Surge in Mosul reduces violence by 85 %

AP/Washington Post:

The number of daily attacks in Mosul has dropped at least 85 percent since U.S.-Iraqi forces began an offensive against Sunni insurgents in the city earlier this month, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq said Wednesday.

Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling said U.S. and Iraqi forces have not met fierce resistance since the operation began on May 10. He attributed this mostly to the large numbers of troops on the streets, an initial curfew, extensive preparations and construction of new checkpoints.

Iraqi commanders have said some al-Qaida fighters fled in advance of the operation, meaning they would be able to fight another day.

But Hertling said he did not believe many had escaped and that some who had been in regions outside Mosul before the crackdown were moving toward the city to take up the battle. He said intelligence indicates "many of their leaders have been pushing fighters to Mosul because they see it as a critical fight as well."

"We anticipate there will be some attacks by the enemy once they come out of this initial phase of being surprised within the city," he told reporters during a news conference in Baghdad. "We anticipate that there might be car bombs, suicide vests or things like that."

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Hertling said 1,200 suspected militants have been captured in the offensive, with some 200 believed to be members of "terrorist organizations," adding his forces were monitoring some 13 insurgent groups.

He said much of the city of 1.9 million people was under control, although three unspecified neighborhoods remain volatile. Attacks in the city have dropped from an average of about 40 per day in the week before the operation began to the current figure of four or six per day, he said.

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Hertling indicated he expects more female human bomb attacks as the enemy situation becomes more desperate. I have often made the argument for the importance of the an adequate force to space ratio in counterinsurgency operations and the action in Mosul appears to confirm that thesis. The surge of troops into Iraq, to use the counterinsurgency strategy has made a remarkable difference over the last 12 months. The Democrats were dead wrong in their response to the surge and they should be paying a political price for that, but they have not yet.

It is a mistake for the administration to not hit them on this point. The strategic significance of defeat an insurgency is too important to be left to the whims of an oppositional media and a political adversary with a desperation for defeat.