I am building this diary off of the excellent diary by
XYZ who is commenting on the
Knight Ridder article on contractor casualty rates in Iraq. The short story as XYZ points out is that contractors are being attacked, wounded and killed at roughly twice the rate this year than in 2004. This increases security costs, decreases successful project completion and decreases the ability of the US/Iraqi government to offer public service goodies to win hearts and minds.
It is also an indicator that the insurgency is growing. Beneath the fold is an evaluation, using Iraqi and US government sources only, about the effectiveness of the counter-insurgent forces. The short story is that the Iraqi military is a prime shank of steak in a piranha tank if they do not have US armor, artillery and air support available.
Via
Juan Cole is the following information from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense on their casualty count for the month of October:
93 US GI's killed
400 Iraqis killed
83 Ministry of Interior gendarmes killed
103 MoI gendarmes wounded
25 Iraqi troops killed
32 Iraqi troops wounded
282 "insurgents" killed
493 "insurgents" captured
Compressing this data give us some information that allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of Iraqi Security Forces:
186 Police Killed, 99 Coalition soldiers killed, 25 Iraqi soldiers killed for a total of 310 pro-government security forces killed versus 282 anti-government forces killed and a total of 775 removed permanently from battle. (NOTE: Massive assumption that everyone captured was actually an active insurgent)
So with US airpower, armor and artillery advantage, pro-government forces are trading 1:1 with a light infantry insurgent force. As Stirling Newberry noted two years ago this is not good:
Now for the bad news, an occupying army losing at 1:4 against insurgents, in general, is treading water. They are not making any progress against the rebellion, and while they will be able to maintain power as long as they can recruit new troops, they are locked in what can be called "quagmire".
Iraqi counter-insurgent capacity has not improved over time. The May 2005 analysis showed roughly unity kill rates also, and factoring in wounded incapacitation, the insurgents were coming out ahead of the equation at the end of the month. So over a course of six months, several hundred US deaths, a couple of major offensives, and numerous Iraqi battalions standing up, the insurgency, using Iraqi government figures is as effective or more so in October than they were in May.