Thread: If you could change the battle plan in Iraq, what would you do?

Originally Posted by Jedi_Iatros

There's gotta be a better way to protect our soldiers/Marines from all those IEDs. Why can't we just close-off those highways to our military only and shoot anybody trying to cross the lines. Put snipers on-duty ATC. Let all these Iraqis find other roads to travel and put a damn curfew on these people. I think we should move all our supporting units ON THOSE roads so we got eyeballs on anything going in and out!

Here's what I find absurd...we're actually letting these people carry AK-47s around on their own free will? That makes sense!

Jedi,

We need to use every single road in Iraq for our missions. It is impossible to have coverage of all the roads. We couldn't even shut down the major roads. Next, even if you could cover the major roads, now what you've done is created a bunch of stationary targets that are susceptible to small arms fire, mortar fire, suicide attacks.

Now that we've explored the military aspect, let's look at the Iraqi perspective. I'm not sure where you live, but shut down the 3-4 busiest streets in your town/city. How does that affect everyday life? Getting to work? Going shopping? Having food delivered to the grocery store or markets? Having goods delivered to retail stores? Do you think you make the population more likely or less likely to support your efforts? Will that lead to fewer or more attacks against your stationary outposts? Will the decreased flow of goods lead to more or less employment? If it creates more unemployment, will that make you more or less available to join an insurgent cell and plan and commit attacks, especially if you'll get paid several weeks salary for a single attack?

Lastly, every single Iraqi household owns a AK-47. They are not allowed to carry them outside the house, and if they do, then they are fair game for engagement, since the weapon demonstrates deadly intent. While it would be nice to remove them off the "streets" - in doing so, you then make families even more vulnerable to terrorist and criminal intimidation (just think of what Americans would do if gun ownership were outlawed) with only the US/coalition to blame. Another political loser that would only increase insurgent ranks.

So, you pose fair questions, but the proposed solutions are not the stuff of Yoda.

- I would concentrate on choking the ingress routes into Iraq from Syria/ Iran/ Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
- Use the Iraqi local police/militia to carry out operations within urban areas and concentrate the coalition forces outside the city and act only on intelligence only. Thereby reducing visibility and feeling of occuopation. This will have the following benifits:-
- Reduce the number of suicide attacks on own troops.
- Attacks will be limited to road side IEDs.
- Reduce vulnerability of troops and locations.
- This will tempt the guerillas to come out to the field locations to target the
coalition units, thereby exposing themselves. Any captured guerilla will give
much valued intel.
- All development and reconstruction to be overseen by UN or regional bodies, with maximum participation of locals to increase the stakes for them if the insurgency carries on.
- Keep the religious leaders in good humour.

I'd'a kept Shek there, for starters.

-dale

Originally Posted by dalem

I'd'a kept Shek there, for starters.

-dale

I was getting fat eating all the greasy KBR food. I'd have had a heart attack by now and cholesterol scores higher than my PT scores!

Originally Posted by lemontree

- I would concentrate on choking the ingress routes into Iraq from Syria/ Iran/ Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Being done

- Use the Iraqi local police/militia to carry out operations within urban areas and concentrate the coalition forces outside the city and act only on intelligence only. Thereby reducing visibility and feeling of occuopation.

Being done - coalition/US troops are the muscle that are seizing and clearing previous "unheld" towns/cities, with a quick transition to Iraqi Army troops and Special Police Commandos out front and in the lead (in some cases it's the ISF that are in the lead during the actual clearing op with US/coalition forces in support). Then a local police force is built so that you reduce the militarized presence and get local buy in to the security forces.

This will have the following benifits:-
- Reduce the number of suicide attacks on own troops.
- Attacks will be limited to road side IEDs.
- Reduce vulnerability of troops and locations.
- This will tempt the guerillas to come out to the field locations to target the
coalition units, thereby exposing themselves. Any captured guerilla will give
much valued intel.

This isn't happening from what I'm seeing. Also, much of the analysis indicates that the insurgents recognize that the center of gravity for them will be defeating ISF, and so they try to intimidate recruitment and ISF families in a hope that they can defeat the fledgling ISF presence.

- All development and reconstruction to be overseen by UN or regional bodies, with maximum participation of locals to increase the stakes for them if the insurgency carries on.

Would be ideal, but polls prior to the 2004 election indicated that the UN didn't have popular support within Iraq, so this wouldn't gain additional legitimacy from Iraqis. Local participation is key, and this was sorely neglected during the first 12 months of the American presence.

- Keep the religious leaders in good humour.

Lemontree - you're plan is just about spot on to what's happening on the ground right now minus the UN/NGO presence, which just won't happen until local security is more than just a prayer. It's a which comes first, the chicken or the egg, scenario. No security, no reconstruction, but no reconstruction, no security .

Originally Posted by dalem

I'd'a kept Shek there, for starters.

-dale

While I was definitely smarter than the average bear in terms of COIN philosophy while I was "in country," I've learned quite a bit since returning that would have made me much more effective. Also, they've set up a five day COIN school in Iraq that all captains and above that are in leadership positions must attend when they get on the ground. I'll try to dig up the article on that and post it.

Originally Posted by shek

Also, they've set up a five day COIN school in Iraq that all captains and above that are in leadership positions must attend when they get on the ground. I'll try to dig up the article on that and post it.

i've read it elsewhere and it appears rather useful. there does however appear to be some criticism within US quarters that the school is in Iraq, rather than in the US prior to deployment.

TBH, unless the soldiers doing the contact - privates, corporals and sergeants - get the ethos behind COIN then your officers, however well intentioned, are going to be beating their heads against a brick wall.

oh, found it - or part of it anyway:

U.S. Counterinsurgency Academy Giving Officers a New Mind-Set
Course in Iraq Stresses the Cultural, Challenges the Conventional

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 21, 2006; Page A10

TAJI, Iraq -- If the U.S. effort in Iraq ultimately is successful, one reason may be the small school started recently on a military base here by Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the U.S. commander in Iraq.

Called the COIN Academy -- using military shorthand for "counterinsurgency" -- the newest educational institution in the U.S. military establishment seeks, as a course summary puts it, to "stress the need for U.S. forces to shift from a conventional warfare mindset" to one that understands how to win in a guerrilla-style conflict. Or, as a sign on the wall of one administrator's office here put it less politely: "Insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different outcome."

The purpose of the school north of Baghdad is to try to bring about a different outcome than the U.S. military achieved in 2003-04, when Army commanders committed mistakes typical of a conventional military facing an insurgency. "When the insurgency started, we came in very conventional," said Col. Chris Short, the District native and recent Manassas resident who is the new school's commandant.

Back then, U.S. forces rounded up tens of thousands of Iraqis, mixing innocent people in detention with hard-core Islamic extremists. Commanders permitted troops to shoot at anything mildly threatening. And they failed to give their troops the basic conceptual and cultural tools needed to operate in the complex environment of Iraq, from how to deal with a sheik to understanding why killing insurgents usually is the least desirable outcome in dealing with them. (It is more effective, they are now taught, to persuade them either to desert or to join the political process.)

Last year, an internal study by Army experts of U.S. commanders here found that some understood the principles of counterinsurgency and applied them well, while others faltered. "If the commander had it, the unit had it, but if the commander got it halfway, then the unit got it halfway," Casey said in a recent interview. The new school is designed to ensure that all the commanders get it.

Even now, some conventional unit commanders balk at the idea of leaving their troops for the five-day course, which covers subjects from counterinsurgency theory and interrogations to detainee operations and how to dine with a sheik. When told that he had to leave his battalion of Marines in Fallujah to come here, recalled Lt. Col. Patrick Looney, his reaction was disbelief.

"I didn't want to come," concurred Lt. Col. David Furness, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, now operating between Baghdad and Fallujah. "But I'm glad I came."

Casey, the school's builder, found an easy way to make them come: He made attendance compulsory for any officer heading to a combat command in Iraq. He also meets with each class, offering the captains and lieutenant colonels a rare chance to quiz a four-star general.

Some members of the faculty, which draws heavily on Special Forces officers, were not eager to teach U.S. infantry, artillery, aviation and armor officers. Short recalled that some said: "That's not our mission. We don't teach U.S. forces." Such qualms have been eliminated, he said with a chuckle.

Again and again, the intense immersion course, which 30 to 50 officers attend at a time, emphasizes that the right answer is probably the counterintuitive one, rather than something that the Army has taught officers in their 10 or 20 years of service. The school's textbook, a huge binder, offers the example of a mission that busts into a house and captures someone who mortared a U.S. base.

"On the surface, a raid that captures a known insurgent or terrorist may seem like a sure victory for the coalition," it observes in red block letters. It continues, "The potential second- and third-order effects, however, can turn it into a long-term defeat if our actions humiliate the family, needlessly destroy property, or alienate the local population from our goals."

At points, the school's leaders seem to go out of their way to challenge current U.S. military practices here. Short said in an interview Friday inside his sandbagged headquarters that he has issues with "this big-base mentality" that keeps tens of thousands of troops inside facilities called forwarding operating bases, or FOBs, which they leave for patrols and raids. Classic counterinsurgency theory holds that troops should live out among the people as much as possible, to develop a sense of how the society works and to gather intelligence.

As Apache attack helicopters clattered overhead, Short also offered an unconventional view of Iraq's December elections, which many U.S. officials have portrayed as a great victory. "You can ask just about every Iraqi, 'What about the elections?' " he said. "They'll say" -- Short shrugged his shoulders -- " 'Well, we voted five times, and nothing's happening out here.' "

Recent attendees at the school came away impressed. "I think it's an incredibly insightful course," said Army Maj. Sheldon Horsfall, an adviser to the Iraqi military in Baghdad. "One of the things that was brought home to us, again and again, was the importance of cultural awareness."

"The course opened my eyes to some of the bigger picture," said Lt. Col. Nathan Nastase, the operations officer for the 5th Marine Regiment, based near Fallujah. He said he especially liked hearing about the role of Special Operations Forces in Iraq, as well as learning about the tactics being used by successful commanders.

The school's greatest effect seems to be on younger officers. "My initial impression of it was it was a waste of time," said Capt. Klaudius Robinson, commander of a cavalry troop in the 4th Infantry Division. "But after going through it, it really changed my thinking about how to fight this insurgency. I came to realize that the center of gravity is the people, and you have to drive a wedge between the insurgents and the people."

Before the course, he said, he expected to spend his time here combating insurgents, but instead he is focused on training and operating with Iraqi troops. "We're never going to catch every bad guy," he tells his troops. "That's not a ticket home. But what I can do is help Iraqi security forces and get them to take the lead."

"One of the things I picked up at the COIN Academy is, we don't need to be hard on people all the time," said Capt. Bret Lindberg, commander of another 4th Infantry cavalry troop.

The major criticism offered by students is that it would have been better to have the education six months earlier, when they were training their troops to deploy to Iraq, not after the units have arrived. Short had a tart response: It's not a bad idea, he said, but the Army back home wasn't stepping up to the job. "They didn't do it for three years" -- the length of the war so far, he noted. "That's why the boss said, 'Screw it, I'm doing it here.' "

At any rate, the school isn't just about operating in Iraq, Short said, but about preparing officers for the rest of their careers. "I think we're going to be in more of these wars," he said.

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this came fromARRSE - the highly unofficial BA rumour site. its not overly complimentary to our American friends - or Italians, or French, or Cavalry... but well worth a dabble for a different perspective.

Shek do you think that were doing a good job of stopping the flow of insurgents from foreign countries? I dont. There obivously getting in some how. This kindof goes back to what we were talking about the other day about catagorizing the enemy. At first we were told that it was almost all foreign fighters, then mostly sunni, then not sunni. I think we could do a better job at this but I dont think this is the answer to our problems.

Also as far as the ISF, IA etc taking a bigger role, in my AO they were taking a bigger role. But they were very unsucessful in my opinion. And no one group got along with another at all. Also there was a very big problem with corruption within the ISF IP and IA. To the point of selling weapons and information and such.

The COIN training is great for CPT and higher but as DAVE ANGEL pointed out this is not a fight for the CMDRs. This is a section fight. I guarantee I had more impact on more Iraqis than my commander. This is simply because I'm the one on the ground talking to people everyday. Yes he would go out and talk to people but usually after we had pointed him in the right direction. Not saying he was bad or anything but I'm pretty sure that this was Army wide.

There is not an easy answer to this question, but I will say that until the Iraqi people want there country to be safe it wont be. An insurgency would never work in the US because the American public would not let it happen. Not even considering the police into the mix. When insurgents plant IEDs Iraqi's see them. They dont do it under the cover of darkness for the most part. And most of the time its on a busy road. But we would go back to the houses 100m away from the hole and they didnt see anything. They have got to want it. They have got to take a stand against the insurgency.

But most of them have underlying intrest. Such as religious power or whatever.

Originally Posted by shek

Lemontree - you're plan is just about spot on to what's happening on the ground right now minus the UN/NGO presence, which just won't happen until local security is more than just a prayer. It's a which comes first, the chicken or the egg, scenario. No security, no reconstruction, but no reconstruction, no security .

What I have suggested is based on our experience in Punjab (1983-1992) and Jammu & Kashmir (1989 - till date). The problem in Iraq is primarily of urban guerilla warfare - which is a b.i.t.c.h. It saps too much of energy in providing security within the citys/ towns. The enemy functions in small groups that is in close proximity to civilians making things even more difficult for the troops.

I would concentrate on choking the ingress routes into Iraq from Syria/ Iran/ Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Being done

Coalition force level is too low for what I suggested. I meant units compactly deployed on the border. Patrols are not sufficient. The region needs to be saturated with troops to increase the number of contacts with the enemy.
In the state of J&K we have close to 120,000 troops (army/para-military/state police), in an area of 101,387 sq km, and a population of approx 10,069,917, i.e there is one soldier/policeman of every te civilians. This puts pressure on the guerillas and the make mistakes.

In Iraq (if Iam not mistaken) you have about 120,000 + troops in an area of 432,162 sq km and a population of 26,074,906. The force levels needs to increase by 150,000 troops minimum.

Also, they've set up a five day COIN school in Iraq that all captains and above that are in leadership positions must attend when they get on the ground. I'll try to dig up the article on that and post it.

By any chance have any of the instructors of the COIN school, been part of the US training contingent that had come to the Counter Insurgency & Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS), in Wairangte, India?

Originally Posted by dave angel

i've read it elsewhere and it appears rather useful. there does however appear to be some criticism within US quarters that the school is in Iraq, rather than in the US prior to deployment.

TBH, unless the soldiers doing the contact - privates, corporals and sergeants - get the ethos behind COIN then your officers, however well intentioned, are going to be beating their heads against a brick wall.

Dave,
I'd agree completely the whole range of ranks needs to be steeped in COIN; otherwise you run the risk of the right hand not talking to the left, whether it's soldiers doing the right thing with a jacka$$ platoon leader or commander or vice versa.

My guess is that the reason you see the school being in Iraq is being General Casey doesn't trust the preparation that FORSCOM is doing stateside to ensure that units that are deploying truly "get it." Thus, since what he controls is in Iraq, he's established a school in Iraq so he doesn't have to depend on stateside prep to get the message across.

Thus, since it's not practical to pull out entire companies/battalions to do five days worth of training, he's left with the option of not doing anything or pulling out key leaders and making sure that they understand his COIN strategy, so you don't have a situation like Vietnam where General Abrams was preaching a one war strategy with increased emphasis on COIN, while a Corps Commander (Ewell) was still focused on body counts as the measure of performance, thus negating the one war/COIN strategy.

Originally Posted by tankervet

Shek do you think that were doing a good job of stopping the flow of insurgents from foreign countries? I dont. There obivously getting in some how. This kindof goes back to what we were talking about the other day about catagorizing the enemy. At first we were told that it was almost all foreign fighters, then mostly sunni, then not sunni. I think we could do a better job at this but I dont think this is the answer to our problems.

I'd agree with you that we are not stopping the flow, but everything I've seen (since I'm stateside hanging out at grad school, it's all open source/think tank analysis, nothing first hand per se) points to a trend of steming the flow substantially. Last fall's Marine campaign in the Euphrates Valley near the Syrian border and the campaign in western Ninevah has had an impact. Now, whether the foreign fighters have been able to shift elsewhere or will is a question that I have no clue.

Also as far as the ISF, IA etc taking a bigger role, in my AO they were taking a bigger role. But they were very unsucessful in my opinion. And no one group got along with another at all. Also there was a very big problem with corruption within the ISF IP and IA. To the point of selling weapons and information and such.

Totally agree, and all that I've read is that you've got a wide variance in unit quality. I think that the problem is that when you've got to grow security forces in such a short time, your fighting the issue of quantity vs. quality, especially when the qualities needed in a professional military are foreign to societal norms (i.e. you need initiative, operations and training cannot be centralized, etc.). In short, without a strong NCO Corps and a working Officer Corps, both of which takes decades to truly develop successfully, you're not going to have a comparative success in such a short time. Seeing some of the ISF success stories that have emerged, I think that once the ISF reach their end state levels, then they will actually start improving more, since instead of having to fill new units, you can actually start flushing the turds and replacing them. The other issue is how many guys join out of monetary necessity as opposed to a true desire to fight the enemy and defend Iraq. I'd be curious if you agree with this assessment since you actually got to work alongside ISF - I only got a chance to see guys in basic training, and while the ones I spoke with were motivated by the right reasons, whether that lasted when the bullets started is an unanswered question for me.

The COIN training is great for CPT and higher but as DAVE ANGEL pointed out this is not a fight for the CMDRs. This is a section fight. I guarantee I had more impact on more Iraqis than my commander. This is simply because I'm the one on the ground talking to people everyday. Yes he would go out and talk to people but usually after we had pointed him in the right direction. Not saying he was bad or anything but I'm pretty sure that this was Army wide.

Probably true in general re:Commanders. I was out on the streets everyday, but >20 team leaders, 12 squad leaders, 4 PLs, and 4 PSGs can reach out and touch a lot more folks than a commander can. So, I agree that you can't just call it a Commander's fight. However, I wouldn't just call it a squad or section fight, because it requires all the pieces to be working together; I'm not trying to say that you're implying the opposite, but that there are critical things that the platoon leadership and company leadership need to be doing, and those actions need to move in the same direction to be successful.

For example, I've seen enough footage to see where some units treat home searches like basic training barracks inspections. This absolutely didn't happen while I was in command, because I sat down with the company leadership to explain why that would be counterproductive, and because I'd go inside most every house during the exploitation phase to get the THT's assessment of the target's story as well as spot check our actions on the OBJ. So, whether the junior leaders in the company had opposite feelings even after learning the why behind the approach, it didn't matter because the PSGs/PLs, myself, XO, 1SG were all on the same page.

There is not an easy answer to this question, but I will say that until the Iraqi people want there country to be safe it wont be. An insurgency would never work in the US because the American public would not let it happen. Not even considering the police into the mix. When insurgents plant IEDs Iraqi's see them. They dont do it under the cover of darkness for the most part. And most of the time its on a busy road. But we would go back to the houses 100m away from the hole and they didnt see anything. They have got to want it. They have got to take a stand against the insurgency. But most of them have underlying intrest. Such as religious power or whatever.

Agreed here, and it's one of those double edged swords that you just have to work with. The "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" responses used to PO me. However, trying to intimidate responses would only be counterproductive in the long term, even if you did get some short term information, while working towards the long term approach of securing the area and reducing the threat of intimidation to build a long term relationship that would eventually yield information meant that you had to suffer through attacks in the short term. The goal is to get those Iraqis who actually want to take charge into the positions where they can affect things in a positive direction, and to reduce the threat and intimidation from the terrorists so the Iraqis can jump off the fence and support Iraqis fighting back against the insurgent groups and terrorists. Much easier said than done, though.

Totally agree, and all that I've read is that you've got a wide variance in unit quality. I think that the problem is that when you've got to grow security forces in such a short time, your fighting the issue of quantity vs. quality, especially when the qualities needed in a professional military are foreign to societal norms (i.e. you need initiative, operations and training cannot be centralized, etc.). In short, without a strong NCO Corps and a working Officer Corps, both of which takes decades to truly develop successfully, you're not going to have a comparative success in such a short time. Seeing some of the ISF success stories that have emerged, I think that once the ISF reach their end state levels, then they will actually start improving more, since instead of having to fill new units, you can actually start flushing the turds and replacing them. The other issue is how many guys join out of monetary necessity as opposed to a true desire to fight the enemy and defend Iraq. I'd be curious if you agree with this assessment since you actually got to work alongside ISF - I only got a chance to see guys in basic training, and while the ones I spoke with were motivated by the right reasons, whether that lasted when the bullets started is an unanswered question for me.

I totally agree with you Shek. Having to rebuild everything from the ground up it very hard, almost impossible while fighting. My experience with all the forces, ISF, IA, IP etc., I would say that alot of them are there for the money. Not that thats a bad thing, most US Soldiers are there for the money as you know. The biggest problem that we had was none of the different org wanting to work together. The IA say that the IP are crooks, and vice versa.

Probably true in general re:Commanders. I was out on the streets everyday, but >20 team leaders, 12 squad leaders, 4 PLs, and 4 PSGs can reach out and touch a lot more folks than a commander can. So, I agree that you can't just call it a Commander's fight. However, I wouldn't just call it a squad or section fight, because it requires all the pieces to be working together; I'm not trying to say that you're implying the opposite, but that there are critical things that the platoon leadership and company leadership need to be doing, and those actions need to move in the same direction to be successful.

For example, I've seen enough footage to see where some units treat home searches like basic training barracks inspections. This absolutely didn't happen while I was in command, because I sat down with the company leadership to explain why that would be counterproductive, and because I'd go inside most every house during the exploitation phase to get the THT's assessment of the target's story as well as spot check our actions on the OBJ. So, whether the junior leaders in the company had opposite feelings even after learning the why behind the approach, it didn't matter because the PSGs/PLs, myself, XO, 1SG were all on the same page.

Once again I agree with you. My only point is that the commanders are getting the COIN training and for the most part the lower levels are not. Sure were getting training and alot of it. But it would be nice to get the specifics that are taught in the class. I can tell by reading most of your post that your very smart on the COIN ops. If knowledge like that was pushed down to the PLT/SECTION level it would be very helpful for the overall success.

Agreed here, and it's one of those double edged swords that you just have to work with. The "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" responses used to PO me. However, trying to intimidate responses would only be counterproductive in the long term, even if you did get some short term information, while working towards the long term approach of securing the area and reducing the threat of intimidation to build a long term relationship that would eventually yield information meant that you had to suffer through attacks in the short term. The goal is to get those Iraqis who actually want to take charge into the positions where they can affect things in a positive direction, and to reduce the threat and intimidation from the terrorists so the Iraqis can jump off the fence and support Iraqis fighting back against the insurgent groups and terrorists. Much easier said than done, though.

Once again were on the same sheet of music. In our AO we moved around ALOT. We were never really given the chance to build the relationships that we needed to. The longest that we had an area is probably 2 months or less. There is no way to earn the trust of the population in this amount of time. The first time I was over there we had pretty much an unlimited amount of money to use. This time we didnt. It was a drawn out process to get anything paid for. This hurt us more than anything. We could not prove that we wanted to make Iraq better because all we did was drive around in trucks/tanks and tell people that we want it better and were doing the best we can etc.

Originally Posted by tankervet

Once again I agree with you. My only point is that the commanders are getting the COIN training and for the most part the lower levels are not. Sure were getting training and alot of it. But it would be nice to get the specifics that are taught in the class. I can tell by reading most of your post that your very smart on the COIN ops. If knowledge like that was pushed down to the PLT/SECTION level it would be very helpful for the overall success.

Many of the specifics I use (e.g. Malaya, Vietnam, etc.) are post-Iraq learned knowledge. I think the biggest thing that we need is language capability, and I think that this could be a great retention asset - get a guy to sign up for a 6 year contract or require extensions for retainability purposes. It's hard to engage in person to person conversations to make the personal connection to "win the hearts and minds" unless you can converse. Saying hello/goodbye in Arabic and placing your hand on your heart, no matter how sincere it is, can only get you so far.

I'm sure many of the guys would leave the service, but these same guys will take those language skills into defense contracting jobs, intelligence agency jobs, etc., which in the end will still benefit us.

Originally Posted by tankervet

Once again were on the same sheet of music. In our AO we moved around ALOT. We were never really given the chance to build the relationships that we needed to. The longest that we had an area is probably 2 months or less. There is no way to earn the trust of the population in this amount of time. The first time I was over there we had pretty much an unlimited amount of money to use. This time we didnt. It was a drawn out process to get anything paid for. This hurt us more than anything. We could not prove that we wanted to make Iraq better because all we did was drive around in trucks/tanks and tell people that we want it better and were doing the best we can etc.

Same here to an extent. We started off in Duluiyah for two weeks, then did a 2 week Samarra op, and then it was off to Mosul for the rest of our time (although my company kept on traveling after only three months in Mosul - Najaf, convoy security on Hwy 1, Tal Afar, Babil Province, Taji). As far as the money, I can't believe that we still don't have that licked. I didn't have squat as a commander - CERP got spent at higher levels and promised funds through CPA never materialized, making me look like a jacka$$ when I told some community leaders/sheiks that we were finally getting money and could execute some projects.

Washington Post
February 26, 2006
Pg. 1

In The Battle For Baghdad, U.S. Turns War On Insurgents

By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer

PATROL BASE SWAMP, Iraq -- Here, in a half-ruined house bristling with dull black machine guns and surrounded by green sandbags, shin-deep mudholes, and shadowy palm groves, lies the leading edge of the U.S. war in Iraq.

This remote outpost, manned by Bravo Company of a unit in the 101st Airborne Division, is the forwardmost American position in the so-called Triangle of Death southwest of Baghdad. Some U.S. commanders say the region is now the focal point in their campaign against Iraq's stubborn insurgency. It's a tough fight: Just getting U.S. troops established here in the canal-laced fields of the Euphrates River Valley meant running a gantlet of roadside bombs, with one platoon encountering 14 in a three-hour stretch.

Interviews with U.S. soldiers -- from top generals to front-line grunts in Tall Afar, Mosul, Ramadi, Balad and throughout Baghdad -- as well as briefings at the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, reveal a markedly different war from that seen in 2003 and 2004, or even last year.

Current U.S. military commanders say they have come to understand that they are fighting within a political context, which means the results must first be judged politically. The pace and shape of the war also have changed, with U.S. forces trying to exercise tactical patience and shift responsibilities to Iraqi forces, even as they worry that the American public's patience may be dwindling.

The war also has changed geographically. Over the last three years, it has developed a pattern of moving around the country, from Fallujah to Najaf to Mosul and Samarra and back to Fallujah. Last summer and fall it was focused in Tall Afar, in the northwest, and in the upper Euphrates, in the remote western part of Anbar province near Syria.

This year the war seems to hinge on the battle for Baghdad. Inside the capital, that promises to be primarily a political fight over the makeup of the future government of Iraq -- and whether it can prevent a civil war, a threat that appeared much more likely this week with the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and retaliatory attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics.

U.S. officials don't talk much about the prospects of civil war. It is unclear what role the United States would play if such a war broke out, but military strategists said American forces would be used to try to minimize violence but not to actually intervene between warring groups.

On Baghdad's outskirts, the war remains very much a military campaign. The flat agricultural plain south and southwest of the capital "is what I would call the most lethal area in Baghdad," said Col. Todd Ebel, the brigade commander there.

This is the war of the Iyahs, as American troops call the cluster of hard-bitten towns named Mahmudiyah, Yusufiyah, Latifiyah and Iskandariyah that over the last two years became insurgent strongholds. Not coincidentally, these towns, between Baghdad and Karbala, also are on the fault line between Sunni Iraq and Shiite Iraq and likely would be a flash point for a civil war.

"The insurgency belongs to the 4 ID and the Marines -- it's Baghdad and the west," said a senior U.S. military intelligence official in Qatar who declined to be identified by name because of his line of work. (Ebel's 101st Division brigade running Patrol Base Swamp and operating southwest of Baghdad is attached to the 4th Infantry Division, which has responsibility for the Baghdad area.) Senior military officials describe the Marine Corps' fight in western Anbar province more as an effort to contain an insurgency they expect to remain chronic in that area.

Here in the area south and west of Baghdad, the push by the Army's 4th Infantry was launched in recent months to give the capital some breathing space. "My job, above all things, is to keep them out of Baghdad," said Capt. Andre Rivier, the Swiss-American commander of Patrol Base Swamp. "The important thing is to keep them fighting here. That's really the crux of the fight." By taking the battle to rural-based insurgents, the Army hopes to gain the initiative, pressuring the enemy at a time and place of the Americans' choosing, rather than simply trying to catch suicide bombers as they drive into the capital.

Despite its proximity to the city, this area was visited surprisingly sporadically by U.S. troops over the last three years. Even now there are pockets where no American faces have been seen, and there still are no-go areas for U.S. troops where the roads are heavily seeded with bombs. Following counterinsurgency doctrine, Ebel doesn't want to take areas and then leave them. So he moves his forces slowly, first establishing a checkpoint, then conducting patrols to study the area and its people, and then, after a pause, pushing his front line half a mile forward and putting up another checkpoint.

It is a difficult way to wage war. On one typical day this month, there were 24 "significant acts" -- small-arms attacks, bombings and other noteworthy events -- recorded in one relatively small part of Ebel's area of operations. "We got ambushed all over" but didn't suffer any casualties, said Maj. Daniel Morgan, operations officer in a 101st battalion southwest of Baghdad. "We've been pushing into the west," into insurgent havens along the Euphrates River southeast of Fallujah, "and they don't like it."

A drawback in this slow-motion war is that some soldiers find it frustrating. At the medic's station in Patrol Base Swamp -- which with its bare cots and hanging light bulbs feels like a scene from World War II -- three soldiers of the 101st said they loathe their time here, especially since the death of a beloved squad leader a week earlier.

"It's like trying to track down a bunch of ghosts," said Sgt. Chad Wendel, sitting on an Army cot under a window frame shielded by a blanket.

"I think it's the way we're losing more soldiers" that is most bothersome, added Spec. Frank Moore, a medic from Lynchburg, Va. "It makes you wonder, what do you gain by sticking around?"

"I don't like anything about being here," agreed Spec. Matthew Ness.

Pursuing this sort of slow-moving campaign also raises the question of whether the political clock will run out on the effort, either here in Iraq or back in the United States, before the American military and its Iraqi allies can become militarily effective in large parts of the country. "That's what I worry about," said Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the No. 2 U.S. commander here.

Round Three

The war here has gone through three distinct phases, each with its own feel and style of operation.

The first period, from May 2003 to July 2004, was characterized by drift and wishful thinking, military insiders say, with top U.S. officials at first refusing to recognize they were facing an insurgency and then committing a series of policy and tactical blunders that appear to have enflamed opposition to the U.S. occupation.

The second phase began in the summer of 2004, when Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. replaced Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and developed -- for the first time -- a U.S. campaign plan. That plan, which looked forward from August 2004 to December 2005, gave U.S. operations a new coherence, directing a series of actions intended to clear the way for Iraqi voters to establish a new government.

Now, after parliamentary elections held in December, the U.S. effort has entered a third stage. The current emphasis is on reducing the U.S. role in the war, putting Iraq army and police forces in the forefront as much as possible -- but not so fast that it breaks them, as it did in April 2004, when a battalion ordered to Fallujah mutinied. Eventually, Casey said, the hope is that U.S. forces will be able to focus on foreign fighters, while Iraqi security forces take on the native insurgency. But that hasn't happened yet. The hardest fighting, especially in rural areas, still is being done by U.S. troops.

Several aspects make this third phase different from the war of a year or two ago:

*The U.S. effort now is characterized by a more careful, purposeful style that extends even to how Humvees are driven in the streets. For years, "the standard was to haul ass," noted Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile, commander of the 8th Squadron of the 10th Cavalry Regiment, which is based near a bomb-infested highway south of Baghdad. Now his convoy drivers are ordered to move at 15 mph. "I'm a firm believer in slow, deliberate movement," he said. "You can observe better, if there's IEDs [improvised explosive devices] on the road." It also is less disruptive to Iraqis and sends a message of calm control, he noted.

*U.S. commanders spend their time differently. Where they once devoted much of their efforts to Iraqi politics and infrastructure, they now focus more on training and supporting the Iraqi police and army. "I spent the last month talking to ISF [Iraqi security force] commanders," noted Gentile, who holds a doctorate in American history from Stanford. "Two years ago I would have spent all my time talking to sheiks."

*Real progress is being made in training Iraqi forces, especially its army, according to every U.S. officer asked about the issue. One of the surprises, they say, has been that an Iraqi soldier, even one who is overweight and undertrained, is more effective standing on an Iraqi street corner than the most disciplined U.S. Army Ranger. "They get intelligence we would never get," noted Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East. "They sense the environment in a way that we never could."

An afternoon spent with one Iraqi army brigade in west Baghdad showed that while it occasionally was poor at communicating, it was capable of carrying out basic military functions. When it set up a checkpoint on a busy thoroughfare in a neighborhood known for its hostility to U.S. forces, it maintained consistent security, with soldiers on the perimeter facing outward, and was able to control civilian movements. Underscoring Abizaid's point, the soldiers checking each automobile engaged in friendly conversation with drivers in a way that Americans can't.

Despite such signs of hope, huge questions hang over the U.S. effort. Foremost is the question of whether Iraq is moving toward civil war, which could cause the situation to spin out of U.S. control. That in turn raises the issue of whether Iraqi forces believe they are training to put down an insurgency or preparing to fight a conflict that pits Shiites against Sunnis. "I can't argue with that," said Col. James Pasquarette, who shares a base at Taji, north of Baghdad, with the Iraqi army's only tank division.

In an ominous sign of the growing rift within Iraqi security forces, the first thing an Iraqi army battalion staff officer did as he briefed a reporter this month was denounce the Iraqi police and its leaders at the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry. "The army doesn't like the Ministry of Interior," said the officer, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retaliation. "The people don't like the police, either."

Also, there is no question among U.S. military intelligence officers that the insurgency remains robust. No one argues it is spreading, but many say it is intensifying in Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle north and west of the capital, with a steady increase in violence for much of last year. These officers note that there are still about 1,000 roadside bombs detonated a month, with another 500 detected before being exploded.

But the dominant view, especially among senior officers, is that the insurgency committed a key misstep by allowing a foreign terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, to become its face in Iraq. "They could have done much better," said one Army officer who works on Sunni political issues. "If I was in charge of part of them, I think I could have done better."

Off the Radar Screen

The biggest difference in Baghdad from two or three years ago is the nearly total absence of U.S. troops on its streets. In a major gamble, the city largely has been turned over to Iraqi police and army troops. If those Iraqi forces falter, leaving a vacuum, U.S. pressure elsewhere could push the insurgency into the capital. "I think they're going to go to Baghdad" next, worried Morgan. But other U.S. officers argued that such a move is unlikely because it is more difficult to intimidate a city of 5 million than a rural village.

The streets of the capital already feel as unsafe as at any time since the 2003 invasion. As one U.S. major put it, Baghdad now resembles a pure Hobbesian state where all are at war against all others and any security is self-provided.

Army Reserve Capt. A. Heather Coyne, an outspoken former White House counterterrorism official, said, "There is a total lack of security in the streets, partly because of the insurgents, partly because of criminals, and partly because the security forces can be dangerous to Iraqi citizens too." When this reporter was permitted to review an in-depth classified intelligence summary of recent "significant acts" occurring in the capital, it appeared surprisingly incomplete, generally listing only two sorts of events: anything that affected U.S. troops, and the killing of Iraqis. Other actions affecting Iraqis -- kidnappings, rapes, robberies, bombs that don't kill anyone, and a variety of forms of intimidation -- don't appear to be on the U.S. military's radar screen. As one soldier put it, that's all "background noise."

'Too Little Too Late?'

One cloudy evening this month, several hundred 101st Airborne troops gathered in a hangar on their base in Mahmudiyah for a memorial service for four soldiers -- three killed by a massive bomb, the fourth shot dead while fighting insurgents. An Army chaplain, Capt. Primitivo Davis, chose as the theme of his homily the thought that Moses served his God well, yet wasn't allowed to enter the promised land and only saw it from afar before dying. So, too, he preached, did these four dead soldiers serve well and catch "a glimpse of promise" in Iraq.

The mission of their assembled comrades was to achieve the "completed victory" of a free, stable and peaceful Iraq, he said. "Like Joshua, who followed Moses, we must pick up where they left off," Davis concluded.

Then a soldier slowly sang "Amazing Grace," and from the distance came a haunting version of "Taps." The service concluded, soldiers filed out of the hangar, many with tears streaming down their faces, and some crusty old sergeants embraced. It was at once very public, with senior officers present and rank observed, and searingly personal.

But some question whether the U.S. effort here ever will reach the conclusion Davis described. "It seems to be getting better, but you really can't tell," said Cpl. Toby Gilbreath, posted to Patrol Base San Juan, an imposing bunker west of Baghdad.

"I would like to think that there are still possibilities here," Army Reserve Lt. Col. Joe Rice said in the coffee shop of the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad's Green Zone. "We are finally getting around to doing the right things," said Rice, who is working on an Army "lessons learned" project here but who was expressing his personal opinion. "I think we're getting better, I do."

But, he continued, "is it too little too late?"