Archive for the 'Iraq' Category

Not too many months ago, one of al Qaeda’s tactics to create chaos in Iraq was to attack the infrastructure (e.g., water supplies and the electricity grid).  With the retreat of al Qaeda from Anbar and the constant combat they sustain in the North, there are fewer oppotunities for them to attack the grid, and power is being consumed at higher rates in the large urban areas, while outlier cities are starved.

Residents in the battered city receive just a couple of hours of mains power a day, and in the depths of winter US soldiers are facing a whole new array of challenges, said Captain Dan Gaskell.

Violence in Ramadi, provincial capital of Anbar Province about 100 kilometers west of Baghdad, has fallen significantly over the past year after local tribal leaders turned against Al-Qaeda and formed a tribal front to pursue the militants.

Attacks have dropped from 25-30 every day to less than one a week, and the numbers of roadside bombs have declined by 90 percent, according to US military figures.

“We are dealing with a new dynamic now,” said Gaskell, company commander at the Ma’Laab Joint Security Station (JSS) in West Ramadi, one of about 30 such bases now operating in the city.

But Ramadi’s 400,000 residents, almost exclusively Sunnite, are getting far less electricity than they were in the summer.

“Mains electricity is between one and three hours a day,” said Gaskell, explaining that Ramadi has suffered as Baghdad’s needs have increased.

“The power is coming from the Haditha [hydroelectric] dam. Baghdad and Fallouja take their power before it comes out here, so it gets degraded and degraded.”

Six months ago Ramadi got eight to 15 hours of electricity a day, but improvements in Baghdad’s infrastructure mean the capital is now drawing far more power.

Plans are being drawn up for a new power line to be built from Fallouja directly to the Ramadi area.
“There is no real power coming into the city,” said Gaskell. “But the central government is doing all the upgrade work so when they do turn on the switch, the city will be fully operational.”

Kerosene, used for portable heaters, has also been a major concern this winter, with corruption and theft undermining supply.

“The distribution has been on an old ration card system but it works at our local level,” said Gaskell. “The problem we have is with missing kerosene higher up the chain: a truck driver shows up and 3,000 liters are missing.”

Nothing could be worse for the perception of fairness and stability than official overuse of resources by one segment of the population.  Civil strife and unrest will eventually result from this inequity.  Institutionalized corruption cannot be rooted out overnight, but the planning for electrical generation, transmission and distribution assets should have been in the works more than two years ago.  Transmission of power from the Haditha dam to Baghdad and then back again to Falujah and then to Ramadi is a huge loss of voltage and ridiculous transmission plan.  The Army Corps of Engineers should be all over this.  State stabilization hangs in the balance, and this shows yet again that counterinsurgency is not just about kinetic operations.

Prior: Targeting the Insurgency Versus Protecting the Infrastructure

**** update **** 

LT Nixon, currently deployed, writes the following comment: “That’s one of the biggest beefs the Iraqis have had. You all-powerful Americans can’t even keep the lights on at my house? It doesn’t help that insurgents are still wreaking havoc on the grid up north. It’s gotten better, but it has a long, long way to go.”

It should be mentioned that there is not only a disparity between what we should do and have done (if we plan ahead, have the right NGO involvement, and fund reconstruction the way we should), but there is also a disparity between what we should do and are seen as capable of doing (which is what Nixon is speaking to).  This is the man on the moon perception problem.

The troubles of the United States in Iraq have been blamed on many causes: too few troops, wrong strategies, flawed intelligence, a very stubborn commander-in-chief.

The Man on the Moon rarely rates a public mention.

But the Man on the Moon looms so large in relations between the U.S. and 28 million Iraqis that every U.S. field commander knows his job would be easier if no American had ever set foot on the moon.

The Man on the Moon even gets a specific mention in the counterinsurgency manual the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps adopted last December. It is now taught at every U.S. military college and has the following passage:

“U.S. forces start with a built-in challenge because of their reputation for accomplishment, what some call ‘the man on the moon syndrome.’ This refers to the expressed disbelief that a nation able to put a man on the moon cannot quickly restore basic services.

“In some cultures, failure to deliver promised results is automatically interpreted as deliberate deception rather than good intentions gone awry.”

The “expressed disbelief” is voiced in such questions in Iraq as “how come the Americans could send a man on the moon but can’t bring us power. Or water. Or jobs. Or security.

So reconstruction efforts have as obstacles not only institutionalized corruption, lack of funding, lack of proper NGO support, and insurgent activity, but perception as well.

Major General Benjamin Mixon recently reported on counterinsurgency in the Northern Province of Diyala to Fort Leavenworth officers.

Iraqis could be chiefly in control of the security in the north of their country within a year, says the general recently returned from commanding forces there.

Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon told officers at Fort Leavenworth last week that he expected Iraqi security forces to take the lead in day-to-day patrols in the northern provinces within 12 to 18 months if U.S. commanders continue to build up the capabilities of the Iraqis and the population’s confidence in them.

The first province transferred to Iraqi security was Muthanna in July 2006, followed by Dhi Qar, An Najaf, Maysan, part of Irbil, Sulaymaniyah, Dahuk, Karbala and Basra. The general thinks Diyala, Salah ad Din, Ninawa, Al Tameen provinces and the rest of Irbil could see Iraqis assuming the lead in security in little over a year.

Mixon said gains in the north came ahead of last year’s U.S. troop surge and before the rewriting of American doctrine for fighting the insurgency.

As early as November 2006, he said, his troops were setting up smaller remote bases more in touch with the lives of ordinary Iraqis and courting tribal sheikhs and provincial officials.

“I don’t know what’s new about counterinsurgency,” Mixon said.

That runs counter to enthusiasm generated among officers by a new and much-lauded counterinsurgency manual published in 2006 under the direction of Gen. David Petraeus when he was the commander at Leavenworth. It was the first revision of U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine in decades, and was notable for the way it valued collaboration with a civilian population and de-emphasized the use of brute military power.

The adoption of the manual was followed quickly by President Bush sending a surge of 30,000 troops into Iraq and putting Petraeus in charge of troops in the country.

“It’s a myth that all of a sudden we published the manual, then all of a sudden we got counterinsurgency,” Mixon told a handful of officers from Leavenworth’s counterinsurgency center.

Urban warfare studies at Fort Polk, La., for years have underscored the importance of winning the support of civilians in an occupied country through negotiation, he said. The military has long urged understanding local culture and improving people’s living conditions.

When Mixon was the top commander in northern Iraq for a 15-month stretch that ended late last year, troops worked to secure the region’s bountiful oil fields — although the general said exports could still be stifled by a single terrorist explosion — rebuilt schools, and repaired water and power facilities.

The effort included public relations work, from military commanders hosting regular radio call-in shows to arranging the telecasts of widows of suicide bombing victims receiving suitcases full of Iraqi currency in compensation.

“We’re not going to win by killing everybody,” the general said. “You’ve got to kill the right people — the leaders, the bomb makers and the people who just don’t want to give up the fight.

“But you can’t kill everybody. You have to win them over.”

Since the narrative carried forward matters to history for the purposes of training young officers and assisting the population to understand what counterinsurgency requires, and since I have been concerned about the lack of clarity of the Anbar narrative, I began the category The Anbar Narrative.  It is true that the success in Anbar came as a result of hard work prior to the so called “surge,” and that Marines were doing combat outposts (later combined with Iraqi Police Precincts) prior to the command of General Petraeus or the Petraeus / Nagl / Kilcullen doctrine promulgated in FM 3-24.  But The Captain’s Journal isn’t sure what to make of the claims by Major General Mixon regarding the Diyala Province, especially since this report differs at least moderately from previous reports by Mixon.

Maintaining security in Diyala province north of Baghdad will be impossible if U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq, according to a U.S. senior ground commander there.

“We obviously cannot maintain that if the forces are withdrawn — and that would be a very, very bad idea, to do a significant withdrawal immediately,” Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, told CNN’s Jamie McIntyre on CNN.com Live.

In September, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is to brief Congress on the progress of operations involving the recent increase of U.S. troops in Iraq — a buildup the Bush administration calls a “surge.” The briefing could determine how long the additional troops will stay.

Mixon’s troops are working with Iraqi forces fighting entrenched al Qaeda forces in Baquba and around Diyala province in an operation dubbed “Arrowhead Ripper.”

U.S. troop casualties have been high in the province, according to U.S. commanders, because insurgent forces are using the area as a base and have booby-trapped it with “deeply buried” roadside bombs that have killed entire Humvee crews.

Diyala became the home base for many al Qaeda forces when U.S. troops clamped down on Baghdad in February with increased troop levels, the military says.

Once a model of how the United States was clearing violence from parts of Iraq, Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, has become a ghost town except for the pockets of fighting between coalition and al Qaeda forces.

Mixon said the U.S. military strategy of “clear, hold and retain” was not possible when his troops arrived in Baquba last September because he did not have enough forces.

“I only had enough forces initially when I arrived here last September to clear Baquba. I did that many times, but I was unable to hold it and secure it,” Mixon said.

“Now I have enough force to go in, establish permanent compound outposts throughout the city that will be manned by coalition forces, Iraqi army, and Iraqi police, and maintain a permanent presence.

“But all of this has been made possible with the additional forces that have been given to me as a result of the surge,” Mixon said.

This kind of odd inconsistency helps neither the training of young officers trying to learn to lead their units nor the narrative of history.  The longer the time delay before a concerted effort is made to catalog the campaign, the less clear the narrative becomes.  Let’s hope that the battalion, regiment and division historians are busy about their business.

Wretchard of the Belmont Club weighs in on the British -American debate over strategy in Afghanistan.  It is a lengthy and involved post, and in order to avoid republishing it here, the reader should follow the link to the full article.  His summary follows:

Robert Gates’ remarks ripped the lid off a simmering disagreement between NATO allies and the US over Afghan strategy. The differences are not simply over troop levels and counterinsurgency competencies but at the level of basic national interest. For some NATO countries there is nothing in Afghanistan worth fighting for at all for except the maintenance of good diplomatic relationships with America and the preservation of the Atlantic Alliance. But that will only go so far; and at any rate America can be counted on to carry the load alone because in contrast, the United States which directly suffered the September 11 attacks, sees a victory in the Afghan/Pakistani theater as a matter of vital interest. Therefore the US will carry on regardless. Even Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama periodically declare their commitment to winning in that theater. The US and the European NATO countries may differ even in their conception of victory. For the US, victory is defined as creating and maintaining friendly governments in both Kabul and Islamabad by defeating al-Qaeda and its allies. For the Europeans it may mean bringing the Taliban to power in exchange for giving up its support of al-Qaeda.

Which side of the debate is correct I leave the reader to decide. But so far as I can tell this is what the debate is about.

The focal point of his analysis is the different conceptions of victory and what these conceptions mean to the methods and strategy by which it is pursued.  His point that the coalition is fractured is correct, and the British are looking for finality sooner than traditional counterinsurgency doctrine allows.  Thus, victory is redefined, i.e., the bar is lowered.  However, because he fails to interact with my own analyses, or at least the line of thought I advocate in this series of posts, his analysis is shortsighted and impoverished.

It is true that there is currently a clamour in Britain to jettison duties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but this has not always been the case.  Soon after Phase 1 of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the British in Basra had a high time of it, working under the quiet confidence that regarding counterinsurgency, they had a few things to teach the Americans.  They implemented very restrictive rules of engagement, wore soft covers, had minimal force projection, and fished the waters of the Shaat al Arab on their days off.  Before too long under under these conditions, troop movement into and out of the AO was done only at night and via helicopter because travel by day was too dangerous.

The British ended their campaign in Basra by evacuating the city because they believed that their lack of presence in Basra would stop the shooting at their soldiers.  In other words, if they weren’t around to shoot at, they would’nt receive fire.  The AO was turned over to sectarian thieves, thugs and Iranian henchmen, and the Police chief in Basra has sustained seven assassination attempts.

In contrast to this, the Anbar province is pacified, and contrary to the Shi’a militia who drove the British out of Basra, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha has said that the U.S. must stay in Anbar in order to help maintain security.  Force projection won Anbar and created the conditions under which it is safe for the U.S. to garrison forces there, and lack of force projection lost Basra.  Yet the British have not lost their penchant for seeing counterinsurgency through a different lens than the U.S.  The debate began in Basra before any part of the campaigns in Iraq or Afghanistan became problematic and before the British public was searching for a way out.

The debate continues, and the recent deals with the Taliban are a continuing function of the strategy promulgated by the British.  It may be the case that the public pressure to disengage has become more prominent, but the strategy the British are pursuing is not a function of this public pressure.  Only the speed with which they employ the strategy needs to change in order to acquiesce to the public pressure.  The fracture in the coalition is deeper than mere public perception at home.

Prior:

British Versus Americans: The War Over Strategy

Our Deal with Mullah Abdul Salaam

I have previously predicted that Iraq would not only be a protectorate of the U.S. for another decade, but pseudo-permanent bases would eventually be constructed and garrisoned in Iraq – most likely in Northern Iraq – at some point, sooner rather than later.  Coupled with this, I have argued, would be a stand-down in constabulary operations, along with a focus on kinetic operations resulting from intelligence-driven raids.  I had also predicted that the chest butts and posturing by Iraq about U.S. forces standing down in a year was all show, and that sooner rather than later a longer term deal would be struck between the U.S. and Iraq to ensure the national security of Iraq.

Lo and behold, the Iraqi Defense Minister sees the need for U.S. help in Iraq until 2018.

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.

Pentagon officials expressed no surprise at Mr. Qadir’s projections, which were even less optimistic than those he made last year.

President Bush has never given a date for a military withdrawal from Iraq but has repeatedly said that American forces would stand down as Iraqi forces stand up. Given Mr. Qadir’s assessment of Iraq’s military capabilities on Monday, such a withdrawal appeared to be quite distant, and further away than any American officials have previously stated in public.

This level of commitment should force a view to the larger picture.  The U.S. is requesting that NATO send more forces to Afghanistan, forces that cannot fire a weapon due to restrictive rules of engagement, while the U.S. garrisons forces in Germany.  This backwards, cold war mentality is a drain on resources and an artifact of half century old thinking.  It has got to go if the West is to survive.

The Captain’s Journal will not endorse any particular political candidate for President, at least not during the primaries.  However, as absurd things come up in the context of the debates, we will address them.  One such absurd thing was promulgated by Ron Paul during the latest GOP debate.  It is a variant of one which I have addressed before in Attacking the Enemy’s Strategy in Iraq.  Kevin Drum sets out the scenario for us in his exercise in strategy-bashing.

I’ve mentioned a few times before that our “bottoms up” strategy of supporting Sunni tribes in the provinces surrounding Baghdad carries a number of risks. The biggest risk, I suppose, is that once the tribes finally feel safe from the threat of al-Qaeda in Iraq, they’ll relaunch their insurgency and start shooting at American soldiers again. The second biggest risk is that the Shiite central government understands perfectly well that “competing armed interest groups” in the provinces are — well, competing armed interest groups.

In response to Drum’s criticism of the strategy, I stated:

Having been militarily defeated by U.S. forces, we consider it to be unlikely that the Sunnis would take up the fight once again with the U.S.  More likely, however, is an escalation in the low intensity civil war that was ongoing for much of the previous two years.  This all makes it critical that political progress take root in the wake of the military successes.  But Kevin Drum’s concluding comment is absurd: ” … a year from now, if the Iraqi civil war is raging once again, this is where it will have started.”

Rather than an observation of the necessity for political progress, this statement follows the template of criticism set out by the left, and it has been followed with religious fervor.  Note carefully what Drum charges.  Rather than the seeds of violence being one thousand years of religious bigotry between Shi’a and Sunni, or recent history under Saddam’s rule, or the temptations of oil revenue in a land that has not ever seen the largesse of its natural resources due to corruption, the cause is said to be the “concerned local citizens” groups, i.e., U.S. strategy.

This outlandish claim betrays the presuppositions behind it – specifically, that it would be somehow better to continue the fighting than to, as they charge, buy peace with money.  But for the hundreds of thousands of disaffected Sunni workers who have no means to support their families, this criticism is impotent and offers no alternative to working for the insurgency to feed their children.  It ignores basic daily needs, and thus is a barren and unworkable view when considering the human condition.

So Drum’s charge is that if a large scale civil war emerges in Iraq, then the U.S. strategy is to blame.  Ron Paul offers a variant of this criticism.  It is that “we are arming the Sunnis,” and the Sunnis will then be able to carry on the fight against … perhaps the U.S., or perhaps the Shi’a … he didn’t say.  He just said that it isn’t over, something we can all observe for ourselves.

Regarding this charge of “arming the Sunnis,” Ron Paul ignores basic data that is quickly available to any motivated researcher.  I wouldn’t expect him to have recalled the long discussions I have had over this blog, or the Small Wars Journal folks had, over disarming the population as recommended by the Small Wars Manual.  Many observations emerged during this tête-à-tête, from the nation and population being too large for this solution to be effected, to it being culturally anathema, and so on.  But even if Paul is not a student of this blog or the Small Wars Manual, he can perform a Google search with relative ease, or so I assume.

There are too many hits in a Google search of this kind to mention, but just a few should suffice.  This Department of Defense article (and this one too), along with this Stars and Stripes article and this Telegraph article all go to remind us of what we have all known for four or more years.  The Multinational Force has continued to allow each home to have an AK-47 for self protection.  Arming the Sunnis is not something we did or had to do.  They were already armed.  This is how they carried on an insurgency since 2004.  The strategy had nothing to do with arming the Sunnis.  It pertained to settling differences with them, proving that the U.S. was the stronger tribe in Anbar, and in the end remembering that most of them never fought for religious reasons (as did al Qaeda and Ansar al Sunna).  This allowed the coalition to consider the issues of livelihood, income-earning, and support for families, basic anthropological issues that should be considered in any counterinsurgency.

But if Ron Paul has a childlike understanding of the issues, John Robb’s detailed understanding boggles the mind.  He charges the following:

The best explanation for the spike in violence between February 2006 and June 2007 is that the Askariya bombings initiated a process that was leading the conflict towards total war. Total war (Ludendorf) is a form of non-trinitarian conflict that ignores moral, political, cultural, etc rules in favor of complete mobilization to achieve total victory (global thermonuclear warfare is the ultimate example of total war). In Iraq, total war means religious cleansing via militias. Up until February 2006, Iraq was a limited conflict where US and Iraqi forces under strict modern rules of engagement, kept a lid on the scale of conflict (although they were unable to win). The Askariya bombing changed that dynamic. It so completely sundered the domestic social system in Iraq that the conflict lurched towards total war.

By early 2007, Sunni forces were suffering defeat after defeat as large Shiite militias violently cleansed towns and neighborhoods across Iraq (if measured in terms of Johnson’s coefficient, we would have seen a move towards 1.8, the coefficient of conventional warfare). This put the open source insurgency in a crisis. Sunni insurgents weren’t able to form the large local militias needed to defend themselves as long as they were in conflict with the US (these formations would be easy targets). The US military saw this opportunity and enabled the Sunnis for form local militias under the protection of the US (putting 60,000 on a US/Saudi payroll) as long as they sacrificed jihadi groups associated with al Qaeda. The US also began to target Shiite militias. The result was that the onrush to total war in Iraq was averted as the Sunnis began to develop conventional forces. The return to limited war also means that the open source insurgency can now thrive again.

Robb is a very smart analyst.  But his basic problem is one of presuppositions.  His axiomatic starting point is always that there is no solution to the problem of insurgency.  No counterinsurgency strategy can win, rather like the Kobayashi Maru.  But even a basic rendering of history proves this wrong.  The Romans successfully put down a Jewish insurgency for many years while occupying Jerusalem.  A more modern example is Vietnam.  The insurgency was basically defeated, and the South Vietnamese government fell only when NVA regulars came across the border en masse and the U.S. Congress cut funding for the war.

All of this isn’t to say that Iraq is a paradise right now.  The Sunni awakening leader Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha has said that the U.S. must stay in Iraq.

“Right now, any quick withdrawal will be disastrous because the Iraqi army is incapable of taking over,” Sheikh Ahmed said in an interview. “Any withdrawal must happen only when the Iraqi army is 100 percent ready to protect the country.

“The government and the country cannot afford to be without help from the Americans.”

Sheikh Ahmed took over as head of the Anbar Awakening in September after the murder of his celebrated brother Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, the pioneer of the Sunni groups that switched allegiance from Al-Qaeda to US forces.

The movement has been a prime factor behind a sharp drop in violence across Anbar and especially in its capital Ramadi, which was reduced to ruins as US forces battled with Iraqi nationalists and tribes allied with Al-Qaeda.

Over the past year, attacks in Ramadi have dropped from 25-30 a day to fewer than one a week, and the numbers of roadside bombs have declined by 90 percent, according to latest US military figures.

Low grade or large scale civil war may indeed break out upon the decrease of U.S. forces, or in fact this may not happen.  If Robb is right about a return to an insurgency, he is so spuriously.  There is no necessity for this to happen, and since none of us can claim omniscience, we’ll wait on history to tell us whether Iraq will continue down the road to stability.  The point is that childlike objections like we are “arming the Sunnis,” and high-brow objections like Robb suggests are all variants of the same gripe.  In the end, they are just gripes; and myths die hard.

Pretext and Thesis

Abdul Hameed Bakier of The Jamestown Foundation gives us an interesting review of Iraqi jihadis and their analysis of the surge and security plan in Iraq.  The analysis is posted over jihadi web sites and forums from multiple individuals, but the focus of the analysis is what they find to be three strategic phases.

Preliminary phase—Intelligence

This phase started three to four months before the actual implementation of the plan. Because a lack of intelligence was the major reason for U.S. failures in previous operations, this phase concentrated on collecting intelligence on different jihadi factions. The rivalry between various jihadi factions compromised jihadi security and secrecy, denying the resistance the element of surprise in their operations. U.S. forces succeeded in penetrating the secrecy shield of the jihadis, allowing intelligence units to analyze jihadi groups in different operational sectors and “hot spots.” The behavior and relations between the people of Iraq were examined and comprehensive intelligence situation reports were prepared.

Defensive operations phase

The objective of this phase was an all-out confrontation with various jihadi detachments, characterized by sustained direct contact by U.S. forces and Iraqi police units. This phase included defining areas of confrontation with jihadis, confining and isolating these areas, constructing camps and control points in these areas and setting up ambushes along routes frequented by jihadis.

Interception phase

Using military and control points, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched search and interception operations. The size of the search operations in Iraqi cities was unprecedented. Consequently hundreds of jihadis were detained in a matter of weeks and a significant number of arms caches were uncovered. Finally, the U.S. military command inflicted serious damage to the morale of the jihadis by turning its military personnel loose on the cities and villages of Iraq, bombing at leisure any target they deemed hostile.

In a related subject, another jihadi website calls upon the leaders of different jihadi detachments to unite in order to recover from U.S. and Iraqi military operations (, December 26, 2007). The writer, using the alias “Jabhat al-Iraq” (Iraqi Front), says: “Dare I say that we, in the turmoil of the war, concentrated on attacking the enemy and forgot to strengthen our lines of defense against penetrations which led to contentions among us. We must unite all jihadi groups under one jihadi project.” Jabhat al-Iraq reminds jihadis how Baghdadis defeated Persian besiegers in 1732 without any help from the Ottoman Empire by uniting ranks and improving the training of their troops.

The call to unite all Iraqi jihadis may have a short-term positive effect on some Sunni insurgency groups with mutual religious, social or political inclinations, such as the Iraqi Sunni tribes and former Baathists. On the other hand, the Salafi-Jihadi extremists of al-Qaeda are unlikely to practice the religious tolerance needed to form a long-term Coalition with moderate Muslim tribesmen, much less with the despised Baathists.

Analysis and Commentary 

It is true that U.S. intelligence has been compiling data on individuals for at least three years, the most recent innovations in use being biometrics (including retinal scans and finger prints).  It is also true that there have been intelligence-driven kinetic operations, e.g., kinetic operations against the insurgency yields a catch of people or data and information, which leads to further kinetic operations due to the intelligence yield, and so on.  Finally, it is true that U.S. troops have been more proactive in the field, have conducted more kinetic operations, and have created greater force projection than in the past.  All of these observations could have easily come from a study of Milblogs or other reports.  Here the usefulness of the jihadi analysis ends.

The call to unite insurgent groups is no different than Osama bin Laden’s recent call to do the same.  While the U.S. has successfully implemented the strategy of breaking away the indigenous insurgency in Iraq by payments to concerned citizens, work programs and potential incorporation into the security forces or police, the indigenous insurgents were never fighting for religious motivation as were the jihadis.  As to the real reason for the self-destruction of the insurgency, the tribal sheikhs answered bin Laden’s call to align with al Qaeda by responding that their torture and brutality was rejected by the tribes.  The jihadi analysis of their failure is flawed, in that they still don’t understand their blunders.  They gratuitously ascribe to the U.S. forces what only they could do – lose the hearts and minds of the people.  Major General Gaskin has stated that the coalition gains in Anbar are permanent.

Their call for uniting the jihadi groups will go unheeded, but a more recent tactic has been the increase in spectacular suicide and car bomb attacks.

A US commander on Wednesday said the number of “spectacular” assaults by Al-Qaeda in Iraq has increased although the overall number of attacks was down and 20 key militants have been killed or caught.

Major General Mark Hertling, commanding general of coalition forces in northern Iraq, gave no specific examples of what he termed “spectacular” attacks, referring only to big car bombs and to suicide attacks.

“These spectacular events and intimidation are designed to incite fear in the population,” Hertling told a news conference in Baghdad.

Suicide bombers have continued to carry out bloody attacks in recent weeks, with one killing 25 people and wounding 85 on Christmas Day, when he slammed his vehicle into a truck carrying gas cylinders at a checkpoint in the northern oil town of Baiji.

The same month, a woman suicide bomber killed 16 people in the offices of a local anti-Qaeda front in Muqdadiyah, in Diyala province, while another bomber killed 13 people inside a cafe near the Diyala provincial capital Baquba.

To be precise, this is not insurgency; it is terrorism.  I exactly predicted the use of these high visibility flash-bang events (in lieu of more traditional insurgency operations among the population or in direct confrontation of U.S. troops) in an interview by Jim Vicevich of WTIC Newstalk 1080 out of Hartford, Connecticut almost two months ago.

Following closely on the heels of British negotiations with mid-level Taliban, the governorship of Musa Qala has been handed over to a Taliban commander.

A Taliban commander who defected hours before British and Afghan forces retook the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala has been rewarded with the governorship of the town.

Mullah Abdul Salaam switched sides after months of delicate secret negotiations with the Afghan government, as part of a programme of reconciliation backed by British commanders in Helmand.

In a move clearly intended to send a message to other potential Taliban defectors, the Afghan government has announced that he had become the new district governor with the backing of local tribes.

An Afghan government spokesman, Humayun Hamidzada, said that the move was consistent with the policy of President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“The president has said before that all those former Taliban who come and accept the constitution and who want to participate in the political process through non-violent means … they are welcome.”

He added that Mullah Salaam had provided crucial intelligence to the Afghan government.

Mullah Salaam is a leader of one of the three sub-tribes of the Alizai, the dominant tribal group in Musa Qala.

As The Daily Telegraph reported in November, Mullah Salaam opened channels of communication with the government after a violent rift emerged in the Taliban around Musa Qala, during which he survived an assassination attempt.

Mullah Salaam told The Daily Telegraph: “There are two groups of Taliban fighters in Musa Qala and I have the backing of the major one. The Taliban who are against peace and prosperity in Afghanistan – I will fight them.”

Local people confirmed that he enjoyed the backing of a large swathe of the inhabitants of the town.

The issue of Taliban defections remains a highly sensitive one, following the expulsion of a British and an Irish diplomat from Kabul last month on charges of having “inappropriate contacts” with militants.

Afghan government officials accused the two men of holding meetings with Taliban leaders in Helmand without authorisation.

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has ruled out direct talks with the Taliban leadership, but it is well known in Kabul that both the British and Afghan intelligence agencies are devoting considerable resources to trying to “turn” Taliban-aligned tribal leaders.

As we have discussed before, this is the British version of the Anbar awakening combined with payment for concerned citizens who protect the people and fight al Qaeda.  But the problem with this analogy is that it is no analogy at all.  It has nothing at all in common with a true awakening such as occurred in Anbar.  It is true that the last decade of rule by Saddam saw the birth of a small element of youth who were motivated by religious radicalism.

By the late 1980s it had become clear that secular pan-Arabism fused with socialist ideas was no longer a source of inspiration for some Ba’th Party activists. Many young Sunni Arabs adopted an alternative ideology, namely, fundamentalist Islam based essentially on the thought of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. A minority even moved toward the more extreme Salafi, and even Wahhabi, interpretation of Islam. The regime was reluctant to repress such trends violently, even when it came to Wahhabis, for the simple reason that these Iraqi Wahhabis were anti-Saudi: much like the ultraradical Islamist opposition in Saudi Arabia, they, too, saw the Saudi regime as deviating from its original Wahhabi convictions by succumbing to Western cultural influences and aligning itself with the Christian imperialist United States. This anti-Saudi trend served the Iraqi regime’s political purposes.

But this proves the bifurcation that was inherent in the Anbaris which led to the awakening.  These radical youth were an insignificant fraction of the population and were not ever fair game in the strategy to win hearts and minds.  They were the enemy, and there was never a time when they weren’t the enemy.  They quickly aligned with al Qaeda, and the less radical citizens were really the ones in play in the overall strategy.  Al Qaeda and those with whom they were aligned have been essentially defeated in Anbar and are losing in Diyala.  Peace was sought with those from the indigenous insurgency who saw themselves as something other than jihadis.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban are by very definition religiously defined.  Even the casual reader might consider Afghanistan seven years ago (Taliban in charge) and compare it to the Afghanistan of today (with the Taliban in charge if the British strategy plays out) and recall that the only real change is that Hamid Karzai is at the helm, a tenuous charge and precarious perch to be sure.

While the MI6 agents who were negotiating with the Taliban have been ejected from the country, the strategy of acquiescence to the Taliban continues to be implemented by British military command.  After their failed military campaign in and pullout from Basra, the British are actively negotiating the turnover of the Afghanistan government to the very enemy defeated upon the initial invasion of Afghanistan in order to end the campaign.  This strategy has at least the tacit approval of Hamid Karzai, as U.S. troop presence and strategy is not sufficient to allow him to object.  U.S. and NATO lack of force projection gives him no other choice.

Prior:

Musa Qala: The Argument for Force Projection

Clarifying Expectations in Afghanistan

Review and Analysis of Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Campaign

Gates Sets Pretext for Review of Afghanistan Campaign

British in Negotiations with Taliban

Fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan Inextricably Tied

The British-American War Continues: MI-6 Agents Expelled from Afghanistan

Commitment to Iraq and Recommitment to Afghanistan

In Standing up the Iraqi Army I discussed the fact that Iraq would probably be a protectorate of the U.S. for a decade.  In Kurds Desire Long Term U.S. Presence, I followed this up with a discussion of the likely ‘look and feel’ of long term U.S. commitment.  Regardless of what formal agreements the Iraqi government enters into with the U.S., and what the U.N. does or doesn’t authorize the U.S. to do or for how long, the Kurds desire the long term U.S. presence and are willing to negotiate a separate agreement or arrangement with the U.S.  The administration is making a way for the Iraqis to replace the U.N. mandate with new doctrine for the protection of Iraq (and the Kurds will no doubt be at the front of the line to formulate such an agreement within the context of federalism).

In January, the U.S. will also invite the Iraqis to negotiate a new “strategic partnership agreement” to replace the existing United Nations mandate for U.S. troops, starting in 2009. David Satterfield, Rice’s special coordinator for Iraq, will ask Baghdad to appoint a negotiating team that represents all the country’s factions and ministries. This new agreement will be sensitive for both sides, since it will cover everything from imprisonment of Iraqi detainees to future U.S. basing rights to Special Forces operations against al-Qaida terrorists. Explains a senior Bush administration official: “There will be new rules of the game. There have to be. It cannot be business as usual.”

In spite of the losses that al Qaeda has suffered of late, Petraeus has made it clear that there are ongoing operations against them and their “rat lines.”  Further, while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condi Rice have locked horns on the role of Iran in Iraq (with Rice asserting that Iran is exercising a restraining role in Iraq while Gates is less sanguine), there is no question that any perceived stand-down by Iran is tactical rather than a change in policy or a desire to see stable democracy in Iraq.  Iran has its forces deployed en mass throughout Iraq.

The Qods Force has some 40,000 men in Iraq. In January 2007, in a press conference in London, the Iranian Resistance revealed a detailed list of 32,000 on mullahs’ payroll with their account numbers in Iranian banks and their ranks in the IRGC’s military hierarchy.

In addition, to pursue its goal in Iraq, the Qods Force has established dozens of terrorist and intelligence networks throughout the country.

Over the past few years, millions of books, pamphlets, CDs, posters and ideological banners promoting the teachings of the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei have been pouring into Iraq by the agents of the force. 

To follow the guidelines from Tehran, the Qods Force has bought or rented more than three thousand buildings, apartments, farms, hotels, shops and other properties in Iraq. These premises have been used as safe houses, hide outs for the force’s commanders and intelligence agents of the Qods Force and rendezvous points for members of terrorist squads.

The real state purchases have been mostly made in the three Shiite strong holds of Najaf, Karbala and Basrah.  The Iranian regime’s tactics have been widly scrutinized by the media in the country. 

Qods Force front entities for fulfilling its task in Iraq

To manage its day-to-day business in the country, the force has been using front organizations. Various front organizations have made it easy for IRGC and Qods Force to conduct their covert and illegal activities; employing such networks have provided the necessary cover for the Iranian regime to keep a low profile while having a hand in most of terrorist operations in Iraq. At the same time, it is difficult for authorities to blow the covers and get the terrorists out since they are well mixed with the ordinary citizens.  

By setting up a number of charitable organizations, mostly in Shiite dominated parts of the country, the Qods Force is expanding its covert intelligence and terrorist networks.

Basra is still in the throes of sectarian strife and criminal gang warfare, and the Basra police chief has recently survived his seventh assassination attempt.  So there is much work left to be done in Iraq.  But in previous articles we have also pointed out that the Afghanistan campaign is languishing, necessitating an overall review of the campaign at the highest levels of the Pentagon.  We have advocated that the Marines be deployed to Afghanistan, and while being called a huge issue for the Marines, it appears that the Anbar Province will be home for the Marines for the foreseeable future.

In October, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway raised the idea of transferring his forces to Afghanistan to take the lead role in fighting the Taliban, leaving the U.S. Army with Iraq.

Conway argued, and Camp Pendleton Marines subsequently interviewed agreed, that Marines are better suited and equipped to serve as warfighters rather than civil affairs peacekeepers.

Afghanistan is considered a more dynamic battleground, where Marine patrols may be more effective than the work they are now performing in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates later shot down the proposal, but the issue that Conway raised is still being debated in the Pentagon and by military strategists.

In mid-December, Conway again spoke of going to Afghanistan and why he believes that makes sense for the 189,000 active-duty Marines.

“(When) it comes time for Marine units to start leaving the country … should we bring them home or should we start looking to put them where there is still an active fight, in this case Afghanistan? And we were prepared to do that. That’s why young Americans join the Marine Corps — to go fight for their country.”

Bing West, a former Marine officer, senior government official and member of the Council on Foreign Relations who maintains close ties with the service’s leadership, said the Afghanistan vs. Iraq debate will continue. The council is a nonpartisan group dedicated to researching and analyzing global trends.

“For the Marine Corps, the Afghanistan issue dwarfs anything else,” West said in a recent interview. “It makes sense, but I don’t expect it will be resolved until there is a new secretary of defense.

“It will depend on where they want to take the overall force,” he said.

The lighter-equipped and less-vehicle-dependent Marine Corps is better suited for Afghanistan than is the Army, West said.

“The Marines are more reliant on dismounted forces, and that’s what’s necessary in Afghanistan,” he said.

We have also recommended seeing Afghanistan as the primary front for the counterinsurgency campaign in Pakistan.  The British have attempted to negotiate with the Taliban, and for this malfeasance have had two MI6 agents expelled from Afghanistan.  But with the need for more forces, if the Marines will not be deployed to Afghanistan, then what is the strategy for winning the campaign?  Further, how will we proceed in our approach to a nuclear armed Pakistan?  Gates has proffered the idea of an additional 7500 troops in Afghanistan (an increase that is likely to be too little), while the plan for Pakistan is breathtaking in its small-mindedness.

President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections.

Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both Mr. Musharraf and Pakistan’s new military leadership were likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions.

Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces.

The Bush administration has not formally presented any new proposals to Mr. Musharraf, who gave up his military role last month, or to his successor as the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who the White House thinks will be more sympathetic to the American position than Mr. Musharraf. Early in his career, General Kayani was an aide to Ms. Bhutto while she was prime minister and later led the Pakistani intelligence service.

But at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself,” one senior official said.

The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources, officials said. Most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have been conducted by the C.I.A.; in Afghanistan, where military operations are under way, including some with NATO forces, the military can take the lead.

The legal status would not change if the administration decided to act more aggressively. However, if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency.

If addressing the issue of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Waziristan was merely an issue of removing some high value targets like a federal prosecutor targeting leaders of organized crime to shut down the organization, then this strategy might be compelling.  But the very nature of this region of the world requires counterinsurgency efforts predicated upon strength, and time spent in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan going after individuals will likely lead to the strengthening of the enemy rather than their diminution.  The campaign in Afghanistan cannot be won by special forces operators, road construction and money.  Money and roads will be co-opted by the Taliban for their own purposes if they are left in power.

In the end, there is no replacement for force projection.  Our commitment to Iraq cannot waiver, not even in the long term, but a reduction in force presence there must also be accompanied by a rapid increase at the front of the counterinsurgency campaign in Pakistan, i.e., Afghanistan, as soon as possible.  A re-evaluation of global commitments such as troops presence in Germany and South Korea might also yield additional resources for CENTCOM.  Either way, time is of the essence in the Middle East.

Word on the local news here in Albuquerque today is that another New Mexico soldier has been killed in combat.  Captain Thomas Casey, 32, was killed in Sadiyah, Iraq in the past 72-hours.  Not many details have been released, however he was a member of a Military Transition Team and was one of two soldiers killed when insurgents attacked his team with small arms fire.  The flag in my back yard will fly at half staff in remembrance of Captain Casey.  I did not know him, but nonetheless he will be missed by all in New Mexico.

This week I had a visitor to my home.  His name is Sgt. “Drew” Miller.  Sgt. Miller is a member of 2/7 Cav with whom I was able to spend many a combat mission during my stay in Mosul, Iraq.  I had always extended an open invitation to all the soldiers I met on my journey to visit should they find themselves passing through Albuquerque.  Sgt. Miller was the first to take me up on my offer.  My wife and I are glad he did, as we extended our brand of Southwestern hospitality to him.  We found ourselves discussing a whole range of topics including Mosul and Iraq in general.  The time seemed to go by too fast and his brief overnight stay was over before I knew it.  After he left, I found myself thinking deeply about the recent past and the upcoming future.  I will try to explain as best I can.

As most know, the transition period from combat deployment to “normal life back in the world” is a challenge for anyone.  There are ranges of emotions and experiences that transpire no matter who has to pass through this path.  It just happens.  I am relieved to say that so far, those I’ve been in contact with are making the transition in good order.  But we all have times that bother us and being able to go through it with other comrades is a blessing.  Sgt. Miller is fine, and so are my wife and I.  Yet, when we come in contact with those that have been there, we each find ourselves speaking about the things that matter and the things in our daily life that seem more on the not so important side of it all, tend to not rile us as much as they used to.  In any event, what I am trying to convey is simply this….being in the company of a comrade whose been in harms way, is a reassuring experience to help us to “carry on.”

And carry on we must.

In recent events that I follow via various news sources it is apparent that the north part of Iraq is still a very hot locale and war continues.  All must admit that a substantial amount of progress has been accomplished thanks to the superb efforts General David Petraeus and all those who have been under his command. Even those in the current political hooplah, vying for a position on the Presidential ticket, have to admit this obvious result.  Although the “spin factor” is nearly always present in everyone’s rhetoric, no one can argue that when the military is called upon to pull the politicians out of a jam, the warriors always step up to the plate and perform the tasks at hand.

And they just carry on.

I’ve been spending much time these days going back over photos, audios and writings that I gathered in 2007 from the journey I took in Iraq.  Looking back on the photos and listening to the audios and re-reading the posts that I reported, I’m understanding the events as fresh history and looking forward to what paths to take for the good of all concerned.  At the same time, I find myself bombarded with the noise of the current political atmosphere called, “The 2008 Presidential Campaign” and spending a bit of time sorting out who is saying what and why.  This is a monumental challenge.  But in the end, I realize that it is not so important to become bogged down in the process, but more important to look forward to whatever the outcome is determined to be.  I find much solace in the realization that the best thing I can do is to say, “Amen,” and carry on.

The world events of this day and age are enormous and carry a weight upon us all that cause each and everyone of us to recognize that we are indeed living in a time that is unprecedented. However I remember at times traveling through places in Iraq and having the distinct realization that I was walking over terrain that had been traversed by many before me thousands of years earlier.  They too had been a part of historical battles that many of us have read about beginning in Sunday school classes as little children.  Today, we are no different, we are just present in 2008.  I know in the depths of my being there is a plan that is much bigger than I am.  What exactly that plan is, may not be fully realized by me alone.  But my experience as of late has shown me that my comrades in arms are a part of it and together what I currently see in part, may be made known in full as I take each day forward, one step at a time.  Never before have I been so clear as I am at this moment to just….
“Carry On.”

Perhaps in the days and weeks ahead, more of my friends will visit.  Everyone who knows me is aware that when someone knocks on my door, it shall be opened.  It is not so much what I have to offer someone, rather, my experience tells me that I have received much more than I have ever been able to impart.  For this one reason alone, I press on for one more journey to report among those I come in contact with for all to enjoy.  It is why I am diligently seeking to return and follow the steps once again of those in harms way.  They have so much to share with us all in the midst of such a complicated situation.  This is the enjoyable part of “supporting the troops”.  I am glad Sgt. “Drew” Miller stopped by my home.  I am encouraged and strengthened to “carry on.”

In the mean time, I will continue to find things to write about and relate it to what I see as the burden at hand.  The war in Iraq is still very much a day to day process.  Although I am half a world away from it at the moment, I need to look no further than the flag in my back yard and realize that many thousands are still carrying on for the many millions still at home.

I look forward to all your comments and replies and will respond to each of them personally.  For more information how to become a part of my next journey, feel free to contact me at:

jimspiri@yahoo.com or phone me at home at: 505-898-1680.

“Carry On…!”

Sincerely,
Jim Spiri

When the pivotal awakening figure Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was assassinated by a roadside bomb, the response from the Anbaris was swift and stern.  “All the tribes agreed to fight al Qaeda until the last child in Anbar,” his brother, Ahmed Abu Risha.”

This loss of the heart of the population has harmed the effort by al Qaeda, most particularly in Anbar, but extending into Baghdad and North to the Diyala province as well.  With their rooms of horror in Anbar and torture complexes in Diyala, Bin Laden had to come up with something for the Sunnis in Iraq, and in his latest audio he apologized for a few mistakes here and there, but reminded the Sunnis that everyone is human and humans make mistakes.  He then goes on to warn the tribes against siding with the U.S.

“I advise those who follow the path of temptation should wash out this disgrace by repentance,” he said in the 56-minute recording posted on the internet on Saturday.

“This participation [in the Awakening Councils] is a great apostasy and sedition that will lead them to Hell.”

His verbal abuse of the Sunnis – as if they cannot understand their own religion – betrays the fundamental duplicity in his argument.  Earlier in his speech he rebuked those who feel that al Qaeda threatens or harms the innocent, yet then goes on to define the innocent as those not guilty of siding with the U.S., a set of criteria perfect for al Qaeda to argue that they should continue with their torture of the Sunnis in Iraq who do not side with al Qaeda.

Tautology that it is, the Sunnis of Iraq were neither intimidated nor impressed with his logic.

The Al-Anbar district commander said that Al-Qaeda had no influence in his province and that his forces would continue to hunt down the organization until the last of its men was eliminated.

A forces commander in the Salah Al-Din district, in northern Baghdad, called Al-Qaeda “gangs and highwaymen who harm the honor of the women of the Iraqis and shed [Iraqis’ blood,” and added that the deeds of bin Laden’s men were counter to Islamic principles and to morality.

A member of the Awakening forces in the Diyala district accused Al-Qaeda of spreading corruption in Iraq and of attempting to occupy Iraq in the guise of serving the religion and Islam, and promised to eliminate Al-Qaeda members.

Al Qaeda is seventy five percent diminished in Iraq, and fifty one al Qaeda in Iraq leaders were killed or captured in the month of December, 2007.  While much of this success is due to kinetic operations by U.S. troops, there was certainly much participation by “concerned citizens” and other tribal protectors.  When a people promise to eradicate you by fighting to their last child, you must know that your future is bleak.