imagephp.jpegAbout the only real reason to keep US troops in Iraq has been the understandable worry that, as bad as things are right now, withdrawing our troops will only make things worse for the Iraqi people.

Well, the Brits have had their troops out of Basra for two and a half months now — and guess what? The violence level’s dropped by 90%. That’s right, Ninety Friggin’ Percent:

The British army says violence in Basra has fallen by 90% since it withdrew from the southern Iraqi city earlier this year.

[...]

A spokesman says the Iraqi security forces still come under attack from militants in Basra, but the overall level of violence is down 90% since the British troops left.

As I was skipping over to Daily Kos to see if I could diary this, I found that somebody’d beaten me to it — and that the IHT article he cited was meatier than the UK Dublin, Ireland Independent piece I’ve linked to above. Check it out:

Attacks against British and Iraqi forces have plunged by 90 percent in southern Iraq since London withdrew its troops from the main city of Basra, the commander of British forces there said Thursday.

The presence of British forces in downtown Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city, was the single largest instigator of violence, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns told reporters Thursday on a visit to Baghdad’s Green Zone.

“We thought, ‘If 90 percent of the violence is directed at us, what would happen if we stepped back?’” Binns said.

Britain’s 5,000 troops moved out of a former Saddam Hussein palace at Basra’s heart in early September, setting up a garrison at an airport on the city’s edge. Since that pullback, there’s been a “remarkable and dramatic drop in attacks,” Binns said.

“The motivation for attacking us was gone, because we’re no longer patrolling the streets,” he said.

Granted, Basra isn’t generally seen as being as prone to sectarian violence as the Sunni triangle that includes Baghdad, Iraq’s most populous city. But in Basra, which is Iraq’s second-most populous city, the bulk of the attacks weren’t sectarian anyway — they were directed straight at the Brits. As General Binns said, 90% of the attacks were directed at the Brits, and these attacks stopped when the Brits left; furthermore, there wasn’t an increase in sectarian attacks.

In addition, the idea that the Baghdad/Sunni Triangle area is the only really violent spot in Iraq has been seriously questioned, if not debunked outright, by the Johns Hopkins-Lancet study; according to the study, the level of casualties is actually lower in Baghdad than in Anbar province or Mosul, and is pretty close to that of Basra. (See the graphic above, taken from the Johns Hopkins study.) Except now, there are considerably fewer casualties from Basra — which the graphic shows as ‘Basrah’ — since the British pulled out their troops.

Even the sectarian violence against women, which started well before the Brits pulled out, has dropped slightly, though whether it stays dropped is anyone’s guess:

Forty-two women were killed between July and September this year, although the number dropped slightly in October, [General Khalaf] said.
[...]
He also said that repression against women had been going on while British forces were still in the city, prior to their withdrawal to Basra airport in September.

Meanwhile, as early as early last month, the drastic overall drop in violence had already encouraged Basrans to start living again:

Residents of Iraq’s southern city of Basra have begun strolling riverfront streets again after four years of fear, their city much quieter since British troops withdrew from the grand Saddam Hussein-era Basra Palace.

Political assassinations and sectarian violence continue, some city officials say, but on a much smaller scale than at any time since British troops moved into the city after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

[...]

“The situation these days is better. We were living in hell … the area is calm since their withdrawal,” said housewife Khairiya Salman, who lives near the palace.

Civil servant Wisam Abdul Sada agreed. “We do not hear the sounds of explosions which were shaking our houses and terrifying our women and children,” he told Reuters.

As Jeffrey Feldman and General Binns say, it’s really quite simple: Troops leave, violence drops.

But of course, if we remove ourselves from Iraq, then there’s nothing to stop the Iraqi government from, say, deciding to switch back to using the euro (which Iraq had been using since 2000) instead of the dollar when selling their oil. (One of the first things Bush did after invading Iraq was to forcibly switch oil sales to the dollar.) Or from thwarting the planned law that would put trillions of dollars into BushCo coffers. (More on this here.) So Bush and his oil-company buddies will do whatever they can to stop the pullout.

Related posts:

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  2. Domestic Violence Awareness Month
  3. Remember Iraq or Ray Odierno is Still Wrong
  4. Torture: Obama Heeded Maliki on Abuse Photos, Says McClatchy; What That Says for Our Occupation
  5. US Contractors Held in Iraqi Jail for Green Zone Murder