A Blessed Quiet For U.S. In Iraq
December: A month without American combat deaths.
It’s a milestone worth celebrating and worthy of optimism: For the first time since U.S. forces invaded Iraq nearly seven years ago, a month has come and gone with no American combat deaths. The absence of casualties in December boosts hopes that the United States can stick to its announced timetable of pulling out all forces by the end of 2011.
The figure last month is almost certainly a blip, but the numbers of fatalities have been trending downward in the past few years. In 2009, 150 service members died in combat, the lowest for a year since the war began in March 2003, according to www.icasualties.org. That was less than half of the number for 2008, when 314 servicemen and servicewomen fell.
Does this mean Iraq has achieved a level of stability that’s sustainable?
Given the ebb and flow of war, it is unlikely. Attacks on Iraqi civilians, troops and security forces still occur with frustrating frequency. Since Jan. 1, for example, news reports have noted car and roadside bombings and shootings that have left several people dead.
The prognosis is still hopeful, however. Iraqi government officials said 3,454 Iraqis died last year, the lowest total since the start of the war. The U.S. troop surge, which former President George W. Bush initiated three years ago, helped tamp down an insurgency. Some 110,000 U.S. troops remain today; that number should drop to 50,000 by August.
It will be up to the Iraqi people – Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds – to continue to forge workable, conflict-free relationships. That could still take years, even decades. Ultimately, that will determine the future of Iraq.
One looming issue for the United States: What will be the relationship between the U.S. and Iraqi governments and their people?
Some Iraqis, for example, are incensed by the news that five guards from Blackwater USA won’t face criminal prosecution for the shooting deaths of 17 civilians at Nisoor Square in 2007. In the end, how many Iraqis will remember America as liberators? How many will view us as invaders? Those are hard questions, especially as the U.S. government still has a role to play in buttressing Iraq’s own leadership.
Overall, the news from Iraq is positive, though it has been obscured by the renewed focus and deteriorating conditions in Afghanistan.
The end date for major troop involvement in Iraq approaches. We owe an unpayable debt to the men and women who have deployed to Iraq repeatedly, to their families, to those wounded and to those who lost their lives there. Unfortunately for those who have given so much already, there is hard work remaining.
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