Malcolm's Response to Roggio
at The Fourth Rail:
Quote:
Thanks for the entertaining response but in quickly and forcefully responding to my analysis, which preceded the recent media debate, you make numerous claims that I never made. In fact you posted what I actually said right under the errors. Perhaps thats an editing mistake.
I recommend you read the blog entry a little more carefully and take the opportunity to read my book, the Terrorists of Iraq (
www.terroristsofiraq.com).
As I live in the theater of operations (not Washington), speak Arabic and work with the Iraqis who are risking their life for us - I am just as deeply invested in my field intelligence assessments being right as you are about your opinions, but my life and that of many others depends on it being exceptionally right all of the time so its not just a semantics debate for me. One thing is certain, I never underestimate the enemy in Iraq ... any of them -ever.
Additionally, the excellent counter-insurgency & counter-terrorism experts at Small Wars Journal (
www.smallwarsjournal.com) provide varied and scholarly opinions which may help clarify some facts.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq Is Part Of Network, Bush Says
25 July Washington Post - Al-Qaeda in Iraq Is Part Of Network, Bush Says by Michael Fletcher.
Quote:
President Bush argued anew Tuesday that the Sunni insurgent group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq is an integral part of the larger al-Qaeda terrorist network, as he attempted to rebut critics who say the war in Iraq has distracted the United States from a broader struggle against Islamic extremism.
With public support for the war steadily declining, Bush told an audience of military personnel at an Air Force base here that many foreigners, including top lieutenants to Osama bin Laden, lead the Iraqi group. Some of them, he added, trained with the organization at its terrorist camps in Afghanistan or otherwise have deep ties with the network.
"Some will tell you al-Qaeda in Iraq isn't really al-Qaeda -- and not really a threat to America," Bush said. "Well, that's like watching a man walk into a bank with a mask and a gun, and saying he's probably just there to cash a check. We are fighting bin Laden's al-Qaeda in Iraq."...
25 July NY Times - President Links Qaeda of Iraq to Qaeda of 9/11 by Jim Ruttenberg and Mark Mazzetti.
Quote:
President Bush sought anew on Tuesday to draw connections between the Iraqi group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, and he sharply criticized those who contend that the groups are independent of each other.
At a time when Mr. Bush is trying to beat back calls for withdrawal from Iraq, the speech at Charleston Air Force Base reflected concern at the White House over criticism that he is focusing on the wrong terrorist threat...
White House transcript of President Bush's remarks.
Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled
15 October Washington Post - Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled by Tom Ricks and Karen DeYoung.
Quote:
The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.
But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past...
Denouncing Omar Al Baghdadi - What's in A Number?
I always think these questions interesting.
First, in the beginning, AQI was in Iraq under different names as is their usual practice of multiple leaders recruiting their own forces, housing them and paying them. It took them some time to coalesce into an organized force.
Second, I recall (without referencing links, but having a decent memory) that the FRL and AQI (under whatever name they called their individual groups) were issuing statements attempting to assert their rightful leadership of the "resistance" or at least their legitimate claim to being in the fight at all. In some statements, they praised each other, but attempted to convince the other to follow their guidance in the matter. even in the beginning, their were questions about what targets were being attacked, the civilian death toll and other issues. They also, if I am not mistaken, occasionally exchanged fire with one another and accused the other of trying to injure their people and cause. All with flowery language still attempting to come to some sort of agreement for cooperation.
I don't think I am incorrect in these statements. I also believe that this was the first sign of how we would and should "divide and conquer". Aside from recent developments regarding the split, after several years of reading Iraqi blogs, it seems that Iraqis were rather xenophobic regarding outsiders. Particularly after Saddam had brought in large numbers of "Palestinians" whom he gave preferential treatment to including housing, money and education.
Which brings me to point number three: We are often too busy looking at the pronouncements of "AQI" from the point of view of a domestic audience. Which is interesting since we often talk of "strategic communications" in a "small war" that is global in nature (such as recruiting, funding and IO). Who was this information aimed at?
In which case, it seems rather important that we divide the insurgency into "local" and "foreign", assigning much of the atrocities to AQI. While it gave them the publicity they wanted for their global jihad and they were quite willing to take it, in the end it allowed for several actions. Basically, damaging their global standing as "defenders of Islam" while allowing the FRLs an "out" whenever they felt inclined to return to the political process. Obviously, they can and have blamed some of the worst episodes on the "foreigners", true or not.
Further, in regards to AQI "taking credit" willingly, they did everything in their power to assert their position of supremacy over this insurgency in order to stir support for their greater cause trans-nationally. Zarqawi beheading people on video and other propaganda from AQI cannot be dismissed. For quite some time, it was the strongest and most voluble propaganda coming out of Iraq. It colored all other pronouncements from all other groups within Iraq.
It is clear that even during 2005 and 2006, prior to the great "awakening" their was a serious split over agenda and power between these two groups. Who was the "largest" v. who had the "power" v. "end state" was always going to be a question with these groups. It's fairly obvious that there were significant numbers of indigent FRL or other anti-government organizations and people within Iraq, but leadership, power and organization are not always about who has the most people.
As Zarqawi once wrote to Zawahiri, it is about being "victorious" or perceived as such. Who has the strongest "sword arm" in his terminology. Clearly, AQI was, at least publicly, the "strong horse" in the arena. I believe that this led many smaller indigent organizations and individuals linking with AQI or affiliate "armies", enlarging their cadre and over all power. Eventually, leading to AQI becoming the governing force and organizer of the insurgency.
However, the "cracks" were apparent in 2005 when several letters were being written to Zawahiri directly, by passing Zarqawi, complaining of some of the leaders that were taking money from the "mujihadeen" who were arriving, leaving them with little food, sub-standard housing, demanding mostly martyrdom attacks and poor leadership all together. There were also complaints regarding the targeting of civilians and the atrocious beheading videos. Which I believe prompted Zawahiri to write a letter to Zarqawi telling him to tone it down and cautioning him against trying to debate or enforce any religious ideology when he was not "educated" in the matter.
Iraqi bloggers explained that AQI was generally Salafist Wahabi in nature while the Anbar tribes were largely from the Hanafi school of jurisprudence with a few other groups like Matridi, etc thrown in.
As important (or more so) as the religious orthodoxy, AQI and several indigent criminal or insurgent gangs duked it out in Al Qaim in 2005. Later reports indicated this was over control of the smuggling routes and other traditional methods of income for those tribes on the border. AQI was obviously trying to control these routes to smuggle in money, men and weapons, by passing the "middle man" while possibly bringing the area under their total control.
Of course, by cutting off the traditional money making methods of these tribes, they were cutting into the traditional power of the local sheiks and tribes. Which is why the Marines and other forces began providing money and jobs through the auspices of the local sheiks and other power structures within these tribal lands. All politics are local, as they say.
Recall also Zawahiri's letter requesting funds be sent to them in Afghanistan and bin Laden's recent plea for unity and money. Pleas that have been repeated more than once throughout this period.
Later, Zarqawi was relegated to the role of a "military commander" and an umbrella council was set up to manage the multiple connections with the other insurgent groups. This is one area that AQ in general was successful in the past. Recalling that Al Qaeda means "the base" and was essentially bin Laden's managerial and organizing skills that had lists of mujihadeen from the Afghan/Russo conflict who he contacted and began organizing for this current global conflict. They attempted to use these same managing and organizing skills in Iraq.
The umbrella council was essentially a response to complaints regarding the continued encroachment on these FRL organizations' power by AQI, Zarqawi's style and a belated realization that they needed to put an Iraqi face on the insurgency. That after we had labeled it largely AQI, blamed them for the worst of the worst and, through their own actions and our IO, gave the Iraqi people someone else to hate and blame for their misery. And, provided the backdrop for political reconciliation since the Shi'ites and other Iraqis were not going to feel too friendly towards the "insurgency" if it was all blamed on indigenous forces.
I think we'll see similar activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan by AQI. Take, for instance, the recent release on As Sahab (AQ media) of the Afghan Taliban leader asserting his leadership of the Afghan "insurgency" while declaring allegiance to bin Laden. Are the Pashtuns going to fight a war for a bunch of Saudi, Egyptian, Yemeni, Libyan, Uzbek, etc outsiders? Or, are they fighting for their own people and power?
They are apparently copying our own tactics by trying to assert some legitimate indigenous group as the having the "right" to legitimate resistance while simultaneously maintaining the facade of a global Islamic conflict. They were simply too late in doing that in Iraq. Zarqawi's ego, the zealous nature of the foreigners and their attempts to assert absolute control had already ruined that.
Back to the council and Zarqawi's demise as both a leader and literally. In Zawahiri's letter, he warned Zarqawi, not too subtly, either that his ego and inability to "get along" was going to get him killed by someone in the organization like a leader in Afghan (who was killed, some say, on the orders of Zawahiri for being "outside" of their control) or that he already had a traitor in his midst and that he should watch out. That is an interesting question since, not long after that letter, we nearly apprehended Zarqawi and he was severely wounded. Then, a few months later, we followed someone in his organization, eventually leading to Zarqawi's location and death.
Al Masri and AQI attempted to step back and become "the king makers" behind the FRLs, but the cracks were too great. Multiple denouncements and attempts at reconciliation were flying back and forth, eventually leading to al Junabi's insurgency media denouncing Omar al Baghdadi, the nominal "Iraqi face" of the council, as a fake. He said that the insurgency could not swear allegiance to someone without a face and whose father no one knew (considering the Arab/Muslim attachment to ancestors tracing back to Muhammed, that was a good indication of the FRLs contempt for that theatrics). All the while, the "awakening" was gaining power in the tribal lands.
Then we see the insurgency virtually collapse back on itself. Which view is correct? Do the numbers count or don't they?
A combination of strategies based on the situation
SOF have fixated on the mantra find, fix and finish, which is an attrition strategy, but one that failed us. The conventional forces have also, for the most part, focused on this attrition approach, and again to no end.
My point was this type of strategy could work in some limited cases, such as a small terrorist group that doesn’t have support from the people, such as many left wing terrorist groups in Europe in the 70’s and 80’s. You find and neutralize the leadership, then the threat is over. You already won the population over, they are law abiding citizens who dislike criminals (for the most part). This approach may work if you are able to eliminate the cadre of a budding insurgency before it turns into a movement. Once it is a movement, the attrition strategy won’t work unless you take it to the level that Stalin or Hitler did and wipe out entire populations, and even then the approach is questionable.
In order to win these conflicts, it is essential we have a population focused strategy, which will allow us to separate the population from the insurgents, and if we can do that (if we can’t, then we probably can’t win) it then becomes a relatively easy manner of finding and killing the small percentage of insurgents who won't realize that they are now fighting for a lost cause.
As for the quote about deep experience, I sometimes think that the so called deep experience for most of our senior officers and those who teach academics at their schools is narrowly confined to conventional warfighting, and they try to transfer their conventional maneuver warfare concepts, like culmination points, centers of gravity, etc. to irregular warfare, and it doesn’t work. All it does is distract our planners from the real work of figuring out what needs to be done and doing it. Instead our planners will spend countless hours tripping over mouse turds, and never reach an acceptable answer that will be mutually agreed upon. On the other hand those who actually have muddy boots experience are out there trying to get it done regardless of the inertia at the upper echelons of nonsense with their cool, yet meaningless slides depicting logical lines of operations, decisive points, tactical and operational COGs, etc. Yes, in this experience hinders.
Good points. I become more convinced every
day that banning Power Point would increase our real war fighting capability by an order of magnitude...
Poor old METT-T is so simple and yet so often ignored in an effort to apply buzzwords to situations where they are an encumbrance.
Al-Qaeda Adapts its Methods in Iraq as Part of a Global Strategy
Interesting report from the Jamestown Foundation:
For the last few months, reports from Iraq have been indicating a tangible decline in insurgency and terrorist operations. For the first time since 2003, the Iraqi people are enjoying a sense of security in the streets of Iraq, although skeptics claim it is the calm that precedes the storm. The stabilizing security situation comes amid claims that al-Qaeda has been defeated or at least has been seriously crippled in Iraq (alerhab.net, November 24). Has al-Qaeda actually been defeated and subjugated by the coalition forces in the Iraqi arena? Taking al-Qaeda’s past and current behavior into account while monitoring Iraq’s jihadi websites, one is presented with strong indications that al-Qaeda is adapting to the new realities on the ground while avoiding direct confrontation with the coalition forces. The global strategy of al-Qaeda since 9/11—as posted in al-Qaeda’s internet forums—sheds further light on the terror plans it has designed to lure and engage Americans in various fronts in the region...
Papers give peek inside al Qaeda in Iraq
I found this Michael Ware report quite interesting. The AQI bureacracy is incredible; just like those little finance ladies in tennis shoes from the old days in the Army...
Quote:
Papers give peek inside al Qaeda in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- With Christmas 2005 approaching, the princes of al Qaeda's western command were gathering. They'd been summoned for something special -- to plot a three-month campaign of coordinated suicide, rocket, and infantry attacks on American bases, checkpoints, and Iraqi army positions.
1 of 2 In al Qaeda in Iraq's hierarchy, prince designates a senior leader, and these princes had been gathered by the most senior among them, the prince for all of Anbar province itself.
This commander, his name not recorded in al Qaeda's summaries of the meetings and referred to only by rank, spent that December fleshing out his vision for the wave of assaults with the gathered subordinates who would lead his combat brigades.
