A question for Iraq retreatists

The number of fatalities among civilians and Iraqi security forces due to violence in Iraq looks like it will fall below the levels from December of '07, fulfilling my prediction that levels would drop lower than those from April.

For proponents of the effort to continue stabilizing Iraq through US military presence, those numbers are good news. They might also be good news to those who want the US to precipitously withdraw. With violence down, they might say, it is time to bring our troops home.

Is it?

The refrain from many in the troops home now camp consists of the assertion that the US presence in Iraq precipitates exactly the violence that the troops are currently trying to squelch. Yet the following story is typical of the type of violence that makes up the bulk of civilian death counts in Iraq.

A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday in a crowd of police recruits in northwestern Iraq, killing at least 16 men and wounding 14 others, an official said.

[...]

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the latest attack. But it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, underscoring Iraqi claims that insurgents have fled to remote areas to escape a U.S.-Iraqi offensive under way in Mosul, about 74 miles east of Sinjar.

The top official in Sinjar, Dakhil Qassim, said the casualties would have been higher, but the security services had received tips that police recruiting centers would be targeted and had issued a warning on Wednesday advising people to stay away.

But a crowd still gathered at the center in Sinjar. Those killed included 14 recruits and two policemen, while 14 other people were wounded, Qassim said.

"We told them that there (was) no more recruiting for security reasons," Qassim said. "But people gathered at recruiting center anyway hoping that some official might register their names."

(AP)

Will Iraqi police recruits somehow not be collaborating with the United States if US troops are withdrawn? What is the reason for killing Iraqis who are trying to join the police?

It is possible that al Qaeda just wants casualty numbers high in order to provide more reason in the United States to withdraw troops (innocent people are still being killed by Bush's war, people might say).

Or, it's possible that al Qaeda finds Iraq's security forces unacceptably opposed to its purposes.


The question: Why should anyone expect this type of killing to stop following a US withdrawal?