The Wikileaks collection

[Greyhawk]

As for context, here's a bit more. I'm going to go "bigger picture" here. Elsewhere in this thread are links to David Finkel's observations on events of the day, he's done a fine job of providing that context from the perspective of a reporter embedded with the guys on the ground.

Some very basic stuff - apologies to the old guard but this post has obviously attracted newcomers (and welcome aboard) and probably a significant number of non-member visitors. We tend to forget that not everyone knows the very basic stuff we know. (I hereby acknowledge that nothing that follows can't be argued on semantic and other points, and that any effort to attempt what I'm about to attempt will not be met with universal agreement, but here goes.)

This event occurred in July, 2007, a month that (in hindsight) represents a demonstrable turning point in the war in Iraq. Full "surge" operations only began in mid-June of that year - after the last of the surge brigades (including "mine") arrived in May.

There's a misconception regarding the surge - that we had unpacked a shiny new approach to Iraq from a box delivered earlier that year. There's truth to that, but it's more accurate to say we were building on lessons learned - from Tal Afar to Ramadi (and greater Anbar) and elsewhere through the previous four years in Iraq. While much subsequent attention has been given to the effective violence reduction methods adopted later in those battles (for simplicity I'll say the "hold" and "build" phases) - including the Awakening Movement - the more neglected (in polite discussion) "clear" phase preceded both in all cases. ("Clear" can also be described as heavy kinetic operations, if you'd like, or simply "war" or "combat".)

There are veterans of those particular campaigns on this board, I'll leave it to them to offer any suggestions how to avoid that initial combat phase in future operations. (Cav Guy could, I'm certain, describe the "welcome" his guys received from some of the locals in Ramadi that preceded the awakening there...)

But even before that, the Telegraph's December, 2005 story on Tal Afar was headlined "Iraqis in former rebel stronghold now cheer American soldiers." Excerpt follows:

Tal Afar was the site of the largest military operation of 2005, when 8,000 US and Iraqi troops reclaimed it from armed groups.

It has since been used to test a new strategy of "clear, hold, build", in which areas would be purged of insurgents and then rejuvenated to win support from local people, before being handed over to the Iraqi security forces...

While many of the citizens of Fallujah still eke out their existence in the ruins of their former homes, in Tal Afar the streets are full of building sites. New sewers have been dug and the fronts of shops, destroyed in the US assault, were replaced within weeks. Sunni police have been hired and 2,000 goats were even distributed to farmers.

More remarkably, the approach of an American military convoy brings people out to wave and even clap, something not seen since the invasion of spring 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein.

But the success in Tal Afar only highlights the problems of replicating it elsewhere.

The strategy will require more troops, which is politically unacceptable right now in America, given growing public doubts about the war.

So, from "fronts of shops, destroyed in the US assault" to "cheers" - to oversimplify with a cliche: from broken eggs come omelets. And from there we see a bit of late-2005 negativity - "too bad there aren't enough troops to accomplish this on a larger scale."

I'll skip the reasoning, but will also emphasize that "The strategy will require more troops, which is politically unacceptable right now in America" is exactly right.

And it was "unacceptable" a year and half later, too, but we did it.

july12.jpg

july12a.jpg

Vertical red lines on the (hopefully familiar) charts above mark July, 2007.

I absolutely do not mean to imply that events of this particular day were a "turning point" - nor do I mean to excuse "unlawful" behavior where any might have occurred (for the record, I see none on the part of the Americans involved in this particular firefight - but there have been many other examples where it did occur, was reported - often as not by fellow soldiers - and prosecuted). Again, see Finkel's accounts of the day for an account of the day (including an alarm red for incoming as the soldiers formed their convoy at dawn). I offer this broader context as an indication of effects of the larger effort of which this was one small part.