Baghdad surge success doubted
Friday, 19 Sep 2008 09:37
Success of US president George Bush's troop surge in Baghdad, Iraq, doubted by study based on satellite imagery
The success of United States president George Bush's troop surge in Baghdad, Iraq, has been doubted by a new study based on satellite imagery.
Research by UCLA scientists said light pollution in the Iraqi capital failed to increase in the months after the surge, which began in February 2007 and saw an extra 30,000 troops deployed.
A fall in violence in Baghdad is instead attributed to Shia Muslim attacks targeting Sunni Muslims.
"Essentially, our interpretation is that violence has declined in Baghdad because of intercommunal violence that reached a climax as the surge was beginning," said lead study author John Agnew, UCLA professor of geography and authority on ethnic conflict.
"By the launch of the surge, many of the targets of conflict had either been killed or fled the country, and they turned off the lights when they left."
Satellite data employed by UCLA showed that the levels of light emitted in the Iraqi cities of Kirkuk, Mosul, Tikrit and Karbala remained steady or increased between spring 2006 and winter 2007.
In Baghdad, however, light levels dropped by 57 per cent to 80 per cent during the same period, while Shia-dominated, impoverished Sadr City and the Green Zone experienced a rise in light pollution.
"If the surge had truly 'worked,' we would expect to see a steady increase in night-light output over time, as electrical infrastructure continued to be repaired and restored, with little discrimination across neighbourhoods," said associate professor of geography Thomas Gillespie.
"Instead, we found that the night-light signature diminished in only in certain neighbourhoods, and the pattern appears to be associated with ethno-sectarian violence and neighbourhood ethnic cleansing."