Violence up in Iraq

As Senate Republicans prepare to shill for the surge again, this doesn't come as good news: more Iraqis are getting killed.

Combined with the "setback" over provincial elections, it could get tougher for those eager to crow about "progress" in Iraq. The Iraqi occupation has actually made the terrorism threat worse.

On top of that, the surge cannot really be credited with any "improvement", as John Cole points out:

McCain argues that violence is down in 17 of 18 provinces. That argument itself suggests the irrelevancy of the US to Iraq. There are no US troops to speak of in the 3 northern Kurdish provinces, or in the southern 4 provinces from which the British have largely withdrawn. There are few US troops in most of the 8 provinces where Shiites predominate. There was no troop escalation or "surge" in the Sunni al-Anbar province. So if violence has declined in 17 of 18 provinces, US policy cannot possibly have anything to do with most of that. General Petraeus has had significant successes in Baghdad, though at the unfortunate (an unintentional) cost of further turning it into a Shiite city from which most Sunnis have been ethnically cleansed.

So the areas that are the most stable are the areas where we have no or very few troops, but an increase in troops is supposed to have produced a decline in violence. Baghdad is a walled city that has been ethnically cleansed, so secatrian conflict naturally has gone down. Fallujah has banned all motor vehicles in the city for over a year, so no car bombings. This is "progress"? It's like banning cars and then taking credit for safer driving habits by pointing to a decline in car accidents.

Of course, Turkey is currently in the process of invading Kurdistan, which is hardly a sign of a stable Iraq. Basra, too, is controlled by the militias, not the Iraqi government. But it's stable, so that supposedly is a mark in favour of the surge. How is that?

The American public thought that by now the surge would be over and we would be talking about withdrawal. Instead, the surge will likely continue for the remainder of Bush's term. The Republicans are setting themselves up by presenting a rosy picture in Iraq, especially since the tensions between the "Awakening" forces and the Iraqi government are building. It's a dangerous bid, and senators up for re-election will be forced into making supportive statements that could turn against them in the months approaching the election.

story from AFP

Iraq violence surges in February

by Salam Faraj Sat Mar 1, 4:55 AM ET

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The number of Iraqis killed in February rose by 33 percent over January, reversing a six-month trend of reduced violence, in a setback to the US military plan to curb the bloodshed ravaging the country.

The combined figures obtained by AFP from the interior, defence and health ministries showed that the total number of Iraqis killed in February was 721, including 636 civilians, compared with 541 dead in January.

It reverses the six-month trend of a steady fall in casualties across the country on the back of a massive US and Iraqi military assault, mainly targeting Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The February death toll is up after a steady fall in the preceding six months. The monthly tolls were 541 in January, 568 in December, 606 in November, 887 in October, 917 in September and 1,856 in August.

The number of people wounded in February was 847.

January's death toll reached a 23-month low, with US commanders saying that all types of attacks were down to levels not seen before the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in the town of Samarra that triggered a wave of violence.

The bloodshed that erupted after the shrine attack peaked in January 2007 with 1,992 deaths reported by the three ministries.

The jump in February's toll seems to have been caused by two major attacks during the month.

On February 1, at least 98 people were slaughtered when a female suicide bomber blew herself up amid a crowd of pet lovers in Baghdad's popular al-Ghazl animal market.

And in another brazen attack last Sunday, at least 48 people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of pilgrims at a rest stop in the town of Iskandiriyah, south of Baghdad.