Much of its activity consists of bombings of soft civilian targets designed largely to provoke a more intense civil war or halt the development of an effective Iraqi government, rather than progress towards control at even the local level.

So far, the insurgency has done little to show it can successfully attack combat-ready Iraqi units, as distinguished from attack vulnerable casernes, recruiting areas, trainees or other relatively easy targets.

At the same time, the insurgents are learning and adapting through experience. They have shown the ability to increase the number of attacks over time, and they have hit successfully at many important political and economic targets. Provoking civil war and undermining the Iraqi political process may not bring the insurgents victory, but it can deny it to the Iraqi government and the United States, and the Sunni insurgents continue to strike successfully at politically, religiously, and ethnically important Shiite and Kurdish targets with suicide and other large bombings.

The insurgents continue to carry out a large number of successful killings, assassinations, kidnappings, extortions, and expulsions. These include an increase in the number of successful attacks on Iraqi officials, Iraqi forces, and their families, and well over 2,700 Iraqi officials and Iraqi forces were killed in 2005.

The Department of Defense estimated that 2,603 members of the Iraqi forces had been killed in action by October 2005, far more than the 1,506 members of U.S. forces that had been killed in action up to that date. The insurgents continue to succeed in intimidating their fellow Sunnis. There is no way to count or fully assess the pattern of such low level attacks, or separate them from crime or Shi'ite reprisals, but no one doubts that they remain a major problem.

Suicide attacks have increased, and killed and wounded Iraqis in large numbers. The number of car bombs rose from 420 in 2004 to 873 in 2005, and the number of suicide car bombs rose from 133 to 411, and the number of suicide vest attacks rose from 7 in 2004 to 67 in 2005. In case after case, Shi'ite civilians and Sunnis cooperating with the government were successfully targeted in ways designed to create a serious civil war.

The use of roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices, or IEDs) remains a major problem for U.S. and other Coalition forces. The total number of IED attacks nearly doubled from 5,607 in 2004 to 10,953 in 2005. While the success rate of IED attacks dropped significantly, from 25-30 percent in 2004 to 10% in 2005, they still had a major impact.

During 2005, there were 415 IED deaths out of a total of 674 combat deaths, or 61.6 percent of all combat deaths. IEDs accounted for 4,256 wounded out of a total of 5,941, some 71.6 percent of the wounded. From July 2005 to January 2006, IEDs killed 234 U.S. service members out of a total of 369 total combat deaths, or 63.4 percent. They accounted for 2314 wounded out of 2980 total combat wounded, or 77.7 percent.

To put these numbers in perspective, IEDs caused 900 deaths out of a total of 1,748 combat deaths, or 51.5 percent during the entire post-Saddam fall from March 2003 and January 2006. IEDs caused 9,327 wounded out of a total of 16,606 or 56.2 percent. However, the numbers of personnel killed and wounded by IEDs are scarcely the only measure of insurgent success. Casualties may have dropped but the number of attacks has gone up. IED attacks tie down manpower and equipment, disrupt operations, disrupt economic and aid activity, and interact with attacks on Iraqi civilians and forces to limit political progress and help try to provoke civil war.

Insurgents carried out more than 300 attacks on Iraqi oil facilities between March 2003 and January 2006. The end result was that oil production dropped by eight percent in 2005, and pipeline shipments through the Iraqi northern pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey dropped from 800,000 barrels per day before the war to an average of 40,000 barrels per day in 2005. In July 2005, Iraqi officials estimated that insurgent attacks had already cost Iraq some $11 billion. They had kept Iraqi oil production from approaching the 3 million barrel a day goal in 2005 goal that the Coalition had set after the fall of Saddam Hussein, and production had dropped from per war levels of around 2.5 million barrels a day to an average of 1.83 million barrels a day in 2005, and level of only 1.57 million barrels a day in December 2005. These successes have major impact in a country where 94 percent of the government's direct income now comes from oil exports. ...

In short, there are cycles in an evolving struggle, but not signs that the struggle is being lost or won.

Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair of Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. This article is extracted from the executive summary to his February study on Iraqi force development and is reprinted with permission. United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.

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