Disarming the Local Population

[CSC2005]

This is the draft outline I am going with for the CSC Small War Project
Any comments are welcome


“Disarming the local population-
Lessons Learned and Trends”
OUTLINE


1. Introduction (1 page)
a. Role of the Weapon in local context
b. Not going to discuss if disarmament program work, but how to better conduct them if ordered
c. Cultural Factors are the single greatest variable/friction point on whether disarmament programs work
i. Centers of authority
ii. Trust in local/national government
iii. Trust in U.S./Coalition Security forces
iv. Cultural view of weapons in history
2. Case Studies
a. Types of Disarmament Programs (1 page)
i. Phase 1
1. Tactical by military Units
2. Ad-hoc - driven by
a. Locally gathered intelligence
b. Search and seizure
c. Heavy patrolling
d. More likely to disarm by force
ii. Phase 2
1. Strategic by international organizations
2. Well-funded
3. Run by large international organizations
a. U.N.. NGOs. NATO, etc
b. Programs may overlap
c. May likely use to cash for guns/ carrot and stick
b. Iraq (3 pages)
c. Afghanistan (2 pages)
d. Somali (1.5 pages)
e. Balkans (1.5 pages)
3. Trends
a. Role of Culture (2 pages)
i. Role of gun in local culture
ii. Centers of authority
iii. Trust in local/national government
iv. Trust in U.S./Coalition Security forces
v. Cultural view of weapons in history
vi. Weapon as symbol of political power
vii. Long term local cultural view vs. short term U.S. policy view
viii. Unstable post conflict environment
b. Non-culture Trends (2 pages)
i. Political Atmosphere impact program success
ii. Needs to be part of large security and assistance program
iii. Carrot and stick methods
iv. Persistent patrolling
1. Provide security assurance to locals
a. Gain local trust
2. Understand local environment
4. Conclusion (1 page)

[Bill Moore]

I look forward to reading your paper, and trust you are reviewing the UN’s lesson’s learned concerning DDR, since they have the most experience in it, at least for the phase II you outlined in your topics.

I don’t know if this will be valuable to you, but I’ll share my experience with disarming a town in Iraq. First I need to set the scene by pointing out this was in 03, and those of us on the ground were primarily trying to provide at least a semblance of security and stability, so some sort of political process (other than through a barrel of a rifle) could emerge. We had little guidance from higher at that time, so many small units simply did the best they could during these very chaotic and confusing times.

The town I was in was a mix of Turkomen, Kurds (both PUK and PDK), and Arabs, so needless to say there were tensions that were exacerbated by our lack of any phase IV plan at that time. These tensions rapidly escalated to ethnic violence and political intimation, and of course purely criminal acts. I constantly went out and spoke to whomever I could find trying to get a pulse for the town as rapidly as possible. People were afraid to come out, so the streets were quiet due to the lack of commerce taking place.

It seemed appropriate to me to put all the parties and ethnic groups on equal footing if were going to move to a political process vice a localized civil war, so I implemented an aggressive disarming operation where we went house to house, set up road blocks, had a volunteer turn in program (it worked also), etc. We got information out through the mosque and our normal interaction with citizens on the streets through our interpreters.

I also had all political flags and posters removed from public premises except at the one authorized political house/bldg per party, since these were used generally forced upon people as a form of intimidation.

I readily admit my method was crude and accept your criticism, but the results exceeded my expectations. The streets became vibrant, businesses opened, people were shopping, and even the people that we disarmed praised us and told us that they felt safe for the first time. This ties into your comments about trust in coalition forces. If we had a lazy, don’t go outside the wire unit, this would of failed miserably, but when we got a 911 call, we rolled every time.

As I stated earlier, we did this on our own, because there was no guidance coming from higher. Shortly after we effectively disarmed the town, Mr. Bremer puts out that every Iraqi is authorized to own a weapon. We actually had citizens in our town complain about this, but the damage was already done. We didn’t disobey the Csar, we simply added some restrictions, you could only maintain a weapon at home, if you had one on your person or in your car (without a permit) we would take it.

My take away was disarmament made sense on my little part of the battlefield, and I remain satisfied that we made the right decision based on the local conditions; a decision that was actually endorsed by the citizens themselves “after” they saw the results. Again we were an occupying power responsible for safety of the citizens, and of course our own people.

At the strategic/operational level these policies should be well thought out before beginning what was phase IV in OIF. They are not trivial matters, so planners need to be all over this, along with assorted other subjects such as managing currency, getting the hospitals up and running etc. As for cultural concerns, I’m sure it is culturally appropriate for boy soldiers in Liberia to carry weapons and pillage villages. This is an extreme example, but it illustrates there are other concerns and culture may not be the decisive factor on whether we decide to disarm or not. Furthermore, for a country as diverse as Iraq, maybe a single policy locked in stone does not suffice during the initial periods? I think a commander needs the authority to disarm certain areas if it is required to reduce the violence to an acceptable level (but if he does, then he is responsible for providing security for the people).

These are a hodgepodge of thoughts on the subject, I know there are many more out there who had much more experience at this than I have, I just wanted to share a tactical viewpoint with you.

[CSC2005]

Bill

Thank you for your detailed account of your experiences. I would like to use you as a source from my thesis. Several of your lessoned learned mirrored what others have said and I would like to include them in my product.

Could you let me know what unit your were with, your billet, and during what timeframe. This is so I can accurately cite you as a direct source. Thanks again for taking the time. I will post a draft in the late December timeframe. If I am happy with the end product (15-20 pages) I might turn parts of it into a 4-5-page Gazette article.

_Art Speyer
CSC
Conference Group 9