The Capital Wire: UNFAVORABLE TRENDS

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Tom Lasseter and Jonathan S. Landay - Knight Ridder Newspapers (thank you Brad Delong for the link):

“The unfavorable trends of the war are clear:

- U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts have risen from an average of about 17 per month just after President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, to an average of 71 per month.

- The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 708 during the same period. Iraqi civilians have suffered even more deaths and injuries, although reliable statistics aren't available.

- Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when statistics were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 in October. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the multinational forces' deputy operations director, told Knight Ridder on Friday that attacks were currently running at 75 a day, about 2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during the assault on Fallujah, but nearly as high as October's total.

- The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero in the first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13.3 per month. - Electricity production has been below pre-war levels since October, largely because of sabotage by insurgents, with just 6.7 hours of power daily in Baghdad in early January, according to the State Department.

- Iraq is pumping about 500,000 barrels a day fewer than its pre-war peak of 2.5 million barrels per day as a result of attacks, according to the State Department.

"All the trend lines we can identify are all in the wrong direction," said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research organization. "We are not winning, and the security trend lines could almost lead you to believe that we are losing."

These unfavorable trends are reminiscent of that earlier war nearly 40 years ago. Certain “efficiency” measures (measures of success) used by military planners during Vietnam such as the “net body count” (N. Vietnamese Army + Vietcong killed, missing or captured in action, less American forces + S. Vietnamese Army killed, MIA/CIA) and the “kill ratio” (N. Vietnamese Army + Vietcong killed, MIA/CIA divided by American forces + S. Vietnamese Army killed, MIA/CIA), deteriorated rapidly after hitting a high point in 1968, while eventually falling negative in 1971, as pointed out in Niall Ferguson’s Colossus. According to Ferguson, over the entire period of the conflict the U.S inflicted higher absolute numbers of casualties on N. Vietnamese and Vietcong than were suffered by American and S. Vietnamese forces – but as the U.S presence was scaled back and the American public’s tolerance to bear further U.S casualties diminished, the odds tipped in favor of the insurgents.

Clearly, U.S presence in Iraq has not been scaled down and remains a focal point within the administration, while public support is waning though not overwhelmingly so. What proves exceedingly worrisome is the fact that while additional resources are being poured in (w/ an additional $80 billion requested), efficiency numbers are deteriorating.

--UK