Thread: Win for the Troops

Most insurgencies are difficult to control since it is an 'idea' that has to be defeated.

Military can merely 'shape the environment'. It is only the political will that can deliver. Bettering of the economic situation of not only the state but also of the individual will pay rich dividends (e.g. In India, already the Assamese are rejecting the ULFA because the economic health of the State and the individual citizens have improved immensely and the competitiveness with other states have gripped them, as also they are fed up with the mindless mayhem).

In Iraq, while there is military presence and it is attempting to 'shape the environment', the Iraqi govt appears to be engaged in shaping its own agenda (maybe it is because of realpolitik) which is not in consonance with the actions of the US military! This mismatch confuses the issue and nullifies the results that the military may have been able to achieve. Further, it alienates the US military from the population since they would side their own govt. This has serious repercussion since the US military actions not yielding the desired results is most demoralising for those laying down their lives or being away from their families! It also makes the Iraqi govt appear moribund in the eyes of their citizens.

Thus, there is a doldrum and nothing beyond political rhetoric!

Shias can never crush Sunnis or vice versa. Just because the international media is no longer focusing on the insurgency and instead on the threat of a civil war doesn't mean it has abated or that their operations are inconsequential to the chaos they are creating.

One cannot still clearly know where Iraq is heading, but what is most essential is that the Iraqi govt works in tandem with the US vision and not act in any way that endangers the US mission and plans.

Originally Posted by Rifleman

Yes and no.

Troop level increase, yes! Additional brigades, no! I saw another article that said the Army was going to try to stand up six new brigades. Give as many existing brigades as possible a third manuever battalion before standing up any more HQs at any level.

As with SWJ, I too wish that we would go and add a third, true maneuver battalion to each brigade.

Just what I have been trying to state.

The greatest impediment to any success is the Iraqi govt itself.

This article indicates the huge problems the US troops will face with the new plan from the Iraqi govt.

One wonders if Malliki is serious about solving the problem.

U.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans

By JOHN F. BURNS
Published: January 15, 2007

This article was reported by John F. Burns, Sabrina Tavernise and Marc Santora, and written by Mr. Burns.

BAGHDAD, Jan. 14 — Just days after President Bush unveiled a new war plan calling for more than 20,000 additional American troops in Iraq, the heart of the effort — a major push to secure the capital — faces some of its fiercest resistance from the very people it depends on for success: Iraqi government officials.

American military officials have spent days huddled in meetings with Iraqi officers in a race to turn blueprints drawn up in Washington into a plan that will work on the ground in Baghdad. With the first American and Iraqi units dedicated to the plan due to be in place within weeks, time is short for setting details of what American officers view as the decisive battle of the war.

But the signs so far have unnerved some Americans working on the plan, who have described a web of problems — ranging from a contested chain of command to how to protect American troops deployed in some of Baghdad’s most dangerous districts — that some fear could hobble the effort before it begins.

First among the American concerns is a Shiite-led government that has been so dogmatic in its attitude that the Americans worry that they will be frustrated in their aim of cracking down equally on Shiite and Sunni extremists, a strategy President Bush has declared central to the plan.

“We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem,” said an American military official in Baghdad involved in talks over the plan. “We are being played like a pawn.”

The American military’s misgivings came as new details emerged of the reconstruction portion of Mr. Bush’s plan, which calls for more than doubling the number of American-led reconstruction teams in Iraq to 22 and quintupling the number of American civilian reconstruction specialists to 500. [Page A7.]

Compounding American doubts about the government’s willingness to go after Shiite extremists has been a behind-the-scenes struggle over the appointment of the Iraqi officer to fill the key post of operational commander for the Baghdad operation. In face of strong American skepticism, the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, has selected an officer from the Shiite heartland of southern Iraq who was virtually unknown to the Americans, and whose hard-edged demands for Iraqi primacy in the effort has deepened American anxieties.

The Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Aboud Qanbar, will be part of what the Americans have described as a partnership between the two armies, with an American general, Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of the First Cavalry Division, working with General Aboud, and American and Iraqi officers twinned down the operational chain.

For the Americans, accustomed to clear operational control, the partnership concept is troublesome — full of potential, some officers fear, for dispute with the Iraqis over tough issues like applying an equal hand against Shiite and Sunni gunmen.

It remains unclear whether the prime minister will be in overall charge of the new crackdown, a demand the Iraqis have pressed since the plan was first discussed last month, American officials said. They said days of argument had led to a compromise under which General Qanbar would answer to a so-called crisis counsel, made up of Mr. Maliki, the ministers of defense and interior, Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and the top American military commander in Iraq.

The Americans said that while they had reluctantly accepted General Qanbar, they had won concessions from the Iraqis in the appointment of two officers favored by the American command for the two deputy Iraqi commanders, one for the areas of Baghdad west of the Tigris River, the other for districts to the east.

Still, the new command structure seemed rife with potential for conflict. An American military official said that the arrangements appeared unwieldy, and at odds with military doctrine calling for a clear chain of command. “There’s no military definition for ‘partnered,’ ” he said.

Along with those problems, the Americans cite logistical issues that must be solved before the new plan can begin to work. Intent on using the large numbers of additional American and Iraqi troops that have been pledged to the plan to get “boots on the ground” across Baghdad, they are planning to establish perhaps 30 or 40 “joint security sites” spread across nine new military districts in the capital, many in police stations that have been among the most frequent targets in the war.

But in many areas, there are no police stations, at least none suitable as operational centers, so the planners are seeking alternate locations, including large houses, that will have to be fortified with 15-foot-high concrete blast walls, rolls of barbed wire and machine-gun towers.

There are no solutions yet to longstanding problems like who — the American forces, or the Iraqis’ own anemic logistics system — will supply the fuel required to keep Iraqi Humvees and troop-carrying trucks running, at a time when the American supply chain will face new strains in supporting thousands of additional American troops.

The plan gives a central role to the National Police, viewed as widely infiltrated by Shiite militias and, despite an intensive American retraining program, still suspected of a strongly Shiite sectarian bias. One American officer said that the National Police commanders have been “dragging their feet” over their role in the new plan and that they could seriously compromise the operation.

Against those concerns, American officers cite several factors they believe will lend impetus to the new offensive. The five additional brigades of American troops committed by President Bush — approximately 21,500 American soldiers, about 80 percent of them to be deployed in Baghdad — will roughly triple the numbers of American soldiers available for ground operations, as a relatively small proportion of the new troop strength will be needed for “force protection,” the military term for troops who safeguard bases and ensure the safety of other soldiers.

Since the resignation of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld after the November elections, American commanders here have been more candid in acknowledging something Mr. Rumsfeld often disputed: that the commanders have had to play shell games with thinly stretched troops, and that many crucial operations, including previous attempts to secure Baghdad, have failed because troops have often been moved on to other operations, allowing insurgents and militia groups to retake areas vacated by the Americans. The new plan, the Americans say, will go a long way toward redressing that problem, at least in Baghdad.

Another positive cited by American officers is the appointment by President Bush of Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus as the new overall American commander in Iraq, succeeding Gen. George W. Casey Jr., who will leave next month after more 30 months in command of the war. General Petraeus, who has already completed two 12-month tours in Iraq, has a reputation among officers who have served under him as an imaginative commander who enlists strong loyalties among his troops.

Many officers interviewed for this article said they still believed the tide of the war here can be reversed, with the additional troops, the focus on regaining control of Baghdad and the more consistent military strategy they said they expected from General Petraeus. The 54-year-old native of upstate New York, a marathon runner, will come to Baghdad after overseeing the Army’s reworking of its counterinsurgency manual, parts of which he redrafted himself.

American officials in Baghdad and Washington have said that they have limited time — perhaps no more than six to nine months — to show gains from the new American push before popular support erodes still further and the onset of the 2008 presidential campaign leads American politicians to push harder for a troop withdrawal. There are also questions of how long the overstretched American military can sustain the stepped-up presence here.

Together, those factors have thrust American military planners into the equivalent of a two-minute drill, trying to develop a plan that will yield rapid gains in regaining control of Baghdad neighborhoods that have slipped into near-anarchy as Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads have run rampant. While American officers are confident the additional troops will make a major impact, they worry about what will happen when the American troop commitment is scaled down again, and Iraqi troops are left facing the main burden of patrolling the city.

That prospect raises the specter of repeating what has happened on several other occasions in Baghdad: Americans clearing neighborhoods house-by-house, only for insurgents and militiamen to reappear when Iraqi security forces take over from the Americans and prove incapable of holding the ground, or compliant with the marauding gunmen. That was the pattern with Operation Together Forward, the last effort to secure Baghdad, which began with an additional 7,000 American troops over the summer, and effectively abandoned within two months when Iraqi troops failed to hold areas the Americans handed over to them.

Another concern is that the target of the new Baghdad plan — Sunni and Shiite extremists — may replicate the pattern American troops have seen before when they have embarked on major offensives — of “melting away” only to return later. Some officers report scattered indications that some Shiite militiamen may already be heading for safer havens in southern Iraq, calculating that they can wait the new offensive out before returning to the capital.

“This is an enemy that will trade space for time,” one officer said.

Shiite neighborhoods present special challenges. Tightly woven networks of militias backed by the government, the areas have been largely off-limits to American forces. An early test will be Sadr City, the largest Shiite enclave in the capital, and the main stronghold for the Mahdi Army militia, led by the renegade cleric, Moktada al-Sadr. American officers say it is far from clear that the Maliki government will permit American troops to operate freely in the enclave.

The number of Americans to be based at the new joint security centers is another matter under debate. At a minimum, according to officers involved in the planning, there will be an American platoon, about 30 to 40 troops, working from each new center, with another platoon patrolling nearby, serving as both a quick reaction force to quell any surge of violence in the area and also to protect the Americans stationed with the Iraqis.

That places American soldiers directly in neighborhoods where, until now, they have appeared only transiently on patrols and raids. Under the new plan, they will work closely with the Iraqi Army and police in an attempt to establish a trust that has been elusive. The approach has been modeled on a successful American campaign effort 18 months ago in Tal Afar, a northern city that saw dramatic drops in violence and is now regarded as one of the few success stories of the American campaign.

The Tal Afar strategy was developed by Col. H. R. McMaster, commander of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment at the time. Colonel McMaster, who is widely regarded within the Army as one of its most creative counterinsurgency thinker, as well as something of a maverick, has been involved in Pentagon planning for the new Baghdad operation. But unlike Tal Afar, Baghdad is at the heart of the country, with nearly a quarter of Iraq’s population, and American officers say that success here will be far more complex than in the operation masterminded by Colonel McMaster.

Another senior officer involved in developing the new plan said that the new crackdown would have been much easier to implement if it had been adopted earlier. He said that when he returned to Iraq for a second tour in the fall, he was shocked to see how far the American war effort had regressed, something he attributed to muddled strategy. “When I got back three months ago, the hodge-podge called Baghdad was like a Rubik’s cube gone awry,” he said.

In embattled West Baghdad, the plan is to place the new security centers squarely where the sectarian fighting has been fiercest. One of the first centers expected to begin operating is in Ghazaliya, a Sunni enclave that has repeatedly come under assault from Shiite militias.

That seems certain to pose early on the central question that confronts American commanders as they start the plan: will the Maliki government agree to operations aimed at Shiite extremists, or resist them and push for the focus to be laid on Sunni extremists attacking Shiite areas?

American officers say that only time will tell, but that they will be surprised if Mr. Maliki and his top aides change colors, despite the assurances the Iraqi leader is said to have offered President Bush. As described by American commanders, the pattern in the eight months since Mr. Maliki took office has been for the Shiite leaders who dominate the new government to press the Americans to concentrate on Sunni extremists.

The argument is that Shiite death squads, which have accounted for an almost equal number of deaths, are engaged in retaliatory attacks, and that those will cease when the Sunni groups are rooted out.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/wo..._r=2&ref=world

We Might 'Win', But Still Lose

Lt. Col. Steven Duke says the Mahdi Army is 'sitting on the 50-yard line, eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them.'

By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek

Jan. 22, 2007 issue - Everyone seems quite certain that George W. Bush's new plan for Iraq is bound to fail. But I'm not so sure. At a military level, the strategy could well produce some successes. American forces have won every battle they have fought in Iraq. Having more troops and a new mission to secure whole neighborhoods is a good idea—better four years late than never. But the crucial question is, will military progress lead to political progress? That logic, at the heart of the president's new strategy, strikes me as highly dubious.

Administration officials have pointed to last week's fighting against Sunni insurgents in and around Baghdad's Haifa Street as a textbook example of the new strategy. Iraqi forces took the lead, American troops backed them up and the government did not put up any obstacles. The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger concluded that the battle "looked like a successful test of unified [American-Iraqi] effort."

But did it? NEWSWEEK's Michael Hastings, embedded with an American advisory team that took part in the fighting, reports that no more than 24 hours after the battle began on Jan. 6, the brigade's Sunni commander, Gen. Razzak Hamza, was relieved of his command. The phone call to fire him came directly from the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite. Lt. Col. Steven Duke, commander of a U.S. advisory team working with the Iraqis, and a 20-year Army veteran, describes Hamza as "a true patriot [who] would go after the bad guys on either side." Hamza was replaced by a Shiite.

Joint operations against Shiite militias are far less likely, and not only because of political interference from the top. Groups like Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army don't generally start fire fights with the Americans or attack Iraqi forces. Their goals are different, quieter. Another U.S. adviser, Maj. Mark Brady, confirms reports that the Mahdi Army has been continuing to systematically take over Sunni neighborhoods, killing, terrorizing and forcing people out of their homes. "They're slowly moving across the river," he told Hastings, from predominantly Shiite eastern Baghdad into the predominantly Sunni west. If the 20,000 additional American troops being sent to the Iraqi capital focus primarily on Sunni insurgents, there's a chance the Shiite militias might get bolder. Colonel Duke puts it bluntly: "[The Mahdi Army] is sitting on the 50-yard line eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them."

So what will happen if Bush's new plan "succeeds" militarily over the next six months? Sunnis will become more insecure as their militias are dismantled. Shiite militias will lower their profile on the streets and remain as they are now, ensconced within the Iraqi Army and police. That will surely make Sunnis less likely to support the new Iraq. Shiite political leaders, on the other hand, will be emboldened. They refused to make any compromises—on federalism, de-Baathification, oil revenues and jobs—in 2003 when the United States was dominant, in 2005 when the insurgency was raging, and in 2006 when they took over the reins of government fully. Why would they do so as they gain the upper hand militarily?

Administration officials claim that this time things are different. The Maliki government, and the Shiite leadership more generally, understand that they must crack down on militias and compromise with the Sunnis. Why? In the words of one senior U.S. official—under instructions to stay anonymous—because Shiite political leaders understand they no longer have "unquestioning American support anymore, especially from Capitol Hill." This suggests that the administration finally understands that Bush's blank-check policy for the Iraqi government has proved totally counterproductive. The one action that might be forcing the Iraqi leadership to make some compromises has been the threat that Congress would force a withdrawal of American support. One month ago, the White House was criticizing Congress as being borderline treasonous for suggesting such a thing. Today its strategy in Iraq rests on the fruits of that assertiveness.

Over the past three and a half years, the dominant flaw in the Bush administration's handling of Iraq is that it has, both intentionally and inadvertently, driven the country's several communities apart. Every seemingly neutral action—holding elections, firing Baathists from the bureaucracy, building up an Iraqi military and police force—has had seismic sectarian consequences. The greatest danger of Bush's new strategy, then, isn't that it won't work but that it will—and thereby push the country one step further along the road to all-out civil war. Only a sustained strategy of pressure on the Maliki government—unlike anything Bush has been willing to do yet—has any chance of averting this outcome.

Otherwise, American interests and ideals will both be in jeopardy. Al Qaeda in Iraq—the one true national-security threat we face from that country—will gain Sunni support. In addition, as American officers like Duke and Brady have noted, our ideals will be tarnished. The U.S. Army will be actively aiding and assisting in the largest program of ethnic cleansing since Bosnia. Is that the model Bush wanted for the Middle East?
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc. |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16610769...wsweek/page/2/

Another analysis to indicate the issue of how the US troops are fighting with one hand tied behind their backs!

Originally Posted by shek

Stan,

I'll disagree with you there. Like VDH, mighty entertaining, but not so much for me on concurrence with what he wrote. However, I do think that this oped is spot on.

More so than anything, I agree with Ralph Peters' attitude. I don't agree with everything that he writes, but a lot of it. And the rest of it is at least intelligent arguments, which are getting harder to come by from popular writers it seems.

Originally Posted by Stan187

More so than anything, I agree with Ralph Peters' attitude. I don't agree with everything that he writes, but a lot of it. And the rest of it is at least intelligent arguments, which are getting harder to come by from popular writers it seems.

All true.

Originally Posted by astralis

but that doesn't take away from your point that anything can be beaten.

That was my only point. You can read back and see, he didn't use any qualifiers with that remark. You know better than to make a statement like that and I would agree with you except that the Iraqi military is growing too, and once they're ready for us to leave, they'll finish the job in a most violent fashion.