In his opening statement to today’s Senate Hearing, General Petraeus used a series of interesting charts to illustrate his view of the current status of Iraq in terms of violence and stability. I highly recommend that people read Petreaus’ full statement (as well as that of Carl Levin) and examine the charts. You can see them here(Note: pdf file). Slide #3 Is especially interesting as it illustrates the decline in ethno-sectarian violence in Baghdad From December 2006, April 2007, to September 2007 up to March 2008 as you can see.


As the yellow-to-red spots indicate where attacks have taken place and the intensity, it is clear that violence has dropped dramatically in Baghdad in the year-and-a-quarter that this series covers. But what it also tells us is that part of the reason is due to the success of the sectarian separation which was the aim of much of that violent activity. The dark green areas are at least 75% Shia, while the lighter green is at least 51% Shia and at least 25% Sunni, and the Blue is the converse, with the darker blue being at least 75% Sunni and the lighter blue are majority Sunni at least 25% Shia. The peach color represents mixed areas and white is unknown. While it is hard to determine with all the yellow spotting in the December 2006 chart, there are wide swaths of Eastern Baghdad that appear to be mixed, though Shia majority. By April that same swath appears to be more than 75% Shia all around. My guess is this was an ongoing pattern that began before the December 06 chart, but this is the data we have. In the September 2007 and March 2008 maps in the West and South we can see some of the consolidation of the Sunni areas as several of those neighborhood transform to the darker blue.
While the increase in US troops have something to do with the decrease in Baghdad violence, this chart, if we can look below its intent to show the level of violence, also exhibits that the sectarian divisions have increased, which leads to less reason for the ethnic cleansing of the neighborhoods. This is basically what Nir Rosen and Michael Ware explained at the Center for American Progress explained, as I wrote in a post last week, that violence in Baghdad has decreased in large part due to the fact that the goal of the violence — dividing Baghdad up between the two major ethnic groups — has succeeded. I would like to see that neighborhood chart starting from April of 2003 and see what has happened every six months since then. My guess is that these maps would only emphasize the point.
This is truly sad in that Baghdad was, in fact, a city where the ethnic divisions were not prominent and the Shia and Sunni did live as neighbors peacefully. To be fair, the Shia did feel oppressed under Saddam in many ways, especially in terms of political power and in reaping the economic rewards of the riches from oil. But we still have to wonder whether there was a way to avoid what has happened to Baghdad even after the invasion.
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