I’ve written about Sen. Biden’s op-ed, challenging much of his information based on what Sen. Lieberman said after returning from Iraq. I’ve now found several articles that discredits Sen. Biden’s information. Let’s start by comparing Rowan Scarborough’s Washington Times article, titled “U.S. Decimating Foreign Fighters,” with Biden’s op-ed.

Biden writes:

There is another critical question: As our soldiers redeploy, will our security interests in Iraq remain intact or will we have traded a dictator for chaos?

Then Scarborough’s article:

The U.S. is seeing significantly fewer foreign fighters on the battlefields of Iraq, because the coalition has killed or captured scores of terrorists in recent months and is doing a better job of securing the long border with Syria.

It seems like Biden’s op-ed isn’t based on facts as much as it’s based on wondering if worst-case scenarios might happen. Scarborough’s article cites specifics that tell us that terrorists will be killed before they get a chance to topple Iraq’s government and that the once-porous Iraq-Syria border isn’t porous anymore.

You can attribute much of the border security improvement on the dramatic impact of Operation Steel Curtain, under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

Here’s another way that the military is impacting border security:

Defense sources said the deployment of newly emerging Iraqi brigades along the Syria border and better aerial surveillance has slowed the flow of foreigners. “It appears there has been a downturn, and that is partly due to increased security along the border with Syria,” said a U.S. counterintelligence official, who asked not to be named. “Syria was the primary entry point for most of those foreign fighters. Stepped-up efforts to stem the flow is having an impact.”

In other words, Biden’s fears are based on a pessimistic mindset and his theories than on facts on the ground.

“What we do see indicators of are the numbers of foreign fighters that are showing up in a variety of venues, and we believe those numbers are significantly less, perhaps is less than half as many as they were in the summer,” Gen. Vines said. “We see evidence that we’re making considerable progress in that regard.” A U.S. intelligence official said, “A lot of these people should not be called foreign fighters. They should be called ‘foreign ordnances’ because they blow themselves up. They don’t fight.”

Based on this factual information, the situation sounds pretty bleak if you’re a terrorist or a “foreign ordnance”, as this intelligence officer calls them. Rather than thinking about worst case scenarios, it seems that there’s great reason to be optimistic if you’re charged with oversight of the war in Iraq, as Sen. Biden is on the Foreign Relations Committee.

From Biden’s op-ed:

The third goal is to transfer authority to Iraqi security forces. In September, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. acknowledged that only one Iraqi battalion, fewer than 1,000 troops, can fight without U.S. help. An additional 40 can lead counterinsurgency operations with our support.

Here’s the information from Robert Burns’ AP article:

Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, a spokesman in Baghdad for the U.S. command that is responsible for the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, said approximately 130 Iraqi army and special police battalions are fighting the insurgency, of which about 45 are rated as “in the lead,” with varying degrees of reliance on U.S. support. The exact numbers are classified as secret, but the 45 figure is about five higher than the number given on Nov. 7 at a briefing by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who previously led the training mission. It is about 10 higher than the figure Gen. Petraeus offered at a Pentagon briefing on Oct. 5. An Iraqi battalion usually numbers between 700 and 800 soldiers.

The conclusion that we must make from this comparison is that Sen. Biden’s information is woefully faulty or he’s just averse to admitting that there’s good news coming from Iraq. Based on Mr. Burns’ reporting, I can’t see a legitimate reason why Sen. Biden would be this openly pessimistic.

In fact, if the American people catch wind of these troop developments, I suspect that there’s a good chance their opinion on the war in Iraq will shift dramatically and quickly.

What might explain Sen. Biden’s pessimistic view of Iraq is that he’s part of the Democratic ‘bad news barrage’, designed to hit the President when he’s down. Sen. Biden should retreat because it should be obvious that he’s fighting a losing PR battle because the facts are on President Bush’s side on this issue, too.

From Sen. Biden’s op-ed:

We also need an effective counterinsurgency strategy. The administration finally understands the need not only to clear territory but also to hold and build on it. We have never had enough U.S. troops to do that. Now there is no choice but to gamble on the Iraqis. We can help by changing the mix of our forces to include more embedded trainers, civil affairs units and Special Forces.

Counterpoint from Rowan Scarborough’s article:

U.S. officials always have had a difficult time estimating the number of Zarqawi’s terrorists in Iraq, giving ranges of several thousand up to 10,000. The counterterrorism official said current estimates put the number from the “high hundreds” to “somewhere over 1,000. The numbers are not exact,” the official said. “Definitely, there has been a downturn.”

This is directly related to Operation Steel Curtain’s success. Here’s another telling bit of information from Scarborough’s story:

But there have been signs of disenchantment within the organization. An intercepted letter from a top Zarqawi lieutenant in Mosul complained about a lack of money and experienced terrorists. U.S. military commanders have said that some of those captured say they were misled by recruiters about what America is trying to accomplish in Iraq.

It sounds to me like they’re choking off the life support for Zarqawi’s fighters. With little money and few experienced terrorists to run on the few missions they can afford to attempt, the situation sounds pretty bleak for the terrorists.

From Biden’s op-ed:

Sewage in the streets, unsafe drinking water and a lack of electricity are all too common. With 40 percent unemployment in Iraq, insurgents do not lack for fresh recruits.

Counterpoint from Jenna Bisenius’s article:

Experts expect the power cable project, which began in July 2005, to be finished this month once testing is complete. The Project & Contracting Office’s (PCO) Electricity Sector is overseeing the $1.4 million project; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Gulf Regional Division is responsible for project quality control.
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During its active phase, the project employed approximately 100 Iraqi workers per day. They performed power cable work by hand, from the digging of the trench and laying of cable to the sidewalk restoration above the cables. This method allowed for employing more Iraqi workers, says the PCO Electricity Sector manager for the project, thereby helping the local economy benefit by more dollars staying in the surrounding community.

While I can’t refute Sen. Biden’s claims of “sewage in the streets”, his claims of unreliable electricity and insurgents having easy pickings for new recruits seem far-fetched and unrealistic. In short, they don’t stack up against the facts.

In the end, one can only wonder what Sen. Biden’s pessimism is based on. Is he that ignorant of the facts in Iraq? It seems so. Is he pessimistic because he sees things dramatically different than President Bush sees things? Yes, but not because it’s justifiable by verifiable facts. In fact, Sen. Biden’s pessimism seems to be based on his pessimistic theories at a time when he should be focusing in on the facts from Iraq.

Regardless of the reason why, it’s embarrassing that a United States senator would get so many important facts wrong.

UPDATE: Joe Lieberman has written a must-read op-ed for OpinionJournal.com that demolishes Sen. Biden’s op-ed.

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing

1. Wasn’t Joe Biden, though, an early-on firm supporter of the Iraq war - I remember one Democrat U.S. Senator I saw on television saying that President Bush needed no congressional authority to do so, because the issues of the first Gulf War cover it. I am thinking that that was Senator Biden, but it could have been another guy.

   Comment by Aakash — November 30, 2005 @ 1:23 pm