THE CONCRETE QUAGMIRE:

U.S. mission remains on track in Iraq (MICHAEL O'HANLON, 10/01/03, The Japan Times)

[M]ost indicators are now favorable in Iraq. Consider first the security environment. We face three main challenges -- from criminals, Ba'athists and jihadists. On the first matter, while crime rates are too high, they have generally stabilized at levels statistically no higher than in many Western cities. As Iraqi police are increasingly recruited and trained, rates should decline -- though Iraq clearly also needs a judicial system as soon as possible to deal with those detained.

As for Ba'athist remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime, they are diminishing with time as coalition forces detain and arrest them. For example, in the region north of Baghdad now run by Gen. Ray Odierno's 4th infantry division, some 600 fighters have been killed and 2,500 arrested over recent months. Not all of these are Ba'athists, to be sure, but with those kinds of attrition rates, a group of fighters that probably numbered 10,000 to 20,000 at peak strength will decline over time, especially because it has no appealing ideology with which to attract more members.

Terrorist "jihadists" are a greater worry because it cannot yet be confidently asserted that their numbers in Iraq have begun to decline or even plateau. In an overdue move, coalition forces have been strengthening border patrols to check the influx of foreign terrorists. They can hardly be expected to seal off all entry points into Iraq (though a few thousand more coalition troops might help, at least until more Iraqi border police can be trained, but even that would not solve it). But they can probably contain the problem. But their numbers do not appear enormous, and local intelligence networks that enable us to find and attack them are improving with time. [...]

Of course, economic issues are critical in any counterinsurgency as well. [...]

The problems are well known -- high unemployment, low electricity levels, worries about availability of gas supplies for the coming winter, even insufficient food in some places. But there is room for hope. Oil production is up. Coalition authorities are refurbishing power plants and building redundant electricity lines so that when main lines are sabotaged occasionally in the future, as they surely will be, power still flows. They are hiring Iraqis to man security forces, repair public infrastructure, beautify parks and buildings, and fix factories. If Congress does the right thing and approves President George W. Bush's full $87 billion supplemental request for next year, positive trends should accelerate.

Now what do the Democrats have left to talk about?

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 30, 2003 11:35 PM