Archive for the 'War & Warfare' Category

Top al Qaeda leaders have been killed in Southern and Western Iraq.  Omar Faruq, expert bombmaker, was killed in Basra, and senior al Qaeda leader Khalid Mahal is reported to have been killed in al Anbar.

It has been a bonus week in Iraq.  Al Qaeda operative and expert bombmaker Omar Faruq has been killed in Basra.

BAGHDAD: British troops in Iraq said yesterday they had killed one of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s top global lieutenants, who escaped from a US prison in Afghanistan last year.

Omar Faruq was shot dead while resisting arrest yesterday during a pre-dawn raid by about 200 British troops in Iraq’s second biggest city, Basra, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

US leaders have described Faruq as the top Al Qaeda operative in southeast Asia. He was caught in Indonesia in 2002 and held at a high-security detention centre at Bagram airbase north of the Afghan capital Kabul until his escape last year.

“The individual had been tracked across Iraq and was in hiding in Basra,” Burbridge said, calling him a “very, very significant man”.

In fact, the British and Iraqis attempted to arrest Faruq, but during the arrest fighting apparently ensued and he was killed.  He would have been a gold mine of information had they been able to effect the arrest.

In other news, Bill Roggio is blogging on senior al Qaeda leaders in the al Anbar Province having been killed:

BAGHDAD, Sept 26 (KUNA) — A joint Iraqi-US force killed Tuesday Al-Qaeda leader in Anbar and one of his aides in the western Iraqi area of Tharthar, said Iraqi state television (Iraqiya).

The television said the joint force killed Al-Qaeda’s Amir in Anbar, Khalid Mahal, and one of his aides, identified as Nasif Al-Mawla.

Iraq security forces had earlier announced over the past few days arrest of Ansar Al-Sunna group leader in Diyala.

Several observations:

In Comments on the Death of Umar Faruq at the Counterterrorism Blog, Kenneth Conboy states that:

“It has long been suspected that Faruq, who was born of Iraqi parents, would attempt to join the insurgency in Iraq. This speculation was supported by reports in recent months that his Indonesian wife had been receiving frequent cell phone calls from unidentified persons in Iraq. It is not known if these calls played a role in tracing his whereabouts.”

I would add that he was born of Iraqi parents in Kuwait, not Iraq.  This is interesting and I may be making too much of it, but it seems that southern Iraq is a dangerous place for al Qaeda.  With the influence of Iran in southern Iraq and their Shia surrogates, and based on the knowledge the police had of the whereabouts of Faruq, it would seem that if there is violence to be done in the Shia territories, the Shia will do it.  I would also add that it is obvious that Iraq is a magnet for this kind of terrorist, and so it continues to be true that the Iraq war is pivotal in the GWOT.

Bill Roggio says that “Task Force 145 … is conducting a full court press in Iraq.”  The reports don’t say yet who conducted the operation to kill Mahal, but Bill may know more about this than has been published in the press.  Either way, killing al Qaeda in al Anbar is a good thing and will help to pacify the troubled region (although like Faruq, I am sure that the coalition forces would have loved to have captured them for the intelligence value).

Finally, al Anbar will continue to be a dangerous place, and the Sunni insurgents will not give up the fight because al Qaeda continues to be targeted.  Killing top al Qaeda in Iraq is a positive move, but the Sunni who will not reconcile to the government, still believing that the Sunni should be running the country, will be problematic even in the absence of al Qaeda leaders.

Iran has designs on a regional Caliphate, and has positioned special operations forces in Iraq.  These troops, along with the Shia in Iraq, could pose more than just a theoretical threat later down the road.  If desired, they could cut or at least cripple the U.S. lines of supply in Iraq.

In Iran’s Iraq Strategy and Iran Muscles in on Iraq, as well as my posts in the Iran category, I outline what I believe to be Iran’s strategy for Iraq.  The peace cannot be won with al Qaeda by any amount of politics.  The same can be said for the Sunni diehards in al Anbar, as well as those Sunni fighters filtering into the Baghdad area.  I have long held that one key to the security of Baghdad is peace in the Sunni triangle.  If the peace was secured in the Sunni triangle, there would be few Sunni insurgents left to wreak violence in and around Baghdad.

The Shia militia are perhaps even more important than the Sunni or even al Qaeda, and whether peace can be won by political means is a salient question.  I hold that peace can be won with the Shia, but only if their power broker — Iran — has been muzzled.  The Shia in Iraq will seek peace and stability if they see Iran on the ropes, politically and militarily.

Leaving behind the question of the propriety of the war in Iraq for a moment and thinking critically about unintended consequences of our presence in Iraq, there is a sobering and statement in Time, July 24, 2006, by Joe Klein (The Iran Factor):

The U.S. “has been Iran’s very best friend,” a diplomat from a predominantly Sunni nation told me recently.  “You have eliminated its enemies, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.  You have even reduced yourselves as a threat to Iran because you have spent so much blood and treasure in Iraq.”

The Shia in Iraq are closely connected to Iran as I have pointed out in my posts, but there is very interesting and troubling assessment of Iranian and Iraqi Shia capabilities that was published on July 21, 2206, by Patrick Lang in the Christian Science Monitor, entitled The vulnerable line of supply to U.S. troops in Iraq.  In it, he observes:

American troops all over central and northern Iraq are supplied with fuel, food, and ammunition by truck convoy from a supply base hundreds of miles away in Kuwait. All but a small amount of our soldiers’ supplies come into the country over roads that pass through the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq.

Until now the Shiite Arabs of Iraq have been told by their leaders to leave American forces alone. But an escalation of tensions between Iran and the US could change that overnight. Moreover, the ever-increasing violence of the civil war in Iraq can change the alignment of forces there unexpectedly.

Southern Iraq is thoroughly infiltrated by Iranian special operations forces working with Shiite militias, such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades. Hostilities between Iran and the United States or a change in attitude toward US forces on the part of the Baghdad government could quickly turn the supply roads into a “shooting gallery” 400 to 800 miles long.

At present, the convoys of trucks supplying our forces in Iraq are driven by civilians – either South Asians or Turks. If the route is indeed turned into a shooting gallery, these civilian truck drivers would not persist or would require a heavier escort by the US military.

It might then be necessary to “fight” the trucks through ambushes on the roads. This is a daunting possibility. Trucks loaded with supplies are defenseless against many armaments, such as rocket-propelled grenades, small arms, and improvised explosive devices. A long, linear target such as a convoy of trucks is very hard to defend against irregulars operating in and around their own towns.

The volume of “throughput” would probably be seriously lessened in such a situation. A reduction in supplies would inevitably affect operational capability. This might lead to a downward spiral of potential against the insurgents and the militias. This would be very dangerous for our forces.

Final victory in Iraq will be a function of the degree to which we muzzle Iran.  In the mean time, let’s hope that this assessment exaggerates the danger Iran poses, but I fear that it is spot on.  This is made darker still with the newfound respect the U.S. military has for the Iranian military.

Official Iraqi army hinders U.S. efforts due to commitment to tribes over Iraq nationalism.  Heavy reliance on proxy fighters is unwise and unproductive.

I have commented (negatively and disparagingly) on the tendency to rely too heavily on proxy fighters to accomplish U.S. mission objectives.  In the case of the tribal commitments in the al Anbar province, the concern will be that these troops do not have training, command and control, commitment to nationalism, or self-confidence.  It appears that in the Shia-controlled areas, some of the same problems exist, even among the offocial Iraqi army.

The plan was simple: Iraqi troops would block escape routes while U.S. soldiers searched for weapons house-by-house. But the Iraqi troops didn’t show up on time.

When they finally did appear, the Iraqis ignored U.S. orders and let dozens of cars pass through checkpoints in eastern Baghdad _ including an ambulance full of armed militiamen, American soldiers said in recent interviews.

It wasn’t an isolated incident, they added.

Senior U.S. commanders have hailed the performance of Iraqi troops in the crackdown on militias and insurgents in Baghdad. But some U.S. soldiers say the Iraqis serving alongside them are among the worst they’ve ever seen _ seeming more loyal to militias than the government.

That raises doubts whether the Iraqis can maintain order once the security operation is over and the Americans have left. It also raises broader questions about the training, reliability and loyalty of Iraqi troops _ who must be competent, U.S. officials say, before America can begin pulling out of Iraq.

Last week, for example, Sgt. 1st Class Eric Sheehan could barely contain his frustration when he discovered that barriers and concertina wire that were supposed to bolster defensive positions had been dragged away _ again _ under the noses of nearby Iraqi soldiers.

‘(I) suggest we fire these IAs and get them out of the way,’ Sheehan, of Jennerstown, Pa., reported to senior officers, referring to Iraqi army troops. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ came the reply.

U.S. soldiers from the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment eventually blocked the road again while Iraqi troops watched from a distance.

Some Americans speculated the missing barriers were dragged off to strengthen militia defenses in nearby Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood that is a stronghold of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

This may not be justification for turning back the hands of time and dismissing the Iraqi army, but it certainly warns against heavy reliance on the use of either the official Iraqi army or groups of tribal recruits in al Anbar to effect U.S. mission objectives.

Waziristan has seen Taliban violence in the past months, and many tribal elders have been killed.  The recent accords between Pakistan and Waziristan is a victory for the Taliban, but recent U.S. Military action would seem to indicate that the U.S. is not willing to allow this region to continue being safe haven for the Taliban. 

The Taliban have wreaked violence and havoc throughout the border provinces recently as a prelude and harbinger of the accords between the Pakistan and Waziristan.  Courtesy of The Word Unheard:

Militant groups opposed to the United States and Pakistan Army have almost taken over control of the volatile and troubled South Waziristan district where the Pakistani Army last year launched major operations, and after heavy casualties, claimed to have cleaned up the place and restored peace.

That peace, as is now turning out, is purely on the terms of Taliban and its armed fighters, who have reorganized and emerged as the de facto rulers of the area. Some 60 notable Maliks and elders of the region, who collaborated with the US and Pakistan Army, have been shot dead in the last 18 months.

The groups, led by trained Taliban commanders have taken physical control. New offices have been opened all over the Agency to recruit youngsters and fighters for ‘jihad’ inside Afghanistan, Kashmir and against the Pakistan Army.

It is thus no surprise that attacks against government installations have now become a routine affair. Attacks against candidates, pro-government clergymen and government officials have increased in the neighboring Afghanistan as the war-ravaged country prepares to hold the first ever parliamentary elections on September 18.

The groups collect money and ask for generous donations. Foreigners are escorted by local Taliban to visit mosques, mostly during the night, crying and wailing before the faithful, asking them for help against the infidels and their supporters, a number of local tribesmen confirmed.

This is a bleak picture, but it is still unclear how the Pakistan-Waziristan accord will effect the Afghanistan war effort and the strength of the Taliban.  I posted earlier posing the question whether Musharraf would consider Waziristan as Pakistani territory and if the U.S. military would have the freedom to operate inside the region of Northern Waziristan, concluding that the Taliban had cleaned up in the deal with Musharraf, and that the U.S. would be prohibited from entering this area.

As it is turning out, this question might have a somewhat more complicated answer than I had previously granted.  There are recent reports of U.S. military action in Waziristan:

Miran Shah, 21 Sept. (AKI/DAWN) – Security forces have arrested 10 people from Lawara Mandi area near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the North Waziristan Agency, officials said. The action was taken after six US helicopter gunships intruded into the Pakistan airspace following clashes between the allied forces and Taliban across the border. The intrusion by US helicopters prompted the military and political authorities to proceed to the area along with tribal elders, including parliamentarians. It was the first action by the security forces since the peace accord reached between the government and militants early this month.

The authorities, sources said, believed that Taliban guerrilla might sneak into Lawara Mandi after clashes with the US-led allied forces in Pipali area of Afghanistan close to the North Waziristan Agency.

The sources said that army and paramilitary forces in collaboration with the tribal elders, including MNA Maulvi Nek Zaman, besieged a cluster of houses in Lawara Mandi on Tuesday night and asked local residents to hand over suspects.

There seems to be subtle political pressure from the administration on Pakistan, and Hamin Karzai knows that battling the Taliban in Afghanistan will not pacify the region, and he bluntly told the U.N. that action inside Pakistan is necessary:

“We must look beyond Afghanistan to the sources of terrorism. We must destroy terrorist sanctuaries beyond Afghanistan, dismantle the elaborate networks in the region that recruit, indoctrinate, train, finance, arm and deploy terrorists.”

The U.S. Military knows that the coming weeks and months in Waziristan are crucial, and is watching the developments in that region.  In fact, they might be doing more than watching.  It is no mistake that helicopters chased the Taliban across the border in recent firefights, in this instance continuing the chase rather than suspending operations upon reaching or crossing the border.

It is possible that the U.S. Military is trying to help Musharraf and the anti-Taliban tribal elders in Waziristan along with the process of honoring the accords that have been reached.  The message may be that there will be no peace in the region – no matter what accord has been reached – until and unless sanctuary has been denied to the Taliban.

Only time will tell how this ends.  But in the mean time, the great Taliban chase should continue unabated.  There is no substitute for killing the enemy in war.

The Marines in Ramadi are quite capable of counter-insurgency (COIN) operations and the proper conduct of “small wars.” The bone of contention is the doctrine of use of proxy fighters to effect stability while signficant enemy remain. To the extent that this remains a pivotal doctrine of COIN strategy, it may be a failing strategy.

As backdrop for this post, I will give a few points to help the discussion below make some sense. My post Ramadi, Iraq: A Mess, continues to be one of the most visited posts I have made since the start of blogging, visited by multiple visitors every day since its post date of August 1, and many of the visits continue to be from military personnel using military network domains. In part, my thinking about Ramadi led me to publish my post on The Debate Over Diminished Force Projection. In my post Afghanistan’s Lessons for Iraq: What Strategy?, I argue that premature cessation of operations to combat the enemy (and hence, the premature invocation of counterinsurgency tactics) is counterproductive. In my post Will we Lose the Anbar Province?, I stated:

Remembering Iraqi politics is necessary to understand why these things have happened, and invoking the lessons of Vietnam is not very helpful. Politics teaches us that to refer to “Iraqis

If Afghanistan is the model for contemporary counterinsurgency operations, then the U.S. ought to rethink its strategy.  There is a role for both special operators and regulars in today’s warfare.  Cessation of regular operations too soon is counterproductive.

Bill Roggio is covering the fact that Pakistan has released more than 2500 al-Qaeda and Taliban, most of whom are heading to Waziristan.  Bill also covers the continuing operations in Afghanistan, stating that:

But the Afghan and Coalition efforts may merely be a holding action. Attempts to stabilize the provinces on the Pakistani border has been a difficult task as Taliban and al-Qaeda have used Pakistan’s Baluchistan and North West Frontier Provinces as bases of operations … The fighting in Afghanistan will only intensify.

Vital Perspective is reporting (from Jane’s Defence) that the Army and Marine Corps are putting the finishing touches on a new counter-insurgency manual that is designed to fill a crucial gap in U.S. military doctrine.  Afghanistan has lessons for our struggle in Iraq.  If this manual doesn’t mention and learn from our (at least partially) failed strategy in Afghanistan, then they should go back to the drawing board.

Much has been made about counterinsurgency warfare and the strategy the U.S. uses to attain peace and stability in Iraq.  The Washington Post recently published an article entitled In a Volatile Region of Iraq, U.S. Military Takes Two Paths.  In this article, the Staff Writer compares and contrasts two (allegedly) different approaches to securing peace and stability in the al Anbar province (the problems of which I have written on in my post Will We Lose the Anbar Province?).  I have also discussed the debate over force size and military footprint in my post The Debate Over Diminished Force Projection, which bears on the subject of force size and strategy and how various forces are utilized.

The Washington Post article is similar to those published previously, where the special forces operator is characterized as smart, patient, politically astute, and easily maleable and adaptable in new and challenging situations, while the non-special forces are depicted as dull, stolid, slow to adapt, and hopelessly educated and trained in the age-old military practices and stategy, much of which is too coarse and heavy-handed for the current situation in Iraq.  One is left to conclude that the regulars are knuckle-draggers.  It is an easy article to write — an easy story to tell.

The truth is neither of these depictions, and it is not somewhere in between.  The truth is more complicated.  As I have noted before from the U.S. Joint Forces Command’s Urban Resolve program:

In military operations since World War II, United States forces have preferred to bypass major urban areas to avoid the costly combat expected inside cities.

There is a huge difference between bypassing the troops (both regular and irregular such as the Fedayeen) on our advance to Baghdad, leaving the enemy behind, and killing the enemy if he can be identified and located, when he is identified and located.  The special forces might claim that the entire operation should have been a counterinsurgency operation, while the regulars might claim that we stopped conventional operations too soon, and much of the enemy was still intact when we switched over to counterinsurgency strategy.

There are those who are complaining that the regulars are not taking an approach that more closely resembles newer and more sophisticated counter-insurgency techniques.  But ironically, no one complains that the Afghanistan campaign was too “regular.”  In fact, it was nothing but irregular and Special Forces operations.  We primarily used the Northern Alliance to drive the Taliban from northern Afghanistan and Kabul, while we relied heavily on three tribal leaders / warlords, at least one of whom could not be trusted, to attempt closure with the enemy at Tora Bora.  The attitude of many of the fighters was in part responsible for the failure to close in on the enemy.  From the perspective of one fighter:

Awol Gul was calm and relaxed as B-52s pummeled a mountain behind him and Al Qaeda sniper fire rang out in the distance. “They’ve been under quite a bit of pressure inside there,” he said. “It is likely that they have made a tactical withdrawal farther south. They have good roads, safe passage, and Mr. bin Laden has plenty of friends.

“We are not interested in killing the Arabs,” Mr. Gul went on to say. “They are our Muslim brothers.”

We lost Osama bin Laden and hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Taliban fighters.  When the last cave was taken at Tora Bora:

On Dec. 16, Afghan warlords announced they had advanced into the last of the Tora Bora caves. One young commander fighting with 600 of his own troops alongside Ali and Ghamsharik, Haji Zahir, could not have been less pleased with the final prize. There were only 21 bedraggled Al Qaeda fighters who were taken prisoners. “No one told us to surround Tora Bora,” Mr. Zahir complained. “The only ones left inside for us were the stupid ones, the foolish and the weak.”

Today the Taliban and al Qaeda have control over Waziristan, have recently fought the Pakistani army to a draw, have seen 2500 of their fellow Taliban released, and have managed to inflict enough terror into Afghanistan that 267 schools have been forced to cease operations altogether.  If Afghanistan is the model for special operations, then we ought to rethink how we are conducting these operations.

There is a place for special operations, and certainly there is need always to adapt our techniques to the circumstances.  And with counterterrorist tactics being all the rage now, should I be bold enough to say that it is not the answer to all of our problems?

When we lose thousands of Taliban at Tora Bora, fighters are shooting at Marines and Soldiers in foxholes in Ramadi and U.S. forces will not hunt down and kill the enemy in response (while they also take bets as to when they will be attacked again), and no one in the chain of command can make a decision to kill 190 Taliban at a funeral because of “religious sensibilities,” may I suggest that we need to re-evaluate our strategy?  And to reflexively demur to special operations is easy, but not the answer. 

Deadly and sinister IED technology perfected by Hezbollah with the help of Iran has made its way into Iraq, with the sole purpose, together with the presence of IRGC forces, of the destabilization of Iraq.  Iran sees itself at the center of a new Middle East Caliphate when U.S. troops depart. 

As I have discussed in previous posts, Iran has IRGC troops in Iraq, and has provided IED technology to Iraqi insurgents.  The most recent development in ordnance type and application in Iraq comes in the form of Hizbollah technology.

A multi-charged roadside bomb, developed by Hizbollah in Lebanon, is being used against British and American soldiers by Iraqi insurgents linked to Iran, according to military intelligence sources.

The device consists of an array of up to five armour-piercing “explosively formed projectiles” or EFPs, also known as shaped charges. They are fired at different angles at coalition vehicles, resulting in almost certain death for at least some of the soldiers inside.

The bombs are easier for insurgents to use because, unlike single EFP devices, they do not need to be carefully aimed and so can be planted beside a road within a few seconds. Their killing potential is also enhanced because more than one EFP is likely to hit a single vehicle.

Some have been painted to look like concrete blocks – a modification of a tactic used by Iranian-backed Hizbollah, which hollowed out imitation rocks, bought in Beirut garden centres, to conceal bombs targeting Israeli vehicles.

A senior defence source said: “There are clear signs of Iran’s sinister hand, and through that, Hizbollah, in this development.”

A Pentagon document obtained by The Sunday Telegraph describes the devices as “well manufactured by experienced bomb makers” and “pioneered by Lebanese Hizbollah”. It adds: “The United Kingdom has accused Iran of providing these devices to insurgents in Iraq.”

Triggered when an infra-red beam is broken, the projectiles are capable of penetrating the armour of 60-ton Abrams tanks. Warrior armoured vehicles and Land Rovers, used by British forces in southern Iraq, offer almost no protection against them.

In February, John Negroponte, America’s director of national intelligence, blamed the Iranian government for the spread of such weapons throughout Iraq.

He told a United States Senate committee: “Teheran is responsible for at least some of the increasing lethality of anti-coalition attacks in 2005, by providing Shia militants with the capability to build IEDs [Improvised Explosive Devices] with explosively formed projectiles, similar to those developed by Iran and Lebanese Hizbollah.”

Coalition forces recently intercepted an infra-red EFP device being transported into Iraq across the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iran.

Courtesy of the Telegraph, this picture below offers a primer on the devices.

But even as deadly as this technology is to U.S. troops, to see this in the aggregate is to fail to grasp the larger Iran strategy for Iraq.  Iran’s strategy is twofold, and it is dangerous to misunderstand their intentions or underestimate their willingness to go forward with their plans.

The first prong in the Iran strategy involves retaliatory strikes and armed conflict in Iraq proper should the U.S. use military force to secure or destroy nuclear facilities in Iran.  The Washington Post a couple of months ago reported on Iran’s Iraq strategy:

The most likely theater of operations in the initial stages of a U.S.-Iranian conflict, however, would be next door — in Iraq. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Iran has methodically built and strengthened its military, political and religious influence in Iraq. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has extensively infiltrated Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior and police force, both mainstays of Shiite power. The hundreds of Iranian mullahs and businessmen who have slipped across the border have a commanding presence in southern Iraq’s commercial and religious sectors.

[ … ]

Iran’s paramilitary and intelligence buildup in Iraq would put some members of the “coalition of the willing” to shame. Over the past three years, Tehran has deployed to Iraq a large number of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force — a highly professional force specializing in assassinations and bombings — as well as officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security and representatives of Lebanese Hezbollah.

[ … ]

Iranian personnel have established safe houses throughout southern Iraq. They monitor the movement of coalition forces, tend weapons caches, facilitate cross-border travel of clerics, smuggle munitions into Iraq and recruit individuals as intelligence sources. Presumably, Tehran has recruited networks within U.S. military bases and civilian compounds that could be activated on short notice. Iran is also believed by regional intelligence agencies to have armed and trained as many as 40,000 Iraqis to prevent an unlikely rollback of Shiite control.

In my post Iran Muscles in on Iraq, I said:

With close enough cooperation, enough largesse spread around by Iran, and enough meddling in the affairs of Iraq, the hope apparently is that Iraq would become more like Iran, a place hostile to Western influences and militant against Western values.

Iran is not for a single second interested in stability in Iraq.  Iran is interested in a world Caliphate, and Iraq is less seen as a stumbling block to that end and more and more seen as another pawn to use to that end.

In a remarkably similar assessment, the Strategy Page about the same time reported:

Al Maliki is trying to convince the Iranians to stop supporting (with money, weapons and technical advisors) radical Shia militias in Iraq. The purpose of this support is to prepare these radical Iraqi groups to stage a coup and take over the Iraqi government. Iraq would then be turned into an Islamic republic, like Iran. This kind of takeover worked in Iran because it was done in the middle of a war with Iraq (in the 1980s), a war begun by Saddam Hussein, who thought he could rush in and grab some Iranian oil fields while Iran was distracted by its rebellion against the Iranian monarchy. The Iranian religious radicals have held on to power since, despite only having the support of a minority of the population, by establishing a police state. Most of the cops are Islamic radicals out to impose proper Islamic lifestyles on all Iranians. Democracy is not considered properly Islamic, nor are a lot of things from the West, including movies and accurate news. But the Iraqis, al Maliki is apparently trying to convince the Iranians, are different. While about 30 percent of the Iranian population supports the religious dictatorship, the percentage is lower in Iraq, and the pro-democracy crowd is armed and willing to fight. The Iranians believe that, as soon as the U.S. troops leave, the Iraqi Islamic radical militias can make their move and, in effect, unite Iran and Iraq as a Shia axis for Islamic radicalism that will conquer the world for the Shia brand of Islam.

And this is the second prong of the Iran strategy.  The first prong is proximate and has immediate consequences, i.e., the deaths of U.S. troops and the destabilization of Iraq.  The second prong is more theoretical but just as dangerous.  Iran wants to control the Middle East, and sees itself at the center of a new Caliphate.  Iraq is a pawn in the strategy to begin this process.

The U.S. will not win in Iraq until Iran is driven out entirely.  Furthermore, driving Iran out of Iraq will not address the possibility of a nuclear Iran.

Either indecision cost the U.S. the opportunity to achieve effective kill, or decision did not consider moral ramifications of leaving the Taliban alive to kill NATO troops. 

In my post Lost Chance to Kill Taliban: Two Mistakes Were Made, we learned only a few facts about the drone that captured the picture of the approximately 190 Taliban who were in formation for a funeral.  The image is below.

We have since learned a little more about this incident.  Regarding chain of command:

Every airstrike, whether from a manned aircraft or a Predator, must be at least approved by commanders at the regional Combined Air Operations Center, or CAOC. If an intended target is particularly sensitive, the decision could go all the way up to a general officer serving as top combat commander.

When an organization gives too much latitude, it suffers from apoplexy.  When it gives too little latitude, it suffers from indecision and ineptitude.  With ROE that require approval of remotely located senior officers, it certainly must be considered indecisive and inept.

Continuing:

The current rules of engagement, likely developed by senior Pentagon officials, do not rule out an attack on religious gathering but do generally prohibit an attack on a religious site such as a cemetery or mosque, military analyst and retired Army Col. Jack Jacobs told MSNBC TV. 

In my post GIs Attack Militants in Ramadi Mosque, I discussed the fact that GIs who were fired upon from insurgents inside a Mosque returned fire and “finally unleashed several rounds from M1 tanks.”

So it apparently is not correct that the troops doing battle cannot fire upon religious structures or gatherings (the report documents the fact that the GIs didn’t know whether prayers had begun when they returned fire).

In a stunning defense of the decision not to fire at the Taliban gathered for the funeral, the military issued this statement:

“During the observation of the group over a significant period of time, it was determined that the group was located on the grounds of a cemetery and were likely conducting a funeral for Taliban insurgents killed in a coalition operation nearby earlier in the day,

Michelle Malkin informs us of the New York Post story of an opportunity to kill a significant number of Taliban.  Two mistakes were made in this sad episode.  As the Post reported about losing this opportunity:

U.S. intelligence officers in Afghanistan are still fuming about the recent lost opportunity for an easy kill of Taliban honchos packed in tight formation for the burial, NBC News reported.

The unmanned airplane, circling undetected high overhead, fed a continuous satellite feed of the juicy target to officers on the ground.

“We were so excited. I came rushing in with the picture,” one U.S. Army officer told NBC.

But that excitement quickly turned to gut-wrenching frustration because the rules of engagement on the ground in Afghanistan blocked the U.S. from mounting a missile or bomb strike in a cemetery, according to the report. 

The first mistake is that the rules of engagement prohibited killing the enemy.  I don’t care whether it is a Mosque, a cemetary, someone’s house, a school, or someone’s bath tub.  If the enemy is there, he should be killed.  If the officers are afraid to craft such ROE, I will be happy to assist them.  All they have to do it call me.

The second mistake is that the senior officer didn’t override the ridiculous rules of engagement and order the killing of the Taliban.  This is simply unacceptable, and points to officers who will not make hard decisions because of careerism.  I have addressed this careerism before in my post Patriotism, Big Flags and Military Regression:

To be frank, for those who have their career as the premier concern, they should just step aside and save their reports the trouble of cleaning up their mess and suffering the consequences of their careerism.

There is no reason that these Taliban should not be dead; not ROE, and not the officers present and their lack of willingness to make hard decisions.  As it stands, these Taliban are alive to injure or kill NATO troops, and the officers who are responsible still have careers.  They shouldn’t.

Note: Original edited for typographical error.

By now it has become news that the latest military intelligence assessments of the western Iraq province of al Anbar are remarkably negative and even morose.  The various news coverage is cataloged in a discussion thread at Small Wars Journal, called Situation Called Dire in West Iraq.  Since I have my readers for an average of only a couple of minutes per visit, I won’t waste time reiterating the news in this post.  You can go check it out at SWJ.  The pronosis looks grim, even after being “spun” by the military brass to remove some of the sting of the assessments.

There are still dozens of loosely connected smaller insurgent cells in al Anbar, some with only several fighters.  But there are some large groups, including the Islamic Army in Iraq, made up of several thousand fighters, and the Mujihadeen Army.  Together these two groups make up about 50% of the total insurgent force in the al Anbar province.  Finally, there is still a contingency of al Qaeda, but the loose connection between these groups means that there is no one leader to target, no single strategy that is necessarily the best, and no central command and control.  These groups enjoy maximum latitude and command is pushed down through the “organization(s).”  The only thing in common between these groups is that they have no intention of becoming part of the political process, and they intend to fight to the death.

There is a stark difference in the way the U.S. has approached Fallujah and the way we have approached Ramadi.  This difference is due to the influence of several factors.  First, the empty-headed catcalls and questions about when we are going to leave Iraq have been met with equally empty-headed retorts that “we’ll leave when the Iraqis are ready to take over from us.”  Both the question and retort miss the point, and in the superlative degree.  The second reason for the difference is the current influence of military brass that preens and postures and pontificates about the lessons learned from Vietnam.  There is a drive to assume a small footprint and use minimum force projection.  I argue in my post The Debate over Diminished Force Projection that this confuses categories and fails to learn the lessons of Iraq (forget Vietnam for a minute and focus on Iraq).

Regarding the intelligence report, one Army officer summarized it as arguing that in Anbar province, “We haven’t been defeated militarily but we have been defeated politically — and that’s where wars are won and lost.”  It would appear that even this misses the point.

If the question “when are we leaving” misses the point, the retort “when the Iraqis can take over” misses the point, and wars being “won or lost” in politics misses the point, then what exactly is the point?

Remembering Iraqi politics is necessary to understand why these things have happened, and invoking the lessons of Vietnam is not very helpful.  Politics teaches us that to refer to “Iraqis” is too broad, since there are three very distinct groups: Kurds, Shia and Sunni.  The army is made up largely of Shia Muslims, and after displacement of the Sunni population upon the fall of the regime, the Sunni and Shia have an understandably suspicious view of each other.  For the Iraqi army to wage war on the insurgents in al Anbar is not what it seems.  Rather, in reality, it would approximately be the Shia army waging war on the remaining Fedayeen fighters and regime loyalists, with Sunni citizens caught in the middle who have no love for the Shia and a certain amount of sympathy for the loyalists.  Al Qaeda in Iraq is a nuisance and a violent organization, but to the extent that they serve to repell government forces from al Anbar, they prevent revenge killings of the Sunnis (not so much from the army, but from the certain police presence to follow).

To refer to politics in al Anbar is to refer to something that doesn’t currently exist.  The brass in Iraq, by diminishing force projection in al Anbar in order to let “reconstruction win the hearts and minds of the people,” are deferring to a phantom.  The very people whose hearts and minds we want to win are being protected by the enemy who destroys their political institutions and prevents reconstruction.

The Strategy Page from a few months ago is correct.  There isn’t civil war in Iraq, and there can never be civil war in Iraq.  If the factions war with each other, the Kurds will be left alone (or defended by themselves alongside the Kurds in Turkey), and the Shia majority will utterly destroy the Sunni minority.  Rather than speak of civil war, we should speak of genocide.

The only force in the region who is capable of winning the war on the battlefield is the U.S.  Reliance on the Iraqis to effect the victory is a losing strategy.  Yet, this seems to be exactly what our strategy is, according to Maj. Gen. Zilmer:

A senior American commander in Iraq said Tuesday that U.S.-led military operations are “stifling” the insurgency in western Anbar province but are not strong enough to defeat it.

Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer told reporters in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Fallujah that he has enough U.S. troops _ about 30,000 _ to accomplish what he called his main mission: training Iraqi security forces.

“For what we are trying to achieve out here I think our force levels are about right,” he said. Even so, he said the training of Iraqi soldiers and police had not progressed as quickly as once expected.

“Now, if that mission statement changes _ if there is seen a larger role for coalition forces out here to win that insurgency fight _ then that is going to change the metrics of what we need out here,” he added.

Maintenance of the peace can be accomplished by the Iraqi troops alongside U.S. troops, and the political process can be protected by both the U.S. and Iraqis.  Reconstruction can be assisted by the most versatile force in the world, the U.S. military.  But winning the war on the battlefield is necessary prior to winning it politically.  Unless and until the enemy is killed or captured, politics is irrelevant because it doesn’t exist.

We can still win this war, but we need to dispatch a division of Marines as soon as possible to begin operations in Ramadi, Fallujah (yes, it has regressed), Hamdaniyah, Haditha and al Haqlania.  Generals who learned the wrong lessons from the wrong war and who are applying them in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons with the wrong understanding are decreasing our chances of success in al Anbar.

We should remember the counsel of General George Patton, who believed that the the U.S. at the Battle of the Bulge could still lose World War II.  This belief caused him to drive his troops 100 miles within 48 hours and engage in combat with no food and no sleep.  This war can be won, but we must move quickly, and we must move with a heavy footstep.

Col. David Hunt, appearing on FNC a couple of months ago, almost blew a gasket when asked what to do about Ramadi: “Send in the Marines and let them clean it out.”

Indeed.  Then … and only then … can politics begin.