SINCE WE last wrote for The National Interest--in the Winter 2003/04 issue ("Scoring the Iraq Aftermath"), presenting data on security and economic trends in Iraq from the fall of Baghdad through autumn 2003--the news coming out of Iraq has worsened.
In our article, we observed:
A successful counterinsurgency must have security and economic dimensions. In the security sphere, it is necessary to try to assess progress in the counterinsurgency: namely in neutralizing resistance forces, reducing crime rates and building Iraqi security forces.
And here, the news appears to be bad More Americans have died in Iraq in the six months from November 1, 2003 through April 30, 2004 (371 in total) that in the preceding eight. April 2004 was deadlier for American forces than even the invasion months of March and April 2003. And death totals among Iraqi security personnel have been roughly comparable in number.
Central Command's current estimate of the number of hardened insurgents still facing U.S. troops has not diminished even after six months during which more than 10,000 Iraqis have been arrested or killed by U.S. forces. And while coalition military forces are getting better at finding improvised explosive devices before the detonate, insurgents are getting better at building the explosives and at using car bombs, meaning that casualty rates have not declined but have gone up--way up.
