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Iraq Study Group report and Saddam’s execution
Saddam Hussein moments before being hanged.
The Iraq Study Group Report was released on December 6, 2006. The
bipartisan Iraq Study Group was led by former secretary of state
James Baker and former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, and
concludes that "the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating"
and "U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no
foreseeable end." The report's 79 recommendations include increasing
diplomatic measures with Iran and Syria and intensifying efforts to
train Iraqi troops. On December 18, a Pentagon report found that
attacks on Americans and Iraqis were averaging about 960 a week, the
highest since the reports had begun in 2005.
Coalition forces formally transferred control of a province to the
Iraqi government, the first since the war. Military prosecutors
charged 8 Marines with the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha
in November 2005, 10 of them women and children. Four officers were
also charged with dereliction of duty in relation to the event.
Saddam Hussein was hanged on December 30, 2006 after being found
guilty of crimes against humanity by an Iraqi court, after a
year-long trial.
2007: U.S. troop surge
Further information: 2007 in Iraq and Iraq War troop surge of 2007
In a January 10, 2007 televised address to the American public, Bush
proposed 21,500 more troops for Iraq, a job program for Iraqis,
more reconstruction proposals, and $1.2 billion for these programs.
Asked why he thought his plan would work this time, Bush said:
"Because it has to." On January 23, 2007 in the 2007 State of
the Union Address, Bush announced "deploying reinforcements of more
than 20,000 additional soldiers and Marines to Iraq." On February
10, 2007 David Petraeus was made commander of Multi-National Force -
Iraq (MNF-I), the four-star post that oversees all U.S. forces in
the country, replacing General George Casey. In his new position,
Petraeus has overseen all coalition forces in Iraq and employed them
in the new "Surge" strategy outlined by the Bush administration.
2007 also saw a sharp increase in insurgent chlorine bombings.
Chart summarizing Department of Defense data regarding U.S. military
personnel that were killed in action or died of their wounds (red
line) and that were killed as a result of an accident or for "other"
reasons (orange line). However, maintaining higher troop
levels in the face of higher casualties required two changes in the
army. Tours of duty were increased and the exclusions of volunteers
with a history of criminal acts were relaxed. A defense department
sponsored report described increased length of tours leading to
higher stress which increase manifestations of anger and disrespect
for civilians. Statistics released in April indicated that more and
more soldiers have been deserting their duty, a sharp rise from the
years before.
British Land Rover Wolfs on patrol around Basra. Pressures on U.S.
troops were compounded by the continuing withdrawal of British
forces from the Basra Governorate. In early 2007, British Prime
Minister Tony Blair announced that following Operation Sinbad UK
troops would begin to withdraw from Basra, handing security over to
the Iraqis. This announcement was confirmed in the Autumn by
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Blair's successor, who again outlined a
withdrawal plan for the remaining UK forces with a complete
withdrawal date sometime in late 2008. In July Danish Prime
Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen also announced the withdrawal of 441
Danish troops from Iraq, leaving only a unit of nine soldiers
manning four observational helicopters.
Planned troop reduction
In a speech made to Congress on September 10, 2007, General David
Petraeus "envisioned the withdrawal of roughly 30,000 U.S. troops by
next summer, beginning with a Marine contingent [in September]."
On September 14, President Bush backed a limited withdrawal of
troops from Iraq. Bush said 5,700 personnel would be home by
Christmas 2007, and expected thousands more to return by July 2008.
The plan would take troop numbers back to their level before the
surge at the beginning of 2007. Some controversy has arisen due to
the fact that former secretary of state Colin Powell announced
before the surge took place that there would have to be a draw down
of troops by mid-2007.
Effects of the surge on security
U.S. soldiers take cover during a firefight with insurgents in the
Al Doura section of Baghdad March 7, 2007By mid-March 2007, violence
in Baghdad was reported by US sources close to the military as
having been curtailed by 80%; however, independent reports
have raised questions about such assessments. An Iraqi military
spokesman claims that civilian deaths since the start of the troop
surge plan were 265 in Baghdad, down from 1,440 in the four previous
weeks. The New York Times has found more than 450 Iraqi civilians
were killed during the same 28-day period, based on initial daily
reports from Interior Ministry and hospital officials. Historically,
the daily counts tallied by the NYT have underestimated the total
death toll by 50% or more when compared to studies by the United
Nations, which rely upon figures from the Iraqi Health Ministry and
morgue figures.
Also, the rate of American combat deaths in Baghdad over the first
seven weeks of the "surge" security escalation has nearly doubled
from the previous period to a rate of 3.14/day.
An Iraqi woman looks on as U.S. soldiers search her house in
Ameriyah, Iraq. House searches by U.S. soldiers are a common
occurrence in the Iraq war. Despite a massive security crackdown in
Baghdad associated with the surge in coalition troop strength, the
monthly death toll in Iraq rose 15% in March. 1,869
Iraqi civilians were killed and 2,719 were wounded in March,
compared to 1,646 killed and 2,701 wounded in February. In March,
165 Iraqi policemen were killed against 131 the previous month,
while 44 Iraqi soldiers died compared to 29 in February. US military
deaths in March were nearly double those of the Iraqi army, despite
US claims that Iraqi forces led the security crackdown in Baghdad.
The death toll among insurgent militants fell to 481 in March,
compared to 586 killed in February; however, the number of arrests
jumped to 5,664 in March against 1,921 in February.
Three months after the start of the surge, troops controlled less
than a third of the capital, far short of the initial goal,
according to an internal military assessment completed in May 2007.
Violence was especially chronic in mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhoods
in western Baghdad. Improvements had not yet been widespread or
lasting across Baghdad.
On August 14, 2007 the deadliest single attack of the whole war
occurred. Over 500 civilians were killed by a series of coordinated
suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Qahtaniya.
More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. US
officials blamed al-Qaeda in Iraq. The targeted villagers belong to
the non-Muslim Yazidi ethnic minority. The attack may represent the
latest spasm in a blood feud that erupted earlier this year when
members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl
called Du’a Khalil Aswad accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and
converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on
camera-mobiles and the video was downloaded onto the internet.
On September 13, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed in a bomb attack
in the city of Ramadi. He was an important US ally because he led
the "Anbar Awakening", an alliance of Sunni Arab tribes that rose up
against al-Qaeda in Iraq. The latter organisation claimed
responsibility for the attack. A statement posted on the
Internet by the shadowy Islamic State of Iraq called Abu Risha "one
of the dogs of Bush" and described Thursday's killing as a "heroic
operation that took over a month to prepare".
Graph of US Fatalities in Iraq by month. The reported decline in
violence has been highlighted in red. There has been a
reported trend of decreasing US troop deaths since May of 2007, and
violence against coalition troops has fallen to the "lowest levels
since the first year of the American invasion". These,
and several other positive developments, have been attributed to the
surge by many analysts. However, there is anecdotal evidence
that a trend by troops to conduct "search and avoid" missions in
place of "search and destroy" may also be playing a small part.
Data from the Pentagon and other US agencies such as the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) found that daily attacks against
civilians in Iraq have remained “about the same” since February. The
GAO also stated that there was no discernible trend in sectarian
violence. However, this report runs counter to the most
recent report to Congress, which shows a general downward trend in
civilian deaths and ethno-sectarian violence since December 2006.
In late 2007, as the U.S. troop surge began to wind down, violence
in Iraq had begun to decrease from its 2006 highs. However,
political progress remained slow as the Shia-Kurd coalition
government continued to stall on any significant progress on the
host of issues facing Iraq.
In the Shia region near Basra, British forces turned over security
for the region to Iraqi Security Forces as conditions there have
stabilized over recent months. Basra is the ninth province of Iraq's
18 provinces to be returned to local security forces' control since
the beginning of the war.
Political developments
Official Iraq-benchmark of the Congress 2007More than half of the
members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of
their country for the first time. 144 of the 275 lawmakers signed
onto a legislative petition that would require the Iraqi government
to seek approval from parliament before it requests an extension of
the U.N. mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq expiring at the
end of 2007. It also calls for a timetable for the troop withdrawal
and a freeze on the size of the foreign forces. The U.N. Security
Council mandate for U.S.-led forces in Iraq will terminate "if
requested by the government of Iraq." Under Iraqi law, the
speaker must present a resolution called for by a majority of
lawmakers. 59% of those polled in the U.S. support a timetable
for withdrawal.
In mid-2007, the Coalition began a controversial program to recruit
Iraqi Sunnis for the formation of "Guardian" militias. These
Guardian militias are intended to support and secure various Sunni
neighborhoods unable to provide internal security themselves.
Tensions with Iran
Further information: United States-Iran relations and Karbala
provincial headquarters raid
During 2007, tensions increased greatly between Iran and Iraqi
Kurdistan due to its sanctuary given to the militant anti-Iranian
group Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan(PEJAK). According to
reports, Iran has been shelling PEJAK positions in Iraqi Kurdistan
since August 16th. These tensions further increased with an alleged
border incursion on August 23rd by Iranian troops who attacked
several Kurdish villages killing an unknown number of civilians and
militants.
Coalition forces also began to target alleged Iranian Quds force
operatives in Iraq, either arresting or killing suspected members.
The Bush administration and coalition leaders began to publicly
state that Iran was supplying weapons, particularly EFP devices, to
Iraqi insurgents and militias. Further sanctions on Iranian
organizations were also announced by the Bush administration in the
Autumn of 2007. On November 21 2007 Lieutenant General James Dubik,
who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces, praised Iran for
it's "contribution to the reduction of violence" in Iraq by
upholding it's pledge to stop the flow of weapons, explosives and
training of extremists in Iraq.
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