since we have recently had a dispute over chronology of the surge....

...I thought this might be a relevant post

• In a presentation yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute, escalation architect Frederick Kagan repeated his claim that sectarian cleansing has not affected the drop in violence in Iraq. Kagan called it a “myth”:

The bad news from this perspective is that the sectarian areas of Iraq is still mixed. The good news is that the sectarian areas of Iraq are still mixed. And there is a myth out there that the violence has fallen because all of the cleansing is done. That is absolutely not the case.

• Watch it:

• Kagan makes the same claim in his new report, “Iraq: The Way Ahead“:

One of the persistent myths about the reasons for the success of coalition efforts in 2007 is that the killing stopped because the sectarian cleansing was completed. This myth is absolutely false. Baghdad remains a mixed city. The traditionally Sunni neighborhoods of Adhamiya, Mansour, and Rashid remain predominantly Sunni, and Shiite enclaves in East Rashid remain Shiite. Shia have moved into some parts of the Sunni neighborhoods, and many sub-districts within neighborhoods that had been mixed are now much more homogeneous. But the key components of a mixed Baghdad remain.

• Kagan’s claim is contested by major news organizations and the U.S. military’s own data. In December 2007, the Washington Post published the maps below, comparing the sectarian make-up of Baghdad’s neighborhoods in April 2006 and November 2007, and revealing the transformation of the city resulting from sectarian cleansing:

• The Post’s distribution of sectarian enclaves corresponds closely with these graphs, provided by Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), that chart sectarian violence in Baghdad between July 2006 and July 2007, which is the period in which the U.S. military escalation, also known as the Baghdad Security Plan, took place.
• The August 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq also rebuts Kagan’s mythmaking. One of the NIE’s judgements was that where some “conflict levels have diminished,” it was due to sectarian “separation.” (Think Progress, Wonk Room, "Escalation Architect Fred Kagan Doubles Down On His Claim That Sectarian Cleansing In Baghdad Is A ‘Myth,'" By M. Duss on Mar 25th, 2008 at 5:47 pm)