In Air Power in Small Wars and A-10s Aid in Counterinsurgency we discussed the controversial topic of air power in so-called “small wars.”  In reality, the issue of collateral damage is a straw man, as has been demonstrated by recent history in Iraq.  Several recent examples involve combat action near Karmah in the Anbar Province, in which both air power and artillery were used:

Marines from Regimental Combat Team 6 observed and engaged an armed group of al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists killing 12 and destroying two vehicles near the town of Karmah Aug. 29.

A group of three men was seen loading objects into a bongo truck from a nearby growth of weeds 11 kilometers northeast of Fallujah, in an area known to be a historical weapons cache site. A second group of four men arrived in another bongo truck, followed by a third group of six men on foot through the reeds.

A team of Marines was dispatched to better observe the scene and a third cargo truck carrying three men waving weapons and wearing ski masks approached the group a few moments later.

The Marines called for air support and a section of AV-8B Harrier jets dropped two precision-guided bombs, destroying the initial two cargo trucks. Marines called for artillery fire on the dismounted enemy personnel immediately following the air attack.

Twelve members of al Qaeda were found dead upon investigation of the scene… Numerous weapons and roadside bomb making materials were also found.

The example below is in an urban setting, and collateral damage was completely avoided.

Task Force Marne attack helicopter crews destroyed an al-Qaeda safe house in Arab Jabour Sept. 2.

Soldiers of Company B, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, were told by local concerned citizens that al –Qaeda was killing civilians behind the Qhurfar Mosque. The family of a man killed by al-Qaeda reported the insurgents went to a nearby house.

An air weapons team was called and engaged the house in two separate runs. A total of two hellfire missiles, seven rockets and one burst of .50 cal fire were expended on the house.

The mosque incurred no damage.

There is no question that the final stages of counterinsurgency involve a heavy emphasis on nonkinetic operations.  However, combat against rogue elements remains an essential part of small wars, and these operations can rely heavily on air power.

In The Pacification of Fallujah: Is it Fake?, I responded to claims that the pacification of Fallujah occurred at the expense of viability of the city.  I responded in the negative.  I have been waiting on Bill Ardolino’s first post from Fallujah, and it comes entitled We Like You! where he discusses the ‘astounding’ changes that have occurred since his last visit to Fallujah.

The surreality of the change can be summed up by this afternoon. I sat chit-chatting in a downtown precinct with Iraqi cops and newly-minted neighborhood watchmen, junior security officials drawn from the same labor pool that previously drove the insurgency. As was the case last visit, the Iraqis assume that I’m an Arab when they first see me, and express amused fascination when they discover I’m American. Apparently I look like a member of a tribe that lives northwest of the city, whose members sport full beards, lighter brown skin and light eyes. I always respond that there are plenty of Americans who look just like them, because America welcomes all races. Coupled with my prominent camera and status as “a journalist,” I rate somewhere between a bemusing curiosity and a very minor celebrity.

Through a local interpreter, we talked about their changing opinion of Americans, Iraq’s prospects, the misery of living under al Qaeda, the joys of kabob and favorite soccer teams. Their open and friendly nature is hard to reconcile with the violent history of American-Iraqi interaction in Fallujah, and many of them charitably chalk it up to a “misunderstanding.”

Towards the end of a long conversation with one group, I said, “Well, I wish you luck. And I want you to know, besides the marines and soldiers that you meet here in the city, there are many civilians back in America who hope for Fallujah’s success.”

The afternoon’s joking died down as the interpreter translated and each of them earnestly told me “shukran” (“thank you”). And one young guy blurted out in halting English, “We like you!”

Backatcha, buddy. Now I’m off to hit that kabob.

Bill is a first-rate reporter and I look forward to more posts on his embed with the Marines.  Read the whole article.  Repeating from before, there may be bumps in the road in the future, especially with the plan to lift the ban on vehicle traffic.   After all, it is still a counterinsurgency.  But the counterinsurgency operation by the Marines in Anbar, and more particularly, Fallujah, will go down as one of the greatest, with remarkable progress accomplished in the compressed time frame in which they work.

S/F.

Think Progress, a liberal web site, has a short commentary on the “surge,” the success in Anbar, and how the facts on the ground allegedly bebunk the relationship between the two.  Says the commentary:

Today, President Bush held the Anbar province up as an example of his escalation’s success and justification for why the troop buildup should not be cut short:

In Anbar you’re seeing firsthand the dramatic differences that can come when the Iraqis are more secure. … You see Sunnis who once fought side by side with al-Qaida against coalition troops now fighting side by side with coalition troops against al-Qaida.

But as the AP points out, “In truth, the progress in Anbar was initiated by the Iraqis themselves, a point Gates himself made, saying the Sunni tribes decided to fight and retake control from al-Qaida many months before Bush decided to send an extra 4,000 Marines to Anbar as part of his troop buildup.

John Robb has a post entitled Potemkin Pacification, in which he writes:

Indications of calm and tranquility in the “pacified cities” of Iraq is at the expense of viability. Essentially, to pacify urban areas we have destroyed the basic levels of connectivity that make them work. For example, Fallujah residents are disconnected…

• from the country. A wall around the city with biometric entry points.
• from each other. The city is divided into 10 walled districts with few entry/exit points. Each is guarded by a combination of neighborhood militias, police and US soldiers.
• from basic mobility. The city has been under a vehicle ban since May 2007.

The natural result is zero economic activity. Its industrial area is closed since it is a security risk. The city suffers from 80 percent unemployment with the bulk of the remainder of those employed are either working in militias or with the police. There are chronic shortages of basic necessities like food and fuel. Reconstruction is nearly at a stand-still (in part due to a complete lack of support from the central government).

By invoking the word Potemkin, Robb is suggesting that whether intentionally or accidentally, the pacification of Fallujah is fake.

Rehearsing what I said about this post from Robb at a discussion thread at the Small Wars Council:

I like to keep up with John Robb. Without studying analyses that run counter to your own one can become rather closed-minded. But what were the conditions like in Fallujah prior to this? I had interviewed Lt. Col. William Mullen concerning the conditions in Fallujah in this article: Operation Alljah and the Marines of 2nd Battalion, 6th Regiment.

And so I knew full well what we have had to do to pacify Fallujah. The tribal influence is much weaker in Fallujah, so more traditional counterinsurgency TTPs have been required, such as gated communities.

But is Robb seriously claiming that this has hindered true progress or otherwise caused conditions in Fallujah that are worse than they were prior to these actions? Is he seriously claiming that our efforts have caused unemployment or the lack of communication with the balance of Iraq?

He misses the point. The unemployment was already there, because it was the last major city in Anbar to undergo pacification. I claim exactly the opposite of Robb. Now … and only now … can Fallujah BEGIN its communication with the rest of Iraq.

More on Biometrics here from Noah Shachtman: Iraq diary: Anbar’s Boys in Blue.

Of course, the lifting of the vehicle ban will bring uninvited danger compared to the past few months, and there will certainly be bumps in the road.  Kinetic events can always happen — after all, it is still a counterinsurgency.  But Robb’s post makes it sound as if the typical Fallujan could object, “We had it all.  Fallujah was the tourism and vacation hot spot of Iraq, we were all employed and wealthy, had power and water 100% of the time, and then came the daffy Americans with their counterinsurgency tactics.  Sure wish for the good ole’ days.”

I have come to expect better and more challenging commentary and analysis from John Robb.  This is simply poor, and the pacification of Fallujah is real.  The question is, “Can it be maintained at the current level or some level greater than prior to these tactics being implemented?”

My bet is on the Marines and Fallujans.

Daniel M. Zucker has a compelling commentary for the cessation of U.S. support for Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki at Global Politician.

Iranian exile dissident Ghazal Omid’s recent Op-Ed of August 16, 2007, “Close the Iraq Chapter Before Opening Iran

The London Times makes claims concerning Pentagon plans for a coming air war against Iran.

THE Pentagon has drawn up plans for massive airstrikes against 1,200 targets in Iran, designed to annihilate the Iranians’ military capability in three days, according to a national security expert.

Alexis Debat, director of terrorism and national security at the Nixon Center, said last week that US military planners were not preparing for “pinprick strikes

Picture h/t Fortress Australia Outpost.

In A-10s Aid in Counterinsurgency, I discussed the new role for A-10s being considered by the USAF: Counterinsurgency.  I followed this up with Faster Kill Chain, in which I briefly discussed the changes occurring to take the Hog from the analog to the digital age.

Defense Industry Daily has an article on the higher-tech Hog that is a good primer on the changes occurring to make it suitable for its new intended purpose.  The new cockpit layout is shown below.

Another very significant Increment 3.2 upgrade involves Raytheon’s SADL data link. SADL was added after the A-10 Precision Engagement program requirements were finalized, which is usually a predictor of trouble. Instead, it went from requirements to delivery in just 17 months, thanks to a general sense of urgency and extraordinary contractor efforts. Those efforts included hardware purchases by Lockheed Martin before they had a government contract to do so, putting their funds at risk but ultimately shortening project completion by 6 months.

SADL automatically sends and receive data from the Army Enhanced Position Locating and Reporting System (ePLRS) that is part of FBCB2, a.k.a. “Blue Force Tracker.” This means that friendly troops on the ground receive the plane’s position and altitude, while the 5 closest “friendlies” will show up on the aircraft’s heads-up display and/or multi-function cockpit displays at the beginning of an attack. SADL also offers Link 16 integration with other fighters and air defense systems, allowing the A/OA-10C to automatically known receive position data for enemy aircraft, air defenses, and other targets – including targets beyond its range of sight. Link 16 and SADL share information via gateways, which are land-based or airborne portals that permit the transfer of information between different formats. The USAF adds that:

“A command and control platform—such as the 12th Air Force Air Operations Center here—can send digital communication via SADL to the A-10C for a variety of purposes. Tasking messages, targeting information, threat warnings, and friendly locations can all be sent and received by the A-10C. Additionally, the A-10C is the only platform with the ability to task other fighter platforms to attack targets.”

Given past A-10-related friendly fire incidents, the appeal of a system like SADL is obvious. Major Drew English, the USAF program manager for A-10C Precision Engagement, told Military Aerospace Technology that:

“I would say the biggest [change] we have coming impact wise is the data link. It will shape our tactics and it bring us into a new era, probably as much as night vision goggles did when we got those in the mid-’90s”

We’ll see if it can live up to its billing.  It own history sets a very high standard.

My son’s MOS is 0311: Marine Infantry.  It is my policy not to blog on things I learn from my son.  However, it is nice to see these things in print elsewhere, even if rather cleaned up for publication.  W. Thomas Smith, Jr., has written a great article entitled Young Man’s Work: A Snapshot of Marine Life.

Tired, dirty, footsore, slightly dehydrated, hungry, and with an aching back and shoulders, I limped toward the battalion headquarters building from where a clean, fit, and slightly younger Lt. Col. Jason Bohm — task force commander of 1st Battalion, 4th Marines — emerged. I had just returned to Forward Operating Base Al Qaim after several days operating out of one of Bohm’s battle positions up on Iraq’s Syrian border. Bohm was getting ready to head back out to be with his men.

“Colonel, this is young man’s work,

My son’s MOS is 0311: Marine Infantry.  It is my policy not to blog on things I learn from my son.  However, it is nice to see these things in print elsewhere, even if rather cleaned up for publication.  W. Thomas Smith, Jr., has written a great article entitled Young Man’s Work: A Snapshot of Marine Life.

Tired, dirty, footsore, slightly dehydrated, hungry, and with an aching back and shoulders, I limped toward the battalion headquarters building from where a clean, fit, and slightly younger Lt. Col. Jason Bohm — task force commander of 1st Battalion, 4th Marines — emerged. I had just returned to Forward Operating Base Al Qaim after several days operating out of one of Bohm’s battle positions up on Iraq’s Syrian border. Bohm was getting ready to head back out to be with his men.

“Colonel, this is young man’s work,