MORE ON THE NUMBERS GAME

I missed this NYT piece but an article in the Washington Monthly by Andrew Tilghman cited some statistics from it to help make his point that the AQI threat in Iraq is inflated. From my point of view, there were two important numbers in this article: (1) the number of detainees who admit to being Al Qaeda; (2) the number of foreign detainees. Adding both numbers, we get a total of 2,100 who may be Al Qaeda. No one knows for sure the total number of Al Qaeda in Iraq but a high estimate is 3,500.

So, when will AQI be out of fighters?

With Troop Rise, Iraqi Detainees Soar in Number
By THOM SHANKER
Published: August 25, 2007
NY Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 — The number of detainees held by the American-led military forces in Iraq has swelled by 50 percent under the troop increase ordered by President Bush, with the inmate population growing to 24,500 today from 16,000 in February, according to American military officers in Iraq.

Nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody are Sunni Arabs, the minority faction in Iraq that ruled the country under the government of Saddam Hussein; the other detainees are Shiites, the officers say.

Military officers said that of the Sunni detainees, about 1,800 claim allegiance to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown extremist group that American intelligence agencies have concluded is foreign-led. About 6,000 more identify themselves as takfiris, or Muslims who believe some other Muslims are not true believers. Such believers view Shiite Muslims as heretics.

According to statistics supplied by the headquarters of Task Force 134, the American military unit in charge of detention operations in Iraq, there are about 280 detainees from countries other than Iraq. Of those, 55 are identified as Egyptian, 53 as Syrian, 37 as Saudi, 28 as Jordanian and 24 as Sudanese.