Doug Lorimer
"The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point in time", an unnamed "senior" US defence department official, speaking "off the record", told the August 16 New York Times.
The comment was cited in a NYT article that reported that the latest figures the paper had obtained from the Pentagon showed the "number of daily strikes against American and Iraqi security forces has doubled since January" and is now at "historically high levels".
The Western corporate media, particularly TV news reports, intentionally convey the impression that the Iraq war, now into its fourth year, consists mainly of "sectarian violence" between Iraqi "Shiite militias" and "Sunni insurgents". However, the NYT reported that Pentagon figures show that 90% of "insurgent attacks" are directed against the 148,000 US-led foreign occupation troops and Washington's puppet Iraqi security forces.
The NYT reported that while "the number of Americans killed in action per month has declined slightly — to 38 killed in action in July, from 42 in January, in part reflecting improvements in armor and other defenses — the number of Americans wounded has soared, to 518 in July from 287 in January. Explosive devices accounted for slightly more than half the deaths.
"An analysis of the 1666 [roadside and car] bombs that exploded in July shows that 70 percent were directed against the American-led military forces. Twenty percent struck Iraqi security forces, up from 9 percent in 2005."
The highest number of US casualties continues to be recorded in Iraq's western Anbar province, particularly in and around its capital Ramadi. Associated Press reported on August 16 that "of the 23 US troops who have died this month in Iraq, 16 of them were in Anbar".
"The US military has pinned its hopes on the development of Iraqi forces", AP added. "Thousands of Iraqi soldiers have flowed into Anbar over the past year and are expected to soon take over key terrain such as Fallujah. But commanders say it's a struggle to keep soldiers stationed in Anbar — thousands have deserted after being given orders here or shortly after arriving."
The August 6 Los Angeles Times reported that while US commanders publicly claim to be "making progress" in their two-month-old "slow-motion" offensive against Iraqi resistance fighters in Ramadi, defeating the resistance movement has proved elusive. This is despite the deployment of 4000 US Army and 900 US Marine Corps soldiers in and around the city, which is located 110 kilometres west of Baghdad and normally has 400,000 residents.
The LA Times reported that Iraqi resistance fighters "are increasingly operating in small units, with two men serving as spotters and others firing weapons or setting off bombs.
"Marine officers say some of the insurgent teams coordinate their attacks with other groups of fighters using pigeons ... In Ramadi, such coordinated attacks occur many times a day."
The paper reported that the "danger of the complex attacks, along with the rising heat, has forced the Americans to put a stop to most daytime patrols. Instead, they roam the streets after sunset, when their night-vision goggles give them an advantage."
The US military's response to resistance attacks is to use air strikes and tank fire to completely demolish the residential buildings from which the attacks occur. The August 2 Stars and Stripes Mideast edition, for example, reported that in response to an Iraqi sniper attack on a pre-dawn US armoured patrol in Ramadi, the US soldiers fired a round from one of their 70-tonne Abrams tanks into the building from which the lone shot came.
"We fired one round and then we waited for the smoke to clear", tank gunner Michael Ford told the paper. "A few minutes later we put another one into the middle of the building."
Stars and Stripes reported that as Ford's tank left the area, US Army Captain Michael Bajema "ordered another three rounds fired from his own tank, gutting the structure".
"There's a psychological effect of going into an area the enemy owns and causing so much damage. I think that will pay dividends", Bajema was quoted as saying.
On August 12, Reuters reported that US troops in Ramadi "were attacked at multiple locations with rocket-propelled grenades, medium machine-gun fire and small arms fire from buildings targeting [US military] outposts in the northwest portion of the city".
That same day's edition of Stars and Stripes admitted that the US military offensive in Ramadi "has been a costly one. More than 30 soldiers, marines and special operations personnel have been killed in the fighting in the last two months" — almost half of all US troop fatalities in Iraq over that period.