The battle for Ramadi is compounding Iraq's humanitarian crisis. Yahoo/Reuters.

Refugees at a checkpoint near Baghdad. Yahoo/Reuters. 

The battle for Ramadi is complicating Iraq's already severe refugee and humanitarian crisis. Yahoo/Reuters. At least 90,000 people have fled the area, heading to Baghdad, only 55 miles from the front lines. The new refugees add more numbers to the approximately 2.7 million people displaced by the war against ISIS. The refugees report that they were driven out by the total lack of supplies like food and water and the loss of power. The ISIS militants allowed the refugees to flee. At the gates of Baghdad, a massive traffic jam as the Iraqi forces tries to determine if any ISIS fighters are hidden in the mass of humanity. On the front lines, the battle has slowed as reinforcements finally arrived. The Anbar province was reported to be the next major front in the battle against ISIS, but those plans fell apart when ISIS began to threaten Ramadi. Iraq may deploy Iranian backed Shia militias to fight ISIS in the mostly Sunni city. 

My Comment:

This refugee crisis plays into the hand of ISIS. The Reuters article downplays how difficult the situation in Baghdad was. For a while thousands of refugees were stuck there because Iraq had set up a system where only people who had relatives or friends in the city to vet them were let in. This caused the huge backups like the one in the picture above. It sounds like this system is still in place but they have to be doing something to make sure that ISIS doesn't use this crisis as a way to infiltrate. 

Not only does ISIS get a chance to infiltrate Baghdad, they are also putting financial pressure on Iraq. Taking care of these refugees is going to cost money and resources that would be better spent elsewhere. All of these people are going to need food, water and shelter and all those things cost money. Iraq already has a massive problem with refugees and humanitarian aid, and these new refugees may put strain onto a system that is already under strain. And the situation will get worse as the battle goes on.

Reuters was fairly optimistic about the battle. Other sources I have read were not so kind. This article from the Washington Post reports that many of the defenders have fled the city along with the refugees.  In addition to the regular army troops and national police, the Sunni militias are withdrawing as well. One local sheik said that the anti-terror units are about all that is left. The Reuters report said Ramadi got reinforcements but it is unclear if that is supported by the facts on the ground. 

Will ISIS win in Ramadi? It is certainly possible. I'm thinking in terms of troops, Iraq has the advantage, but the problem is the will to fight. With troops withdrawing without much of a fight, the two forces are on much more even terms. U.S. led airstrikes and the deployment of Shiite militias, the most reliable force Iraq has right now besides the Kurds, could change the momentum. It's possible that it is already happening. It is also possible that the battle has already reached the tipping point. 

Psychology is important in warfare and this huge refugee problem along with the generally bad morale of the Iraqi Army may have change the momentum away from the Iraqis and towards ISIS. Seeing thousands of refugees fleeing from the enemy, or more accurately, fleeing from the disruption the enemy has caused, has an impact. So does hearing about how Iraqi army units and local Sunni militias refusing to fight. I know if I was fighting against ISIS in Iraq, I would think that ISIS has the upper hand, even if  their advantage isn't really there on paper. 

Logistics is another major problem. Due to where the front lines are in Iraq, Ramadi was already a hard place to resupply. And Iraq isn't all that good at logistics in the first place. Having the highways clogged with thousands of refugees is just going to make reinforcing and resupplying forces in Ramadi even harder then it would be normally. People tend to underestimate the important of logistics, and being unable to reinforce or resupply the city could easily cost Iraq Ramadi. ISIS has logistical problems as well due to U.S. airstrikes, so it isn't all bad news for Iraq. 

Finally, there are still people in Ramadi. I haven't been able to find reliable figures for the number of people in the city due to all the unrest in Iraq, but the numbers seem to be between 500,000 and 900,000 people. Many have fled at this point but there are still many people left. If the Shia militias are deployed and they conduct themselves like they have in the past, it is very possible that there could be massacres, looting and arson.

 Tikrit was a good example of what happens when these militias take a city. Arson, looting and general chaotic destruction reigned in the city after the militias took it and a major massacre was probably only avoided by the fact that there was almost nobody left in the city by the time the battle ended. My guess is that won't be the case for Ramadi. Assuming ISIS doesn't capture the city, there is a good chance that the Shia militias will destroy the city on the pretense of saving it.