Articles on 3ACR ops in Tall Afar
I'm looking at trying to put together a case study on 3ACR's ops in Tall Afar, and was trying to find some good journal articles to use. I can dig back through newspaper articles, but was hoping that others can point me in the direction of some good articles out of journals or provide some personal commentary. Some of the areas I want to find out more about are 1) mapping the tribal/social ties as residents and insurgents fled the impending operation, thereby building the intel for follow ops based on this information and 2) the use of questionnaires following the release of detainees deemed to be innocent/no longer of intel value to prevent abuses that would create enemies out of friendlies/neutrals that were incorrectly detained. Thanks.
Sir,Originally Posted by Shek
Look at George Packer's piece from April 2006.
Additionally, take a look at the IIR on CALL's site (restricted, need AKO login)
When I get home I'll look through my stuff for some of the other articles written while we were there. Those two should give you a good head start.
Example is better than precept.
I was with G TRP 2/3 ACR from 2005-2006 in the Sarai district (the worst district) and was involved in a lot of the heavy fighting and Operation Restoring Rights that summer. There is a documentary series on the military channel called Combat Zone: The Battle of Tal Afar, Iraq 2005, which features interviews and combat reenactments with guys from my platoon. There's also a documentary that aired on PBS called The Insurgency that you might want to check out as well. Plenty of stuff on Tal Afar there as well. Time magazine covered the offensive dubbed Operation Restoring Rights, which covers the Tal Afar offensive in great detail. I believe the article was printed in an Oct. or Sept. 2005 issue. Again, my platoon is referenced there as well. Or you can PM me and I can assist you the best I can, or put you in touch with guys who have maintained a much better historical record of that time period than I did.
SSI, 8 Jan 08: The 3rd ACR in Tal'Afar: Challenges and Adaptations
....In OIF I the shooting war with the Iraqi Army was over before the 3d ACR made its way into Iraq in late April 2003, and, taking on the subsequent insurgency, called for tactics that would take them out of their customary fighting mode. As armored scouts, they trained and expected to fight from inside their tanks and Bradleys where their mindset and unofficial motto is “death before dismount”. The counterinsurgency mode, to the contrary, called for them to leave their armored vehicles and move about in “leather personnel carriers,” i.e., boots, as foot soldiers. Adjustment to these changes was rather uneven—some units in the Regiment handled it well, while others did not.
The 10 months between the two deployments provided the new commander of the 3d ACR an opportunity to retrain and, in a sense, retool, for these altered contingencies on the ground in Iraq. In its second deployment, the 3d ACR was the central force in Operation Restore Rights, a mission to retake Tal’Afar, a city in northwestern Iraq that had fallen under the control of insurgents. How the 3d ACR accomplished this mission has been touted as one of the success stories of the war in Iraq. In this paper, we draw on information from interviews and focus groups we conducted with 3d ACR soldiers to explore the conduct and implications of the Tal’Afar campaign.....
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