Quote Originally Posted by jcustis View Post
Why?

Again...why? Where is the failure point?

Once I finished writing, I'd be taking a trip through the AKO pages to find those "predecessors" and tell them thanks for nothing.
The predecessors are not the problem, so much as their chain of command at BDE and above. 1st BDE, 3ID (OPCON to 42ID) was in Salah ad Din until Jan 06. They were replaced by 3rd BDE, 101st. Whereas there was an entire heavy maneuver battalion dedicated to Samarra until Jan 06, including 3 full infantry platoons living in the city, along with ISF and MiTT's, and an Engineer company on the immediate outskirt, with the remainder of the battalion only 15 km away, the incoming battalion was diverted from the mission of securing that large population center and told to focus their efforts on the MSR and surrounding area. They put a smaller, lighter force in a patrol base on the edge of the city, rather than in the middle of it. If this doesn't sound like it makes one bit of sense then you are reading it correctly. It didn't. I don't know specifically whose call this was - COL Steele or someone higher - but it directly contradicted the advice of everyone in the outgoing unit.

Predictably, Samarra turned to crap almost instantly. And by "predictably" I mean that everyone in the outgoing battalion in Jan 06 from the lowest PVT to the Junior Officers were left scratching their head and asking "WTF?" as to why they fought for a year to restore some level of normalcy to the city, only to leave and hand it back over to terrorists and insurgents.

At some point between nearly deserting the city and the spiraling cycle of violence that occurred throughout 2006, someone at BDE or DIV apparently realized just how stupid the plan was to clear out of Samarra. So when the 82nd showed up, they were sent into Samarra in larger numbers to undo the degradation of security that resulted from withdrawing from the city. Because they were more than replacing and increasing the presence, there was not an adequate RIP/TOA.

It is also worth noting that that tiny patrol base cannot hold the entire incoming and outgoing units, especially given all of the footlockers and other containers that are being moved in and out. Even an orderly RIP/TOA would be pretty weak.

That was the joy of the FOB consolidation strategy of 2006. Let's not secure the population. Let's wall ourselves into these giant concrete garrison paradises, shop at the PX, and eat at Pizza Hut.