Our Troops Did Not Fail in 2006

[Gian P Gentile]

The troops did not fail in 2006, but the strategy did. Gian Gentile is wrong when he writes about 2006, "Our fundamental mission was to protect the people." In fact, the fundamental mission in 2006 was to transition the mission to Iraqi forces. And there were not just "fewer Combat Outposts" in Iraqi neighborhoods in 2006; in fact, there were almost none.

Gentile's troops were forced to try to protect the Iraqi people by commuting from Camp Victory and other large bases on the periphery of the city. I contend that this is the reason why the local Iraqis did not side with his battalion, or others in the city, and why were willing to side with U.S. forces in the same neighborhoods a year later. The fact is that a year after his battalion left, our troops were living among the local inhabitants, not driving by on periodic patrols. Gian Gentile and his troops may have tried to do the right things, but they could not replicate the successes of 2007 because they did not live in the neighborhoods they professed to protect. Those successes required more than a surge in forces; they required a change in our doctrine and strategy.

My mission was to protect the people; period!! General Casey told my Brigade commander Colonel Mike Beech shortly after the Samara shrine bombng when he gave him a combat battalion coming up from Kuwait to use it to stop the violence and protect the people. If i was not committed to protecting the people then why did my stomach get tied up in knots when dead bodies showed up on the streets?

You overstate the idea of a new doctrine being applied during the Surge. The American Army by and large has largely in Iraq been conducting correct counterinsurgency doctrine and practice since the middle of 2004. Are you to say that your Brigade that was in Sadr City in 2004 was all goofed up? General Chiarelli certainly didnt think so in the essay that he wrote in Mil Review in 2005 upon returning from Iraq.

You also overstate by using hyperbolic words like "commuting" and conducting "periodic patrols." What are you implying with those terms, especially the latter? My squadron conducted over 3000 combat patrols and operations during 2006 and contrary to the myth created by the neo con spin machine we didnt just drive by and look; we got out, walked, talked, fought, worked hard to protect the people. So too did the other outfits that i served along side.

You also overstate the notion of "living in the neighborhoods." The narrative that has emerged from Iraq is that American soldiers are living Galula-like in almost EVERY Iraqi neighborhood and there presence has been decisive in separating the enemy from the people. Briefs really well and Galula smiles in his grave but i have looked at briefing maps and the number of cops emplaced betray the ideal of "living with the people." Not to get into specifics but I saw the number of cops in my old ao and i know the terrain the size of the population, they were not the primary mechanism as you suggest that lowered the violence. Have they really "sided" with us? Or, are they siding with their own side and using us and our money to prepare for a bigger fight down the road that they know is coming?

So consider this counterfactual, if we had not bought off our former enemies to stop attacking us and become our allies against alqueda and if Sadr had not made his related decision to stand down attacks, would your Surge and your purported new doctrine and tactics produced the dramatic downturn in violence that occurred in the Summer of 2007 by itself?