The Former-Insurgent Counterinsurgency
The Former-Insurgent Counterinsurgency
by Michael R. Gordon
The New York Times, September 2, 2007
Quote:
Checkpoint 20 was the last piece of American-controlled terrain on the road to Hawr Rajab and our linkup point with Sheik Ali Majid al-Dulaimi. Before heading out, Lt. Col. Mark Odom surveyed the terrain from the rooftop of the nearby American combat outpost, a heavily sandbagged structure surrounded by concrete walls to guard against car bombs. A dusty town on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, Hawr Rajab had a strategic importance that belied its humble appearance. It straddled the infiltration routes used by Sunni militants to circumvent Lion’s Gate, the grandiloquently named system of checkpoints, canals and other obstacles designed to stop the suicide attacks that had brought havoc to the Iraqi capital.
Hawr Rajab had been under the dominion of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a predominantly Iraqi group that took its inspiration from Osama bin Laden and whose senior echelons are filled by foreign jihadis. The group’s fighters in Hawr Rajab were armed with AK-47s, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and a seemingly endless supply of homemade improvised explosive devices (I.E.D.’s), many of which were concocted from urea fertilizer and nitric acid. They were hard to detect and yet powerful enough to destroy an armored vehicle. Odom’s soldiers had never driven into the town without encountering some form of “contact,” as his soldiers matter-of-factly referred to the clashes.
This day in early August, however, was to mark a turning point. Just a month earlier, the Americans acquired a new ally: Sheik Ali, a leader of the Dulaimi tribe. In an extraordinary development, a growing number of Sunnis who had sympathized with the insurgency or even fought American forces were now more concerned with removing Al Qaeda from their midst — so much so that they had chosen to ally with their supposed occupiers. Such expedient confederations were emerging across Iraq. They began last year when Sunni tribes and former insurgents in western Anbar Province began cooperating with American forces, cropped up later in the violent Diyala Province and even emerged in the sharply contested Ameriya neighborhood in Baghdad.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/ma...l?ref=magazine
Sadr is up to no good and always has been
I have to weigh in and say that while risky, the strategy applied in Anbar was and is still brilliant, and also was the ONLY choice. And, the Marines have implemented it with near perfection. Further, I am convinced that had the Brits not intervened in 2004 to fly Sistani back from being treated for health problems to lobby on behalf of Sadr, with Paul Bremer buckling under the political pressure, the Marines would not have been forced to release Sadr, who was in the custody of 3/2 Marines at that time, and the reconcilation situation in Iraq would not be as bad off as it is today.
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2007/...se-of-the-jam/
Concluding, the Shi'a factions are the biggest long to term threat to peace and stability in Iraq. Our leaving Sadr unmolested and the British failure in the Basra province has set up a wing of Iran in Iraq, just like the Hezbollah in Lebanon. The most significant strategic blunder in all of OIF was leaving Sadr alive (along with perhaps failing to excise Badr from the government). We unwittingly set up OIF to fail by believing that a terrorist like Sadr could be entrusted with government of people.
Well, okay I guess. I think there are a few things
in your last paragraph that you might wish to consider.
I agree the Shia (in all their various factions -- and there are far more than two) are possibly the greatest threat to stability in Iraq. I'm not sure there will ever be peace there in the western sense; it is after all the ME.
Also agree that releasing Sadr was a mistake -- IMO, it pales into insignificance beside the disbandment of the Army and the Police but it was a bad political decision, I think.
In fairness to the British, they mistakenly tried to leverage their vaunted experience and did not realize that this was not a typical insurgency and Basra was not Belfast or Bidur. We aren't the only ones who have difficulty transferring experience to new generations -- or dealing with other cultures.
I do disagree with your last sentence. I don't think anyone in the US government ever believed that.
Are we SURE who killed Abu Risha
Related to the topic:
When I first heard that Abu Risha, the now famous Anbar shiek, was murdered I had a feeling it could very well have been done by elements of the Central Gov't who wanted to eliminate a powerful potential rival.
All the news treats Al Queda as the known killer. How solid is this?