KR Washington Bureau | 01/21/2005 | Analysis: Iraqi insurgency growing larger, more effective

KR Washington Bureau | 01/21/2005 | Analysis: Iraqi insurgency growing larger, more effective:

"The unfavorable trends of the war are clear:

- U.S. military fatalities from hostile acts have risen from an average of about 17 per month just after President Bush declared an end to major combat operations on May 1, 2003, to an average of 71 per month.

- The average number of U.S. soldiers wounded by hostile acts per month has spiraled from 142 to 708 during the same period. Iraqi civilians have suffered even more deaths and injuries, although reliable statistics aren't available.

- Attacks on the U.S.-led coalition since November 2003, when statistics were first available, have risen from 735 a month to 2,400 in October. Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, the multinational forces' deputy operations director, told Knight Ridder on Friday that attacks were currently running at 75 a day, about 2,300 a month, well below a spike in November during the assault on Fallujah, but nearly as high as October's total.

-The average number of mass-casualty bombings has grown from zero in the first four months of the American occupation to an average of 13.3 per month.

- Electricity production has been below pre-war levels since October, largely because of sabotage by insurgents, with just 6.7 hours of power daily in Baghdad in early January, according to the State Department.

- Iraq is pumping about 500,000 barrels a day fewer than its pre-war peak of 2.5 million barrels per day as a result of attacks, according to the State Department.

'All the trend lines we can identify are all in the wrong direction,' said Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a Washington policy research organization. 'We are not winning, and the security trend lines could almost lead you to believe that we are losing.'"