Saddam's Terror Training Camps
Weekly Standard
Jan 2006
THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. ...
The secret training took place primarily at three camps--in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak--and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria's GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. ...
The photographs and documents on Iraqi training camps come from a collection of some 2 million "exploitable items" captured in postwar Iraq and Afghanistan. They include handwritten notes, typed documents, audiotapes, videotapes, compact discs, floppy discs, and computer hard drives. Taken together, this collection could give U.S.intelligence officials and policymakers an inside look at the activities of the former Iraqi regime in the months and years before the Iraq war.
The discovery of the information on jihadist training camps in Iraq would seem to have two major consequences: It exposes the flawed assumptions of the experts and U.S. intelligence officials who told us for years that a secularist like Saddam Hussein would never work with Islamic radicals, any more than such jihadists would work with an infidel like the Iraqi dictator.
It also reminds us that valuable information remains buried in the mountain of documents recovered in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past four years. Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million "exploitable items" have been thoroughly examined. That's 2.5 percent.
16 comments:
Oh joy! You don't get too much light relief involving al-Qaeda, so gloat over this one while you can.
Insurgents turning against al-Qa'eda in Iraq
Telegraph
06/02/2006
Iraqi insurgent groups are turning against their former al-Qa'eda allies, amid a succession of tit-for-tat assassinations, bombings and kidnappings. Evidence of growing splits has encouraged US commanders' hopes of isolating fanatical groups - such as that led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - and drawing Sunni factions into negotiations. ... The tensions between the insurgent groups were apparent during last December's elections.
Al-Qa'eda, dominated by foreign jihadis, threatened to disrupt the ballot, but several Iraqi insurgent groups allowed Sunnis to vote in unprecedented numbers.
...
In Samarra, an insurgent stronghold north of Baghdad, 1,000 people demonstrated 12 days ago after al-Qa'eda members hauled 40 men from a bus and executed them. Tension has increased in the city since a sheikh was killed in September after travelling to Baghdad to seek help from the defence ministry to combat al-Qa'eda infiltration. In response, his tribe abducted three men and held a trial in a farmhouse after a lengthy interrogation. The men were publicly executed. Seventeen further al-Qa'eda members were grabbed in subsequent weeks.
Occasionally Pipes comes up with something way out of leftfield. Here here argues that a civil war in Iraq is (a) not the West's responsibility and (b) may even have some strategic advantages.
Civil War in Iraq?
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
February 28, 2006
Haven't seen anyone yet manage to blame the Jews for this Muslim-on-Muslim violence, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Some interesting choice of words in this article, plus a good new stat.
Gunmen kill 56 in sectarian attack on Iraqi market town
Independent
18 July 2006
Gunmen killed 56 people and injured 67 in a massacre in a market town south of Baghdad yesterday, in the latest sectarian Sunni-Shia violence which is engulfing the capital and its environs.
...
Ali Mahmoud, an off-duty security guard who saw the attacks, said: "We heard shots and then people were running in panic, shouting, 'The terrorists are coming!'.
...
Since the Shia shrine in Samarra was blown up on 22 February, individual tit-for-tat killings have been replaced by tit-for-tat pogroms.
...
As the Sunni insurgents become embroiled in fighting the Shia, there have been fewer attacks on US soldiers, with casualties dropping to fewer than one a day.
By the way, that last stat confirms another Pipes prediction from the article I blogged above:
[An Iraqi Civil War will] reduce coalition casualties in Iraq. As noted by the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Rather than killing American soldiers, the insurgents and foreign fighters are more focused on creating civil strife that could destabilize Iraq's political process and possibly lead to outright ethnic and religious war."
Tips on how to pass as a Shi'ite if you're an Iraqi Sunni with an AK being shoved in the back of your head.
Passing as Shi‘i in Iraq
Daniel Pipes' Weblog
August 15, 2006
Interesting and promising, though anyone who's read Ferguson's "Empire" will groan at the final comment of the second article I quote here.
'Ink spot' strategy latest attempt to quell Baghdad
Telegraph
18/09/2006
Adhamiyah looks like nowhere else in Baghdad.The streets of this district pressed against the east bank of the Tigris are clean and streetside windows are not boarded up.Children even play football down side-streets, a rare sight when fear of sectarian shootings or kidnap is rampant. When The Daily Telegraph visited the area over the weekend with Colonel Thomas Vail, commander of 508th Regimental Combat Team in east Baghdad, locals were quick to approach him and thank him for the improved security: Shia militias armed with Kalashnikovs had previously driven through most nights.
For the last three and a half years, Adhamiyah has been the centre of the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad. A rundown district, US troops called it "Little Fallujah" due to the near-daily roadside bombs and sniper attacks. That was then. In an unlikely reversal, Adhamiyah is now one of Baghdad's safest areas, a place where Americans patrol on foot and where the number of bodies found dumped on the roadside in sectarian killings has halved.
For it is at the heart of the US military's new strategy for seizing back control of the capital. In August, 12,000 US and Iraqi troops launched the first co-ordinated counter insurgency operation — Operation Together Forward — to be conducted in the city. Their orders: to "retake Baghdad". Unlike previous operations, which emphasised the need to "locate and kill" the enemy, it put into practice the "ink spot" theory, which aims to secure specific areas and provide security to win the confidence of the people. Once achieved, the secure zone could then spread as an ink spot spreads when dropped into a bucket of water.
'This is all about deeds, not just words'
Telegraph
18/09/2006
The "ink spot" theory for Iraq was first outlined by Andrew Krepinevich in an article published last year in the magazine Foreign Affairs. It was quickly embraced by the Pentagon. An expert on counter-insurgency in the Vietnam War and director of a US think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Mr Krepinevich criticised the Bush administration's obsession with the number of insurgents killed.
The operations that had resulted in these body counts had terrified the local population and destroyed homes and livelihoods, he argued. Instead, he proposed a model for how to achieve the most basic prerequisite for a successful counter-insurgency: getting the people on side.
The provision of security should be focused on carefully chosen areas and the people in them rewarded for co-operation through effective reconstruction projects. Once these had been stabilised they could be expanded until the whole country was covered.
This, his article argued, would become easier as Iraqis saw the improved quality of life in the secure zones and began to trust the US and Iraqi government's ability to deliver. At a briefing last week Gen David Halverson, deputy commander of the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad, laid out the "ink spot" policy to his troops. In Adhamiyah, he said: "We will hold this ground. This is all about deeds, not just words, because we know how in the past there have been a lot of words." A trench is even to be dug around the whole of Baghdad and the number of open roads into the city limited to 28 in an attempt to monitor all access.
But what Gen Halverson did not comment on were the other conclusions in Mr Krepinevich's article. These argued that for the tactic to work it would require at least a 10-year commitment by US forces, billions of dollars and more American casualties.
Melanie Phillips argues against defeatism - and defeat - in Iraq:
Talking ourselves to death
Daily Mail
23 October 2006
In Iraq, Stay the Course - but Change It
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
October 24, 2006
As coalition policy reaches a crisis, may I resurrect an idea I have been flogging since April 2003? It offers a way out of the current debate over staying the course (as President George W. Bush has long advocated) or withdrawing troops on a short timetable (as his critics demand).
My solution splits the difference, "Stay the course – but change the course." I suggest pulling coalition forces out of the inhabited areas of Iraq and redeploying them to the desert. This way, the troops remain indefinitely in Iraq, but remote from the urban carnage. It permits the American-led troops to carry out essential tasks (protecting borders, keeping the oil and gas flowing, ensuring that no Saddam-like monster takes power) while ending their non-essential work (maintaining street-level order, guarding their own barracks).
Beyond these specifics, such a troop redeployment would imply a profound and improved change of course. It means:
* Letting Iraqis run Iraq: Wish the Iraqis well but recognize that they are responsible for their own country. Or, in the words of a Times of London headline, "Bush to Iraqis: you take over." The coalition can help but Iraqis are adults, not wards, and need to assume responsibility for their country, from internal security to writing their constitution, with all due urgency.
* Seeing violence in Iraq as an Iraqi problem: The now-constant violence verging on civil war is a humanitarian tragedy but not a strategic one, an Iraqi problem, not a coalition one. The coalition should realize it has no more responsibility for keeping the peace between Iraqis than it does among Liberians or Somalis.
* Terminating the mammoth U.S. embassy in Baghdad: The American-created "Green Zone" in Baghdad is too high profile already, but work now underway to build the biggest embassy in the history of mankind, a 4,000-employee fortress in the heart of Baghdad, will make matters significantly worse. Its looming centrality will antagonize Iraqis for years or decades to come, even as it offers a vulnerable target for rocket-wielding enemies. Scheduled to open in June 2007, this gargantuan complex should be handed back to Iraqis, the over US$1 billion spent on it written off as a mistake of war, and a new, normal-sized, embassy built in its stead.
* Ending the coddle: The inept, corrupt, and Islamist leadership in Baghdad discredits the Bush administration's integrity; conversely, Washington's embrace makes it look like a stooge. Other Iraqi institutions – my pet peeve is the National Symphony Orchestra in Baghdad – also suffer from the patronizing embrace of American politicians. Muslim sensitivities about rule by non-Muslims makes these rankling offenses.
* Reducing coalition ambitions for Iraq: From the start, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was too ambitious and too remote from American interests ("Operation Coalition Security" would have been a better moniker). Give up on the unattainable goal of a democratic, free, and prosperous Iraq, a beacon to the region, and instead accept a stable and decent Iraq, one where conditions are comparable to Egypt or Tunisia.
The situation in Iraq has become a source of deep domestic antagonism in the coalition countries, especially the United States and Great Britain, but it can be finessed by noting that the stakes there are actually quite minor, then adjusting means and goals on this basis. Do you, dear non-Iraqi reader, have strong feelings about the future of Iraq? I strongly suspect not.
Iraqis want possession of their country; and peoples in countries providing troops serving in Iraq have wearied of the hopeless effort to transform it into something better than it is. Both aspirations can be satisfied by redeploying coalition troops to the desert, where they can focus on the essential tasks of maintaining Iraq's territorial integrity, keeping the fossil fuels flowing, and preventing humanitarian disasters.
The idea has developed since World War II that when the United States protects its interests by invading a country, it then has a moral obligation to rehabilitate it. This "mouse that roared" or "Pottery Barn rule" assumption is wrong and needs to be re-evaluated. Yes, there are times and places where rehabilitation is appropriate, but this needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis, keeping feasibility and American interests strictly in mind. Iraq – an endemically violent country – fails on both counts.
This is becoming a fairly typical take on the situation in Iraq, where one cardinal error is seen as being the de-Baathification program post-victory (the other is usually the lack of coalition ground troops to enforce order). Coughlin is a respected authority on Iraq and he pulls no punches. But the contrast with Rubin's piece is stark and interesting. Rubin aims to debunk this very de-Baathification myth, and interestingly (and so far in what I've read, uniquely), far from conflating the insurgency and the militia problem in Iraq, he distinguishes between the two, and identifies the latter as the more important.
Whatever the true effects of the de-Baathification policy, I am sure of one thing - the coalition would have been equally attacked whatever policy decision they had come to.
How the neo-cons lost the war
Con Coughlin
Telegraph Comment
28/10/2006
...
And it was principally on Chalabi's advice that the Americans embarked on the disastrous deBaathification programme which at a stroke managed to alienate vast swathes of the Iraqi population. The deBaathification programme was overseen by L. Paul Bremer III, President Bush's personal envoy who genuinely believed he had been ordained by God to rebuild Iraq in America's image.
Bremer's deBaathification programme was loosely modelled on the deNazification programme implemented in Germany after the Second World War, and Bremer was insistent – in the face of strong opposition from British officials and local Iraqi leaders – that all of Iraq's institutions and security structures were cleansed so that no trace of Saddam's regime remained.
Not only were hundreds of thousands of low-ranking civil servants, soldiers and police thrown out of their jobs; Bremer's policy effectively made Iraq ungovernable. Most of the Iraqis targeted by deBaathification had no great love of Saddam's Baath party; they had joined simply to get work.
...
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Why withdrawal from Iraq is the worst option
by Michael Rubin
Financial Times
October 26, 2006
The news from Iraq is bad, but many of the recommendations coming from London and Washington are worse. Dividing Iraq would abet ethnic cleansing and break the country into morsels more easily digested by neighbouring states. Outreach to Iran and Syria is no panacea: Tehran and Damascus treat diplomatic commitment with disdain; Iran's revolutionary guards seldom abide by the promises of Iranian diplomats.
Imposing a strong man to govern is easier said than done: while Iraqis support the concept, consensus quickly breaks down; Iraq is a country with 100 would-be generals for every private. There is no magical political formula. Compromise is undercut both by maximalist demands and a growing belief that violence leads to concession. Withdrawal is the worst option: it would enable terrorism to flourish not only in Iraq, but around the world.
Solutions in Iraq require precise treatment of the problems. One in six Iraqis fled the country under Saddam Hussein. Those who settled in the west had no cultural impediment to democracy. This suggests the problem in Iraq is not democracy, but rather rule of law. Any solution to the Iraq quagmire, therefore, requires improving security, not creating a vacuum. The greatest impediment to rule of law in Iraq is not the insurgency, still relatively localised, but the militias. These exist for one reason: to impose through force what citizens are unwilling to volunteer through the ballot box.
To improve security, the coalition must improve the police and eviscerate the militias. The problems are related. The interior ministry has become a refuge for militiamen and cover for death squads. As the coalition did with the reconstituted Iraqi army, the coalition troops must embed with the police at every level. There should not be any police checkpoint that does not include coalition soldiers, nor should there be any interior ministry raid conducted without a coalition supervisor outside. This requires resolving a catch-22: the coalition does not station its troops with the police because of inadequate security, but the driving forces of this insecurity are the police. If security is the goal, there is no shortcut.
A related lesson is that desire for short-term calm cannot trump the quest for long-term security. While it has become conventional wisdom that de-Baathification, the initial removal of Saddam's party members from authority, sparked insurgency, the data show violence to be proportional to that policy's subsequent reversal. In Mosul, US general David Petraeus spoke of reconciliation when he appointed senior Baathist General Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi to be that city's police chief. He portrayed Mosul as a model of calm. But the peace was illusionary. Gen Barhawi was unreformed. He used his position to provide intelligence, equipment and arms to terrorists. In November 2004, he handed the keys of every police station in the city over to insurgents.
What Gen Petraeus did in the north, British commanders replicated in the south. While successive British commanders juxtaposed their non-confrontational strategy with more heavy-handed American tactics, the British approach sacrificed long-term stability for the sake of short-term calm. Rather than pacify southern Iraq, the British army enabled militias to entrench. Contrary to the belief of General Sir Richard Dannatt, the British army chief, occupation itself is not responsible for the deteriorating situation in Iraq, but rather the fact that militias have grown secure enough to believe themselves capable of defeating the British army.
Countering the militias need not require immediate confrontation, but rather more robust disruption of supply and operations. Both big Shia militias receive support from Iran. In 1992 the US forced down an Iranian aircraft ferrying men, money, and weapons to Bosnia. Such operations in Iraq lack only political will: US and British intelligence are well aware of Iranian supply lines.
It would be a mistake to abandon democracy. To do so would reaffirm the worst conspiracies about coalition intentions and drive Iraq into the arms of neighbouring states. Still, there is room for improvement in the election system.
The current system of proportional representation encourages populist rhetoric, empowers political parties that sponsor militias and encourages parties to form on ethnic and sectarian lines. The coalition should press the legislature to abandon party lists in favour of directly-elected constituencies. This would make Iraqi politicians more accountable to constituents than party leaders, but encourage them to discuss more the problems of security, electricity and school rather than spout corrosive rhetoric.
As violence spreads in Iraq, politicians are right to change course. But abandoning the Iraqis should not be an option. Rather, coalition strategy should address the rule of law directly, and remain cognisant that the war in Iraq has broader repercussions. While many in Britain and Europe believe war in Iraq to be illegal, they should not sacrifice ordinary Iraqis on the altar of anti-Americanism.
Pipes' take on the success or otherwise of the Iraq adventure:
Tempering Ambitions [in Iraq]
by Daniel Pipes
National Interest
November/December 2006
Where's that angry 'Arab Street' when you need one? Mind you, even the politically repulsive Metro can't think of a way of blaming anyone other than the terrorists themselves for this. Though the guy from HRW seems to come close.
Girl of 8 used as 'suicide' bomber
Metro
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Militants strapped explosives to a young girl and used her to blow up an army checkpoint in Iraq yesterday. They detonated the device by remote control as the child, thought to be as young as eight, walked towards a group of soldiers. The girl and an army captain were killed in the blast which also injured up to seven other soldiers.
The Iraqi authorities imposed a curfew after the attack as they joined American soldiers in trying to hunt down those who carried out the attack. It will be seen as a new low in the tactics used by insurgents, who in the past have strapped explosives to women with Down's syndrome.
...
The attack illustrates the lengths to which some militants are prepared to go, especially as Islam forbids women taking part in war. However, such religious sensitivities mean women are less likely to stopped and searched at checkpoints. There have also been reports of bombings involving mental patients and people in wheelchairs. In February, two women with Down's syndrome were used as human bombs in Baghdad. They walked among the crowds before the devices were detonated with mobile phones, killing 99 people.
Joe Stork, from Human Rights Watch, said militants used such bombers because security forces were cracking down on traditional tactics. 'In the Palestinian conflict it was not something that happened at the outset – it was later on. You could infer as bombings became more and more difficult for the usual suspects to pull off they resorted to children.'
Iraqis lead final purge of Al-Qaeda
The Sunday Times
July 6, 2008
American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.
A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects. The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.
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Think I'll get this when it comes out in paperback: The Gamble: General Petraeus and the Untold Story of the American Surge in Iraq, 2006-2008.
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The Gamble: How Sean MacFarland's tactics turned Iraq's tide of violence
The Times
February 21, 2009
In this exclusive extract from The Gamble: General Petraeus and the untold story of the American surge in Iraq 2006-2008, author Thomas E. Ricks reveals how a young American colonel assigned to the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi in 2006 developed the tactics that changed the course of the war in Iraq.
A LIGHT IN RAMADI
...
Ramadi in 2006 would become the link between the first successful large-scale US counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq, in Tall Afar in 2005, and the “surge” counter-offensive in Baghdad in 2007. By chance, MacFarland's unit first had been assigned to replace the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tall Afar, in the far northwest of Iraq, and had spent several months there before moving south to Ramadi. What MacFarland and his subordinates had seen there was very different from how the US military had operated in Iraq for several years. The new approach made sense to him.
Under Colonel HR McMaster, an innovative officer unafraid to chart a different course, the 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment had slowly and patiently approached Tall Afar, a medieval-feeling town of about 250,000. After the US military reduced its presence in northern Iraq in 2004, Islamic extremists had begun to seep in from Syria and make contact with local allies. By mid-2005 they had intimidated the locals with terror tactics and made the town a base from which to send suicide bombers and other attackers 40 miles easy to Mosul, the most important city in northern Iraq. “Give the enemy credit,” said Major Chris Kennedy.“As soon as we started pulling back, the enemy identified that as a weak point.”
McMaster, who is both a rugby player and a PhD in history, began by telling his soldiers to treat Iraqis with dignity and respect. “Every time you treat an Iraqi disrespectfully, you are working for the enemy,” he instructed them, neatly summarising counterinsurgency theory in a way that any 19-year-old infantryman could grasp.
In a marked contrast to the attitude found in some other units, his standing orders required his soldiers to “treat detainees professionally; do not tolerate abusive behaviour.” He met with sheikhs and clerics who had ties to the insurgency and apologised for past American mistakes: “When the Americans first came to Iraq, we were in a dark room, stumbling around, breaking china. But now Iraqi leaders are turning on the lights.” And, he added, the time for honourable resistance had ended.
Then, after months of preparatory moves in the desert around the city, cutting off lines of retreat and safe havens, McMaster attacked Tall Afar. Rather than just stage patrols from his big base outside the city, he moved his people into it, establishing 29 outposts in its neighborhoods. In sum, it was a model of a counterinsurgency campaign, the first large-scale one conducted in the war.
It was an example the US military needed badly. In far northwest Iraq, a Marine battalion commanded by Lt Col Dale Alford carried out a similar campaign, establishing outposts in the area of al Qaim and cutting deals with local sheikhs. However, these examples weren't imitated by other commanders, probably because they were at odds with the strategy set by General Casey and his boss at Central Command, General John Abizaid. Working on the theory that the US military presence was an irritant to Iraqi society, the generals were trying to oversee a transition to Iraqi forces and so wanted an ever- shrinking American “footprint.”
By contrast, McMaster injected thousands of US troops into the middle of a city, implicitly saying that they were not the problem but part of the solution, that American troops weren't the sand irritating Iraqi society, but could be the glue that held it together. McMaster's organisation also began to grasp the significance of Iraqi tribal power.
...
MacFarland's superiors were willing to give him what he needed - a Marine infantry battalion, snipers from two Navy SEAL platoons (dubbed “Task Force Bruiser”), and even four 40-foot-long armoured Marine riverine boats to cut off the enemy crossing points on the Euphrates River. If the goal was to protect the population, as they had seen in Tall Afar, then that is what should be tracked somehow. They also knew they would have to confront the scepticism of local leaders, who had seen Americans come and go for more than three years, making promises that often weren't met or were forgotten by successor units.
MacFarland began to spread the word that the Americans weren't leaving anytime soon. Knowing that Americans had put in office a generation of leaders, and then seemed unable to keep alive those police chiefs, mayors, and governors, MacFarland made protection of local leaders a top priority. He stationed tanks at key intersections near their houses and put drone aircraft circling over their homes to keep an eye out for attacks. He also asked sheikhs for advice on where to place new police stations and outposts, calculating that they would put them near their homes.
He named the Arabic-speaking Captain Travis Patriquin as his liaison to the sheikhs. Together they tried to sort out who was a real sheikh, with big wasta, or influence,and who was a lightweight. They also realised that years of fighting had created an opening: Not only had some sheikhs been killed, many others had moved to Jordan and so a new generation of tribal leaders was emerging.
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Following the example of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Tall Afar,MacFarland began to establish small bases in the city. In the past, US units had operated from a large FOB, or forward operating base, outside it. “They exited the FOB, drove to an objective or patrolled, were attacked, exchanged fire, and returned to base,” he wrote. The first step under the new approach was to send Special Operations sniper teams to sneak into the building he wanted to occupy.
Then he would have a “route clearance” team work its way through the roadside bombs to the building, followed immediately by a company of Army troops or Marines to occupy the building. Upon arrival they would begin building a new combat outpost. The snipers would move out to the surrounding area to disrupt counterattacks. Overnight, the outpost would appear, with living spaces and walls and barriers to limit the damage from car bombs. They even figured out how to use a crane to immediately deposit a steel “crow's nest” on top of a building, so they could begin with a well-protected observation post without having to divert troops into filling and carrying sandbags to the roof.
Four benefits, much of them unexpected, flowed from the redisposition of troops into the small new bases, which eventually would total 18. In the most successful ones, Americans and Iraqi soldiers lived and ate side by side. This meant Iraqis and Americans could learn from each other - about Iraqi culture, about weapons maintenance, about leadership.
Also, Iraqi soldiers living on American rations began to show more energy. “You'd be surprised at how much work you can get out of an Iraqi if he has had enough calories to eat,” he said.
Another immediate benefit of this redeployment, he found, was that his soldiers became less predictable. No longer could Iraqi fighters simply watch the front gates of an American base to know when a patrol was coming. “Because we now maintained a constant presence in disputed neighbourhoods, the insurgents could no longer accurately trace and predict our actions.” Most important was the political effect of the new outposts.
MacFarland laid down a rule that once one was established, they wouldn't let themselves be driven from it. “You never give it up,” he said. “More than anything else, that was what persuaded the sheikhs we were there to stay.”
...
Even so, there were days when MacFarland had his doubts, especially as the enemy launched a counter-offensive. At the end of the first week of August, he thought to himself: “My God, I've lost ten guys.” Two weeks later, on August 21, Sheikh Jassim, his first ally in the tribes, was assassinated. “I couldn't have protected him if I wanted to,” MacFarland said. The sheikh's killers hid his body for four days, a pointed violation of the Muslim custom of quick burial. On the same day, a new Iraqi police station, in the Jazeera neighborhood, and manned mainly by members of Sheikh Jassim's tribe, was bombed.
All told, MacFarland lost two dozen vehicles - a few tanks, but mainly trucks - as he moved into the city. But, he said, the local reaction to the August attacks indicated that al-Qaeda might have overplayed its hand: they drove some fence-sitters into the American camp. One sheikh, Sittar albu-Risha, was particularly angry. “Sittar has lost enough family members that he was ready to throw away caution.” This sheikh, a minor tribal leader who had a reputation for running a thriving cross-border smuggling business, called a meeting for September 9. More than 50 sheikhs and other notables showed up. They created what they proposed calling “The Awakening Council”.
That day was a turning point for MacFarland - and as it would develop, for al Anbar Province and Iraq.
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In another extract from the same book, a British woman and anti-war tree-hugger astonishingly becomes political adviser to Patraeus's deputy, and ends up with this attitude:
Emma Sky, British 'tree-hugger' in Iraq who learnt to love US military
The Times
February 21, 2009
...
To her astonishment, in the course of 2007 she would also become an admirer of the US military. “I love them,” she said. She added provocatively that she thinks the military is better than the country it protects. “That's the way I feel about it - America doesn't deserve its military.”
The willingness of American commanders to ask for her advice consistently surprised her. “The Brits came in with more experience in this sort of operation, but over the years I think the American Army has learnt a lot more. I mean, there's no way the British Army would ask someone like me to come along.”
She also came to appreciate the meritocracy of American culture: “What I found with the Americans is they always gave me a place at the table. Once there, it was up to me to prove myself. “With the British military, it's always a fight to get a seat at the table - I'm female, I'm not military, I'm a tree-hugger.”
Book tip; am currently reading The Spiders of Allah by James Hider, who was The Times' war correspondent in Iraq during and after the 2003 invasion. It's a fascinating time and place, but above all, Hider is a phenomenal writer, a lyrical master of language. Highly highly recommended, and to those of any political hue.
I'd also highly recommend, to those of any political position, The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn. To quote one of the amazon reviews the writer details 'the imperial arrogance, the use of mercenaries, the deepening religious divisions, the vile sectarian killings, the lawlessness and insecurity, the rampant corruption and the economic chaos' of the occupation. Read it and weep.
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