This is the end of the worst month so far for occupier casualties. More than 100 occupying soldiers died this month alone, bringing the total count to 509 (according to CNN), not counting mercenaries, spies, military contractors, diplomats, and Iraqi collaborators, all of which are much easier targets. Today the United States claimed to have killed 46 uniformed Iraqi soldiers, wounded 18 and captured 8, when they attacked an American convoy. On the one hand this sounds good for the Americans that they where so successful in this one engagement. On the other hand it also betrays the fact that the US Army was attacked by at least 72 regular soldiers in a country they are supposed to have under their control. 72 people isn't an urban guerrilla cell, its more like a traditional guerrilla platoon. No matter who the insurgents are, as of now they are a far more effective military force than the Iraqi Army was during the invasion.

The question for debate is: Is Iraq at the end of November an occupied country with a low level insurgency or is it a warzone with a guerrilla army. Is it fair to call these attacks "terrorist" as the Spanish gogovernmentust did, or are they just part of a war?

I see it as a low level insurgency. This is the first attack of this nature we have seen since the end of the actual war. This could be a case where they threw all thier marbles into one attack hoping to make a large imapct and instead it backfired. The previous attacks were less personal. When I say that I mean they were roadside bombs that were set and the perps left the scene so not to get caught. This incident was unlike what has been occuring. In my opinion it was something that some of the remnants of the Fedayeen hoped would be successful. I don't think its related to the more "terrorist" like activities that we've been seeing.

Well let's see...
the fact that these attackers and those who support them continue to be a tiny minority of Iraqis seems to bolster the "low-level insurgency" designation and the fact that a number of attacks have been perpetrated against Iraqis trying to rebuild their country in order to terrorize the populace, I'd say terrorists is dead on as well...

There is no reliable way to determine how popular the resistence or the occupation in Iraq is, any claims about that are just speculation.

The attacks on Iraqis (with the exeption of the assassination of Al-Hakim and his supporters and a few other incidents) have been aimed at collaborators with the occupation, mostly military targets (anyone who carries a weapon for a goverment or can issue orders to people who carry weapons for a goverment is certaintly a military target). How can you label any attack against a military target a terrorist attack...those are the people who are considered universially acceptable targets according to all laws and conventions of war.

If you want to talk about terrorizing the populace, how about the American "Operation Iron Hammer" (Which sounds like somthing thought up by the Nazi Luftwaffe because, it was) of reprisal attacks on the Iraqi populace? How about threatening Iraqi mayors with collective punishment in their cities if they can't stop the resistence? How about murdering the mayor of Saddam City, slaughtering 12 protestors in Mosul and firing into nearly every Iraq demonstration assembled since the fall of Baghdad? How about breaking into Iraqi homes at night to search for weapons and rounding up suspected political subversives? How about banning the Baath party and purging all of its members from the goverment, shooting journalists and raiding Al-Arabya?

Don't start with "terrorizing the populace"

Well clown, these all sound like very good tactics to me. The ones that are actually true that is. Those that are mere figments of your imagination are best left undisturbed.

Guerilla warfare as can be expected from folks who have nothing to lose and have no place in any new regime.

Compare this to Vietnam. A “war” that went on for many years and where the average death toll was about 200 a WEEK.

Low level insurgency. We would be seeing awar if we lose more than 1 or 2 a day. More like 20 or 30 a day and more than just roadside attacks. The incident from Suday afternoon is an example of a coordinated attack but was not well equipped intelligence and weapon wise to take on the firepower we had in teh convoy




Yes. They attack for the sole purpose of terrorizing those they are attacking. Terrorism is usually used to cause change. In the current cases like attacks on civilian establishments, it is meant to terrorize the people of iraq to make them stop supporting the Coalition

It is a low-level insurgency in which the bad guys use terrorist tactics against both military and civilian targets. Their targeting has been both tactical – the large number of IED’s primarily on the 350 miles of MSR on the Ramadi-Baghdad-Tikrit axis targeting primarily soft-bodied HMMWV’s; and strategic – attacks against the UN, foreign embassies, and coalition partners all designed to break up the coalition, dissuade other nations from participating and degrade political support for the US internationally and domestically.


No speculation. The Iraqi population is of many and varied opinions about the transition to a government of their choosing. However, it is quite clear that the vast majority of them are opposed to the insurgency. The bad guys are almost entirely composed of former regime thugs who have nowhere else to go. Their support mainly comes from a few Sunni tribes that were historically aligned with Saddam. This country is awash in weapons. We made the mistake of leaving several large weapons depots unguarded in the early days – resulting in the majority of them disappearing into the hands of the non-compliant. The bad guys don’t need much in the way of funding, and they don’t need anything in the way of weapons support – its all here.

Improvement in the basic standard of living is beginning to tell. Although slow to start, progress in rebuilding and renovating basic infrastructure has made great progress in recent months. Schools are open, shops are full, the new Iraqi dinar is flowing from hand to pocket and hand again. Contrary to comments made by another, there have been plenty of peaceful protests in Baghdad and at least one in Ramadi that I can personally attest to. Internet cafés, satellite dishes, and a proliferation of newspapers and other political rags of all types – all forbidden under Saddam – is now eagerly being reached for by everyone. Hell, I’ve passed mud-brick houses out in rural areas that are pirating electricity from main power lines to take advantage of the satellite dish mounted up on the roof. Although, all in all, the rural population is mostly carrying on as usual – most of the rebuilding/repair has been directed at the cities; which is where its really needed. The general populace is aware of the real danger to their new freedoms that the bad guys pose. The consensus is “we want the Americans to leave, but not right now.”

A majority of the country is basically stable. The only incidents are mostly in the Sunni Triangle and Mosul. That kinda takes away the theory that this is a quagmire/warzone that we can't win in.


TED:
Thank you for making a point that there were more than 200 deaths A WEEK in Vietnam then in Iraq which there was 100 dead a MONTH

This becoming more and more a warzone with each passing week. The death toll keeps rising for both sides and if we keep seeing more Iraqi's die, it seems to be an indication that more are fighting against us. The whole 200 a week vs. 100 a month thing doesn't really play into this. Our soldiers in Vietnam, while not a "war", were also dying at that rate when major combat was declared over.



Okay, I hate these guys as much as you but I would say their attacks are more then just terroizing our soldiers and us. They clearly want us to leave their country and allow them to re-instate Hussein. (To avoid confusion, I am not posting in support of this action.) You also say that they are attacking us for the sole purpose of terroizing the ones they attack then go on to say that terrorism is usually used to cause change. Which is it? Both those statements would seem to contradict each other.

I think you might be missing the point the terrorism tactics are targeted at the coalition (they are after all military personnel) but at the Iraqis.

They are attacking Iraqi civilians more and more now. They know they won't get us out but they figure that if they bomb and kill civilians, the civilians will get tired of our presence and ask us to leave so that the attacks on them will stop. That is how the attacks will bring change. It will get us out, preventing the Democracy we want.

And we LOST the Vietnam war because we fought it wrong. In Iraq we own the ground and the air and the last of the (old) Iraqi army is sneaking around sniping at us.

As we turn over control to the Iraqi army they will shoulder some and then all of the job of eliminating these “insurgents” and I am sure they will do it with ruthless efficiency.

Not all of the former Iraqi army members are fighting against us. I really think we should allow the former members of the army re-join. Firing them all was the worst move ever made.

I agree and we are doing just that now but we are keeping out the Baath Party loyalists who’s main objective would be to reinstate the former regime which conferred great power on these thugs.

In response to the topic -- thanks for the reminder, Jaime! -- I think the answer is "all of the above".

Watching what's happening and reading what our commanders in the field are saying, I'm starting to think that we're dealing with three groups, not one.

Group 1: the Fedaayean (however they spell it ), who are waging a low-level guerilla campaign and don't care at all when their fellow citizens get in the way, just as they didn't care about their fellow citizens when Saddam let them run roughshod over the population. These folks aren't into suicide bombings. These are the hit-and-run folks using small arms to attack convoys or individual vehicles.

Group 2: the Republican Guards that disappeared into the woodwork, who are also waging a low-level guerilla campaign, but are better coordinated and have access to the better weaponry. These folks are also not into suicide bombings. These are the ones who used a donkey cart to carry RPGs into an alley to fire at a hotel where US personnel were staying. These folks are were part of a better trained army, so they're more likely to want to limit civilian casualties.

Group 3: the al Qaeda folks who have come into the country from Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, etc. and who also don't care about the citizens and just want to create chaos. These folks are definitely into suicide bombings and are most likely the ones hitting the UN targets as well as the Red Cross, etc.

Now, I don't have solid links to back up this "division of labor", but it seems like we're seeing three different types of tactics used against us and I'm thinking it's by three different groups instead of all part of one large group.

Am I off base here?

I try to remember what was done right in this conflict. We brought two of the best trained, equipped, and supplied divisions in the world. The First Marine Div. and the Third Army, which makes so much more sense then tactics in Korea and Vietnam did. Remember that we didn't bother to invade Korea until the Army had been driven down to Pusan and couldn't break out with superior forces. That's when the Marines hit Inchon. Vietnam was itself protracted since we committed troops over years and there was never really any kind of an invasion. I really do have a point here, bear with me.

The invasion was a brilliant success but there are two things that must happen for success. Like it or not the Iraqi's resources have to be utilized to sustain the ongoing effort to subdue rouge elements. Second, that country desperately needs to build its infrastructure and that includes a change in the mentality of militant despotism. I personally don't see a Vietnam here and there is no chance of the old regime, whether the Bathe party or Sadam loyalists, returning to power. We definitely don't want the same problems Israel is having in Palestine so a long occupation would be suicide.



The war is over but the occupation will be by far the most costly aspect of this invasion. If I understand this the attacks are coming from pockets of resistance which brings up one more point. We at least didn't bomb them back into the stone age like we did in Vietnam so resistance will, or should, diminish over time. The trouble is the age old paradox of military intervention, "Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays." My point is simply this, we walk a fine line here between haste and long delays.

Sorry if this is off topic a little but I just happened to be reading The Art of War when I checked in and found the topic under discussion. I just couldn't resist.

It is still a war zone. With that number of casualties, I would not consider it merely a low-level insurgency. These actions are being undertaken by several factions.



When soft targets are taken out, I consider it cowardly, not worthy to be called the deeds of warriors. These are terrorist actions, not just part of a war.

When guerilla fighters engage armed troops which have the capability of giving back as good as they get and even better, then it is warfare.

I’m working over here, and I still believe it’s a low-level insurgency – not worse, not better.

The Fedayeen are a big part of the problem, but by no stretch of the imagination are they well-trained soldiers, nor were its members recruited for suicide missions. (By the way, don't worry about spelling, AMF, there is no standard system of transliteration from Arabic to Latin script - it's just done phonetically in most cases.) Most Fedayeen are young guys in their teens or early twenties. They tend to come from Saddam's hometown of Tikrit or from his al-Bu Nasir tribe. Prior to the war, they carried out intimidation patrols and anti-corruption campaigns against drug smuggling and prostitution, mainly in Mosul and Baghdad. Even now, Mosul is the only city outside the so-called Sunni Triangle with a sustatined (relatively) high level of contact between our guys and the insurgents.

Back under the old regime, the Fedayeen operated above the law and had the jurisdiction to perform executions, sometimes in front of the victims' homes. They were notorious for a campaign of beheading women during night time raids on the accusation that they were practicing prostitution. In reality, these women belonged to families hostile to the regime. Given this background, it is easy to see that these SOB’s will never fit back into Iraqi society – and they have nowhere else to go. They will fight to the end.

Out of all the former Iraqi military and security services, there are 3 others that have provided a big chunk of the crop of bad guys that we’re trying to nail down. The Special Security Directorate – which was the most powerful security agency under Saddam, responsible for monitoring even the Mukhabarat and the Special Republican Guard. The Mukhabarat – the Iraqi Intelligence Service – like the Fedayeen, was filled with men who had almost unlimited powers to collect information on, imprison, torture, and execute their own countrymen – another group of SOB’s which can not re-integrate into society. The Special Republican Guard is a little different – they were Saddam’s praetorians, conventional military forces charged with the special mission of guarding Saddam and his collection of palaces. Many of those guys are reintegrating into society – comparing them to the Mukhabarat is like comparing the Waffen SS to those SS troops who worked the concentration camps or perhaps the SD. But most of the key personnel are far too closely linked with Saddam and the regime to make the change.

The three organizations I’ve described have provided the bulk of personnel and the core cadre of experienced intel collectors and shooters for the insurgents.
The significance of the foreign fighters in actual operations is negligible.


The whole point of guerilla warfare is to engage enemy troops when they are not capable of giving back as good as they get. The ambush and raid, shoot and scoot, is the hallmark of the guerilla. If you can kill’em while they’re sleeping, eating or traveling – so much the better. As long as they’re killing troops – its warfare. Not pretty, glorious or honorable, but there you have it. It’s when they cross the line and intentionally target and kill civilians that everything changes.

Thank you for providing your observations and insight, Mustang. You're right; my mistake in suggesting that guerilla warfare would be conducted in any way resembling fair.

We're thinking a lot about the troops over there. I hope you're right in your assessment that it's still a low-level insurgency.

I happened across a definition that distinquishes between Guerrilla warfare and terrorism. If you follow the link you will find the definition quoted below. I liked it because it is almost identical to the distinction Mustang made between the Guerrilla and the terrorist. Its just a little more elaborate:



International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism

I have noticed that since the end of Ramadan, the number of troop deaths has lessened for now. I know that the month has just begun, but maybe this is a sign of calming storms.

I think, that from this conclusion, we can assume that what we are seeing in Iraq is a minor insurgency

actually...at the worst times...Vietnam saw casualties of over a thousand a day...

not deaths...but casualties...

however...the death toll was something in the range of 60,000 by the end of vietnam...and we are at 500?

Shows the difference between having a democrat, and republican in office.

Minor insurgency, made as big as it is only by domestic political opposition in the US, which Iraqs are quite aware of. It makes Iraqis who aren't loyal to Saddam and would like to move on very nervous because they're afraid we'll cut and run at some point, which whether they like us or not, they know would leave them to Saddam's tender mercies when he returns to power, which he would if that happened and he would not be gentle. OTOH, Iraqis who do want to restore Saddam and foreign terrorists working with them deliberately play on US public opinion and that of our allies in Iraq by trying to cause casualties expressly for the purpose of forcing a withdrawal by affecting our domestic politics. It's the only strategy left to them, since they're unable to cause enough casualties to be militarily significant, or to strike strategic objectives. But it is a strategy which can succeed ... but only against a democratic AND incompetent enemy. (Yes, that's what happened in Vietnam, which we did fight incompetently on the political level.)

What we should do about it is first to debureaucratize the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority, but the troops call it Can't Produce Anything) and force them to listen to the field commanders. All that change would take is a phone call from the White House. The next step is to accelerate the handover to Iraqis of the policing, counter-insurgency and government. There is a Karzai in Iraq somewhere. It's not up to us to find him, but we need to get a procedure in place for the Iraqis to find him ASAP.

The insurgency would be sputtering along at this rate no matter the domestic political climate in the US. The focus of the bad guys is to tear apart the coalition – to leave the US holding the bag alone, at which point they feel confident that domestic pressures would force an early pull out.

You misunderstand strategic objectives. In this case, the attacks on international and coalition targets in Iraq – the UN HQ bombing, the Jordanian and Turkish Embassies, the Italian compound, the Spanish intel team, the Japanese diplomats, etc. – are strategic targets, designed to rip apart the coalition and degrade international support for the US. Unfortunately, at this point our guys are in the unenviable position of being tactical targets – we’re everywhere (well, only in small numbers in the southeast) - and killing a few GI’s in a drive-by or an IED attack serves only tactical objectives at the moment.

The CPA is not the entity supposed to listen to the field commanders. LTG Sanchez, the commander of CJTF-7 is the senior decision-maker for military operations in country – he is the one they are talking to. In fact, he gives them an extraordinary amount of leeway in operations – no micromanagement. Sanchez has Bremer’s ear for whatever he needs to get done for the military.

Bremer and his fat bureaucracy at the CPA Baghdad are supposed to be tuned into the CPA representatives out at the 18 governorate CPA’s. They are mostly Department of State civilians – CPA Baghdad also gets feedback from the Governorate Support Teams (GSTs – mostly military, usually Civil Affairs) and Local Governance Teams (LGTs – USAID folks and contractors). A lot of the governorate CPA’s are left hanging, dependent upon their own resources, or what they can coordinate in the way of support with very little assistance from CPA Baghdad. That’s a problem.

That only works if they’re ready to take on that responsibility. Meaning, that we’ve trained and equipped them adequately for the task. So far, we’ve failed miserably – at least with the Iraqi police. That entire program needs to be revamped. Currently, a large number of Iraqi police are being trained by the Jordanians – it remains to be seen how effective that will be.

The new Iraqi Army is another element that has yet to be tested. I withhold judgment for the time being.

The procedure for transition to national elections has already been laid out – after having gone through several changes. And I have no doubt that it will be tweaked more as time goes on. If we rush to elections simply in order to depart Iraq as quickly as possible for our own convenience, this will ensure the failure of the democratic transition and continued violent instability. If the US pulls out before ensuring an honest and open transition to a democratically elected government, a return to the cycle of coup and counter-coup in the formation of governing regimes is most likely; as was the case with Iraq and Syria in the ‘50s and ‘60s.