WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

The reason I have always gone after this is because it has never been placed in the proper perspective. And here it is again. Click to CNN's "Main Iraq page" and then click on "RELATED Interactive: U.S. casualties in Iraq", and an "interactive" window opens, telling us:

Since fighting began on March 19, 2003, nearly 1,700 coalition troops -- including more than 1,500 U.S. troops -- have lost their lives in the conflict in Iraq. Thousands of others have been wounded both on and off the battlefield. List of U.S. and coalition casualties.

President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, though guerrilla resistance in Iraq has continued to claim lives and headlines almost daily.

Click through the gallery to see the human cost of the war charted by country, race, age and gender.

Seems reasonable enough, of course.

However, click on "2003" and notice March and April. 94 fatalities as a result of hostile action, for the entire six weeks. (Remember, the campaign did not begin until March 19, so that is only 12 days in March.) As we know, the Coalition reached Baghdad within three weeks, and the Saddamite regime crumbled. And full of swaggering hubris, the President declared -- all together now! -- "major combat operations in Iraq have ended" on May 1, 2003.

Arrogant, right? After all, every other hostile U.S. death (over 1,400) has naturally happened since, right? Clearly, then, "major operations" had not ended? Stupid man, right?

No, it was not stupid because the view that has been attributed to him is not what was meant. Indeed, let's go back -- again -- and quote what Bush himself said at the time:

. . . Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. . .

And note further on:

. . . We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. . .

That is what has happened, more or less. Vitally, what has been so shocking is NOT the slightly more than 1,400 total deaths since May 1, 2003, but that there were ONLY 94 combat deaths before. For what should have happened between March and May 2003 simply didn't. On April 10, 2003, CNN told us:

. . . The Iraqi government [meaning the Saddamite regime] has released no information on military losses, though U.S. military officials have reported thousands of Iraqi military deaths. Official Iraqi sources quoted by Abu Dhabi TV say 1,252 civilians have died and 5,103 have been wounded. U.S. Central Command says more than 7,000 Iraqis have been taken prisoner of war.

Only 7,000 prisoners, from an army the size of Saddam's? That's absurd. There should have been tens of thousands -- even hundreds of thousands.

But that lack of prisoners makes sense for this reason. From almost the moment the Iraqi army found itself in combat against the Coalition, it began to melt away. The conscript soldiers, whenever possible, took off their uniforms and simply went home. What fighting there was tended to take place not between Coalition and Iraqi army formations, but with relatively smallish numbers of Saddamist fanatics, especially the Republican Guard and the "Fedayeen". (Remember them?)

But it didn't have to be that way. Given the history and nature of the Saddamite regime, it would not have been surprising if the likes of CNN would have been reporting in this manner, from March to May 2003. That they didn't have to . . . we should thank God (or whatever deity you might or might not choose to worship, completely of your own free will of course):

Updated: 05:14 a.m. EST (10:14 GMT) May 1, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Defense Department stated yesterday that U.S. and Coalition losses have been some 9,000 killed and 43,000 wounded, since the surprise launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom on March 19.

U.S. Central Command has estimated that perhaps 60,000-70,000 Iraqi soldiers have been killed, and some quarter of million wounded. The Iraqi government has released no information on military losses.

Official Iraqi sources quoted by Abu Dhabi TV now say 100,000 civilians have died and a quarter million or more have been injured, but there is no way to independently verify such figures. U.S. Central Command says more than 200,000 Iraqis have been taken as prisoners of war, and that large numbers of Saddam's Republican Guard have also been captured. U.S. Central Command says at least 12,000 of Saddam's Republican Guard have been killed and an unknown number wounded. According to sources inside the Pentagon, many have fought to the death.

3rd U.S. Infantry Division has suffered so heavily in the fighting around Baghdad that it has already been withdrawn and replaced by a new division, according to U.S. Central Command. U.S. commanders have been impressed, but not surprised, by the determined Iraqi resistance. However, the counterattack by the Hammurabi Division -- which General Franks, head of Central Command, now admits caught U.S. ground commanders off guard -- was contained by U.S. forces only after some difficulty.

Even so, the campaign's outcome itself has never been in any doubt, according to the Pentagon. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a source in the Pentagon told CNN that it is believed that Saddam's forces will continue to fall back to the north and to the west, and make another stand. U.S. commanders hope however that sharp moves against those remaining parts of the Republican Guard and regular army may bring the end into sight. . .

Had such happened, it would seem very unlikely we would be discussing an "insurgency" today -- because there probably wouldn't be one. The reason is clear. In the quick collapse of the regime, and the abandonment of the battlefield by most of the army, the elements most determined to fight were unable to do so. It then took them several months after the collapse -- a failure that made French resistance to the German onslaught of May-June 1940 look like France had fought to the last man -- to re-organize for small scale operations. Large ones (like those fictionalized above) were beyond them in March and April, and would remain so.

The main reason for such may be pretty straightforward. During March-April 2003, those fanatical elements had not suffered horrific losses of a sort that would have prevented the rise of the "insurgency". (And in the face of thousands killed, the U.S. might have behaved even "tougher" in the face of any jihadists who might have thought to come join the battle alongside Saddam.) So, instead of their being killed on the "front end" at the campaign's opening, they slinked off to fight again on the current "back end". Thus U.S. and Coalition forces, rather than killing and capturing the "hardliners" in the thousands early on, instead have had to try to kill them piecemeal in the months afterwards, right up to the present.

It is important to bear in mind that Baathism is modelled on Nazism. So comparing them is perfectly reasonable. By 1945, millions of German men had been killed. And the most fanatical (the SS) had also been killed in the hundreds of thousands. With those dead or behind Allied wire, coupled with the deaths and incapacitations of millions of others, the stomach for continuing the war was clearly lacking. Therefore, any hopes Hitler and any remaining diehard leaders had had of creating an "insurgency" after the Allies had overrun Germany came to nothing at least partly because most of the "best" fighters needed for that "insurgency" were dead already.

Now, instead of looking back on the horrible deaths of thousands of American and Coalition troops in just a few months in early to mid 2003, the total has been a little more than 1,500 U.S. troops . . . over nearly two years. And had a "big battle" come to pass in 2003, that there would have undoubtedly been a far greater number of Iraqi civilian deaths than even the highest disputed numbers tossed around currently, almost goes without saying. Fortunately, those civilians were spared that.

So, 1,500 killed over nearly two years? Or perhaps thousands more killed had the Saddamite regime fought in the manner in which it might have been expected to have fought? Both choices stink, but after considering the latter that might, and indeed probably should have happened but didn't (especially given that the U.S. and the Coalition had all but forfeited strategic surprise -- the entire world knew the attack was coming in March about when it did, thanks mostly to the idiocy at the UN), and that a peaceful and eventually democratic Iraq is now a distinct possibility, claims that the campaign has been a "failure" are way off the mark.  ¶ by Robert, Friday, March 04, 2005