Counterinsurgency Takes Center Stage in Iraq - Christian Science Monitor.

When Col. Ralph Baker commanded an Army brigade combat team responsible for a volatile area of Baghdad, he found that one of his most effective weapons was the handbill. That's right, handbills...

Fliers. Paper. In the United States, they're generally toss-aways, ads for hair salons or Chinese food. In Iraq, they can be an important way to disseminate information. The fliers helped drive a wedge between the insurgents and local residents, and they often resulted in intelligence that U.S. units could act upon, wrote Colonel Baker in a recent review of counterinsurgency techniques issued by the Army's Combined Arms Center...

Counterinsurgency is the graduate level of war, according to an officer quoted in the Army's new manual on the subject. It requires flexibility as much as force. Its objective is the population's support, not territory. And as the U.S. military prepares to implement President Bush's new strategy for Iraq, commanders may face the equivalent of trying to obtain a doctorate in six months. As they work with Iraqi partners of uncertain reliability, their task is to calm the near anarchy in much of Baghdad -- before popular support in the U.S. erodes further and Congress begins to press for troop withdrawal harder than it already has...