And I should add it makes the long debate over whether we had enough troops look silly. For a long time, it was a cottage industry to argue we needed far more troops to win. I argued otherwise. Yet our troop strength did not vary that much through the years of successes and challenges.