Did the Surge Work?

New evidence suggests that "ethnic cleansing by rival Shiites may have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence for which the U.S. military has claimed credit":

UCLA study of satellite imagery casts doubt on surge's success in Baghdad, EurekAlert: By tracking the amount of light emitted by Baghdad neighborhoods at night, a team of UCLA geographers has uncovered fresh evidence that last year's U.S. troop surge in Iraq may not have been as effective at improving security as some U.S. officials have maintained.

Night light in neighborhoods populated primarily by embattled Sunni residents declined dramatically just before the February 2007 surge and never returned, suggesting that ethnic cleansing by rival Shiites may have been largely responsible for the decrease in violence for which the U.S. military has claimed credit, the team reports in a new study based on publicly available satellite imagery.

"Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said lead author John Agnew, a UCLA professor of geography and authority on ethnic conflict. "By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."

The team reports its findings in the October issue of Environment and Planning A, a leading peer-reviewed academic journal...

The night-light signature in four other large Iraqi cities — Kirkuk, Mosul, Tikrit and Karbala — held steady or increased between the spring of 2006 and the winter of 2007, the UCLA team found. None of these cities were targets of the surge.

Baghdad's decreases were centered in the southwestern Sunni strongholds of East and West Rashid, where the light signature dropped 57 percent and 80 percent, respectively, during the same period.

By contrast, the night-light signature in the notoriously impoverished, Shiite-dominated Sadr City remained constant, as it did in the American-dominated Green Zone. Light actually increased in Shiite-dominated New Baghdad, the researchers found.

Until just before the surge, the night-light signature of Baghdad had been steadily increasing overall, they report...

"If the surge had truly 'worked,' we would expect to see a steady increase in night-light output over time, as electrical infrastructure continued to be repaired and restored, with little discrimination across neighborhoods," said co-author Thomas Gillespie, an associate professor of geography at UCLA. "Instead, we found that the night-light signature diminished in only in certain neighborhoods, and the pattern appears to be associated with ethno-sectarian violence and neighborhood ethnic cleansing."

The effectiveness of the February 2007 deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops has been a subject of debate. In a report to Congress in September of that year, Gen. David Petraeus claimed "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met." However, a report the same month by an independent military commission headed by retired U.S. Gen. James Jones attributed the decrease in violence to areas being overrun by either Shiites or Sunnis. ...

Reasoning that an increase in power usage would represent an objective measure of stability in the city, Agnew and Gillespie led a team of UCLA undergraduate and graduate students in political science and geography that pored over publicly available night imagery captured by a weather satellite flown by the U.S. Air Force for the Department of Defense.

Orbiting 516 miles above the Earth, Satellite F16 of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) contains infrared sensors that calculate, among other things, the amount of light given off in 1.75-square-mile areas. ...

Lights dimmed in those neighborhoods that Gen. Jones pointed to as having experienced ethno-sectarian violence and neighborhood ethnic cleansing in his "Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq."

"The surge really seems to have been a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted," Agnew said.

Long-term obstacles to meeting Baghdad's power needs may have contributed to the decrease in night lights in the city's southwestern parts, the researchers acknowledge. But Baghdad's shaky power supply does not fully account for the effect, they contend, citing independent research...

In addition to casting doubt on the efficacy of the surge in general, the study calls into question the success of a specific strategy of the surge, namely separating neighborhoods of rival sectarian groups by erecting concrete blast walls between them. The differences in light signatures had already started to appear by the time American troops began erecting the walls under Gen. Petraeus's direction, the researchers found.

"The U.S. military was sealing off neighborhoods that were no longer really active ribbons of violence, largely because the Shiites were victorious in killing large numbers of Sunnis or driving them out of the city all together," Agnew said. "The large portion of the refugees from Iraq who went during this period to Jordan and Syria are from these neighborhoods." ...

"We had no axe to grind," said Agnew. "We were very open. If we had found that the situation was different, we would've reported it. Our main goal was to bring fairly objective and unobtrusive measures to a particularly contentious issue." 

Comments

[X Man]

This chilling report is just the leading edge of the historical truth about our Mess O'Potamia that will eventually come out in the wash. Unfortunately, the right-wing enemies of empiricism will say it's all nonsense. "Triumph forsaken," they'll whine, and write books that "prove" we actually "won" the war before the lost it.

[FB]

I'm no right-wing enemy of empiricism. I'm a registered Dem voting for Obama.

I've also spent two tours in Iraq.

How's the following for empiricism? While the geography prof pats himself on the back basing the results of a several months long strategic plan on some satellite photos he can't explain the decline of insurgent IED attacks on US troops. (Who are now living in the middle of Sunni neighborhoods--where insurgent live--in 12 months stints(part of the Surge tactics--be the neighborhood cop, know the locals and their issues, etc.)

He doesn't even seem to know that's a criticism or even a question. In fact he seems completely unaware of this.

If anything the surge has increase opportunities to attack US troops have several times since they are now in every village and neighborhood in the Sunni Triangle.

How does his 'empirical' data 6,000 miles away from the actual on the ground events explain Al Queda's alienation of the Sunni clan leaders? Does his 'empirical' data explain Sadr's decision to stop the armed struggle against the gov't.

Petreaus and his plan are the complete repudiation of Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney's strategy during the first four years and no one, no one seems to get that.

Petreaus surge isn't just his product, it's the product of a lot of us who were there, observed what worked and asked why we weren't doing this thing right. Our answer was that Rummy/Washington wanted it done their way.

General-fired by Rummy-Shinseki for probably does.

[Tip those scales back]

For a little bit more balance than a drive-by, unverified testimonial to the surge, try:

How Important Was the Surge?. They talk to ten (verified) Iraq experts.

[Bruce Wilder]

Tip: " ten (verified) Iraq experts "

Stephen Biddle, Michael O'Hanlon . . . ? Someone "verified" those morons as "Iraq experts"?

Better hire that verifier to evaluate mortgage-backed securities -- it's a big job, but someone's got to do it wrong.

[hari]

Mark there is no q' of *success* with or without the surge in Iraq.

The invasion/occupation was not a policy *necessity* but a political *choice* by GWB.

Like Viet Nam, this war and its aftermath will divide society and create unknown and unpleasant political bedfellows - on both sides. The bottomline is to get out when the lull is *inviting* and force the Iraqi's to get full control/responsibility of their destiny.

If above strategic turn-around is officially adopted, even the EU will intervene with capital/manpower to develop Iraqi infrastructure and industry...once again.

[Handel Lee]

2 tours in Iraq, can't argue with that, but maybe you need another semester of enlightenment philosophy...

[Macquechoux]

I have a son with three months left of his second tour as well as a daughter-in-law who recently returned from Iraq. FB pretty much gets it right. Petreaus' surge was much more than an increase in combatants. It was a comprehensive well thought out plan that recognized what the population wanted was security, better living conditions, and a bit of or at least a shot at prosperity. Petreaus and like minded commanders understood this and have done a remarkable job achieving the current results.

While he was making his case for more troops there was a never ending parade of naysayers proclaiming it couldn't work, wouldn't work, and Iraq was already "lost," therefore we shouldn't. Now that Petreaus' success cannot be ignored the same crowd feel obligated to say, well it really wasn't the additional manpower it was fill in the blank that most discredits the surge or Bush or whatever works in their minds. They chose to overlook or discount all the social and political aspects of his plan. (Or to pretend that somehow this was happening independent of him.)

Anyway, that is how I see it. That's pretty much how my son sees it and my daughter-in-law pretty much just wanted to get the Hell out of there; which, by the way, is what just about every solider wants to do.

[Vader]

Yea the 'surge' including paying folks not to shoot at us(Had we kept the Iraqi Army intact and pay its troops the same result would have been years earlier) and acknowledging other leaders as well as whacking anyone that opposed us.

But yea, declare victory and depart. Honor the vets, maybe have an Iraq War Day and make sure they get benefits. Remember the dead on Memorial day. But all in all get out.

[Barkley Rosser]

FB and Maquechoux,

So, the standard story now is that there are four reasons why violence levels have declined in Iraq (although violence between Arabs and Kurds is on the rise, which hopefully the US will stay out of). One is the end of the long ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods in Baghdad (with the surge-assisted building of walls around them), another is the turning of Sunni tribal leaders against "al Qaeda in Iraq" (no longer its name), another is the standing down of al-Sadr, which seems to have been at least partly done at the request of Iran and partly due to realizing that he would never be able to run Iraq if he kept attacking fellow Shi'a in holy cities like Karbala, and finally the only now repooted on more concentrated secret assassinations and raids by US troops.

I would agree that much of this is due to improved quality of the US military leaders in Iraq, especially Petraeus, and the replacement of Rumsfeld by Gates. There is no way to do the counterfactual of what would have happened if there had been no surge, but it may well be that Casey was right and that no surge in troop levels was needed.

The ethnic cleansing in Baghdad was nearing its completion, although having some extra troops may have helped with the building of those walls, which will hurt the Baghdad economy in the long run, even if they help keep the violence levels down. Could we have aided in building those walls without the extra troops? I do not see why not.

The Sunni tribesmen in al-Anbar had changed sides by summer of 2006 and only needed some arms and money, which did not require any US troops, and indeed, reportedly US troops have played little role in that. No surge needed for that at all.

Some have argued that focused attacks on al-Sadr's more radical factions helped change his view. Probably was a factor, but not clear that these very focused attacks needed extra troops, although maybe the final round in Basra more recently helped.

Finally, as for the business about the better handling of intel and special forces, this clearly has made a big difference. But how much of the surge was these sorts of people? Not too much I suspect. Maybe there was an argument for more of those folks, but I continue to see very little argument for more troops in general. The evidence that the surge has been responsible for the improved results cannot be disproven, but it remains very weak at best, looking good by coinciding with other things, such as the natural winding down of the Sunni-Shi'a neighborhood war in Baghdad, the turning away from the radicals in al-Anbar by the tribesmen, the recognition of long term political interests by al-Sadr, and the improved use of intel and special forces by the US military, this latter probably being aided some by the surge, but probably not requiring it necessarily.

[FB]

To Barkley Rosser:

Try as he might, Gen Casey was unable or unwilling to understand counter-insurgency strategy. He's an old-Army guy trained to think in terms of Armor and Mech warfare and never 'got' that Iraq needed an overall counter-insurgency approach.

While Baghdad Sunni/Shia issues made good media fodder (all the TV crews were there) few US troops were ever casualties in the city and most integrated neighborhoods numbered very few anyway.

Perhaps you should have told the Sunni tribesman in our area around 2006 that they had 'changed sides'. That sniper bullet that flew by my head in near Ramadi didn't know that.

Casualty rates remained high as a result of Sunni insurgent attacks (very few A Q) on US forces through late last year. Very few Shia-Sadr forces ever engaged the US, preferring to fight their own or Sunnis.

And those insurgents didn't 'stand down' until Petreaus' staff began putting us in their neighborhoods, making us police their areas, protect them from A Q 'thugs' (really the only way to describe them) and actually talk to Sunni insurgent leaders who'd attacked us in the past.

US casualties didn't begin to go down until we co-opted the Awakening (which was limited to only few towns) and helped it expand into the rest of the Sunni Triangle. Yes, even bribery was part of Surge strategy (really better called COIN). Better to pay them and make them dependent on us and eventually begin to know us (the 12 month deployments in one town did wonders for that).

In my AO we got to know guys who we suspected had attacked us in the past. By the time we'd left I believe they'd began to trust us or at least trust that we were trying to do the right thing by them. Twelve month deployments in one town, crappy as they are, worked wonders for human interactions between the two sides.

I suggest you retake a look at the weak evidence and you'll see there's more there than meets the eye. Some of it can't be measured by a weather satellite.

At the very least Petreaus taught the US Army and Marines to 'play nice' with the locals, act like the neighborhood police officer, smile and co-opt them. Even if you don't agree we did much else that little bit may have tipped the balance.

I like to think we soldiers and Marines who did two or more tours there learned to do things right even if it took years for the leadership to listen to us.

Anyway that's my 2 cents.

[FB]

I would suggest that anyone interested in going beyond the simple 'surge' hype should develop an understanding of the mindset of Petreaus and those who have done a tour or two in Iraq. Many of us sought to develop a COIN (counter-insurgency) strategy based on historically successful operations in Malaysia, Philippines, Kenya as well as failures in Vietnam.

Seek out FM 3-24, the manual developed by Petreaus and USMC General Mattis after their first deployment in Iraq.

Interesting reading:

http://www.usgcoin.org/library/doctrine/COIN-FM3-24.pdf

[Lumberjack]

Just one problem, his December 16 2007 data, which was supposed to show less prosperity (as reflected by the lights) was taken at 11:00 PM. All the other data sets were taken at 9:00 PM.

http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a41200

Fewer lights at 11PM than at 9PM ? Well, duh.

Never mind that his theory is based on just three snapshots in time. It's laughable: "Look fewer lights - must mean fewer Sunnis" Then he cheats on the time. Sheesh. Iraq is open 24 hours a day. You can go door to door now. You want to find out ethnic mix, you don't have to rely on observable lights over time.

Over time, which, I'm going to point out again, the mendacious professor cheated on.

[Barkley Rosser]

FB,

Casey can certainly be criticized, and more competent people were needed. But in what way did the Surge bring about the change of view of the Awakening? It was not US troops, it was US arms and monetary support that did that.

Again, you make good points, but much of this has to do with the details of how troops were being used, and could have been done without the surge.

[X Man]

Less than 2 weeks later and it looks like the Awakening is on shaky ground. Guess time will tell...