The press conference on 19 September in which Tony Blair shared a podium with his Iraqi equivalent, Iyad Allawi, was significant for two quite different comments from the British prime minister.
First, Tony Blair described the current insurgency in Iraq as a war in a way that made a key distinction: between the March-April 2003 war that terminated the Saddam Hussein regime and this new war between anti-democratic terrorist elements and the Allawi-led, coalition-supported government of Iraq.
Second, Blair placed this new war in Iraq firmly in the context of the wider war on terror.
These comments serve two purposes for the British leader: to emphasise the need to leave past differences behind, and to make it clear that since this is now a war, then it must be won and won decisively. In this sense, his words represent a sort of pre-emptive strike against dissident elements of his own Labour party ahead of its annual party conference in Brighton from 26-30 September 2004.
In contrast to Blairs tough language, Iyad Allawi attempted to present the Iraqi insurgents actions as reflecting their increasing desperation; in this perspective, their increasingly violent tactics are indicators not of greater effectiveness but of the opposite.
This contrast is no surprise, as Iyad Allawi has very different aims from Tony Blair. The Iraqi leader needs to stress that his government is capable of controlling the insurgency, especially if more international assistance is provided. In such circumstances, he may be able to convince other governments to increase their military support, or at least stop further withdrawals of their forces from Iraq.
Allawi is also directing his words very much at American domestic audiences, and here he is no doubt working in close alliance with the George W Bush administration. As the situation in Iraq becomes more precarious in the midst of the United States presidential campaign, it is even more important for Washington to emphasise progress and minimise difficulties. The Iraqi leader serves the valuable purpose for the US of appearing to represent the legitimate government of the country, despite the fact that his is essentially a client regime appointed by the Bush administration.
The United Statess intense concern with the election means that its forces are unlikely to engage in major military initiatives in Iraq before November, unless there is a sudden surge in violence. The US will continue to bomb Iraqi urban centres, and counter particular manifestations of the insurgency, but (for example) it will avoid sustained efforts to seize control of Fallujah and other key cities in their enemies hands.
But this relative short-term restraint does not signal any longer-term preparation for any kind of US exit strategy. Instead, there are numerous indications that the US is determined to launch a counter-insurgency offensive against insurgent strongholds during the early part of the 2004-05 winter.
This prognosis of a major and ongoing Iraq war stretching beyond the 2004 American election confirms the view of Tony Blair, although it is by no means clear that in the event his own government will commit additional troops over a sustained period. Indeed, some elements of this government harbour grave doubts about the viability of US policy in Iraq; they also display a greater awareness of the need to support stable political change in another theatre of the war on terror: Afghanistan.
This latter concern is highlighted by the attempted assassination of one of Hamid Karzais four vice-presidents, Nematullah Shahrani, on 20 September. This incident closely followed another aborted effort to kill the Afghan president himself. Moreover, recent reports of Natos difficulty in meeting its Afghanistan commitments give further weight to voices within the British government who argue that Afghanistan, not Iraq, should be the main focus of its military assistance (see Craig S. Smith NATO Runs Short of Troops to Expand Afghan Peacekeeping, New York Times, 18 September 2004).
The US military: no respite
But for the United States, it is Iraq that promises to be the pivotal test of its war on terror strategy, and the next six months are likely to be decisive in demonstrating either the USs ability to control the insurgency or its entrapment in a situation that is becoming progressively more untenable. In this context, three significant current developments have to be considered the level of US casualties, unease within some sectors of the US armed forces, and particular aspects of the insurgency that are getting very little recognition in the western media.
First, American casualties in Iraq have risen sharply between July and September 2004. Sixty-two soldiers were killed and 500 wounded in the first twenty-two days of September, the worst period since the intense fighting of April around Fallujah.
It is also becoming clear that the official presentation of overall casualty figures is misleading. Estimates that over 1,000 US personnel have been killed and 7,000 wounded in Iraq exclude the numbers evacuated from the country for non-combat injuries and illness; that figure is now almost 17,000 since March 2003 with over 5,000 soldiers evacuated due to mental illness, including 800 who were diagnosed as psychotic (see Mark Benjamin, Press Reports on U.S. Casualties: About 17,000 Short, UPI Says, 15 September 2004). In short, in the first eighteen months of the war, 25,000 members of the United States armed forces in Iraq have been killed, injured or evacuated for medical reasons.
The level of evacuations in particular is indicative of the pressures the US armed forces are now experiencing. The second important current development is that these pressures are now being expressed in serious unease, especially among reservists now being called up for long-term service.
A reserve unit battalion of the South Carolina national guard, recently subject to an accelerated training schedule to prepare them for military police work in Iraq, provides one example. The soldiers were drawn hurriedly together from various units, and during two months training in the US homeland received only thirty-six hours leave; they were then sent on a potential eighteen-month deployment doing one of the more dangerous jobs in Iraq, guarding military convoys that carry supplies from northern Kuwait through southern Iraq.
The result among this particular unit was deep dissatisfaction. Thirteen soldiers went absent without leave (mainly to see their families); fighting broke out among the rest, and the entire battalion of 635 soldiers was placed on a disciplinary lockdown confined to barracks for two weeks and allowed to go outside only for drill. Most remained confined until the moment the battalion embarked for Iraq (see Thomas E Ricks, A Familiar Strain Is Felt in Stateside Guard Unit, Washington Post, 19 September 2004).
The insurgency: no end
The third significant development is that in Iraq itself the insurgency continues to gather strength. There are scores of attacks each day on US troops; car-bombings and kidnappings continue; the insurgents retain control of several towns and cities; and almost 1,000 Iraqi police and new recruits have been killed in the past eighteen months. Many aspects of these events are unreported in most of the western media; two are especially notable the systematic assassination of university staff and the targeting of people working for American forces.
The Iraqi union of university lecturers estimate that as many as 250 academics have been murdered since the war began, many of them senior professors in key disciplines like law. The exact figure is difficult to corroborate, but there are frequent reports of assassinations, including on 28 August the head of the translation department at Mosul University, Imam Abdul-Munim Younis.
The attempts to damage Iraqs intellectual potential extends beyond the universities; on 20-21 September, two senior members of the Association of Muslim Scholars were murdered in separate incidents. The association, influential among Sunni Muslims and regarded as conservative in outlook, is strongly opposed to the US presence and has been able to engage in negotiations with some kidnap groups for the release of foreign hostages.
The targeting of people working for the US forces, a feature of the insurgency for many months, has recently accelerated. A particular group that is singled out for murder is interpreters; forty-five have been assassinated in Baghdad alone in the first nine months of 2004, with many more in other parts of Iraq.
There is no clear indication as to whether insurgents at a national level are coordinating attacks on interpreters, university staff and others. The disjointed nature of the insurgency makes this unlikely, but it is possible that a range of insurgent groups across Iraq share a common perception that it is appropriate to take these brutal actions in order to make it more difficult for the country to recover under its present rulers.
The combination of these three trends US casualties, military unease, and a bitter and accelerating insurgency is that a re-elected Bush administration is highly likely to take exceptionally tough measures during the coming winter to attempt to block a further escalation of the insurgency.
If such measures were to fail, many more American troops would be required, raising in turn the extraordinary possibility that the draft might be reintroduced early in Bushs second term. It is quite rational to expect that a post-November 2004 Bush administration where the neo-conservatives retained their influence would foreshadow a confrontation in Iraq that really would evoke memories of Vietnam.
