Iraq, Baquba, Arrowhead Ripper, and the Real Elements of Victory

[T. Jefferson]

The limiting factor on any military success will be the degree of political reconciliation achieved.

Mr. Gates arrived in Iraq to express Washington’s disappointment with the pace of political reconciliation under Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and to urge accelerated efforts to reach a series of political benchmarks to lower tensions among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Mr. Gates also met with the American ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, who said that no outside power could compel the Iraqis to reach accommodation.

“These have to be Iraqi decisions and Iraqi compromises if they are really going to take effect,” Ambassador Crocker said. “We can’t come up with solutions as the United States and expect to impose them or impose timelines and say, ‘You’ve got to do this for the future of your country.’ ”

[SWJED]

19 June AP - 10,000 US Troops Launch Iraq Offensive by Lauren Frayer.

About 10,000 U.S. soldiers using heavily armored Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles fought their way in an al-Qaida sanctuary northeast of Baghdad early Tuesday. American and Iraqi forces, under cover of attack helicopters, killed at least 22 insurgents, the military said.

The raids, dubbed "Operation Arrowhead Ripper," took place in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province northeast of the capital, and involved air assaults under the cover of darkness, the military said in a statement. The operation was still in its opening stages, it said...

19 June NY Times - Military Strikes Insurgents’ Positions East of Baghdad by Michael Gordon and Damien Cave.

The American military began a major attack against Sunni insurgent positions here in the capital of Diyala Province overnight, part of a larger operation aimed at blunting the persistent car and suicide bombings that have terrorized Iraqis and thwarted political reconciliation.

The assault — by more than 2,000 American troops in Baquba and more than 10,000 in the overall operation — is unusual in its scope and ambition, representing a more aggressive strategy of attacking several insurgent strongholds simultaneously to tamp down violence throughout the country...

18 June - The Battle of the Belts by DJ Elliot and Bill Roggio (The Fourth Rail Blog).

With the last U.S. combat brigade to hit the ground over the last two weeks as part of the surge, Multinational Forces Iraq has declared the beginning of “major combat operations” in the belts regions surrounding Baghdad. The Baghdad Belts, which included Eastern Anbar, northern Babil, and southern Salahadin and Diyala provinces, has long been a staging area for al Qaeda and insurgent operations into Baghdad, and a key part of the Baghdad Security Plan is denying these regions to the enemy.

In the June 16 briefing given by Defense Robert Gates, General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, General Petraeus explained that the past four months have set the stage for the "large, coordinated offensive operations" which kicked off over the weekend. The combat, logistics and intelligence pieces have been "put in place over the past several months," while a clear intelligence picture was developed of the regions surrounding Baghdad. "We have been doing what we might call shaping operations in a lot of these different areas [in the belts], feeling the edges, conducting intelligence gathering, putting in special operators."...