September 10, 2007
Anbar Awakens Part I: The Battle of Ramadi
RAMADI, IRAQ – After spending some time in and around Baghdad with the United States military I visited the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s notoriously convulsive and violent Anbar Province, and breathed an unlikely sigh of relief. Only a few months ago Ramadi was one of the most dangerous cities in the world. It was another “Fallujah,” and certainly the most dangerous place in Iraq. Today, to the astonishment of everyone – especially the United States Army and Marines – it is perhaps the safest city in all of Iraq outside of Kurdistan.
In August 2006 the Marine Corps, arguably the least defeatist institution in all of America, wrote off Ramadi as irretrievably lost. They weren’t crazy for thinking it. Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq had moved in to fight the Americans, and they were welcomed as liberators by a substantial portion of the local population.
I wrote recently that Baghdad, while dangerous and mind-bogglingly dysfunctional, isn’t as bad as it looks on TV. Almost everywhere I have been in the Middle East is more “normal” than it appears in the media. Nowhere is this more true than in Beirut, but it is true to a lesser extent in Baghdad as well. Baghdad isn’t a normal city, but it appears normal in most places most of the time. Ramadi, in my experience, is the great exception. Ramadi was worse than it appeared in the media.
Baghdad suffers from political paralysis, a low-grade counterinsurgency, and a very slow-motion civil war. It doesn’t look or feel like a war most of the time, although it does sometimes. What happened in Ramadi wasn’t like that. It wasn’t the surreal sort-of war that still simmers in Baghdad. Two American colonels in charge of the area compared the battle of Ramadi to Stalingrad.
“We were engaged in hours-long full-contact kinetic warfare with enemies in fixed positions,” said Army Major Lee Peters.
“There were areas where our odds of being attacked were 100 percent,” Army Captain Jay McGee told me. “Literally hundreds of IEDs created virtual minefields.”
“The whole area was enemy controlled,” said Marine Lieutenant Jonathan Welch. “If we went out for even a half-hour we were shot at, and we were shot at accurately. Sometimes we took casualties and were not able to inflict casualties. We didn’t know where they were shooting from.”
Anbar Province is the heart of Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, and Ramadi is its capital. Iraq has 18 provinces, but until recently almost a third of all U.S. casualties were in Anbar alone.1.3 million people live there, mostly along the Euphrates River, and roughly a third live in Ramadi. Most of the rest live in the also notorious and now largely secured cities of Haditha, Hit, and Fallujah.
I haven’t visited the other cities yet because I wanted to begin in the province’s largest and most important city. Ramadi isn’t the most important solely because it’s the capital or because it’s the largest. It is also the most important because Al Qaeda declared it “The Capital of the Islamic State of Iraq.”
“You have to understand what every side’s end state is in Iraq to really understand what’s going on,” said Captain McGee in his Military Intelligence headquarters at the Blue Diamond base just north of the city. An enormous satellite photo of Ramadi and the surrounding area that functioned as a map took up a whole wall. Local streets were relabeled by the military and given very American names: White Sox Road, Eisenhower Road, and Pool Hall Street for example.
“The ideology of AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] is to establish the Islamic Caliphate in Iraq,” he said. “In order for them to be successful they must control the Iraqi population through either support or coercion.”
Some in the United States are unconvinced that Al Qaeda was really at the center of the conflict in Anbar. So I asked Colonel John Charlton how the Army knows Al Qaeda is really who they have been dealing with. He was supremely annoyed by the question.
“We know it’s Al Qaeda,” he said. There is no controversy whatsoever about this in Iraq. My question seemed to him as if it had come from another planet. “They self-identify as Al Qaeda. We didn’t give them that name. That’s what they call themselves. We have their propaganda CDs which have Al Qaeda written all over them.”
It’s not a dumb question, though, if a substantial number of Americans aren’t sure what’s going on in a bottomlessly complicated country eight or more times zones away. And not everyone who underestimated Al Qaeda’s presence is a fool.
I briefly met Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Eric Holmes from Dallas, Texas, while he was on his way home after volunteering to serve in Ramadi for six months. “I didn’t realize until I got here that the problem in Anbar Province was 100 percent Al Qaeda,” he said. “The old Baath Party insurgency here is completely finished. That war was won and Americans, including me, had no idea it even happened.”
Al Qaeda was initially welcomed by many Iraqis in Ramadi because they said they were there to fight the Americans. The spirit of resistance against foreign occupiers was strong. But the Iraqis got a lot more in the bargain than simply resistance.
“Al Qaeda came in and just seized people’s houses,” said Army Captain Phil Messer from Nashville, Tennessee. “They said we’re taking your house to use it against the Americans. Get out.”
“Every mosque in the city was anti-American,” Captain McGee said. “They were against us, but Al Qaeda made it even worse by ordering them to broadcast anti-American propaganda at gunpoint.”
“Market Street [the main street downtown] was completely controlled by Al Qaeda,” Lieutenant Welch said. “They rolled down the streets, pointed guns at people, and said we are in charge. They had crazy requirements for the locals. They weren’t allowed to cut their hair. Girls were banned from going to school. They couldn’t shave or smoke. One guy defiantly lit a cigarette and they shot him four times.”
Sergeant Kenneth Hicks from Portland, Oregon, took me on my first foot patrol in the city. We dismounted our Humvees near Market Street in the center of one of Al Qaeda’s old strongholds.
“This is an infamous sniper corner,” he said before we had even walked twenty feet.
“A few months ago we would be dead standing here,” he said. “But there were so many IEDs on this street, and so much piled up garbage, that we could only go out on foot.”
After Al Qaeda took over Ramadi, the local government was replaced with terrorists who only cared about fighting Americans and violently suppressing Iraqis. Al Qaeda was in charge, but it wouldn’t be accurate to say they were the new government. None of the basic city government services functioned. There was no electricity, no running water, no telephone service, and no garbage collection. Every single local business closed down. The city could not have been any more broken.
“Ramadi didn’t even have a city government until April,” said Colonel Charlton. “They couldn’t come to work because of security. And the city was down to zero electricity just three months ago.”
“I’m sure it looks to you like there’s lots of trash all over the place,” Sergeant Hicks said. “But there is massive cleanup going on. There really is a lot less of it now than there was a few months ago.”
We walked a block or so and came to a series of concrete barriers blocking vehicle traffic.
“We put up those walls to keep the rat line [enemy logistics route] out in the open desert from coming into the city,” he said.
Kids saw us and scattered. Nobody needed to tell me that was bad.
“Look out,” Sergeant Hicks said in case I didn’t know. “It’s not a good sign when kids run.”
Children who run at the sight of American soldiers often know something the soldiers do not. They may know an explosion or an insurgent attack of some other kind is imminent.
The same is true in Afghanistan. Soldiers know they can gauge the friendliness of an area by the response to their presence of its children. When kids run up and greet them, the area is friendly. When children just stand there and watch, the area is neutral or possibly hostile. When they flee it usually means the area is violently hostile and the kids need to get out of the way of the fighting that may be coming.
Sergeant Hicks raised his weapon and pointed it across the street.
I suspect he was more worried than I was. Ramadi is a friendly city that has been cleared and pacified. The children were most likely running out of sheer habit. They lived right in the heart of what was recently Al Qaeda’s main stronghold.
Nothing exploded and nobody shot at us. The first kids I ever saw in Ramadi ran from us, but it never once happened again. Only two or three minutes later, children excitedly greeted us as they did every other time I stepped out into the streets of the city and the surrounding countryside.
“Three months ago people turned their backs to us,” Sergeant Hicks said. “They refused to even smile. They were like beaten dogs.”
We walked down Market Street.
Small shops had re-opened since the war ended, but there was still a substantial amount of visible damage.
“That pile of rubble at the end of the streets was an observation post,” he said.
“Those posters work,” Sergeant Hicks said when he saw me taking a photo of one of Anbar’s Most Wanted posters. “People are giving us information. And, you know, these people really open up to you, automatically, when you’re in their houses. They’ll just start telling you what it was like living under Saddam – the most unbelievable things.” And this is a part of Iraq that was favored by Saddam Hussein. It was much worse in the Shia and Kurdish parts of the country.
I also went on patrol with Captain Phil Messer. He was the most hospitable officer I met in Iraq. He and his men lived in a large rented house about the size of a university co-op in the Hay al Adel neighborhood. He gave me his private room next to the Tactical Operations Center and slept in a crowded room with some of the other soldiers so I would be as comfortable as possible. “I’ve been immersed in this culture a long time,” he said. “The Arab code of hospitality is starting to wear off on me.” I don’t think he was sucking up for good press. He is just a nice guy.
“What do you want to see in Ramadi?” he said.
“Destruction,” I said. “I need to photograph what the war did to this place.”
So he took me out to see the destruction. He did not ask me why or what I would do with the pictures.
We headed out to “Route Michigan” in Humvees.
“When we first started using this road,” he said, “we thought it was a dirt road. Then we cleaned it up and, sure enough, there was asphalt under it. Route Michigan was hit by IEDs and gunfire every single time a convoy went down it. There was a foot and a half of water on it because the IEDs shattered so many water mains. Our vehicles were not allowed to travel on it unless they were specifically on a combat mission.”
Most of the city’s buildings and houses are more or less intact, but some areas have been completely destroyed. I toured the destruction in South Lebanon at the end of last year, but I didn’t see anything there on the scale of what happened in Ramadi. Nor did I see anything even remotely like this in Baghdad.
“We took the gloves off,” said Captain Dennison from where he described as Middle of Nowhere, Kentucky. “We had to.”
I saw dozens of buildings that look like those pictured above, and this was after the majority of the wreckage had been cleared.
At least it did not all go to waste. The twisted rebar was saved, and a young man amazingly was able to straighten it out with a tool made just for that purpose.
It looks bad, and it is bad. It’s worse than it looks, actually, because the destruction goes on and on and on in large swaths. Areas where rubble has been cleared look like parking lots, and there are literally miles of such areas in Ramadi along the main streets.
But just around the corner from the picture above is a bustling market that looks totally normal, as if nothing eventful ever happened there.
I spent the next day at a Joint Security Station (JSS), a tiny outpost in a rented house where American soldiers and Marines live with Iraqi soldiers in the heart of the city.
Army Lieutenant Markham from Shreveport, Louisiana, met me first thing in the morning at Camp Corregidor and drove me over there.
“What’s the plan today?” I said.
“There’s this thing – I don’t know if you’ve heard of it – called the GWOT,” he said jokingly. “The Global War on Terrorism. We have to win it.”
“And what about me?” I said.
“I’ll be taking you over to the JSS and leaving you with Lieutenant Hightower,” he said. “Think of it as me dropping you off at school.”
“Ok, Dad,” I said. “Which truck am I riding in?”
When we arrived at the JSS I was horrified. The building had sustained battle damage from the war. Everything was hot and filthy. The stairs were broken. The bathroom was covered in spider webs and dried mud left over from the last time it had rained. Aside from a few select rooms, there was no air conditioning. It’s hard to describe how awful that is in Iraq in August. Somebody told me it was 138 degrees that day. It’s hotter in Ramadi than even in Baghdad, and it’s made worse by the fact that the JSS didn’t have showers. “I once went three months without a shower,” a soldier told me outside. Amazingly, the place didn’t smell bad.
The toilets didn’t work and there were no porta-johns, so everyone had to use plastic bags and wash up with bottled water. “If you let the water from the sink get on your skin,” a soldier told me, “there’s a ten percent chance you’ll get a horrible rash.”
American and Iraqi soldiers live in this place. “Most Americans have no idea how bad we have it here,” someone told me, and I’m certain he’s right. But most of them didn’t complain. Life is a lot better in Ramadi now that the war is over, regardless of the heat and living conditions.
“Can I take pictures of this place?” I said to Sergeant Hicks. Only in the rarest of circumstances does the military object to journalists taking pictures, and even then only when the photographs might help the other side plan attacks.
“Hmm,” Sergeant Hicks said.
“Uh,” Lieutenant Markham said.
“It’s not that important,” I said.
“Just make sure there aren’t any full-page spreads showing the layout of this place so suicide bombers would know how to hit us,” Sergeant Hicks said.
“Yeah, Mike,” Lieutenant Markham said. “What are you trying to pull here?” He didn’t sound like he was joking, but he probably was. He’s just a dead-pan kind of guy who could have rubbed me the wrong way, but didn’t.
He introduced me to Marine Lieutenant Andrew Hightower from Houston, Texas. Hightower had recently returned from three months on medical leave.
“What happened?” I said.
“I got blown up,” he said.
“You don’t look blown up,” I said.
“I got hit with a 120 mortar round IED,” he said. “Near Market Street. I got shrapnel all in my leg.”
“How did that feel?” I said. Sometimes people don’t feel pain even when they are shot, so I didn’t know.
“It felt like someone was pushing a hot iron onto my skin,” he said. “Then I felt the blood running down my leg.” The doctors gave him the pieces of shrapnel which he now keeps in a jar.
“Lieutenant Hightower is a terrific Marine officer,” Lieutenant Markham said. “He gives me hope for the future of the Marine Corps.”
He said that so seriously I thought he might not be joking this time.
“Did you actually worry about the future of the Marine Corps before you met him?” I said.
“Well, yes kind of,” he said. “The Marines are just…really different from the Army.” He said it with such gravity and disappointment and concern and shook his head.
I couldn’t possibly care less about the rivalry between the Army and the Marines, although I was occasionally asked by members of each which branch I preferred.
One Marine tried to get an Iraqi Army soldier to take sides.
“Which do you think is better?” he said to the Iraqi soldier. “Army or Marines?”
“The Navy is best,” said the Iraqi.
The Marine was taken aback. “The Navy?” he said.
“Yes, Navy,” said the Iraqi.
The Marine looked slightly annoyed when I laughed.
Lieutenant Markham handed me over to Lieutenant Hightower who was supposed to take me out on a patrol. But a dust storm blew in from the desert and we were grounded. Soldiers and Marines aren’t allowed to go on patrols when the air is “condition red” because medi-vac helicopters have a hard time evacuating anyone who gets wounded. So I was stranded and spent as much of the day as I could talking to those who fought and survived the battle of Ramadi.
“We have genuinely good relations with the Iraqi Army here,” Lieutenant Hightower said. “We live in the same rooms. They are almost like my own soldiers. We go to their funerals.”
Every soldier and Marine I met in Anbar Province spoke highly of and with great admiration for their Iraqi counterparts. It was a completely different world from the Baghdad area where so many Americans hold the Iraqis in contempt as corrupt incompetents who let themselves be infiltrated by terrorists and insurgents.
“Some of the Iraqi Police here were insurgents, though,” he said. “We sent them to Jordan for training and when they got there they had serious background checks. Some of them were yanked out of the IP and sent to prison.”
So there has been a weeding out process, unlike in many parts of Iraq. And some of the police were insurgents who switched sides when they realized Al Qaeda, and not the Americans, were the real enemy.
“The Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police here are amazing,” Lieutenant Hightower said. “For a long time they weren’t being paid, but they risked their lives every day and did their jobs anyway.”
They are being paid now, but not very much. Iraqi Police officers only earn 300 or so dollars per month.
“What are you doing here anyway?” he said. “Not much happens in Ramadi anymore. Nothing blows up anymore. There’s no blood and guts here.”
There certainly was blood and guts, though. Just a few blocks from the station is a soccer stadium that was used during the war as a mass grave site.
“We found bodies buried in the middle of the soccer field by insurgents,” Lieutenant Hightower said. “After the war ended the Iraqis had to unearth the bodies. They called it Operation Graveyard.”
“That was its official name?” I said.
“That was its official name,” he said. “Now there’s a soccer game there every night at 5:00.” I had plans to attend the game that night myself, but it was cancelled.
“There was another soccer field north of the city in the ‘Sofia’ area,” he said, “a kids’ soccer field. It was also used as a dump site. AQI killed civilians by castrating them, stuffing their genitals in their mouths, and cutting off their heads. Al Qaeda killed a lot more civilians than they ever killed soldiers.”
Captain Jay McGee concurred. “Suicide car bombers rarely attacked the coalition,” he said, meaning Americans. “They almost always attacked Iraqi security forces and civilians. They know the U.S. will leave eventually, but AQI ultimately must fight Iraqis and destroy Iraqi institutions in order to prevail.”
They did kill Americans, though, certainly. And they recruited and paid willing local Iraqis to help them.
“To get paid by AQI for killing Americans,” Lieutenant Hightower said, “the attack must be videotaped. They often used tracer rounds so they could prove it was real. We found whole piles of these tapes when we cleaned the city out. We found and killed a sniper just northeast of the city. He had all kinds of video tapes of himself shooting and killing American soldiers.”
Snipers were everywhere in Ramadi. Some were committed Al Qaeda fighters, and others were just paid to help out.
“One of my soldiers was shot in the head through his helmet by a sniper,” he said. High powered bullets will pierce helmets if they hit at a head-on angle. “The sniper was shooting from behind a curtain in a van. He was a teacher at a women’s vocational school by day and a sniper for extra money at night. AQI just recruits people who need money and hires them as insurgents as if it were a regular job.”
Conveniently for Al Qaeda, the economy in Ramadi utterly disintegrated during the war. Almost everybody needed money, and even those who did have money had a hard time buying anything since all the stores had closed down.
Mortars were a big problem, too, and they came from random directions.
“AQI would launch three mortars from a truck,” Lieutenant Hightower said, “then drive off. We usually couldn’t shoot back fast enough before they had scurried off somewhere else.”
The worst, though, were the IEDs. It’s the same everywhere in Iraq.
“They used acid to liquefy the asphalt and bury the IEDs under the road,” he said. “Then they would push the liquid asphalt back into the hole. Their work looked almost perfect. You could tell where they had buried the IEDs if you looked closely enough, but the roads are filthy and the evidence was barely detectable when we were driving. We found a lot of them with slow-moving road clearance vehicles that use metal detector arms.”
He had to take a phone call, so I walked around the station and noticed that the filthy place was suddenly cleaner than it was when I arrived just a few hours before. The Iraqis were hard at work fixing the place up since they couldn’t go on patrols while the dusty air was still at condition red. Cases of MREs and bottled water were more organized. The floors had been swept clear of dust. Soon the station might actually be suitable for people to live in.
“Al Qaeda hit a six month old baby with a mortar when they were trying to hit us,” Lieutenant Hightower said when he got off the phone. “They also hit a six year old girl. We went in and medi-vacced the victims, and we made lots of friends that day. It was a clarifying experience for the Iraqis.”
It was a clarifying experience for the Iraqis because they had been raised on virulent anti-American conspiracy theories and propaganda from Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. They truly believed the Army and Marines were there to steal their oil and women. Americans saving the lives of children wounded by fellow Sunni Arabs who passed themselves off as liberators was not what many Iraqis ever expected to see.
“The six month baby had shrapnel in his head,” Lieutenant Hightower said. “The six year old girl had shrapnel in her leg. It was the most disturbing thing I’ve seen since I got here.” This from a man who saw one of his own men shot in the head by a sniper.
Ramadi is in terrible shape even now. If it were an American city it would be declared in a state of emergency. Months of accumulated garbage is still piled up everywhere. The electricity still isn’t on for even twelve hours a day – although the eight of hours the city does get – because, as Colonel Charlton says, Al Qaeda no longer blows up the electrical towers – certainly beats the one hour of electricity they get each day in Baghdad. Sewage flows in the street. The economy has a pulse, but four months ago it was at zero.
“The city completely bottomed out,” Colonel Holmes told me. “It hit absolute rock bottom.”
Ramadi was in worse shape even than Gaza. And Ramadi was once one of the loveliest cities in all of Iraq.
Nineteen Arab tribes led by sheikhs live in Anbar Province. In June of 2006, nine of those tribal sheikhs cooperated with the Americans, three were neutral, and seven were hostile.
In October of last year the tribal leaders in the province, including some who previously were against the Americans, formed a movement to reject the savagery Al Qaeda had brought to their region. Some of them were supremely unhappy with the American presence since fighting exploded in the province’s second largest city of Fallujah, but Al Qaeda proved to be even more sinister from their point of view. Al Qaeda did not come as advertised. They were militarily incapable of expelling the American Army and Marines. And they were worse oppressors than even Saddam Hussein. The leaders of Anbar Province saw little choice but to openly declare them enemies and do whatever it took to expunge them. They called their new movement Sahawa al Anbar, or the Anbar Awakening.
Sheikh Sattar is its leader. Al Qaeda murdered his father and three of his brothers and he was not going to put up with them any longer. None of the sheikhs were willing to put up with them any longer. By April of 2007, every single tribal leader in all of Anbar was cooperating with the Americans.
“AQI announced the Islamic State of Iraq in a parade downtown on October 15, 2006,” said Captain McGee. “This was their response to Sahawa al Anbar. They were threatened by the tribal movement so they accelerated their attacks against tribal leaders. They ramped up the murder and intimidation. It was basically a hostile fascist takeover of the city."
Sheikh Jassim’s experience was typical.
“Jassim was pissed off because American artillery fire was landing in his area,” Colonel Holmes said. “But he wasn’t pissed off at us. He was pissed off at Al Qaeda because he knew they always shot first and we were just shooting back.”
“He said he would prevent Al Qaeda from firing mortars from his area if we would help him,” Lieutenant Hightower said. “Al Qaeda said they would mess him up if he got in their way. He called their bluff and they seriously fucked him up. They launched a massive attack on his area. All hell broke loose. They set houses on fire. They dragged people through the streets behind pickup trucks. A kid from his area went into town and Al Qaeda kidnapped him, tortured him, and delivered his head to the outpost in a box. The dead kid was only sixteen years old. The Iraqis then sent out even nine year old kids to act as neighborhood watchmen. They painted their faces and everything.”
“Sheikh Jassim came to us after that,” Colonel Holmes told me, “and said I need your help.”
“One night,” Lieutenant Markham said, “after several young people were beheaded by Al Qaeda, the mosques in the city went crazy. The imams screamed jihad from the loudspeakers. We went to the roof of the outpost and braced for a major assault. Our interpreter joined us. Hold on, he said. They aren’t screaming jihad against us. They are screaming jihad against the insurgents."
“A massive anti-Al Qaeda convulsion ripped through the city,” said Captain McGee. “The locals rose up and began killing the terrorists on their own. They reached the tipping point where they just could not take any more. They told us where the weapon caches were. They pointed out IEDs under the road.”
“In mid-March,” Lieutenant Hightower said, “a sniper operating out of a house was shooting Americans and Iraqis. Civilians broke into his house, beat the hell out of him, and turned him over to us.”
“There were IEDs all over this area,” Lieutenant Welch said. “On every single street corner, buried under the road. They were so big they could take out tanks. When we came through we cleared the whole area on foot. The civilians told us where the IEDs were. I was with one group where a guy opened his gate just a crack and pointed out where one was. It was right in front of his house. Later we went back and had tea. He was so happy to see us.”
“One day,” Lieutenant Hightower said, “some Al Qaeda guys on a bike showed up and asked where they could plant an IED against Americans. They asked a random civilian because they just assumed the city was still friendly to them. They had no idea what was happening. The random civilian held him at gunpoint and called us to come get him.”
“People here tacitly supported Al Qaeda,” Captain McGee said, “because Al Qaeda was attacking us. But they took control of the city. They forced girls to stay home from school. They dragged people outside the city and shot them in the head. They broke people’s fingers if they were seen smoking a cigarette. They forced men to grow beards. Once they started acting like that they could only establish a safe haven by using terrorism against the local civilians.”
“Al Qaeda struck out three times,” said Major Peters. “Strike One: They killed a Sheikh and held his body for four days. Strike Two: They executed young people in public. Strike Three: They attacked the compound of another sheikh. The people here said enough. They aligned with us because they realized Al Qaeda was the real enemy. They didn’t like Al Qaeda’s version of Islam at all.”
Credit for purging Ramadi of Al Qaeda must go to Iraqis themselves at least as much as to the American military. The Americans wouldn’t have been able to do it without the cooperation of the people who live there, and the Iraqis wouldn’t have been able to do it, at least not so easily, without help from the American military.
Not only did Iraqi soldiers, police, and civilians join the fight, but also the lesser known local security force fielded by the Anbar tribal authorities.
“The previous battalion saw men on corners wearing cammies,” said Captain McGee. “They were legacy forces still around from the old days, the Provincial Security Forces (PSF). They had been operating as a critical reserve and a mobile strike force. They helped clear the area of AQI on their own. They are as well disciplined, if not more so, than the Iraqi Army. They’ve been working with us, too.”
I said it sounded to me like they were just another Iraqi militia, and he understood what I meant. That’s what they look like, and he had heard that criticism before.
“The PSF looks like a militia,” he said, “but it isn’t. It’s legal and more of a ‘national guard’ like the [Kurdish] Peshmerga. They are authorized and paid by the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad. Even the Iraqi Army here doesn’t have as good equipment as they have.”
Another difference between the Provincial Security Forces and the militias, which he didn’t mention, is that all the militias to one extent or another are sectarian creatures. There are Sunni militias and Shia militias, and they often fight each other. The PSF is Sunni, but that’s because Anbar Province is Sunni. The PSF isn’t Sunni per se. Its Sunni character is incidental. There are hardly any Shias in Anbar Province who could join the PSF, and the PSF doesn’t fight Shias anywhere in Iraq. They fight Al Qaeda, which also is Sunni. And they cooperate with the Iraqi Army, which even in Anbar is mostly Shia. There is nothing remotely sectarian about them.
“Al Qaeda had dug in the northeastern and southern parts of the city,” Captain McGee told me. “The coalition walled off areas and fought block to block, house to house. Then the Provincial Security Forces went in and recleared it. There was an immediate decrease in attacks.”
He was referring Operation Murphy’s Burrow, which brought about a dramatic change in offensive tactics.
“For a long time,” Colonel Holmes said, “they were driving away from the base in Humvees down a street that was infested with Al Qaeda forces. The gunners spun their turrets in circles and just shot at everything, thinking they could provide cover for themselves so they could drive without being shot at.”
“Didn’t that violate the rules of engagement?” I said.
He froze for a second and answered that question very carefully.
“That was the wrong way to do it,” he said. “And they knew it. So they slowly cleared one block at a time, house by house, and kept the supply lines open to the base in the area that was already cleared. Everything behind them got cleared and stayed cleared, so their safe area got gradually larger. We don’t want to hurt civilians. Our job here is to protect Iraqi civilians.”
He’s right. It is the job of the United States military to protect the people of Iraq even before protecting themselves. It is always the job of (American) soldiers to protect civilians before protecting themselves. In doing so they protect themselves better than if they did not. It may be counter-intuitive, but it’s straight-forward, by-the-book counterinsurgency.
Here is the relevant passage from the book. (Thanks to Michael Yon for publishing this for us.)
Sometimes, the More You Protect Your Force, the Less Secure You May Be“As soon as we were on Easy Street running through the Malaab area every day, 24/7, it got quiet,” said Private First Class Baringhouse from Indiana. “We sealed off the entire area with barricades and blocked all vehicle traffic. Then they couldn’t get weapons and IEDs in. It calmed the place down fast.”1-149. Ultimate success in COIN [Counter-insurgency] is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force. If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents. Aggressive saturation patrolling, ambushes, and listening post operations must be conducted, risk shared with the populace, and contact maintained. . . . These practices ensure access to the intelligence needed to drive operations. Following them reinforces the connections with the populace that help establish real legitimacy.
From “Counterinsurgency/FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5”
Vehicle traffic is still banned in most of Ramadi. The streets are dead quiet. No one drives but the American military, the Iraqi Army and Police, and a few select taxis.
How well is that going over, I asked Lieutenant Welch.
“Civilians complain about lots of things,” he said. “But they never complain about this. They are so terrified of car bombs they don’t want any car traffic in this city at all. If we could shut down all vehicle traffic everywhere in Iraq, the war would be practically over.”
There were more than just IEDs and car bombs. There also were house bombs.
“The house across the street was rigged to blow,” he said. “Four Syrians were living in it. Now it’s a pile of rubble. This building,” meaning the Joint Security Station, “was rigged to blow, too, but they hadn’t quite finished the rigging. They hadn’t put the detonator equipment in yet.”
Some of the blown up buildings in Ramadi can be partially blamed on American screw ups.
“Did you see that flattened parking lot looking area out front?” Lieutenant Welch said.
I did.
“It was a bunch of shops in the last area we cleared,” he said. “We busted the locks and opened the doors. Everyone had to stay in their houses then. We found tons of weapons and IEDs. Just as we were finishing up some of the military dogs refused to sit on the flour bags. We opened up the bags and it felt like soap. We tested it. We didn’t think it was an explosive, but an accelerant. We took everything, put it into piles, and blew it up without warning anybody. It was a much bigger explosion than we expected. Urea-nitrate was in the bags. It’s an explosive made from fertilizer. That blast was so big that people at Camp Ramadi, all the way on the other side of the city and outside the city, thought it was a nearby car bomb. People at Camp Corregidor thought they were being mortared. Windows blew out for blocks and blocks in every direction. It destroyed the whole block. Civil affairs officers paid compensation to locals for injuries and property damage. Thank God no one was killed. The media reported it as a car bomb at the soccer stadium. Reporters in the Green Zone have no idea what goes on out here.”
Here is a graph that I asked Military Intelligence to reproduce for me that shows the dramatic decrease in violence in the Topeka Area of Operations in Northern Ramadi from January 1, 2007, to July 28, 2007.
The graph is for internal use by the Army. It is not intended for public consumption or as propaganda. If it were, what it reveals would be even more dramatic. Most of the tiny number of “attacks” that appear after the middle of May weren’t really even attacks.
“Most of those litle blips represent old IEDs we found that were ineffective,” Captain McGee said. “One was a car bomb by perps who came into Ramadi from outside the city. There was only one other attack against us in our area of operations in July, and it was ineffective. As soon as we came in here to stay the civilians felt free enough to inform on them. Al Qaeda can’t come back now because the locals will report them instantly. Ramadi is a conservative Muslim city, but it’s a completely hostile environment for Islamists.”
The area just north of Ramadi was cleared even before the city itself was.
“On April 7 the entire area of operations [just north of the city] was cleared except for sporadic attacks from twelve people,” Major Lee Peters said. “There was no head to cut off. It was like a hydra. We didn’t win by killing their leaders. We won by eroding their support base. These people hate Al Qaeda much more than they ever hated us.”
The tribes of Anbar are turning their Sahawa al Anbar movement into a formal political party that will run in elections. They also hope to spread it to the rest of Iraq under the name Sahawa al Iraq. It is already taking root in the provinces of Diyala and Salah a Din.
Some have misunderstood this movement and dismissed it as “the insurgency.” Captain McGee provided me with the eleven points of their political platform, for the record.1. Election of new Provincial Congress.Ramadi isn’t completely safe yet. Al Qaeda wants to take back their “Capital of the Islamic State of Iraq," and they have tried unsuccessfully to attack it from outside on a couple of occasions since they lost it. (They also tried to move their “Capital of the Islamic State of Iraq” to Baqubah in Diyala Province, but they lost that too in Operation Arrowhead Ripper this summer.) Also, Colonel Charlton said, “there may still be one small cell remnant here.” But the war in Ramadi is effectively over. “It’s boring here now,” Private First Class Baringhouse said. “It’s like we’re babysitting the Iraqis. But it’s weird and amazing to be bored here.”2. Formation of Anbar Province Sheikhs Congress, with the condition that none was or will be a terrorist supporter or collaborator.
3. Begin an open dialogue with Baath Party members, except those involved in criminal/terrorist acts in order to quell all insurgent activities with all popular groups.
4. Review the formation of the Iraqi Security Forces and the Iraqi Army, with tribal sheikhs vouching for those recruited
5. Provide security for highway travelers in Anbar Province.
6. Stand against terrorism wherever and whenever it occurs, condemn attacks against coalition forces, and maintain presence of coalition forces as long as needed or until stability and security are established in Anbar Province.
7. No one shall bear arms except government-authorized Iraqi Security Forces and the Iraqi Army.
8. Condemn all actions taken by individuals, families, and tribes that give safe haven to terrorists and foreign fighters, and commend immediate legal and/or military remedies to rectify such acts.
9. Recommend measures to rebuild the economy, to entice industrial prosperity, and bolster the agricultural economy. Also find funds and resources to reopen existing manufacturing facilities. The main objective is to fight for welfare and deny the insurgents any grounds for recruitment.
10. Strengthen sheikhdom authorities, help tribal leaders adjust to democratic changes in social behavior, and maintain sheikhs financially and ideologically so they can continue this drive.
11. Respect the law and Constitution of the land, and support justice and its magistrates so no power will be above the law.
This now “boring” city, which is just barely beginning to recover from utter catastrophe, is a different cultural and political environment than it once was.
“The mosques in Ramadi all have pro-coalition messages now,” Captain McGee said.
“How do you know this?” I said. “Do you actually attend Friday services?”
“We have relationships with the imams,” he said. “We have very good relations with all of them.”
“The Abdullah Mosque next to our outpost was hit by insurgent fire,” Captain Messer said. “The Marines are giving them money to fix it.”
Another mosque, just north of the city in the area known as Jazeera, wasn’t hit by Al Qaeda. It was used as a terrorist base by Al Qaeda.
“It’s blackened,” Captain Dennison told me, “and abandoned. Insurgents used it, so the locals consider it desecrated. No one is willing to set foot in it now.”
Postscript: Please support independent journalism. Traveling to and working in Iraq is expensive. I can’t publish dispatches on this Web site for free without substantial reader donations, so I'll appreciate it if you pitch in what you can. Blog Patron allows you to make recurring monthly payments, and even small donations will be extraordinarily helpful so I can continue this project.
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Many thanks in advance.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 12:18 AMMichael,
Ramadi was in worse shape even than Gaza. And Ramadi was once one of the loveliest cities in all of Iraq.
That is really really sad. I wonder, how many of those buildings were destroyed by Americans. I notice in your piece the only mention is that al-Qaeda destroyed this or that, and it would seem disingenuous not to mention that we sure dropped a lot of bombs with our planes. Surely we dropped a whole ton of bombs over "al-Qaeda's headquarters."
Also no mention is made of how many Iraqis we Americans killed in Ramadi. I don't say this flippantly, or even trollishly, but because as you pointed out later in the piece, protecting civilians is a far greater priority than protecting soldiers, at least on paper, at least in the counterinsurgency field manual. The reason I bring this up is because I really am astonished that before General Petraeus wrote the updated manual, the American military did not use this principle (which I thought we learned in other wars---or from other nations who failed to follow that principle and lost their counterinsurgencies). Ramadi is a city that did not need to be so virulently anti-American for so long (and frankly, it is my feeling that they still don't view Americans well right now---they merely see those few foreign and domestic members of AQI as a bigger threat to their well-being). Ramadians are strongly Sunni, with many ties to Saudis. We should have used those Sunni ties to ensure the Sunnis of Iraq didn't turn against us.
Ramadi did not need to be destroyed.
In October of last year the tribal leaders in the province, including some who previously were against the Americans, formed a movement to reject the savagery Al Qaeda had brought to their region. Some of them were supremely unhappy with the American presence since fighting exploded in the province’s second largest city of Fallujah, but Al Qaeda proved to be even more sinister from their point of view.
So in other words, the success of Ramadi had little to do with the "surge." It had more to do with Al-Qaeda overreaching. I wonder, if Al-Qaeda had not been so rough on the civilian population they were trying to win over, would we still be out there reducing Ramadi to even more rubble?
Credit for purging Ramadi of Al Qaeda must go to Iraqis themselves at least as much as to the American military. The Americans wouldn’t have been able to do it without the cooperation of the people who live there, and the Iraqis wouldn’t have been able to do it, at least not so easily, without help from the American military.
The Americans will never ever win a counterinsurgency without the assistance of the locals. I thought this principle was taught at the military schools. In practice, only recently has it been shown, and at this point, it is probably far too late to have the effect required for "success."
If we could only see the numbers of Iraqis that Americans have killed. I think it would be the most telling number of the whole war.
1-149. Ultimate success in COIN [Counter-insurgency] is gained by protecting the populace, not the COIN force. If military forces remain in their compounds, they lose touch with the people, appear to be running scared, and cede the initiative to the insurgents
So painfully clear in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan at September 10, 2007 03:07 AMThis is a very interesting piece of work. Well done, you are brave.
BTW this exchange facsinated me:
MJT : “Did you actually worry about the future of the Marine Corps before you met him?” I said.
Lt Markham: “Well, yes kind of,” he said. “The Marines are just…really different from the Army.” He said it with such gravity and disappointment and concern and shook his head.
...what do you think the soldier meant? It smacks of something more than institutional rivalry...
Posted by: Microraptor at September 10, 2007 04:05 AMTotten has done an amazing job of translating the complexities of the situation here in Ramadi into a coherent news article. With no daily ax to grind, editors to appease and fare more time to spend, this report is FAR superior to anything you would find in the Times: London, New York and LA.
Michael Totten is an energy drink to combat mainstream media fatigue, read him whenever wariness sets in.
Matt Sanchez,
Ramadi, Anbar
Posted by: Matt Sanchez at September 10, 2007 04:26 AM
Awesome writing. Awesome photos.
Dan, I don't think anyone who reads the article will think it was only AQ who blew up buildings.
Posted by: Aaron at September 10, 2007 04:45 AMMichael -
Very informative article. Thank you for the perspective. I actually like that you did mention the damage that was done by Coalition forces as well and AQI --- war is always 2 sided. But, I also thought that it was nice to hear about what the forces are doing to help...rebuilding a mosque, clearing rubble, stabalizing the electrical grid. Those are the things that will help keep Al Anbar province stable...it's a quid pro quo relationship...
Posted by: Chris at September 10, 2007 06:54 AMMichael,
Another amazing article, with what I feel is your best yet description of how the populace sees the challenges and progress over there. Things are really different even from when I was in country in '05. I'm glad to see our efforts weren't in vain.
Dan, you continue to post inflammatory comments with little to no factual evidence to back up your spiteful comments.
"If we could only see the numbers of Iraqis that Americans have killed. I think it would be the most telling number of the whole war."
Are you insinuating that somehow Americans are responsible for more Iraqi deaths that AQI? Or are you insinuating that Americans are somehow just riding around the country exterminating Iraqi citizens? If you are going to participate in this discussion forum, please at least back up your claims instead of attempting to inflame others.
Posted by: Rob at September 10, 2007 08:22 AMGeez Dan, that took you long. Article is out, respond with negativity immediately. Let me see if I can help a little in your main thrust though:
We destroyed a number of buildings in this war (yes, it's ALWAYS sad when war destroys beauty, and it does so often), we have inadvertently killed civilians in this war (war, especially urban war, makes avoiding that impossible), the surge is meaningless without a local population who desires peace and wants the protection the surge provides.
As the soldier stated, "We took the gloves off...we had to." However, it's a BUILDING. Buildings can be rebuilt. You don't make decisions in the middle of a firefight based on whether you'll hurt the building they're pouring fire onto you from (we're not talking about a mosque, here).
Why the obsession with how many civilians? Is two hundred worse than one hundred? Is one hundred unacceptable but fifty is understandable? Civilians die in war. It's awful.
But what is more awful is when they're killed intentionally. We accidentally kill a civilian and we are deeply troubled by it. Al-Qaeda TARGETS the civilian. So I'm not really sure where "Al-Qaeda over-reaching" and "if Al-Qaeda had not been so rough on the civilian population they were trying to win over" comes from. They weren't overreaching. They're Al-Qaeda: it's what they do. Humoring if they had not been so rough is like humoring what an elephant could say if he could talk: elephants don't talk, and Al-Qaeda doesn't take it easy on civilian populations. And the reason why is they are not trying to "win over" the population. WE are trying to win over the population: trying to show them we're not the bad people they believed and were taught. Al-Qaeda is seeking to subjugate the people. They don't want the Iraqis on their side. They want the Iraqis to be just like them. We want the Iraqis to be able to take care of themselves so we can get the hell out. They want to rule the Iraqis so that they can stay and use it as a base of power. The only population that will support Al-Qaeda is either living in terror or crazy. The Iraqis aren't crazy (although after what the last several decades has done to their psyche, an argument could be formulated that I'm crazy for saying such a thing), and thanks in part to the surge they don't have to live in terror and fear. The next point, therefore, was inevitable: Al-Qaeda, get out.
The Iraqis should get at least half the credit for turning things around, probably more. But to say the surge is not a part of it (a significant part) is false. The surge goes in with the assumption that the populace wants to get out from under the crazies. The surge is designed to provide the presence on the ground needed to give the population the security to make that happen. So yes, in the end it's about the citizens getting it done. But I think that's the exact same thing to be said about the surge as whole.
You say that Americans can't ever win an insurgency without the assistance of the locals. But it seems more that you simply believe we can't win one period. Even when we do work with the locals, it is either not a good thing to be working with the sheiks (they fought us before, so apparently you believe we should not be making peace with them and working with them), or it wasn't really us but them who succeeded (even though the whole point of counter-insurgency is to make the population succeed in their struggle), or it's all too late and won't make a difference now. So please sit back then and see what pans out? Or would you rather us all believe such pessimism and rubbish?
Absolutely riveting, Michael, this is your best piece yet. Great photos, great writing. Thank you.
Posted by: chuck at September 10, 2007 08:47 AMThe article, and the military, and some of the commentators seem to keep acting as though all this is a result of the US military's actions in the area, but the whole time I'm reading, I couldn't find anything to contradict the fact that this was the people of Ramadi who created this reality. And probably would have regardless of whether the U.S. was there or not.
Maybe if the U.S. pulled back it's forces, set up Iraqi companies to provide jobs to Iraqis to do the work that crooks like Halliburton have been doing, and simply maintained more of a peace keeping role than an occupation (possibly with an international force), seems to me that the Iraqis are perfectly capable of figuring things out for themselves.
Posted by: Michael at September 10, 2007 09:06 AMTo Dan & Michael,
Aren't you guys missing a Moveon.org meeting or something?? The fact is that the Americans could've cleared the entire Anbar province a long time ago. Drop two dozen DaiseyCutter bombs all along Anbar and it would be pacified. But the liberals and the so-called antiwar people never give credit to military for not doing that. The fact is the Americans are the GOOD GUYS and Al Qeada are the BAD GUYS. It's too bad people like you don't get that.
Seriously dude, don't you ever get tired of this propaganda drivel? "Al Qaeda decapitates a newborn while the noble Crusaders help children."
Found those "amassed" WMD yet, scumbag?
Fuck you, I hope many more of your Coalition of the Killing friends die over there
Posted by: Katarina at September 10, 2007 09:24 AMWow Katarina, you are so articulate... LOL Another so-called anti-war person??? Or do you cheer only when Americans die? Killing Fields is what Iraq will be if we abandon our allies just like in Southeast Asia. Your response just proves how irrational and just plain stupid you are.
Posted by: Pete Dawg at September 10, 2007 09:32 AM1 post ago, you wanted to drop "daisy cutters" all over Anbar.
Now you pretend to be concerned about the killing that might take place after the American surrender and withdrawal
Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 09/10/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Katarina is banned for trolling. Don't respond to her. Any future comments by her will be deleted.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 09:53 AMKarina- I'd be surprised to learn that you don't walk around with your foot in mouth, considering that you are such a knee jerker. I never condoned or suggested that we use DaiseyCutters all along Anbar. I was saying that it is a "military" option that the US military is never given credit for not using. Now can you slow your breathing so you can understand this. The thing is that the Jihadists wouldn't hesistate to use DaiseyCutter type weapons on us and other Muslims that don't follow their brand of Islam. So please don't try to put words in my mouth...
Posted by: Pete Dawg at September 10, 2007 09:55 AMNothing like effective counterinsurgency tactics to bring out the blog trolls, and we're not even past 20 comments yet. Wowza.
Is Katarina an Al Qaeda troll or just an Islamist troll? I don't read Arabic, so I don't know what the website says that Katarina's name links to, but it looks like Al Sadr and Osama both make appearances.
Anyway, this is a great report Michael. It appears Anbar is a great example of how American firepower combined with local support can cleanse an area of the Al Qaeda scourge and allow people to get on with their lives.
Still lots of work to do, of course, especially in restoring infrastructure and rebuilding the economy, but stability first, then reconstruction.
This story gives me hope for the mission while also indicating how much more difficult Baghdad is going to be.
Posted by: Dogwood at September 10, 2007 10:00 AMConsidering some of the 'America is always evil' responses to Mr. Totten, it would appear Media Matters is dreadfully frightened of his independent work.
Posted by: syn at September 10, 2007 10:13 AMFor Katrina. What???? I believe you are looking though a different glass than the rest of us. Recommend dropping "daisy cutters" NOT TRUE
Posted by: Gene at September 10, 2007 10:15 AMRob,
Are you insinuating that somehow Americans are responsible for more Iraqi deaths that AQI? Or are you insinuating that Americans are somehow just riding around the country exterminating Iraqi citizens?
You're getting too defensive here. Please take my point at face value. I am not comparing us to Al-Qaeda. I'm saying that we've not followed our own counterinsurgency field manual and have killed quite a lot of Iraqis, a move the counterinsurgency manual says is very bad. I'm saying that this thing, which we so abhor talking about is one of the reasons why we've failed so badly in Iraq. In counterinsurgency, you do your damndest to NOT kill civilians. The manual says so itself, as Michael quoted. I think for us to get an accurate assessment of the situation, knowing exactly how many civilians we have killed will tell us quite a lot.
Why would you think I'm looking into this any further than that?
Posted by: Dan at September 10, 2007 10:19 AMMichael (can I call you "Mike" like the Lt.?),
another fantastic read ... making me late.
I remember how, back in when Harry Potter 5 came out and Fallujah was NOT cleared by the Americans I claimed: only the Iraqis can win. (as well as that Islamofascists were deatheaters.) -- inspired by your great insights.
I can't help but think of that 3 headed Hydra being stabbed. [Thanks for a wonderful foto!!!]
A terror oriented hydra, killed by Iraqi swords, backed/ funded/ supplied by US muscle.
A Hydra with a name.
I R A N.
Posted by: Tom Grey at September 10, 2007 10:23 AMJoe,
Why the obsession with how many civilians? Is two hundred worse than one hundred? Is one hundred unacceptable but fifty is understandable? Civilians die in war. It's awful. But what is more awful is when they're killed intentionally. We accidentally kill a civilian and we are deeply troubled by it.
I don't think you understand the principles of counterinsurgency. You, as the foreign occupier will most certainly take the position you just took, but that is by far the worst position to take, because to the Iraqis it shows that you really don't value their lives at all. If you want a successful counterinsurgency, you must do all in your power to NOT kill ANY civilian.
It is a fairly simple principle, Joe. If someone invaded America and promised that they only wanted to restructure our government, but then they "accidentally" killed your brother, how would you feel about it? You probably would not like it one bit. You might even feel the need for revenge. The heck with feelings, you'll probably want to take some action. Why wouldn't Iraqis (or really anyone else) do the same?
Posted by: Dan at September 10, 2007 10:23 AMThe counterinsurgency manual I quoted is the current "book" on how to wage war in Iraq. The surge is partly about an increase in troop numbers, but mostly about a change to this strategy.
I think Dan's comments are a bit overwrought, but it's true that this war was not fought properly for a long time.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 10:24 AMPete Dawg,
Drop two dozen DaiseyCutter bombs all along Anbar and it would be pacified.
Huh...I seem to remember that we used Daisy Cutters in Afghanistan, oh about five years ago. How's Afghanistan doing these days?
Posted by: Dan at September 10, 2007 10:25 AMOh, Dan what the heck are you saying??? I'm sorry that you don't have an intituitive impulse to believe that AQ's civilian casualty rate by far outpaces the American military rate. Considering its AQ that's exploding bombs all over Iraq against fellow muslims. The fact is that the Lawyers have screwed up the Rules of Engagement so much that I know that American soldiers have died letting the enemy get away. How much has our country been neutered since World War 2? America has gone to extreme lengths to protect innocent civilians. Pretty soon the US military will be asked to have "no civilian" casualties and on that day the United States will be unable to protect itself or its national interests.
Posted by: Pete Dawg at September 10, 2007 10:38 AM"How's Afghanistan doing these days"
A world better than before 9/11/2001.
It is appalling to me as a former liberal mugged by the reality of 9/11/2001 to hear from Americans drowning in wealth, security and freedom constantly rip into any attempt to help Liberty succeed in those places where none ever existed.
I was once a Liberal who believed in the words of John F Kennedy, however, since 9/11/2001 Liberalism in America is as dead as is that former great President Kennedy.
Shame on Liberals for killing the dream!
Posted by: syn at September 10, 2007 10:41 AMGreat article Michael, thanks for the unique insights.
To those getting your blood up about who gets credit for this growing success story, take another look at the drawing by the Iraqi child. Notice the "alliance" in there?
Also re-read the section where Michael talks about the Sheikh taking the first step, then asking the US military for help. That sums it up perfectly.
So to you people saying the Iraqi's "would have regardless of whether the US was there or not." need to get a clue. We are there, and they asked for help. We've provided that help, and I don't doubt that we'll continue to lend a hand extricating AQI when needed.
Posted by: Thripshaw at September 10, 2007 10:44 AMDan,
It's difficult to take your previous comment at face value, because you do not provide any figures. You casually toss a comment about "If we could only see the numbers of Iraqis that Americans have killed..." into your post, and I personally can only infer that you are trying to say that this is somehow a large and significant figure. If I am wrong please correct me.
There have no doubt been civilian casualties as a result of this war, which is honestly sad. If you remember me from earlier posts, I served for a year there, and can tell you first hand. I could also tell you about the almost daily patrols I went on where we would stop our convoy to let our medics get and and assist the local population.
Back to the point at hand, AQI is the group that has been responsible for the vast majority of sectarian killings, bombings, beheadings, etc.
Perhaps you are trying to imply that if we weren't there, then innocent Iraqis wouldn't be getting killed by AQI. While I can't agree with that assessment, I'll at least give you credit for that translation. Because your original post was unclear on the matter.
Not to dwell on the gruesoem details,
but the part about aq 'tards stuffing genitals into the mouth followed by beheading is straight out of Chechnya. Arab mercenaries fighting in chechnya throughout the nineties used the EXACT same methods. I guess further proof that it is in fact al-qaeda, and not randomly generated joe schmoe al-habib group.
Dan- I guess reading comprehension is not popular with you or your "Blame America First" crowd. It doesn't matter that I said DaiseyCutter or a smalll tatical nuke. The fact is that the US Military is the most leathal on this Earth and it's restraining itself. Something you just can't comprhenend or appreciate. Oh by the way a DaiseyCutter effectiveness would be diminished in the mountains of Afghanistan and Wahzirastan. Something the that wouldn't happen in the FLAT land of Anbar province.
Posted by: Pete Dawg at September 10, 2007 10:55 AMAnother amazing article. Thank you.
You and Michael Yon have become the foremost foreign correspondents of your generation IMHO.
Posted by: Hope Muntz at September 10, 2007 10:57 AMBill Ardolino has a report up from Operation Alljah.
http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/003102.php
If Totten, Yon, Ardolino and Roggio and others can do this type of reporting, then why can't the MSM?
Oh that's right, it is the narrative that is important, not the facts on the ground.
Independent war bloggers should be receiving Pulitzers if you ask me.
Posted by: Dogwood at September 10, 2007 11:02 AMThanks for this great report. For the first time, I am going to contribute to your effort. I am cancelling my subscriptions to newspapers and I will instead give money to you to help you. Why should I pay to the newspaper/magazines and get one-sided, often negative news anymore? I had enough.
I am a Middle Eastern myself and I want America to be victorious there, because I know if American wins, Iraqi people will win at the end too. Hey, why should not we have Germany like or Japan like country in the Middle East? Only America can do that for Iraqi’s.
Another fantastic work, Michael. I'm hooked.
Posted by: AmWall at September 10, 2007 11:19 AMMicheal,
I consider your blog to be essential reading. Thanks from yet another of your fans.
"This drawing by an Iraqi child depicts the American-Iraqi alliance against Al Qaeda. Notice the sword is Iraqi and the muscle is American."
That drawing is awesome and I think it beautifully sums up the current situation in Iraq.
So why didn't we do it before? I think that whenever a new CEO moves into a position of control he wants to do things his way. We all think that, "If only they'd do it MY way..."
I can't remember the name of the movie, but the quote was something like this: "There are four ways to do anything. The right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and MY way. We do things my way."
The previous generals did things their way.
Petraeus does the same thing, except that his way involves actually studying what's worked and applying it. Not many people will do that. It's that ego thing.
War is hell and we all wish it would just go away, but I think this way is showing a real possibility of taking Iraq from a hellish dictatorship to something far better.
Posted by: Greg at September 10, 2007 11:28 AM>> Drop two dozen DaiseyCutter bombs all
>> along Anbar and it would be pacified.
Many would appreciate it if armchair supporters of the military which represents us around the world would refrain from suggesting that the U.S. military deserves a pat on the back for not committing genocide.
We've come a long way from Vietnam (hopefully), so the concept of "we had to destroy the village to save the village" must be completely laid to rest.
This victory is a victory by and for the Iraqi's, and it rings hollow to use it as an opportunity to cheerlead for the U.S. occupation.
Posted by: b. ramirez at September 10, 2007 11:38 AMAs Winston Churchill said: "The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative."
After diligently exhausting those alternatives under the direction of Donald "stuff happens" Rumsfeld, it appears that the US military really is doing the right things in Iraq. I sincerely hope it is not too late.
Posted by: Penry at September 10, 2007 11:42 AMMichael, I prefer to receive my news (good or bad) from primary sources, like yourself. Having served in the region myself, I have a sense for what sounds true and what sounds fabricated. Please keep reporting what you see, no matter what you see, for those relatively few of us who really care about hearing the observations and opinions of those from whom the situation in Iraq is truly a life-or-death situation.
Posted by: Parks at September 10, 2007 11:42 AMMichael, fantastic article! Allow me to pedantically refresh your memory, though, to the effect that the photo captioned "A U.S. Army tank on Market Street" is not of a tank but a Bradley IFV.
Oh, and the kid who drew the Iraqi-American dragon-stabbing: Let's give him Ted Rall's job.
Posted by: nichevo at September 10, 2007 12:04 PMDan,
Exactly what qualifies you to make assumptions and generalizations about what measures were required and excessive in Ramadi? How much time did you spend on the ground? Which military schools did you attend that taught COIN entitling you to speak on the curriculum? The bottom line is that the "fog of insurgency" is something that cannot be exhaustively covered in a field manual. There are principles and ideologies, guidelines and recommendations. There are no hard and fast rules, no sequence of events. Sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. You can't paint-by-numbers a COIN operation, especially one on such a grandiose scale.
Nichevo,
Too slow on the correction! The photo caption has already been fixed, but you are right. It wasn't a tank.
I know the difference (honest), I just didn't look carefully enough at the photo when I put this post together. I used to not know the difference, and part of my brain still apparently doesn't.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 12:26 PM"The counterinsurgency manual I quoted is the current "book" on how to wage war in Iraq. The surge is partly about an increase in troop numbers, but mostly about a change to this strategy.
I think Dan's comments are a bit overwrought, but it's true that this war was not fought properly for a long time."
Exactly. The increase in troop numbers is not the critical thing. It's the change in tactics brought by Petraeus and their successful implementation on the ground, made more effective by AQI's following the total opposite of sensible COIN tactics.
Posted by: Mr Jones at September 10, 2007 12:26 PMMr Jones,
Indeed, if AQI had the same rulebook for war that the US has, they would win. But they don't.
It also wouldn't hurt if they read How to Win Friends and Influence People. But they won't.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 12:28 PMDan,
I suppose I was making the same exact point against you. You didn't understand the point of the comment you quoted in your response, but maybe I was just unclear. Why the obsession with how many civilians have died? One is tragic. Why do we need to say X died when the fact that one died is bad enough? Even one is tragic (from a human perspective) and counter-productive (from a cynical perspective).
I and others "get defensive" at that question because your views combined with your context and wording seem to suggest you ask that question exactly for the reasons that Rob points out.
Your comments are extremely exasperating for some of us to read, as well. Largely because you make statements about attempting to avoid killing civilians in a manner that seems to suggest we AREN'T doing our damnedest to avoid them, and that is insulting to a lot of people. We aren't trying any harder, we're simply adopting strategies and numbers that allow us to accomplish that much more successfully. However, your insinuation that you could ever totally avoid civilian deaths in any sort of combat theater whatsoever shows that you seem to be missing something about war. Each time that fact rears its ugly head it produces anguish in our men and women charged with their safety, and each failure to protect makes the mission that much harder in the end. But the fact certainly does not exclude victory's chances.
Michael,
Without question the strategy before did not work. But I believe the argument as it stands is "have we found the correct strategy?" Dan is arguing either: a) The war was lost already because of poor initial strategy, and so nothing we do now even matters or b)the current strategy does not work and so it is not the correct strategy. I would have to say that both arguments appear to be false.
Your own reporting (as well as others') shows that the current strategy DOES work. So he would be wrong on that account.
Or if he is arguing the former, history is absolutely filled (the United States' being no exception) with instances where a war did not present the challenge set originally banked on, and so new strategies had to be adopted. Generals (often numerous generals) had to be sought out before finding one who was the right man. My God, how many generals did Lincoln go through before getting to Grant? And it has been proven time and again that victory is still possible. As is defeat. Which goes to show it's how good the current strategy is, not whether the previous strategy was severely flawed (it was). And those flaws are frequently not a matter of ill-will, and more times than not are not due to a lack of being smart. Instead, it usually stands as a testament to the unpredictability of war. So history then would not necessarily prove him wrong as show that former argument to be highly questionable.
I try to avoid getting into the broader arguments either for or against the war, and instead try to stick to the conduct of the war itself and making sure we're at least on the right track NOW (you can't change the past, so you might as well try and make up for it however much you can by doing it correctly now). The for/against argument has been hashed out a million times over, and I feel like arguing it again just bores everyone to tears.
I will take a second to step out onto that limb for a second, though, and say it does indeed frustrate me that it took until Petraeus in 2006 to write a "correct" field manual for counter-insurgency. This is something that should've been figured out and written back in the '80's and '90's (one that WORKS...you read Petraeus's strategy and it just makes sense). The idea that 9/11 came and we were still in a position of having to learn as you go did not put a smile on my face.
Furthermore, once 9/11 came we should've been going to work on figuring that aspect of warfare out. There was a year and a half between 9/11 and Iraq which should've at least been enough to get a healthy start. Even if it was indeed thought that the possibility of insurgency (requiring counter-insurgency) was not a probability in Iraq (hmm?), it was a possibility with a high enough percentage of likelihood that not coming up with a game plan for that instance was a little baffling. Particularly since even without it in Iraq, the War on Terror seems to clearly suggest the idea that at some point you will run into counter-insurgency needs.
I don't pretend that "figuring that aspect of warfare out" is as easy as saying it. It's hard and isn't easy to figure out. But I expect any company or group to utilize its talent pool to the utmost. Not being able to find those in the organization who possess "common sense" with regards to COIN (and having them commit it to written doctrine) may not be outrageous, but it certainly is dropping the ball to at least some degree.
Unfortunately, it seems that's a common issue in history and war, and so I guess you live and learn. Let's just be happy about someone, even in the 11th hour, seeing the writing on the wall and being heard/brought to the table.
Now hopefully I can retreat back to not getting into the pros/cons of the war itself, but feel free to respond if you think I'm wonderfully smart or off my rocker (naturally, I expect more of the latter ;-)
PS - Kudos to "Truth". Dead on the mark.
Posted by: Joe at September 10, 2007 12:30 PMDan,
I notice in your piece the only mention is that al-Qaeda destroyed this or that, and it would seem disingenuous not to mention that we sure dropped a lot of bombs with our planes. Surely we dropped a whole ton of bombs over "al-Qaeda's headquarters.
Any day in the last four years we could have erased Ramadi from the map with aerial bombardment. We've had that capacity since the middle of WWII. Ramadi stands because we choose to fight differently.
It is insulting to US forces to be this deliberately obtuse. I am not sure if you are clear on what that means. The US military is the most trusted and honored portion of our society today amongst the general populace. Your continued irrational attacks on their character marginalize your position, not theirs. I suspect you have something important you want to contribute, but your adherence to outdated and obsolete ideas is interfering.
Take a week off and learn something about the US military from sources other than the anti-war press. The people telling you that you are well informed about this may not be your friends.
Posted by: Patrick S Lasswell at September 10, 2007 12:34 PMMichael, thank you for your very informative and riveting article. Thank you as well for the photos. It is a blessing to hear the good news from a journalist such as yourself. My son has been stationed in Ramadi with the Army for 14 months now and reports a dramatic change from when he arrived to now. We need to continue to report on the progress to lift our troops! Do I like the war? NO Do I support our troops and want them home? ABSOLUTELY! Thanks again Michael! Looking forward to Pt. 2!
Posted by: Cheryl at September 10, 2007 12:41 PMJust imagine the defeats we could deliver to Al Qaeda in Iraq (and all over the world, through propaganda) if we largely withdrew from Iraq and intensively supported and encouraged Iraqis to eradicate Al Qaeda for themselves.
Clearly, events in Anbar show that moderate muslims hate Al Qaeda, especially after experiencing the real, day-to-day reality of living under Al Qaeda rule. By ending the occupation, moderate muslims would gain the experience of defeating extremists themselves and we would gain the propaganda victory of having been there to help them - all without giving Al Qaeda the argument that the infidel US is occupying a muslim country.
At the very least, given how hated Al Qaeda is by the Iraqi people, our experience in Anbar tell us that it's very unlikely that Al Qaeda would be able to take over much, if any, of Iraq, should the US decide to leave.
Anyway, thank you Mr Totten for the fascinating post! The inspiring turn around of events in Anbar seems like the best argument I've heard yet for why the US can and should withdraw from Iraq ASAP - good news any way you cut it!
Posted by: JerryL at September 10, 2007 12:42 PMThis is very interesting and I hope they can use this as a model for other parts of the country. I don't know what Iraq will look like in the end, but the Kurdish areas and now parts of Al anbar certainly make a loose federal system look appealing. I don't know how that would hold up with predatory neighbors, but homogony and a common enemy to be working against seems to pacify the Iraqi population.
Posted by: mikek at September 10, 2007 12:43 PMThe Iraqi people have the right to live their lives the way they choose to live it! Radical Islam thinks otherwise, thanks America for the help in Iraq and God Bless.
Posted by: America First at September 10, 2007 12:49 PMPatrick to Dan: Take a week off and learn something about the US military from sources other than the anti-war press.
Gotta stick up for Dan here. He put me on his blog roll, something I sincerely appreciate since we do not always agree.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 12:49 PMJerry,
Regarding your quote re:
"Just imagine the defeats we could deliver to Al Qaeda in Iraq (and all over the world, through propaganda) if we largely withdrew from Iraq and intensively supported and encouraged Iraqis to eradicate Al Qaeda for themselves."
I also wish that this would be possible. But Michael's article really paints a picture of the citizens of Anbar both before, and after, we decided to "clear and hold" within their neighborhoods, vs. "clear and leave."
When there are animals within AQI that are murdering children, and breaking people's fingers for smoking or otherwise imposing their strict interpretation of "religion," these people clearly needed outside help (ie the US) to assist. Not to mention that AQI receives all sorts of outside support (training, logistics) in their effort to dominate the populace. The average Iraqi, until recently with our help, did not have the means to defend against these threats.
It's too bad it took us so long to recognize this, and to start earning the locals' trust.
I'm really glad to read that Michael's experience seems to be showing some tangible progress, and eagerly await the next dispatch.
Posted by: Rob at September 10, 2007 12:59 PMMichael,
I'm not telling him to go away forever, I'm telling him he needs to expand his perspective and change his paradigm. I do this all the time and it makes me better. I think Dan has become overly engaged and needs to reassess some of his perceptions.
We need informed and articulate criticism to improve, and Dan is probably capable of being a good critic but his prejudices are getting in the way. He insufficiently recognizes the difficulty in using force with integrity and that mistakes are part of any use of force. Lack of sensitivity to that will get him shunned.
Posted by: Patrick S Lasswell at September 10, 2007 01:05 PMDan,
You said:
You're getting too defensive here. Please take my point at face value. I am not comparing us to Al-Qaeda. I'm saying that we've not followed our own counterinsurgency field manual and have killed quite a lot of Iraqis, a move the counterinsurgency manual says is very bad.
I can't speak to that. I spent almost one full year in Baghdad in 2005. While our Engineer Battalion's primary mission was clearing the roadside of IEDs (a mission in which countless Iraqis thanked us), we were also tasked (a few times per day) with distributing recovery packages to the local populace. We would respond anytime there was a bombing of a marketplace, or business, or home, etc with a pallet of humanitarian goods (food, water) etc for homes. In the case of businesses, we would provide materials to rebuild their structure so that they could get back to business as soon as possible.
Now, I'm not totally sure what the counterinsurgency manual says about this. But I can tell you from personal experience that the people we met were brought to tears and were indescribably thankful. And they knew who was responsible for the killing, and who was trying to get them back on their feet.
I'm not trying to be contrary, but simply trying to say that my personal experience having been there is completely different from the descriptions you have shared here.
My $.02.
Posted by: Rob at September 10, 2007 01:18 PMJerryL,
General Petraeus said it very well today:
Of note, as the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq explained, these gains against Al Qaeda are a result of the synergy of actions by: conventional forces to deny the terrorists sanctuary; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets to find the enemy; and special operations elements to conduct targeted raids. A combination of these assets is necessary to prevent the creation of a terrorist safe haven in Iraq.
In mathematics terms:
2+3+1=6
1+0+0 not equal to 6
Battlefield synergy is achieved by working continuously as hard as you can with everybody you can to destroy the enemy. Synergy is not achieved by "leaving them alone and hoping it all works out." We tried that earlier and it failed.
Posted by: Patrick S Lasswell at September 10, 2007 01:21 PMI don't think people like Dan are actually anti-military. At the same time, they do show an ignorance of military tactics if they see every operation as a ham-fisted response.
The U.S. Army operates about as surgically as any army can. You can't fight a war without doing any damage. Yes, we could be even more careful (using special forces and so on) but that wouldn't be as effective overall.
Some people seem to believe special forces and cruise missiles will accomplish everything. They can't. We still need masses of troops, tanks, APCs and bulldozers to do the job sometimes.
The U.S. succeeded in Ramadi by using the carrot and the stick. But without the stick the strategy would not have worked.
Think about it: if you were one of the tribal sheikh's, who would you have thrown your weight behind? The U.S. is more benevolent AND far more powerful than al-Qaeda. The latter is why they have any respect at all.
Otherwise the Red Cross could have pacified Ramadi within hours.
Posted by: Edgar at September 10, 2007 01:24 PMFirst off great article. 20 years ago, I was where these guys are in Iraq and I can say they are doing a great job.
Guys like Dan think that bashing the US will help us get out of the conflict and we will be better off. That did not work in Viet Nam, let me tell you.
People on both sides forget that in war, people die. That is what bombs and bullets do, they kill people. It is not always possilbe to kill any one person. Remember Somilia? The bad guys would hang a young kid off their front and back to keep our troops from shooting back at them. The bad guys have no problem putting a kid or civilian in harms way, it keeps him from getting shot. The truth is that if there was not a war, most of these people would be in jail. They are not nice people.
Do you really think that leaving would be a good thing for this war? I dont like having our guys killed any more than anyone else. But, Dan and others forget or just dont get it that there is simply no way to be nice to AQ. They want the world to be bearded, stupid and never bath. Not just the west, but everyone. If you think that this ends with blowing up a few buildings, you are sadly mistaken. yes, Americans killed some people that did not deserve it. Yes, we killed a lot that did, but unless an until, we stand firm, we will never be rid of the problem. these folks do not respect compassion, they respect power. When hiding behind civilians becomes too dangerous for them, we will have won.
Posted by: Gary at September 10, 2007 01:28 PMI'm serving north-west of the Anbar, but still in the Sunni Triangle. Although we haven't experienced the new "quiet" of Ramadi, there are elements of this article that are recognizable and pertinent from over 100 miles away. So much so that I could mistake portions of this article for something coming straight from my area of operation.
The stories of the atrocities committed by Al Qaeda were so fantastic and improbable that I refused to believe them until I started going outside the wire. In short time, I learned that in my location, it is no exaggeration to say that Al Qaeda murders a dozen civilians a week on average. Almost all the victims are local security forces and the hired hands of infrastructure reparation. (Al Qaeda takes swipes at us too.)
The soldiers I serve with watch and read the news regularly. We know who is painting the American forces as the initiators of trouble and who telling the whole of the story. That said, this was a great article.
Thanks for doing what you do.
Posted by: Plat at September 10, 2007 01:28 PMThat was one of your best articles. I hope you will put all of them, complete, in a book some day.
Thanks.
Posted by: Don Cox at September 10, 2007 02:18 PMThis correspondance is absolutely invaluable for the American Public (to read) in order to gain a more comprehensive
understanding of the situation, on the ground, in and around ANBAR. What has taken place in RAMADI, these past three months, is nothing short of a profound turn of events in that troubled war-torn nation. It only reinforces that our success cannot be won (in the longterm) by the American Forces alone, but only with the will and commitment of the IRAQI PEOPLE, through all walks of life, can they take back their nation; free from oppression.
What is this horrible admission “if the Iraqis had changed their allegiance, we could not have freed Anbar”? Does that reveal us to be less than liberators? The emperor has no clothes and his “hate America” tattoo is showing. The objective is to free Iraq from the Islamists.
Posted by: Chuck at September 10, 2007 02:40 PMAll I can do is second many of the positive comments here regarding the article and its author. It almost provides hope for the media finding its roots, its reason for being, which should be about researching, then presenting the facts, not some biased predetermined political stance clothed in "journalism". Some folks can't stand the sound of anything positive coming out of Iraq, anymore than than others who refused to listen to the bad news early on.
Posted by: Oliver Deeds at September 10, 2007 02:43 PMJerryL;
The "deliberately obtuse" comment springs to mind. The sheikh who came and asked for help AFTER deciding to take on AQ himself and getting "seriously fucked up" by them was not being chicken or lazy. AQ is GOOD at dirty fighting, has access to significant outside resources in money and arms, and could, without MNF interference, dominate any part of Anbar, or indeed the whole of it.
This inclination to do 20-20 handwaving ignores so much reality it's hardly worth disputing. But some expressions of willful stupidity are too egregious to let pass. Sorry 'bout that.
Posted by: Brian H at September 10, 2007 02:45 PMApparently Dan didn't read the part about how we blew up what looked like a city block.
If this has already been mentioned I apoligize for not reading all posted comments.
BTW that was an accident not an attack which was also compensated for.
Posted by: paul at September 10, 2007 03:00 PMDan,
Afghanistan is doing just fine. You ought to come visit sometime. We could sit down for tea with some of the local Pashtuns if you like. Maybe discuss the local construction boom or even how the ANA is becoming more and more competent and more trusted by the people.
Posted by: fred at September 10, 2007 03:24 PMWhile I don't put a lot of faith in polls taken by the media, here is one that supports an increase in dislike of AQI in Iraq and what you might see as a lessening of hate for the Americans.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6983027.stm
BTW, I really liked the article. Look forward to seeing more like this.
Posted by: Randy at September 10, 2007 03:29 PMFirst - Mr. Totten, thank you for the wonderful job of reporting what you experience.
Second - As far as the strategy before Petraeus it was obviously strongly influenced by "conventional" thinking. Look throughout military history and you see leaders projecting what they would do onto the opposing forces. Sometimes it proves to be correct. But when the projections prove wrong, it can become a very nasty situation. The White House and DOD became victims to this line of thinking. They allowed the events of the first Gulf War to dictate the strategy for fighting the second. What they failed to see what that the first was vastly different. That victory was going to be more than just rolling over the military forces. They allowed their own prejudices to color their thinking, as most humans. And like any human it is difficult to admit when you are wrong. More so for those in Washington, to admit being wrong is to open one's self for political attack. But finally the realization occurred, in comes Petraeus and Gates, out goes Rumsfeld and his crew. And today is the day of Petraeus' report to Congress. Of course many Democrats had already determined that Petraeus' report was "ginned" to make things look good. That's partisan politics for ya. But, the war in Iraq is far from lost. We Americans have to find the patience to allow victory to be won, it never just magically appears. This is a long road we travel folks, and Iraq is just merely a stop on the journey. Fanaticism that has no geopolitical boundaries is difficult to fight, but not impossible. And don't kid yourselves, they must be fought.
I'd love to see Katrina with her foot in her mouth! Should be interesting since her head is up her ass. Liz
Posted by: LIZ at September 10, 2007 03:42 PMMichael, thank you for what you do! My brother is in Ramadi right now, and it is good to get a picture of what is happening there.
Posted by: becca at September 10, 2007 03:53 PMMichael,
Gotta stick up for Dan here. He put me on his blog roll, something I sincerely appreciate since we do not always agree.
Your writing is very insightful, and I recommend your writings to anyone who frequents my blog. We do not always agree, and I hope my questions are fairly reasonable given the hellish situation we've been in these past six years. This is now how I expected my country to act, and so it is fairly tough to hold back how I really feel.
Posted by: Dan at September 10, 2007 03:57 PMGreat dispatch Michael! Keep up the GREAT work!!
And Dan, I am sure you are familiar with the phrase "rules of engagement". Ask any of our troops who have served in-country what (other than the HEAT) their biggest frustration is and many will tell you that they feel/felt that their hands had been tied by their rules of engagement. The same rules that are in place so as to limit colateral damage and civilian casualties. As the father of a Marine who fought inside the Triangle of Death area in 2005-2006 I can tell you he reported that things would have been over, successfully, long ago had those rules not been in place. Surely, many more civilians would have died without the RoE. Surely, fewer US troops would have died had our troops not had RoE. That is what will always distinguish the US military from the enemies we fight.
We choose to risk our own. First, and without question.
The Iraqis are finally realizing that we are not the bad guys they had been led to believe. The insugents are. It seems it will take the kind of time and effort seen in Ramadi to get the entire tide to turn in the direction of the Iraqis. But they have to stand up for themselves, which they have been unable/unwilling to do for decades under the shadow of fear of Saddam, and they are now starting to see that it works! If we are to succeed in handing over the country to the Iraqis they have to believe it is THEIR country for which they are fighting. I don't think that they are there just yet... But it is happening.
God Bless our troops and their families.
"and I hope my questions are fairly reasonable given the hellish situation we've been in these past six years"
Six years? Hellish situation? Maybe more people would think you were reasonable if you weren't so over the top. You should be thankful your life has been so easy that not liking the POTUS (I am assuming you are in the US not "hezbollah lover" from the UK) is considered hellish.
Posted by: mikek at September 10, 2007 04:15 PMMichael,
Fantastic article. You're well researched article shows your ability to view and understand things from a variety of angles and put them into a comprehensive and understandable piece. Like the many comments before mine, I commend you and hope that you will rub off on you're main-stream brethern.
As for my opinion about the surge, please understand that it was General Petreas' change in strategy that required the surge. It was his idea, not the administrations. It is his tactic and it is working, why change it now? Let the General run the war how he see's best fit. Government (i.e. Congress) should not get involved unless his strategy begins failing. They did not get involved earlier when the strategy was failing, and now they want to get involved now that it's working.
Posted by: Zac at September 10, 2007 04:17 PMSince Michael likes you I will try to be nice - but what do you expect 'your country' to do? Skip the 'wouldn't-do' stuff, we're sure you would never make any mistakes or do anything unkind - what affirmatively would you expect to do, how long, how many men, etc?
How many friendly casualties would your strategy cost? How many sensibilities would you have to violate?
It can't be helped to note that it is easy to criticize and insult when you have no skin in the game yourself and no notion of how hard it is to do even the simplest things in war.
Selective reading of a few millennia worth of military history might give you at least a superficial awareness, but a lifetime of nightly news and groupthink blogging won't.
That assumes you a) really want the best for the US, and b) do not equate that with bashing everyone to the right of (or who disagrees in any way with) yourself.
Again, Mike's good word buys you some space on a) and b) above but your writing here doesn't convince me, or, I would say, l'homme moyen sensuel, though it may reinforce the convinced.
One great thing about Michel Totten is that he's original. Go and be/do thou likewise.
Posted by: nichevo at September 10, 2007 04:22 PMI recommend we all read this with Fox News playing in the background. Immerse yourself in the warm Bushie glow.
Posted by: Tank You Mista Boosh at September 10, 2007 04:36 PMnichevo,
It can't be helped to note that it is easy to criticize and insult when you have no skin in the game yourself and no notion of how hard it is to do even the simplest things in war.
Actually my sister is in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan at September 10, 2007 04:40 PMReality isn't Republican.
"Tank You Mista Boosh" is banned for trolling, and for stupidity.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten at September 10, 2007 04:43 PMTank You Mista ... if you'd actually listen to Fox News instead of relying on what your silly Moveon.org hate-mongers tell you about it, you'd know that Fox is critical of Mr. Bush quite often. The difference is that their criticism is researched and founded on fact as opposed to your bitter little tribe's attempts. boo hoo Liz
Posted by: LIZ at September 10, 2007 04:48 PMMichael, I haven't known of you before but I am an avid fan now. I will look for your past writings as well as looking forward to future views through your eyes. Thank you for sharing your insight with such integrity and clarity. May God bless you and protect you in further brave endeavors. Liz
Posted by: LIZ at September 10, 2007 04:55 PMA few sundry thoughts:
"The Navy is best" -- hahaha! I'd like to meet that guy. Kudos to him for perceiving the subtleties of our culture.
The dragon drawing is quite striking, as others have observed. How do Iraqi adults react to it? I'm reminded of the flag controversy when Saddam's statue came down -- the child plainly is operating under a different mindset.
How fragile are these gains in Anbar? Has this "rock bottom", life-changing experience with Al Qaeda permanently shaped Iraqi Sunni culture?
Posted b