David Petraeus’ Escalation(s)

/in /by

Le Monde did this graphic of the what kind of deaths the Wikileaks document dump records happening when (blue are American soldiers killed–darker–or injured; green are civilians killed or injured).

In an article on another revelation in the Wikieaks document–tracing several more incidents of civilian deaths caused by a helicopter using the same call sign as the helicopter that killed some Reuters journalists–Al Jazeera makes this note:

The documents also reveal that the use of airstrikes increased dramatically in 2007, after General David Petraeus took over as the commander of US forces in Iraq, despite his public statements that airstrikes often “provide insurgents with a major propaganda victory.” The US dropped 229 bombs in 2006, a number that surged to 1,447 in 2007.

A similar trend is happening now in Afghanistan, where airstsrikes have increased by 172 per cent since Petraeus took command.

And as the Guardian notes, a lot of more of these deaths–over 15,000–are civilians than previously known (see also their analysis of deaths here). Al Jazeera notes that Iraq Body Count is about to raise its count accordingly, to 122,000.

We’re about to get a rather different understanding of what the surge was all about.

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  1. SaltinWound says:

    Remember when Seymour Hersh reported that air power was going to be more important because of budgetary constraints, and the Pentagon denied it?

  3. Synoia says:

    The ratio of Iraqis killed to wounded (tues & blesses) varies from about 1:1 to about 1:2.

    This is very unusual. The historical rations in war of killed to wounded is 1:10.

    Severe under counting of wounded?

  4. Nell says:

    The Iraq Body Count report on 2007, released in January 2008, noted the increase in air attacks. While civilian deaths in Baghdad dropped (and sharply in the later part of the year), they rose in outlying provinces: Diyala, Anbar, Salah-al-Din, Ninewa (<–civilian deaths more than doubled here).

    From the report:

    Deaths of non-combatants such as civilian bystanders killed in firefights and other attacks involving US-led Coalition military forces rose from 544–623 in 2006 to 868–1,326 in 2007.
    Air strikes featured in the vast majority of these incidents, which left at least 88 children dead.
    Civilian deaths directly attributable to US forces alone (ie, not involving any other combatants) increased steeply from 394–434 reported in 2006 to 669–756 in 2007.

    Then reflect that IBC is revising upward the civilian deaths. I will be interested to see where they end up being distributed geographically.

  6. harpie says:

    Protecting civilians in wartime; ICRC

    [Emphasis added] Protection for civilians is a basic principle of humanitarian law: civilians not taking part in the fighting must on no account be attacked and must be spared and protected. The 1949 Geneva Conventions and their 1977 Additional Protocols contain specific rules to protect civilians. In situations that are not covered by these treaties, in particular internal disturbances, civilians are protected by the fundamental principles of humanitarian law and human rights law.