Lots of current reporting talks about how October is our worst month in almost two years. In 43 months since the invasion, only three other months have been
worse (as measured by US troop fatalities). If four more of us die between now and midnight, I'll have to update the preceding sentence to say "two other months" instead of "three other months."
There's also fairly ample reporting of the fact that our recent push to secure Baghdad was a miserable failure.
However, I think few are noticing that this is happening at the exact moment that troop levels are increasing sharply. Moreover, this is exactly the time when troop levels were supposed to be going down.
We invaded with about 140,000 troops. For
much of the time we've been there, our troop-count has been about that level. In June, the count was 127,000, and expected to drop (
6/22/06):
SEC. RUMSFELD: ... right now, I think we have 126,900 or something -- it's come down from a high of 160(,000) ...
GEN. CASEY: ... we've gone from when the baseline was 138(,000); we're down to about 126(,000) right now. ... I think there will be continued gradual reductions here as the Iraqis take on a larger and larger role. ...
Q ... do you still feel confident that the level of troops that are there now could come down by the end of the year, or has this complex security situation sort of obscured your vision as to what's possible this year?
GEN. CASEY: I'm confident that we'll be able to continue to take reductions over the course of this year ... [emphasis added]
Fast-forward about 12 weeks. How are those "reductions" going? Oops (9/13/06):
Troop levels in Iraq have topped 147,000, a big jump over the number of troops deployed there over the last several months, but Pentagon officials say it's only a temporary spike as commands change over.
The number of U.S. troops in Iraq as of Sept. 13 marks a 16 percent increase over the number of troops reported by the Pentagon in late July, when it was around 127,000.
OK, that big jump was just a "temporary spike." So let's fast-forward another 6 weeks or so, to now. That "temporary spike" was undoubtedly in its "last throes," right? Oops (10/30/06):
... the Pentagon said the US force in Iraq has grown to 150,000 troops, the biggest it has been since January. ... A Pentagon spokesman attributed the growth to overlapping unit rotations
So between late July and now, roughly 3 months, we've seen an increase from 127,000 to 150,000, or 18%. Never mind that four months ago Casey said he was "confident that we'll be able to continue to take reductions over the course of this year." And never mind that the presence of more troops seems to make the place fall apart even faster, giving us our worst month in a long time.
I guess Casey must have meant "reductions" in his credibility.
By the way, notice how milspeak like "overlapping unit rotations" is supposed to make the press not notice that an increase in troops is an increase in troops. That part seems to be going according to plan; the press seems to be doing a fine job of not noticing. Maybe we should give them a wake-up call, literally. We should at least buzz Froomkin and Olbermann (I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that they haven't noticed).