I proposed that someone make a daily posting of the cost of getting to

Baghdad central from the airport, which last November the BBC reported being

north of $5,000. Well, a person from Iraq, with intimate knowledge of the

situation, send me the following very interesting email. I have removed all

identifying information.

“John—…I have some input on … your comments regarding the Derbyshire

Index and the Baghdad airport road to the International Zone (“Green Zone”

is un-PC since the sovereignty transfer).

“…I have been working on the counter-Improvised Explosive Device (IED

effort). The difficulty of controlling the airport road has obviously been

discussed more than once within our group.

“As a fan of the Big Mac Index [The Economist runs this one: it estimates

the strength of currencies around the world by comparing the costs of a Big

Mac in various capital cities–JD], your proposal intrigued me, but on

further review, I don’t think it can be made to work for the airport road.

I’m not sure where you got your original figures from, but at a minimum, the

math is wrong. As I recall, your figure came down to over $5,000 for the

trip, which you then broke down to $340/mile. Given that the length of road

in question is 10 Km/about 6 miles, something is wrong with the initial

analysis (by the way, I’ve driven up and down the road at day and night,

riding along on patrols specifically searching for IEDs).

“Besides, I have never believed ANY calculation of what any particular

military operation costs. People tend to double count costs. For example,

I believe that most calculations of how much our military presence in Iraq

costs include all the costs of paying the troops. Why, I’ve never

understood. After all, they have to be paid where ever they are. The real

costs are those incurred through being in Iraq that would not be incurred

from being somewhere else. Now….don’t get me wrong, these costs are still

considerable, they just aren’t quite as stratospheric as some estimates.

[This is a very good point–JD]

“But more important than figuring out the cost of going from the airport to

the U.S. Embassy, is the nature of the attacks our forces are facing. The

threat at first consisted of IEDs. We got very good at countering those and

their use on that road dropped of significantly. That caused the terrorists

to switch to suicide vehicle borne IEDs (VBIEDs, is the term of art), as a

means of targeting moving vehicles on roads where they couldn’t effectively

plant regular IEDs. Now, the airport road is a very modern, very busy road.

Given that the decision has been made not to close down the road, that

automatically puts you at risk as long as the enemy has martyr wannabees and

enough explosive devices. Our forces have countered by enforcing a standoff

between civilian vehicles and our vehicles. This has reduced casualties and

usually results in the VBIED detonating too far from our vehicles to cause

damage/casualties. But……they then cause Iraqi civilian casualties.

“By the way, I believe that the sheer volume of civilian traffic in Baghdad

is an important indicator of what is going on for the average Iraqi. It is

easy to concentrate on just the attacks and forget that for the average

Iraqi, life is going on. The roads are filled with people going about their

daily lives, earning livings, visiting friends and relatives, etc.

“As our forces have adopted better procedures and have received better

equipment, the casualties produced by each individual IED/VBIED have gone

down. Obviously the problem has not been solved, but at least the trends

are positive in that area.”