DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A: Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

 PCN 10600001900 
Cover: U.S. Marines from Company C, 1st 

Battalion , 3d Marines, on patrol in Fallujah 

during Operation al-Fajr ("Dawn") in 

November 2004. The operation , also known as 

Phantom Fury, was conducted to clear and 

secure the city in order to prevent it from 

becoming a center for insurgent activities in 

Iraq 's al-Anbar Province. 

(Photo by LCpl Daniel J. Klein) 


U.S. MARINES IN IRAQ, 2004-2008

ANTHOLOGY AND

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Compiled with an Introduction by

Nicholas J. Schlosser

History Division

United States Marine Corps

Washington, D.C.

2010
Other Publications in the Series

U. S. Marines in the Global War on Terrorism

U S. Marines in Iraq, 2003.' Anthology and Annotated Bibliography

US. Marines in Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond

Det One: U.S. Marine Corps US. Special Operations Command

Detachment, 2003 -2006

PCN 106 0000 1900

II
Foreword

This anthology presents a collection of 21 articles describing the full range of U.S.

Marine Corps operations in Iraq from 2004 to 2008. During this period, the Marines

conducted a wide variety of kinetic and non-kinetic operations as they fought to

defeat the Iraq insurgency, build stability, and lay the groundwork for democratic

governance.

The selections in this collection include journalistic accounts, scholarly essays, and

Marine Corps summaries of action. Our intent is to provide a general overview to educate Marines and the general public about this critical period in the history of the U.S.

Marine Corps, the United States, and Iraq. Many of the conclusions are provisional

and are being updated and revised as new information and archival resources

become available. The accompanying annotated bibliography provides a detailed

overview of where current scholarship on this period currently stands.

The editor of this anthology, Nicholas J. Schiosser, earned his doctorate in history

from the University of Maryland in 2008 and has worked as a historian with the

Marine Corps History Division since 2009. His research examines U.S. Marine Corps

operations during Operation Iraqi Freedom, focusing on irregular warfare, counterinsurgency operations, and the al-Anbar Awakening.

We thank the editors of US. Naval Institute Proceedings, Foreign Affairs, Marine

Coips Gazette, Militaiy Review, Parameters, New York Times, Survival, Vanity Fair,

Osprey Publishing, Potomac Books, William Langewiesche, and the Center for Naval

Analysis for permission to reprint articles. Their cooperation has helped make this

anthology possible.

cp.

Dr. Charles P. Neimeyer

Director of Marine Corps History

111
iv
Preface

The aim of this collection is to provide readers with an overview of how the U.S.

Marine Corps confronted the tasks of fighting an insurgency and rebuilding Iraq in its

support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from 2004 through 2008. The period is one of

considerable significance in the history of the Marine Corps as it fought in the intense

battles of Fallujah, conducted counterinsurgency operations, provided security for

elections, and helped build alliances with local tribes in what has come to be known

as the al-Anbar Awakening.

The following selections provide a broad overview of all of these events and operations. They include articles on fighting irregular warfare, selections on large-scale

kinetic operations such as the battles for Fallujah, and essays on civil affairs operations and the al-Anbar Awakening. The entries in Part I provide contextual information for readers, presenting a broad overview of the events of the Iraq conflict from

2004 through 2008. The selections in Part II explore the theory and doctrine of counterinsurgency. Part III focuses on U.S. Marine Corps operations from 2004 through

2005, with particular attention on the 2004 battles in Fallujah and counterinsurgency

operations conducted throughout Iraq's al-Anbar Province in 2005. Part IV explores

civil-military operations and the building of alliances with the tribes of the al-Anbar

Province against terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq. Part V provides perspectives on the restoration of stability to al-Anbar and thoughts on the consequences of

the Awakening on the future of Iraq. The volume concludes with appendices presenting additional information on the commanders and their units, a list of abbreviations

that appear in the anthology, a chronology of events, and an annotated bibliography.

This book would not have been possible without the contributions of numerous

individuals at the Marine Corps History Division, including Chief Historian Charles D.

Melson, Senior Editor Kenneth H. Williams, Chief Warrant Officer-4 Timothy S.

McWilliams, Lieutenant Colonel Kurtis P. Wheeler, Paul W. Westermeyer, Thomas M.

Baughn, Annette D. Amerman, Wanda J. Renfrow, W. Stephen Hill, James M. Caiella,

and Cohn M. Colbourn. Ms. Renfrow and Mr. Williams edited the volume, with layout and design by Mr. Hill. External to the History Division, we thank Carter A.

Malkasian, Aaron B. O'Connell, and Bruce I. Gudmundsson for their input.

Dr. Nicholas J. Schiosser

Marine Corps History Division

V
vi
Table of Contents

Foreword .iii

Preface v

Introduction: U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2004-2008 1

Part I:The Iraqi Insurgency, 2004-2007 13

Counterinsurgency in Iraq: May 2003-January 2007

Carter A. Malkasian 15

Iraq's Civil War

James D. Fearon 29

Part II: Counterinsurgency and Irregular Warfare—Observations and Principles 37

Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company—Level Counterinsurgency

David Kilcullen 39

Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq

Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, USA 49

Making Revolutionary Change: Airpower in COIN Today

Major General Charlesf Dunlap Jr., USAF 61

Part III: U.S. Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Urban Warfare in Iraq 73

The Massacre That Wasn't

MajorAlfredB. "Ben" Connable 75

I Marine Expeditionary Force Summary of Action

Commander, US. Marine Forces Central Command 83

Operation Al Fajr: The Battle of Fallujah—Part II

Lieutenant General John F. Sattler and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel H. Wilson 95

Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?

Jonathan F. Keiler 105

vii
II Marine Expeditionary Force Summary of Action

U.S. Marine Forces, Central Command 111

Efforts to Counter the lED Threat

Colonel Eric T Litaker 129

Rules of Engagement

William Langewiesche 133

Part IV: Building Iraqi Forces, the al-Anbar Awakening, and the Quest to Restore

Stability to Iraq 155

The Combined Action Platoon in Iraq

First Lieutenant Jason R. Goodale and First Lieutenant Jonathan F. Webre 157

Will Iraqization Work?

Carter A. Malkasian 161

The Anbar Awakening

Austin G. Long 179

Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point

Major Niel Smith, USA, and Colonel Sean B. MacFarland, USA 195

Ramadi: From the Caliphate to Capitalism

Andrew Lubin 205

Daily Diary of an al-Qaeda Sector Leader

Abu-Tariq 211

Part V: Stabiity Progress, and the Future 217

American Exit Increases Optimism in Falluja

Timothy Williams 219

The Price of the Surge: How U.S. Strategy is Hastening Iraq's Demise

Steven N. Simon 223

When to Leave Iraq: Today, Tomorrow, or Yesterday?

Cohn H. Kahl and William E. Odom 233

viii
Appendices

Appendix A

Command List .239

Appendix B

Unit List 245

Appendix C

Selected Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations 257

Appendix D

Chronology of Events, 2004-2008 261

Appendix E

Annotated Bibliography 269

ix





Introduction: U.S. Marines in Iraq,

2004-2008

en the U.S. Marine Corps began its

second deployment to Iraq in the

spring of 2004, the Middle Eastern

country was in a state of turmoil. An insurgency

opposing to the U.S. presence had raged since

the summer of 2003, stalling the Coalition

Provisional Authority's efforts to rebuild Iraq

and lay the foundations for creating a democratic state. The basic elements needed for building

a state—internal security, economic stability,

and basic government structures—were in disarray. By 2008 however, observers were beginning to make more optimistic pronouncements.1

Violence was on the decline, democratic institutions were emerging, and many commentators

were anticipating a time when the number of

U.S. forces in Iraq could be reduced.

Over the course of the four years from the

time that the Marines had begun their second

deployment, the Corps contributed to a wide

range of efforts to make such hopeful pronouncements possible. The following collection

provides readers with an account of these

events.

This anthology serves a number of purposes.

First, it is an early chronicle of U.S. Marine

Corps operations in Iraq from 2004 through

2008. Second, the collection presents a narrative of, and commentary on, the most important

events of this period. Finally, the articles provide readers with a window into the most

important issues and challenges that the Marines

faced during the years following their redeployment to Iraq in 2004.

The War in Iraq

The second war between the United States

and Iraq can be divided into two distinct phases. The first, lasting a little over a month from

March to April 2003, ended with the collapse of

Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime and the institution of a civilian authority responsible for

1

rebuilding the country and helping to prepare it

for self rule along democratic lines.2 The second

phase, beginning almost immediately after the

collapse of the regime, was a general insurgency

that opposed the Coalition forces. During the

course of this insurgency, Iraq erupted into sectarian conflict. The insurgency reached its peak

in 2006, leading many to label the conflict a civil

war. Although the violence would significantly

decline due to developments outlined in this

volume, at the time of publication of this anthology, Iraq remains a fragile state with an uncertain future, hindered by internal division and

weak civic institutions.

The collapse of the Ba'athist regime was

marked by confusion and instability. On 28 and

30 April 2003, mass protests in Fallujah provoked soldiers of the U.S. Army's 82d Airborne

Division to fire into the gatherings, killing more

than a dozen civilians.3 In mid-May 2003, the

head of the Coalition Provisional Authority

(CPA), L. Paul Bremer III, made a series of decisions that proved to have significant consequences for the future of Iraq and the presence

of the United States there. The first was

Coalition Provisional Authority order number 1,

"De-Ba'athification of Iraqi Society." The order

purged thousands of experienced civil servants

from their posts.4 Bremer then dissolved the

Sunni-dominated Iraq Army. In doing so, the

Coalition Provisional Authority hindered reconstruction efforts by removing the one major

national force that could maintain security. This

action also disenfranchised thousands of soldiers, driving many of the former members of

the army underground to take up arms against

the Coalition.5

The insurgency against the U.S-led Coalition

cannot be understood without examining the

critical impact that de-Ba'athification had on

Iraqi society. Initially, the George W. Bush

administration dismissed the insurgents as
Ba'athist "dead-enders."6 As Lieutenant Colonel

Ahmed S. Hashim, USA, has noted, however, the

insurgency had much deeper roots that transcended Ba'athist ideology. The U.S. decision to

end the Sunni ascendency and build a Shi'adominated federation led many Sunnis to fear

retribution, disenfranchisement, and marginalization. The Sunnis' refusal to accept their loss

of status, coupled with an increasingly "muscular" response to insurgent attacks on the part of

the United States, fanned the flames of the uprising.7 A broad collection of nationalists, former

Ba'athists, and Islamic fundamentalists coalesced around the goal of ending the occupation

and removing the United States from Iraq. At the

same time, radical groups affiliated with alQaeda, the most prominent of which was the

Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda in

Iraq, sought to build a Sunni-dominated Islamic

state. In pursuing their goals, the fundamentalist

organizations purposely targeted not only

American troops, but also Iraq's Shi'a population.8

By the summer of 2003, Iraq was in the grip

of a geheral insurgency. The Coalition Provisional Authority, undermanned in both troops to

provide security and civilians to help rebuild the

country's infrastructure and civil institutions,

was ill-equipped to confront the challenge. The

U.S. response was uncoordinated, with all of the

major units in the country employing different

approaches. Major General Raymond T.

Odierno's 4th Infantry Division, USA, favored

large-scale sweeps and liberal use of artillery,

while Major General David H. Petraeus's 101st

Airborne Division, USA, conducted a more

measured counterinsurgency that focused on

securing the population, using foot patrols

through the major urban center of the division's

area of operations, the northern Iraqi city of

Mosul. While Petraeus's approach ultimately

proved more effective, relieving forces were

substantially smaller.9

It was in this context that the Marines of the

I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) redeployed to Iraq in March 2004. During this period, the majority of Marines deployed were

responsible for stability and reconstruction oper2

ations throughout Iraq's vast western al-Anbar

Province as Multi National Force-West (MNF-W).

The Marines and Irregular Warfare

The U.S. Marine Corps has a legacy of fighting insurgencies that dates back to the

Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the 20th

century.10 Since that struggle, Marines have conducted counterinsurgency operations (also

called small wars or irregular warfare) in Central

America, the Caribbean, and Vietnam. By the

1930s, members of Congress and the

Department of the Navy began to see military

intervention and the waging of these small wars

as the Marine Corps' primary mission.11

Nevertheless, the legacy of the Marine Corps'

experience in Central America, Vietnam, and

other regions is elusive. Historian Allan R. Millett

noted about the Corps' experience in the 1920s

that "as the U.S. Army had learned in an earlier

era, pacification campaigns were not popular in

the United States."12 The Marines were often

deployed as if they were auxiliaries of the

Department of State, Sent to unstable states to

restore order. Ultimately, the Corps' involvement

in Central America during the 1920s and 1930s

was overshadowed by the legacy of large-scale

operations and battles of World War II and the

Korean War. The failures in Vietnam also overshadowed a number of Marine Corps counterinsurgency innovations used during that conflict,

such as the Combined Action Program. By 2003,

the Marine Corps was largely known for largescale maneuver operations and amphibious

landings, not for its involvement in small wars.

Nevertheless, the Marine Corps has a long tradition of not only battling insurgencies, but also

conceiving and implementing important contributions to counterinsurgency doctrine. The

Small Wars Manual, first published in 1935 and

revised in 1940, synthesized nearly half a century of experience in combating insurgencies. It

proved prescient in its assessment of the nature

and character of irregular warfare. When considered alongside the recently published Army and

Marine manual, Counterinsurgency, drawn up
during the years immediately following the outbreak of the Iraqi insurgency, the similarities are

striking. Both stress the primacy of the political

dimension to counterinsurgencies.13 Both manuals emphasize the need to understand the culture of the local population and contend that

cultural immersion and understanding are critical requirements for waging successful counterinsurgency operations. Consequently, both

documents point to the importance of conducting effective civil-military operations.14

The general argument pervading both the

Marine Corps' Small Wars Manual and

Counterinsurgency is that the military must not

engage the enemy in insurgencies in the same

way that it would battle the enemy during regular warfare. Small wars are a decidedly different

type of warfare and require a different array of

principles and techniques from those used in

regular warfare. This principle echoed through

essays and articles on irregular warfare published between 2004 and 2008. For example, the

primary goal of David Kilcullen's essay "TwentyEight Articles" was to overturn preconceptions.

Among his assertions were that "rank is nothing;

talent is everything," "small is beautiful," "local

forces should mirror the enemy, not ourselves,"

and "fight the enemy's strategy, not his

forces."15 Similarly, General Petraeus argued in

an article published in 2006 that commanders

need "to remember the strategic corporals and

strategic lieutenants, the relatively junior commissioned or noncommissioned officers who

often have to make huge decisions, sometimes

with life-or-death as well as strategic consequences, in the blink of an eye."16 At the same

time, counterinsurgency theorists also argued

that a back-to-basics, boots-on-the-ground

approach was not the only means for waging

counterinsurgency operations. In an essay on air

power and its utility in irregular warfare, Major

General Charles J. Dunlap Jr., USAF, noted that

precision bombing and technologically

advanced, unmanned drones could play a critical role in supporting native forces and acquiring intelligence.'7

The dialogue that has taken place in publications such as Marine Corps Gazette, U.S. Naval

3

Institute Proceedings, Parameters, and Military

Review over the past six years has focused on

the need to overcome the tendencies and preconceptions of conventional warfare and to

embrace a type of combat operations radically

different from large-scale regular. warfare. This

debate has dominated military thinking since the

end of conventional warfare operations in Iraq

in 2003.

The period from 2004 through 2008 was

marked by innovation and adaptation. As Carter

A. Malkasian relates in his overview of the insurgency in Iraq, the U.S. efforts in Iraq have gone

from heavy-handed tactics favoring liberal use

of firepower and search-and-destroy operations

to small-scale security operations that focus on

foot patrols, intelligence gathering, and engaging the Iraqi population.'8 During this period,

U.S. forces have developed a variety of strategies and tactics for combating insurgencies,

including building civic institutions and forging

alliances with regional tribes.

The selections in Part III of this anthology,

"U.S. Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Urban

Warfare in Iraq," show that counterinsurgency,

though waged on a smaller scale, is no less violent, dangerous, or decisive than large-scale

maneuver warfare. Nowhere was this clearer

than during the two battles of Fallujah.

In the words of Malkasian, the Iraqi insurgency would "explode" during the spring and

summer of 2004. Anti-Coalition attacks, which

numbered around 200 a week at the beginning

of 2004, jumped to 500 a week during the summer.19 Two major events, both of which

involved the Marines of I MEF, marked this transition. The first was the first battle of Fallujah,

fought in Sunni-dominated al-Anbar Province in

April of 2004. The second was the Mahdi uprising, led by the Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Shortly after the beginning of I MEF's redeployment, four U.S. contractors from the security firm Blackwater USA were murdered and

their bodies mutilated in the city of Fallujah.

Although I MEF's commander, Lieutenant

General James T. Conway, argued against a

large-scale retaliatory assault on the city, higher

headquarters ordered I MEF to launch an offen-
sive against the city to clear it of insurgents.20

Within days, public outrage throughout Iraq

against civilian casualties led the U.S. government to halt the offensive. Within weeks,. the

city became a stronghold for insurgent operations.

The first battle of Fallujah demonstrated

Kilcullen's dictum that destroying enemy combatants does not necessarily destroy the insurgency. Carter A. Malkasian's piece, "Signaling

Resolve, Democratization, and the First Battle of

Fallujah," and Major Alfred B. "Ben" Connable's

"The Massacre that Wasn't" argue that first

Fallujah illustrates the difference between counterinsurgency and regular warfare operations.

In his essay, Malkasian considered the serious

setback dealt the U.S. military when it suspended operations against insurgents in Fallujah.

Despite its superior military force, he believes

that the U.S. suffered a critical defeat in April

2004. Malkasian argues that this was due to the

lack of consideration for the nonmilitary factors

needed to succeed against an insurgency:

U.S. civilian and military leaders were

not mistaken regarding the importance of

signaling resolve. However, these leaders

were mistaken that military force alone

was the best course for signaling resolve.

Military force can escalate violence by

oppressing the population. Resolve will

not be signaled if the costs of escalation

preclude an offensive's completion.21

Thus, echoing the language of the Small

Wars Manual and anticipating that of the

Counterinsurgency manual, Malkasian contends

that a mixture of military and nonmilitary tactics

must be deployed to achieve political victory

against an insurgency. Military force cannot

achieve victory when fighting an insurgency

unless it is combined with a respect for how that

military operation is understood and perceived

by both the enemy and civilian population as a

whole.

One challenge that Malkasian argues Marines

were initially unprepared for was combating the

insurgents' information offensive. As Connable's

4

essay illustrates, the information battlefield was

a critical theater of the struggle for Fallujah.

Taking full advantage of the Internet and world

media, the insurgency was able to use stories of

civilian casualties incurred in the battle to

inflame opinion throughout Iraq, and the world,

against the Marine offensive.22 Both Connable

and Malkasian agree that the failure to win the

information war crippled the Marine offensive,

despite its superior military force. Outrage

among Iraqis, the Iraqi provisional government,

and Great Britain, pressured Bremer to halt the

operation out of fear that continuing it would

destroy the still-fragile reconstruction efforts in

the country.

A steady increase in violence against

Coalition forces in Iraq continued in the summer

of 2004. In August, Marines from the 11th

Marine Expeditionary Unit, with support from

U.S. Army and Iraqi Army units, defeated alSadr's militia forces in an-Najaf and opened the

way for a negotiated settlement between al-Sadr

and the Shi'a cleric Ayatollah Au al-Sistani.23 At

the same time, insurgents in Anbar continued to

transform Fallujah into a base of operations and

stronghold. It became increasingly apparent that

a second offensive would be necessary. in

November, I MEF, under its new commander,

Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, launched a

second assault, drawing upon the lessons from

the first engagement there.

The second battle of Fallujah, fought in

November and December 2004, demonstrated

the Marine Corps' ability to learn from past

experience and adapt. For example, the Marines

skillfully used psychological operations to

encourage the residents to vacate the city before

the attack began.24 As a result, fewer than 500

residents remained when the Marines began

their assault on 8 November with Operation

Phantom Fury, renamed Operation al-Fajr

(Dawn) at the behest of the Iraqi government.

The fighting was the most intense faced by the

Marines up to this point in the war. As

Lieutenant General Sattler and Lieutenant

Colonel Daniel H. Wilson recounted, "The fighting was intense, close, and personal, the likes of

which has been experienced on just a few occa-
sions since the battle of Hue City in the Vietnam

War."25 By December, the city had been cleared

of insurgents and secured. By January, residents

were already returning to Fallujah.

Yet despite the clear victory against the insurgency, the legacy of both battles was mixed. As

Jonathan F. Keiler relates in 'Who Won the

Battle of Fallujah?," the two battles demonstrated the paradoxical nature of counterinsurgency

operations. In answering the question posed by

his title, he notes the distinction between tactical and strategic victories:

Was the battle of Fallujah a victory or a

defeat? The Marine Corps' military operations in urban terrain doctrine recognizes

that tactical success does not necessarily

translate to strategic victory. It notes the

Israeli's tactical victory in Beirut was a

strategic defeat—and observes the same

about the Battle of Hue in the Vietnam

War, when Marines defeated an enemy

that sought to put up a good fight but

never expected to win.26

Seeing both battles of Fallujah as a continuous struggle for the city, Keiler concludes that

the victory in Fallujah was a Pyrrhic one, commenting that "the Battle of Fallujah was not a

defeat—but we cannot afford many more victories like it."27 Marines achieved a major victory

against the insurgency in November 2004. But in

many ways, it was a battle that had to be fought

because of the inability to achieve a sustainable

victory in April 2004.

The battles of Fallujah represent some of the

largest and most intense fights of the Iraq War.

However, as the unit summaries produced by

the II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) during its tour from the winter of 2005 to the winter of 2006 demonstrate, counterinsurgency

often entailed much smaller operations and did

not always involve combat. Throughout 2005, II

MEF conducted a number of critical operations

such as Matador, Iron Fist, and Steel Curtain

aimed at neutralizing insurgents, securing Iraq's

western border, and preventing insurgent fighters from crossing from Syria and Jordan into

5

Iraq. Marine units helped build Iraqi security

forces, forged relationships with local leaders,

and participated in the construction of democratic institutions. At the same time, Marines

developed new means to confront the rudimentary, yet lethal, weapons used by insurgents,

such as the improvised explosive device (TED).

Colonel Eric T. Litaker's essay explores one of

these developments, the TED Working Group.

As Litaker argues, the challenge of the lED is not

just one confronted by engineers, but also intelligence operatives. Most importantly, Litaker

contends that there is no single method for confronting these explosive devices. "There is no

'silver bullet' in sight. For the foreseeable future,

the key to defeating the lED threat will almost

certainly be a combination of technology, [tactics, techniques, procedures], and an offensive

mindset."28 The lack of a "silver bullet" in many

ways characterizes counterinsurgency operations as a whole.

The urban battlefield during an insurgency is

marked by tension, confusion, and uncertainty.

It is often difficult to determine friend from foe

and civilians from insurgents. The stresses and

consequences of fighting an urban insurgency

are illustrated by the events in Haditha. On 5

November 2005, insurgents attacked a Marine

convoy from Company K of the 3d Battalion, 1st

Marine Regiment, in the town of Haditha. In the

course of the attack, a land mine destroyed a

Humvee, killing one Marine and seriously

wounding two others. The progression of subsequent events is still unclear, although in the

end, Marines from Company K killed 24 Iraqi

civilians.29 William Langewiesche's examination

considers the complexities and ambiguities of

the incident, exploring the morning's events in

close detail.30 His study weighs the intense challenges and stresses of conducting counterinsurgency operations. As he writes, casting accusations and blame only blur and confuse attempts

to reconstruct what occurred:

The events that followed will never be

reconstructed completely, no matter what

the courts may find. Through the dust and

noise on that Haditha street, they played
Out m a jumble of semi-autonomous

actions, complicated by perceptions that

had been narrowed by the attack and further confused by the ambiguities associated with fighting a guerrilla war on foreign

ground. Some of the Marines may have

suspected that a line had been crossed,

and that crimes might have been committed, but in the urgency of the moment it

would have seemed less likely then than it

seems now, and even today the principal

view of those involved is anger that the

accusations are cheap, and that Kilo

Company has been unfairly singled out.31

As of this writing, the court proceedings

involving the Haditha case are ongoing. A report

produced by the U.S. military in 2007 concluded

that Marine commanders had been negligent in

adequately and publicly investigating the

events.32 At the same time, seven of the eight

Marines charged for the incident have either

been acquitted or had the charges against them

dropped.33

The important consequence of Haditha was

its impact upon the overall U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. Even though it was the

exception and not the rule to the behavior and

efforts of the Marine Corps throughout Anbar

Province, isolated incidents such as Haditha

(and their treatment in the mass media) were a

critical setback to U.S. efforts in Iraq. The failure

of U.S. commanders in Iraq to effectively and

openly investigate the incident further damaged

U.S. forces in the eyes of the Iraqi people. As

the field manual Counterinsurgency asserted,

"At its core, COIN [counterinsurgency] is a struggle for the population's support."34 Incidents

such as Ha.ditha threatened to undermine this

goal.

In 2006, the insurgency against the Coalition

forces escalated to a level that many have

described as a civil war. On 22 February 2006,

al-Qaeda in Iraq bombed the Askariya Mosque

in Samarra. The structure, also known as the

"Golden" Mosque, was a sacred site of considerable significance for Shi'a Muslims. By attacking

it, al-Qaeda hoped to spark sectarian violence in

6

the region. Shi'a militias retaliated against Sunni

insurgents in Baghdad.35 Political scientist James

D. Fearon equated the civil war with similar sectarian conflicts in Turkey and Lebanon and

noted the complicity of the Iraqi government in

the conflict. "As the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad

proceeds, the weak Shiite-dorninated government is inevitably becoming an open partisan in

a nasty civil war between Sunni and Shiite

Arabs."6 In Iraq, Sunnis and Shi'a fought for

dominance in the country. Meanwhile, outside

forces such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, Iran, and Syria

sought to establish their own spheres of influence in the fractured state. Tile United States

quickly became just one of an array of actors in

a conflict that was becoming increasingly more

complex and violent.

In early 2007, President Bush announced a

change in U.S. policy in Iraq. Known as "tile

surge," the strategy called for a significant

increase in U.S. forces in Iraq and a new commander, counterinsurgency expert General

Petraeus.37 For the Marines and soldiers in the

Anhar Province, however, the surge did not

have the same impact as it did in the rest of Iraq.

For Multi National Force-West, the most significant development after 2005 was not the surge,

but the al-Anbar Awakening.

Initially, the United States focused its efforts

on rebuilding the Iraqi Army as a means of

restoring security to the country. One means for

achieving this was the combined action program, or CAP. Developed by the Corps in the

1960s to build effective military forces in South

Vietnam, the program had been phased out

when Marines left Southeast Asia in 1971.

Combining a platoon of Marine advisors with

two squads of Iraqi soldiers, the CAP was a

unique approach to building an Iraqi military.

In their article, "The Combined Action Platoon

in Iraq," First Lieutenant Jason R. Goodale and

First Lieutenant Jonathan F. Webre recount the

development of one such force in 2004, the 3d

Platoon, Company G, Task Force 2d Battalion,

7th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 738

Tile building of an Iraqi Army ultimately

proved to be a less effective means of what

came to be called Iraqization than U.S. corn-
manders had hoped. Many Sunnis avoided serving in the Shi'a-dominated army for fear of marginalization and discrimination. The creation of

professional police forces proved to be a more

fruitful means of Iraqization, particularly among

the tribal groups in al-Anbar Province.39

Despite the potential that strengthening local

police units could weaken national unity, the

construction of regional units helped overcome

Sunni fears of marginalization and disenfranchisement.

As Austin G. Long relates in his essay, "The

Anhar Awakening," Iraq's tribes have constituted

an important element in Iraqi and Anbari political culture and society since the rule of the

Ottomans.40 Under the Ottoman Empire, the

British Mandate, the Hashemite monarchy, and

the Ba'athist dictatorship, Anbar Province was

dominated by familial groups ranging from

households to clans to tribes. At different times

throughout Iraq's history, Iraq's rulers forged

power-sharing agreements with these tribes as a

means of securing the loyalty and support of the

Anbar Province. By the time of Saddam

Hussein's dictatorship, the tribal system was in a

state of decline. However, with the overthrow

the Ba'athist regime in 2003 and the collapse of

centralized state authority during the occupation, the tribes of Anbar quickly filled the power

vacuum in the region.

Initially, many of the tribes in al-Anbar

Province participated in the insurgency.

However, a rivalry emerged between fundamentalist religious groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq

and the Anbar tribes for control of the province.

Seeing the tribes' local, provincial outlook to be

at odds with their own anti-nationalist, religiously radical goals, al-Qaeda in Iraq made an

attempt to undermine the tribes' power.41 AlQaeda in Iraq attempted to take over the chief

sources of revenue in the region—smuggling

and banditry—and waged a campaign of intimidation and murder against tribal leaders.

Meanwhile, by 2006, domestic opinion in the

United States had turned decisively against the

U.S. presence in Iraq. Many local leaders feared

that a potentially imminent U.S. withdrawal

would leave them vulnerable to al-Qaeda.

7

Thus, a collection of factors came together in

2006 that made change possible. With al-Qaeda

in Iraq's power growing, many of the Anbar tribal leaders concluded that the United States was

the lesser of the two evils and consequently

began to forge alliances with U.S. forces in order

to expel the fundamentalist fighters from the

province. One of the chief instigators of this

alliance was Sheikh Abdul Sattar Ahu Risha of

the Albu Risha tribe. Launching a general campaign against the al-Qaeda fighters in September

of 2006, Sattar formed the Anbar Salvation

Council, which became the prototype for

Awakening councils created throughout Anbar

Province. A detailed picture of these developments, from both Iraqi and U.S. military perspectives (with axi emphasis on the roles played

by U.S. Marines), can he found in a two-volume

set of interviews published by Marine Corps

University Press in 2009.42

In the capital of the Anhar Province, ar- Ramadi, the 1st Brigade of the U.S. Army 1st

Armored Division, a joint unit under Multi

National Force-West, forged alliances with the

major tribal groups in the region and encouraged them to serve in the local police forces.

These efforts are described in articles by

Andrew Lubin and by the 1st Brigade's commanding officer, Colonel Sean B. MacFarland,

USA (with Major Niel Smith, USA).43

The Anbar Awakening demonstrates the full

scope of successful counterinsurgency strategy.

On one hand, attempts to encourage members

of the Anbari tribes to serve in the local police

forces represented efforts at engagement and

building provincial security forces. By focusing

on regional, rather than national, forces, the U.S.

was able to create a security and intelligence

apparatus more in tune with and trusted by the

local populace.44 On the other hand, this could

not have been accomplished without operations

eliminating insurgent military forces conducted

by units such as the 1st Battalion of the 6th

Marines. Throughout the fall of 2006, the unit

targeted areas of Ramadi under the control of alQaeda in Iraq, established regular foot patrols,

built an intelligence gathering apparatus, and

established the broadcast service Voice of
Ramadi as a means of providing accurate information about U.S. and Iraqi efforts against a!-

Qaeda in Iraq.45 The Marines of the 1st

Battalion, 6th Marines, thus conducted kinetic

and non-kinetic operations concurrently,

demonstrating that effective counterinsurgency

relies on a synergy between the outside military

force and regional soldiers and civilians.

By 2008, Anhar Province had largely been

secured, a marked difference from the situation

in 2005-2006 when it was one of the most dangerous and violent regions in the country. A

diary recovered from an al-Qaeda in Iraq fighter

describes the sudden collapse of support once

enjoyed by the group.46 In the course of a

month, the fighter relates how his organization

lost a substantial number of members and the

basic resources to continue fighting. He attributes the cause for this decline to the Awakening

councils. Cities like Fallujah, once the stronghold of the insurgency, became symbols of

progress. As Timothy Williams wrote in the

New York Times in October 2008:

This month, as the last American

marines prepare to leave Camp Falluja, the

sprawling base a few miles outside of

town where many of the American troops

who fought the two battles were stationed,

Falluja has come to represent something

unexpected: the hope that an Iraqi town

once at the heart of the insurgency can

become a model for peace without the

United States military.47

Such an optimistic appraisal was due largely

to the agreements forged between Marines, soldiers, and Iraqi tribes throughout Anbar

Province. An observer looking at Iraq in 2008

had reason to be optimistic. Violent attacks were

down, and a semblance of stability had returned

to the country for the first time since the 2003

invasion. Nevertheless, the "surge" and

Awakening were not without their critics.

Scholars such as Steven N. Simon have noted

that while the strategies employed by the United

States may have brought short-term stability, the

United States may have sacrificed long-term

8

prospects for Iraqi unity in pursuing them.48

Writing on the tribal alliances in a mid-2008 article, Simon asserted that they may have reduced

violence, but that they "had done so by stoking

the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism."49 Simon

argued that a new, multinational strategy that

favors "reconciliation from above" as opposed

to the bottom-up approach of the Anbar

alliances is necessary if the United States is to

preserve Iraq as a state and not allow it to succumb civil war.

Not all analysts share Simon's pessimistic outlook. Cohn H. Kahl and William E. Odom, in

response to Simon's piece, observed that "tribalism will not be subdued in a couple of years, or

even a couple of decades."50 However, even

though they argue that Simon "ultimately draws

the wrong lessons for U.S. policy moving forward," Kahl and Odom were in agreement that

the prospects for Iraq's future remain uncertain.51 Referring to Iraq's sectarian divides, the

authors contended in their mid-2008 piece that

"these divides are unlikely to be bridged by any

means other than a civil war fought to a decisive

conclusion. This reality indicates that Iraq's

eventual rulers are not now in the Green Zone,

and when they one day occupy the capital, all

foreign elements will he gone."52 Thus, while

the Anbar Awakening and surge did much to

restore order and stability to Iraq, there is little

agreement on what the consequences of these

strategies will be over time.

The Selections

The story of the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq

from 2004 through 2008 is one of change and

adaptation. The Iraq insurgency and the

Coalition reconstruction efforts constituted new

challenges that necessitated innovations. Some

of these, such as the Combined Action Program

and engagement with the local populace, drew

upon the Corps' long tradition of irregular warfare and counterinsurgency. Others, such as use

of tile mass media and the Internet, looked to

the future. The stability and security achieved in
Iraq by 2008 is a testament to the efforts and

innovations of Marines and soldiers alike

throughout Iraq, and in Anbar Province especially.

This collection has been assembled for

Marines, national security advisers, scholars, and

general readers to provide them with a preliminary resource on the Corps' experience in Iraq

in the 2004-2008 time frame. The selections

highlight the challenges, innovations, and

accomplishments of the Corps as Marines fought

to establish security and stability in western Iraq.

As this anthology is being assembled, U.S.

forces are still stationed in Iraq. Furthermore,

the prospects for the country's future remain

uncertain. Assumptions about the causes,

course, and consequences of the Iraq War continue to be questioned and revised at an almost

daily rate. Much of the official documentary

record remains classified. Events such as the

Haditha shootings of November 2005 are still

being investigated, and the ability to acquire

adequate information about them is hindered by

legal proceedings. As a consequence, much of

the analysis and many of the conclusions herein are provisional. The pieces presented here

nevertheless provide an early look into these

events.

The selections are not confined to academic

works, but include a wide range of texts, ranging from scholarly analyses of the war in Iraq

(Malkasian, Fearon, and Long), articles published in military journals (Petraeus, Connable,

Sattler and Wilson, Keiler, Litaker, Lubin,

Petraeus, Goodale, Dunlap, Smith and

MacFarland, and Kilcullen), and articles written

for a mass audience (Langewiesche, Williams,

Simon, and Kahl and Odom). The collection

also presents several documents, including two

official action summaries produced by I Marine

Expeditionary Force and II Marine

Expeditionary Force and a diary recovered from

a, member of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Appendixes

includes a chronology of events, a list of units

deployed as part of the Multi National ForceWest between 2004 and 2006, and an annotated

bibliography, which covers the most relevant literature to date on the Marine Corps in Iraq from

9

2004 through 2008. It is the hope of the editor

that these resources will be of value to readers

as they seek to learn about the experiences of

the U.S. Marines in Iraq and their contributions

to the Coalition efforts in that country.

Notes

1. Timothy Williams, "American Exit Increases Optimism

in Falluja," New York Times 30Dec08; Stephen D.

Biddle, Michael E. O'Hanlon, and Kenneth M. Pollack,

"How to Leave a Stable Iraq: Building on Progress,"

Foreign Affairs, Sept-OctO8, 40-57; Kathleen Ridolfo,

"Commentary: Five Years Later, News from Iraq Not All

Bad," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 19Mar08.

2. For a history of the invasion of Iraq and the deposition of the Ba'ath regime, see Michael R. Gordon and

General Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra Ii The Inside Story of

the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York:

Pantheon Books, 2006). See also John Keegan, The Iraq

War: The Military Offensive, from Victory in 21 Days to

the Insurgent Aftermath (New York: Vintage Books,

2005). For U.S. Marine operations, see Col Nicholas E.

Reynolds, U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003.' Basrah, Baghdad

and Beyond (Washington, DC: USMC History Division,

2007).

3. Carter A. Malkasian, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq," in

Daniel Marston and Carter A. Malkasian, eds.,

Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare (New York:

Osprey Publishing, 2008), 243.

4. "Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1: DeBa'athification of Iraqi Society," 16 May 2003 (online at

http ://www, iraqcoalition . org/regulations

/2003051 6_CPAORD_1_De-Ba_athification_of

_Iraqi_Society_.pdt); Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The

American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York:

Penguin Books, 2006), 159.

5. Ricks, Fiasco, 164-65.

6. Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and CounterInsurgency in Iraq (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,

2006), 18.

7. Ibid.

8. Malkasian, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq," 242.

9. Ibid., 243.

10. Col Stephen S. Evans, US. Marines and Irregular

Warfare, 1898-2007: Anthology and Selected

Bibliography (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University

Press, 2008).
11. Allan R. Millett, Semper Fidelis: The History of the

United States Marine Corps (New York: Free Press,

1991), 261.

12. Ibid., 263.

13. U.S. Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (Washington

DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940), p. 11, para.

1:7; U.S. Army (FM 3-24) and U.S. Marine Corps (MCWP

3-33.5), Counterinsurgency (Washington DC:

Department of the Army and Marine Corps Combat

Development Command, 2006), p. 1-1, para. 1:3.

14. Small Wars Manual, pp. 41-47 para. 1:28-1:31;

MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, pp. 2-1—2-4, para.

2: 1-2: 14.

15. David Kilcullen, "Twenty-Eight Articles," Marine

Corps Gazette, Jul06, 50-56.

16. LtGen David H. Petraeus, "Learning

Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in

Iraq," Military Review, Jan-FebO6, 2-12.

17. MajGen Charles J. Dunlap Jr. (USAF), "Making

Revolutionary Change: Airpower in COIN Today,"

Parameters 38 (Summer 2008): 52-66.

18. Malkasian, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq," 241-59.

19. Ibid., 244-46.

20. According to LtGen Conway in a 2005 interview, "I

went to certain levels in the chain of command to try to

determine where this was coming from. . . . I felt the

Army could be fairly heavy-handed, and I wanted to

make sure this just wasn't CJTF-7 telling us we had to

attack. In fact, it came from higher than that." CWO-4

Timothy S. McWilliams and LtCol Kurtis P. Wheeler,

eds., Al-Anbar Awakening. Volume 1: American

Perspectives: US. Marines and Counterinsurgency in

Iraq, 2004-2009 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps

University Press, 2009), 50.

21. Carter A. Malkasian, "Signaling Resolve,

Democratization, and the First Battle of Fallujah,"

Journal of Strategic Studies 29 (2006): 423-52.

22. Maj. Alfred B. "Ben" Connable, "The Massacre that

Wasn't," in G. J. David and T. R. McKeldin, eds., Ideas

as Weapons: Influence and Perception in Modern

Warfare (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2009), 341-

50.

23. Francis X. Kozlowski, US. Marines in Battle: AnNajaf (Washington DC: USMC History Division, 2009).

24. LtGen John F. Sattler and LtCol Daniel H. Wilson,

"Operation Al Fajr: The Battle of Fallujah—Part II,"

Marine Corps Gazette, Jul05, 16.

25. Ibid., 21.

10

26. Jonathan F. Keiler, "Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?"

U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Jan05, 57-61.

27. Ibid.

28. Col Eric T. Litaker, "Efforts to Counter the lED

Threat," Marine Corps Gazette, Jan05, 29-31.

29. Malkasian, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq," 253.

30. William Langewiesche, "Rules of Engagement,"

Vanity Fair, Nov06, pp. 312-328, 350-355.

31. Ibid.

32. Josh White, "Report on Haditha Condemns

Marines," Washington Post, 21Apr07; Malkasian,

"Counterinsurgency in Iraq," 253.

33. Mark Walker, "Haditha Case Continues to Unravel,"

North County Times, 28 June 2008 (http://

www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/06/28/military

/zcaed43dd200c477388257472005a24b4.txt, accessed 3

August 2009).

34. MCWP 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, 1-28.

35. Malkasian, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq," 256.

36. James D. Fearon, "Iraq's Civil War," Foreign Affairs,

Mar-AprO7, 2.

37. Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David

Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq,

2006-2008 (New York: Penguin Books, 2009), 3-8.

38. lstLt Jason Goodale and lstLt Jon Webre, "The

Combined Action Platoon in Iraq," Marine Corps

Gazette, Apr05, 40-43.

39. Carter A. Malkasian, "A Thin Blue Line in the Sand,"

Democracy, Summer 2007, 48-58. See also Malkasian,

Will Ira qization Work? (Alexandria, VA: Center for

Naval Analyses, 2007).

40. Austin C. Long, "The Anbar Awakening," Survival,

Apr-MayO8, 67-94.

41. Ibid., 77.

42. McWilliams and Wheeler, Al-Anbar Awakening.

Volume 1: American Perspectives; Col Gary W.

Montgomery and CWO-4 Timothy S. McWilliams, eds.,

Al-Anbar Awakening. Volume 2: Iraqi Perspectives:

From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004-

2009 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press,

2009).

43. Andrew Lubin, "Ramadi: From the Caliphate to

Capitalism," US. Naval Institute Proceedings, Apr08, 54-

61; Maj Niel Smith (USA) and Col Sean B. MacFarland

(USA), "Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point," Military

Review, Mar-AprO8, 41-52. See also the interview with

MacFarland in McWilliams and Wheeler, Al-Anbar

Awakening, 1:177-85, as well as interviews with two
Marines assigned to MacFarland's team, LtCol William M.

Jurney (1:187-99) and Maj Daniel R. Zappa (1:201-10).

44. For a summary of how these forces were created, see

the PowerPoint presentation created by Capt Davis

Patriquin reproduced in Smith and MacFarland, "Anbar

Awakens," 48.

45. Lubin, "Ramadi," 4.

46. Abu-Tariq, "Daily Diary of al-Qaeda Sector Leader

Called Abu-Tariq" (http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.

php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16935&

Itemid=131,accessed 8 July 2009).

47. Timothy Williams, "American Exit Increases

Optimism in Falluja," New York Times, 30 December

2008.

48. Steven N. Simon, "The Price of the Surge: How U.S.

Strategy Is Hastening Iraq's Demise," Foreign Affairs,

May-JunO8, pp. 57-76.

49. Ibid.

50. Cohn H. Kahl and William E. Odom, "When to Leave

Iraq: Today, Tomorrow, or Yesterday?" Foreign Affairs.

jul-AugO8, 151-57.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

11

Part I:The Iraqi Insurgency, 2004-2007

ithin months of the Coalition's victory

against Iraqi forces and the collapse of

Saddam Hussein's regime in April

2003, the U.S. forces and their allies suddenly

faced a general insurgency that sought to end the

foreign occupation of the country. U.S. administrative policies and its military response to the

insurgency only exacerbated the movement. The

Coalition Provisional Authority focused on

empowering Iraq's Shi'a majority at the expense

of the formerly dominant Sunni minority.

Fearing disenfranchisement and a loss of status

in the new Iraqi state, many Sunnis joined the

insurgency. The heavy-handed response of U.S.

units such as the 4th Infantry Division (USA) to

insurgent attacks further inflamed hostility to the

U.S. presence in the country.

In the spring of 2004, Marines from the I

Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), commanded by Lieutenant General James T. Conway,

redeployed to Iraq where they assumed responsibility for providing security to Iraq's western alAnbar Province. At this time, the insurgency constituted the single greatest obstacle to stability in

Iraq, and the Marines of I MEF soon were

engaged in battles with insurgents in the cities of

Fallujah and an-Najaf. The insurgency encompassed a hodgepodge of different groups,

including former Ba'athists, secular nationalists,

religious extremists, and foreign groups such as

al-Qaeda in Iraq. The insurgency was not entirely a Sunni movement, as Shi'a groups such as

those led by religious extremist Muqtada al-Sadr

rose up against Coalition troops in Najaf in the

summer of 20O4. Taking full advantage of their

urban environment, insurgents used an array of

13

tactics against American forces, including

remote-activated land mines, rocket-propelled

grenades, and suicide bombers. Supply convoys

became especially vulnerable. Furthermore,

insurgent groups became particularly adept at

deploying the mass media to build an antiAmerican consensus and generate sympathy for

their cause.

By 2006, the insurgency had transformed from

a general uprising against the Coalition forces

into a sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shi'a

forces. The Coalition devised and implemented a

number of strategies and tactics to combat the

threats, ranging from large-scale use of firepower and force to conducting counterinsurgency

operations and building local security forces. For

a range of reasons, some of these efforts succeeded while others failed. U.S. Marines were

involved in several of these operations and

played leading roles in a number of critical battles against the Iraqi insurgency, including Najaf,

Ramadi, and the two battles for Fallujah.

The following two selections present an

overview of the insurgency and conflict that

many came to label civil war in Iraq. Carter A.

Malkasian's essay, "Counterinsurgency in Iraq:

May 2003-2007," provides an excellent survey of

the major events that shaped the insurgency and

U.S. efforts to combat the threat between 2003

and 2007. James D. Fearon's article, "Iraq's Civil

War," examines how the Iraqi insurgency transformed into a religious civil war, focusing on the

complexities of a conflict that involved the

United States and its Coalition allies and Iraq's

Sunni and Shi'a populations.

Counterinsurgency

in Iraq: May 2003-

January 2007

by Carter A. Malkasian

Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare, 2008

fr 4he United States' campaign in Iraq marked

its second major counterinsurgency campaign in 40 years. The U.S. military

attempted to adapt to the situation it found in

Iraq, drawing upon lessons from history and its

own operations. However, in the first four years

of the conflict, it could not suppress the insurgency, which prompted President George W.

Bush to revise his strategy in January 2007.

The reasons behind the lack of progress from

May 2003 to January 2007 may not be clear for

some time, if at all. To some extent, American

attempts to adapt neglected the sectarian divisions in Iraq. The key elements of the U.S. strategy—democratization and the construction of a

national (and consequently predominantly Shi'a)

army—did nothing to placate the Sunni minority, who backed the insurgency and sought to

preserve their political power against both the

occupation and the emerging Shi'a government.

This strategy did not make success impossible

before 2007, but it certainly made it harder to

suppress the violence.

The Outbreak of the Insurgency

The insurgency in Iraq broke out over the

summer of 2003, following the Coalition's lightning victory over Saddam Hussein's standing

forces in March and April.' Sunni Arabs, who

lived primarily in Baghdad and western and

northern Iraq, represented the overwhelming

majority of the insurgents. In general, the insurgents sought to compel the United States,

viewed as an occupier, to withdraw from Iraq;

and to recapture some of the political power and

economic benefits that the Sunnis had lost to the

Shi'a Arabs with the demise of Saddam Hussein's

15
regime.2 U.S. plans for democracy promised to

place the Shi'a, representing 60 percent of the

population, in the most powerful political position. The large role played by exiled Shi'a leaders on the newly constructed Iraqi Governing

Council (an interim advisory body), the dissolution of the old Iraqi Army (which Sunnis had

largely officered), and the prohibition of members of the Ba'ath Party from working in the government (de-Ba'athification) exacerbated the

Sunni feeling of marginalization. An extreme element of the insurgency, the al-Qaeda-affiliated

network of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, wanted to

create their own Islamic state within Iraq that

might be able to support Al-Qaeda's activities

elsewhere in the region. Zarqawi purposefully

targeted Shi'a in order to draw reprisals upon the

Sunnis and instigate a civil war.3 Zarqawi's network, later known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI),

held the allegiance of the foreign fighters and

Iraqi terrorists of most concern to the United

States.

In the summer of 2003, the United States had

150,000 military personnel (in five divisions) in

Iraq, which together with 13,000 personnel from

the United Kingdom and other allied countries

(in two divisions) formed Combined Joint Task

Force 7 (CJTF-7), under the command of

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez. The allied

forces were known as the "Coalition."

Ambassador Paul Bremer controlled the

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which was

responsible for governing Iraq and guiding its

progression toward democracy, a foremost goal

of the Bush administration. Many U.S. leaders,

including Bremer, believed that democracy represented a natural antidote to the extremism of

Zarqawi and other terrorists. Furthermore, the

most respected Shi'a religious leader, Ayatollah

Ali Sistani, with strong popular Shi'a backing,

pressured Bremer to hold direct elections as

soon as possible.4

The United States and its military were unprepared to confront the insurgency that developed.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, both the U.S.

Army and Marine Corps had focused on learning

rapid maneuver and combined arms in order to

fight a conventional war, instead of the

16

patrolling, bottom-up intelligence collection and

minimization of force generally considered necessary for successful counterinsurgency.

Training, such as at the Army's National Training

Center in the California desert, dealt with defeating conventional mechanized opponents. No

comprehensive doctrine existed for counterinsurgency. Expecting to fight a conventional war, the

U.S. Army fielded armored and mechanized battalions that were heavy on M1A1/M1A2 Abrams

tanks and M2A2 Bradley fighting vehicles, but

light on infantry (armored and mechanized battalions contained 500 to 600 personnel). Such

organization made it difficult to thoroughly patrol

or interact with the population. The Marines

were somewhat better off; their battalions contained 900 infantry: every battalion had a team

dedicated to human intelligence collection; and

there had been intensive training for urban combat since the late 1990s.

Neither Major General Sanchez nor General

John Abizaid, commander of Central Command,

promulgated a plan to counter the insurgency.

When confronted with insurgent attacks, the five

U.S. divisions reacted• differently, but with a tendency toward conventional-style operations and

heavy-handed tactics. Units conducted raids

based on scant intelligence and applied firepower loosely. Operating north of Baghdad around

Samarra and Tikrit (S'alah-ah-din Province),

Major General Raymond Odierno's 4th Infantry

Division acquired a reputation for heavy-handedness. Instead of trying to secure the population,

his commanders launched large-scale sweeps to

roll up insurgents and Ba'athist leaders, fired

artillery blindly to interdict insurgent activity

("harassment and interdiction fires"), purposefully detained innocents to blackmail their insurgent

relatives, and leveled homes to deter people

from supporting the insurgents.5 Such actions

further alienated the Sunni population. Other

divisions operated in a similar pattern. In

Fallujah, troops from the 82d Airborne Division,

feeling threatened, fired into mass gatherings on

both April 28 and 30, 2003, killing 13 civilians

and wounding 91. In November, Sanchez conducted a series of sweeps and air strikes, such as

Operation Iron Hammer, meant to crush the
insurgents. Major General Charles Swannack, the

commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said:

"This is war... We're going to use a sledgehammer to crush a walnut."6

The operations of Major General David

Petraeus' 101st Airborne Division, working in the

north of Iraq (Ninewa Province), diverged from

this trend. Petraeus considered securing the population to be the key to effective counterinsurgency and concentrated his entire division in

Mosul, the largest population center (1.8 million)

in the province. Determined to minimize harm to

the population, before approving any operations

he would ask his commander, "Will this operation take more bad guys off the street than it creates by the way it is conducted?"7 Rather than

undertaking large sweeps, his troopers operated

out of outposts in the heart of the city and

focused on collecting detailed actionable intelligence for raids against insurgent leadership.

Meanwhile, Petraeus interacted with the Sunni

elements of society, even holding his own local

elections to draw them into the political process.

Insurgent attacks stayed low during the division's

tenure. Unfortunately, the following unit boasted

only a third of the lOlst's manpower, and the situation deteriorated.

The one method that characterized all U.S.

operations was high-value targeting. Elite special

operating forces enjoyed carte blanche to capture and kill insurgent leaders. The conventional

forces let the same tactic drive their operations.

Every battalion, brigade, and division developed

a high-value targeting list detailing the most

wanted insurgents in their area of operations.

Intelligence collection assets were devoted to

finding insurgent leaders.

It is worth noting that the British, who controlled the Coalition forces around Basrah, aiAmarah, and an-Nasiriyah, adopted a more circumspect approach than the Americans.

Applying the lessons of a half-century of counterinsurgency, the British patrolled in small units,

rigorously collected intelligence, and used firepower sparingly. In general, British and other

Western European forces tried to maintain a light

footprint in cities to avoid upsetting the locals. As

early as September 2003, British generals made

17

the development of local Iraqi forces a priority.

For example, in 2004, the entire Argyll &

Sutherland Battalion was dedicated to training

them. Some of the first effective Iraqi units

appeared in the British operating area.8

Unfortunately, the light approach toward securing the population would later allow militias to

gain control of the city, which would have negative side effects in 2007.

The First Battle of Fallujab and

the Mabdi Uprising

For the most part, small-scale roadside bombings, mortar shelling, and fleeting skirmishes

characterized insurgent activity in 2003. By early

2004, the insurgency was gaining strength. Poor

strategic decisions made it explode.

The I Marine Expeditionary Force (1 MEF)

took over al-Anbar Province from the 82d

Airborne Division in March 2004. On March 31,

insurgents and people in Fallu;ah murdered four

American civilian contractors and hung their

bodies from a bridge over the Euphrates.

Against the advice of Major General James Mattis

and Lieutenant General James Conway (the

Marine commanders), the Bush administration

ordered an offensive to clear Fallujah.

Determined to signal their resolve, they made the

decision with little consultation with the Iraqi

Governing Council and allowed insufficient time

(just days) to evacuate civilians, gather intelligence, and construct a public relations campaign

to mitigate the negative effects of attacking a

Sunni city.9 Indeed, instructions from Sanchez,

Abizaid, and Rumsfeld endorsed harsh military

action, thereby de-emphasizing the importance

of minimizing civilian casualties.10 Of the four

Iraqi battalions assigned to the assault, only 70

Iraqi soldiers from the 36th Commando Battalion

accompanied the 2,000 Marines (two reinforced

infantry battalions) that led the offensive, hardly

lessening Sunni feelings of oppression.

The ensuing offensive ignited widespread

Sunni outrage. Viewing it as an attack on their

society, Sunnis poured into Fallujah from other

Sunni cities. When the Marines stepped off, they

encountered heavy resistance from roughly 2,000
insurgents. Insurgents coordinated mortars, volleys of rocket-propelled grenades, and machinegun fire in defense of their positions. Marine

commanders risked prohibitive casualties unless

they reverted to using artillery, air strikes, and

tanks as per their conventional combined arms

doctrine. Such firepower was applied selectively

but, nevertheless, civilians died (the Iraqi

Ministry of Health estimated 220 for the first two

weeks of fighting).11 Insurgent propaganda and

Arab media exploited these casualties to inflame

opposition to the Coalition. The Coalition had no

response. The Iraqi Governing Council came

under tremendous pressure to stop the fighting.

Sunni members threatened to resign if Bremer

did not initiate cease-fire negotiations. With the

democratization process in jeopardy, on April 9,

the U.S. government halted the offensive.12

Fighting around the Marine bridgehead persisted

until April 30, when Conway pulled the Marines

Out of the city.

At the same time that Fallujah exploded, a

Shi'a uprising shook Coalition control over

southern Iraq and threatened to ignite a national resistance. The Shi'a did not oppose the

Coalition to the same extent that tile Sunnis did,

largely because their leaders now held power.

However, most Shi'a still wanted the occupation

to end. Muqtada Sadr, a radical young Shi'a cleric with a widespread following who had not

been given a role in the Coalition's political

process, tapped into this vein. His militia, Jaysh

al-Mahdi, was organized around poor, young

Shi'a males throughout the country. On April 4,

he called the militia into the streets when Bremer

shut down one of his newspapers and arrested

one of his lieutenants. Thousands of Jaysh alMahdi attacked Coalition and Iraqi compounds

in Najaf, an-Nasiriyah, al-Kut, Baghdad, a!-

Amarahm, and even Kirkuk. Fighting spread to

Basrah, Karbala, and Hillah. Over tile next few

months, the Coalition fought to regain control of

the southern cities. The only exceptions were in

Basrah and al-Amarah, where British patrols and

British-advised Iraqi forces quelled the uprising.

As a result of the Mahdi uprising and the first

battle of Fallujah, attacks throughout the country

jumped from just under 200 per week in the first

18

three months of 2004 to over 500 per week in the

summer.13 Fallujah grew into an insurgent base

of operations and staging ground for attacks

elsewhere in the country. Additionally, in

Samarra, Ramadi, Baqubah, and Baghdad, insurgents exerted control over tile population and

massed in groups of 20 or more for attacks on

the Coalition. The insurgency enjoyed widespread popular support among the Sunni population. Sunnis perceived that the insurgents had

won a great victory in Fallujah, forcing an embarrassing withdrawal upon the United States. A poll

in late April 2004 found that 89 percent of Iraqis

considered the Coalition to be an occupying

force.14 Fighting with Jaysh al-Mahdi in Najaf

(the holiest Shi'a city) and Sadr City (a Shi's

neighborhood in Baghdad) temporarily ended in

June, hut Sadr and his forces maintained control

of the two urban areas.

The breadth of violence made it abundantly

clear that the Coalition could not secure Iraq

without more numbers. Ahizaid and the

American commanders had been looking to tile

Iraqis to supply those numbers, rather than

request U.S. reinforcements, which was not considered politically feasible and might deepen the

perception of occupation among the Iraqi population. Since the dissolution of tile old Iraqi

Army, tile Coalition had focused on creating

locally based forces, known as the Iraqi Civil

Defense Corps (renamed the Iraqi National

Guard after June 2004), to help provide security

within Iraq while a new Iraqi Army was built.

Success in developing tile Iraqi National

Guard and other local forces depended entirely

on the attitudes of the local population. National

Guard battalions based Ofl tile Kurdish militia

(peshmerga) or Shi'a militias, performed adequately. Battalions based on Sunnis did not.

Disaffected from the Iraqi government and angry

at the Coalition, at this stage in the war, Sunnis

generally sympathized with the insurgency and

had no intention of fighting their fellow tribesmen or family members.

There is little doubt that the U.S. military

could have done a better job advising and training the Iraqis. Few commanders embedded

advisers with local forces. Yet, at this time, even
when Americans did, Sunnis remained reluctant

to fight. One of Mattis' most progressive ideas

was to adapt the combined action program

(CAP) of the Vietnam War to Iraq. A platoon in

every Marine battalion was trained to operate

within an indigenous unit. Each had received a

month of special training in Arabic, Arab culture,

and Soviet weapons handling. Three of Mattis'

seven Marine infantry battalions embedded their

CAP platoons with local forces. U.S. Special

Forces also attempted to build local Sunni forces,

cultivating a relationship with the warlike Albu

Nimr tribe west of Ramadi. All this effort, however, yielded few results. In a quarter of all

engagements, Sunni units with advisers fled or

even surrendered. For example, during fighting

in the town of Hit in October 2004, elements of

the 503d Iraqi National Guard Battalion, operating directly alongside Marines, fled from positions defending the city bridge.15 Most Sunni

National Guard and police forces refused to

work with advisers at all, let alone contribute to

Coalition operations. By the end of October

2004, only two companies of the original seven

National Guard battalions established in al-Anbar

had not deserted or sided with the insurgency.

The failure of local forces, combined with

widespread insurgent activity, caused Coalition

commanders to look to the Iraqi Army as the

answer to their lack of numbers. Conway said at

the end of that hard-fought summer: "The situation will change when Iraqi Army divisions

arrive. They will engender people with a sense

of nationalism. Together with an elected government, they will create stability."16

Stemming the Tide

On June 28, 2004, the United States granted

Iraq sovereignty and created the Iraqi Interim

Government under Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

Shortly thereafter, General George Casey succeeded Sanchez as the commander or Multi

National Forces-Iraq (the new Coalition headquarters). Additionally, Petraeus returned to Iraq

to command Multi National Security Transition

Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I) and oversee the creation of the Iraqi security forces (roughly 300,000

19

men), including 10 Iraqi Army divisions (roughly

120,000 men).

Casey took immediate steps to give the

Coalition strategy a purpose hitherto lacking. He

wanted to transition authority over security in

each province to the Iraqis. For this to occur,

Najaf, Baghdad, Fallujah, and other centers of

violence would need to be dealt with one by

one. As they went about doing so, Casey and his

commanders paid careful attention to the mistakes of the past year, taking much more care to

tailor military action to political priorities.

The blueprint for better counterinsurgency,

and what would become known as the clearhold-build approach, took form when Sadr

unleashed a second uprising in Najaf on August

6, 2004.17 Casey and Qasim Dawood, Allawi's

national security adviser, carefully balanced military and political measures to coerce Sadr into

backing down. While the 11th Marine

Expeditionary Unit (augmented by two U.S.

Army battalions, four Iraqi battalions, and scores

of elite U.S. snipers) battled Sadr's 1,500 fighters,

Dawood negotiated with Sistani with the hope of

inducing Sistani to intercede and end the fighting. Political negotiations took precedence over

the military offensive, which was repeatedly

stopped to placate Sistani and ensure that fighting did not endanger the sacred Imam All

Mosque. After three weeks, Sistani marched into

Najaf with thousands of his followers and Sadr

agreed to disperse his militia and surrender the

mosque. Allawi and Casey immediately poured

$70 million in reconstruction and compensation

funds into the city. Najaf would remain quiet for

the next three years, and Sadr started pursuing

power through political means instead of violent

ones.

Next, Major General Peter Chiarelli's 1st U.S.

Cavalry Division cleaned up Jaysh. al-Mahdi

resistance in Baghdad, and Major General John

Batiste's 1st U.S. Infantry Division reasserted

presence in Samaria. The big show was Fallujah,

though, where 3,000-6,000 insurgents were

ensconced. Casey pressed forward only after the

full support of the Iraqi Interim Government had

been obtained, which. took months and meant

that the operation could not take place until after
the U.S.- presidential elections in early November.

Allawi slowed the pace of planning in order to

hold extensive discussions with obstinate

Fallujah leaders and other Sunni notables. These

discussions exhausted all diplomatic options,

placing Allawi in a stronger political position to

use force.

New Marine generals, Lieutenant General

John Sattler and Major General Richard Natonski,

listened to Conway and Mattis about the lessons

of the first battle. Measures were taken to lessen

the political impact of the firepower needed to

defeat so many insurgents. All civilians were

encouraged through leaflets, radio announcements, and a whisper campaign to leave the city.

In the event, the Coalition would find only 5,000

civilians in the city out of a population of

250,000. Additionally, Sattler prepared to preempt insurgent propaganda with his own press

releases, enabling him to take the initiative in

shaping the news stories. Finally, in order to

lessen the image of occupation, Sattler and

Natonski, in parallel with Allawi, pressed for

Iraqi Army units to accompany American forces

in the assault.'8 The 1st Iraqi Intervention Force

Brigade and 3d Iraqi Army Brigade joined the 1st

Marine Regiment, 7th Marine Regiment, and U.S.

Army Blackjack Brigade for the operation.

The offensive, known as Operation al-Fajr,

kicked . off on November 7, 2004, following

months of air strikes on insurgent defenses and

command and control. nodes. Coalition tactics

within Fallujah were those of a straightforward

conventional battle. Four Marine infantry battalions methodically cleared Out the insurgent

defenders in the wake of two U.S. Army

armored battalions that spearheaded the assault.

As in the first battle, the strength of insurgent

defenses compelled the Marines to call in

artillery fire or close air support. Marine squads

aggressively cleared buildings, making use of

grenades, AT-4 rocket launchers with thermobaric warheads, and, most of all, well-drilled urban

combat tactics. By the end of December, the

insurgent resistance had come to an end.

Roughly 2,000 insurgents were killed, wounded,

or detained in the course of the battle.19

After the battle, the Coalition initiated an

20

intensive effort to work with the leaders of

Fallujah and rebuild the city. The State

Department representative, Kael Weston, worked

hand in hand with political and religious leaders.

They built a city government and motivated the

people of Fallujah to participate in the political

process. Approximately 65 to 80 percent of the

city's population participated in three electoral

events of 2005. Over 2005 and 2006, the Iraqi

government provided a total of $180 million in

compensation for damage to homes while the

Coalition engaged on major water, sewage,

health, and power projects. One thousand to two

thousand Marines continued to operate in the

city, alongside roughly 1,500 soldiers of the Iraqi

Army. When sectarian violence . broke out in

Baghdad in 2006, Sunnis fled to Fallujah because

they considered it the safest Sunni city in Iraq.

Counterinsurgency Reforms

With Baghdad and Fallujah secure, Casey

turned to improving the Iraqi security forces. In

late 2004, Casey conducted a review of his campaign plan. The review, guided by the counterinsurgency expert Kalev Sepp, concluded that the

formation of the Iraqi Army needed to be accelerated. Nowhere was the need for more forces

clearer than in Mosul, where security collapsed

outright in November 2004 after one Stryker battalion was sent to Fallujah. Insurgents coordinated attacks against police stations and 5,000

police surrendered en masse, forcing the

Coalition to reassert its presence in the city.

Rather than deploy more U.S. forces to Iraq, the

answer was thought to lie with the Iraqi Army.

Najaf, Baghdad, Samarra, and Fallujah showed

that, when properly advised, the predominantly

Shi'a and partly Kurdish Iraqi Army would stand

and fight. The planners viewed the Iraqi Army as

the linchpin of effective counterinsurgency.

From their perspective, the Iraqi Army could

both provide vital manpower and gather intelligence better than Coalition forces. Plus, Iraqi soldiers would not be perceived as occupiers,

undercutting a major cause of the insurgency. It

was thought that the Iraqi Army could eventually shoulder the burden of counterinsurgency
operations, allowing the Coalition to withdraw.

Accordingly, Casey directed Coalition forces to

shift their focus from fighting insurgents to training Iraqis.

The Coalition and Interim Iraqi Government

wanted the Iraqi Army to be a national force that

integrated Kurds, Shi'a, and Sunni. Few Sunnis

joined, though, and the army became mainly

Shi'a. In order to accelerate Iraqi Army development, MNF-I (Casey's headquarters) created the

transition team concept—b to 12 advisers

embedded into every Iraqi Army battalion,

brigade, and division. Additionally, Marine and

Army battalions partnered with Iraqi battalions

(roughly 500 soldiers) in order to assist in their

operations and training. Eventually, the Iraqi battalion would operate independently, with only

its advisers working with it daily.

In parallel to developing the Iraqi Army,

General •Casey and Ambassador Zalmay

Khalilzad made every effort to ensure that the

democratization process took hold. The CPA's

transitional administrative law (TAL) scheduled

three electoral events for 2005: the election of a

transition government in January responsible for

drafting the constitution; a referendum on the

constitution in October; and the election of a

permanent government in December. The establishment of a legitimate democratic government

was considered central in cutting support for the

insurgents and building cooperation across the

sectarian communities.2°

As the Iraqi Army developed and democratization pressed forward, Casey shifted his attention to securing Iraq's borders. Iraqi politicians

considered this essential to stopping the flow of

Sunni foreign fighters into the country; plus,

according to Sepp and other counterinsurgency

experts, blocking foreign assistance was part of

effective counterinsurgency. The two major operations that ensued refined the clear-hold-build

approach of 2004 and showcased improved U.S.

counterinsurgency techniques.

The first was the clearing of Tal Afar in

September 2005 (Operation Restoring Rights). Tal

Afar, a city of 250,000 people located 40 miles

from Syria, had been used by AQI (al-Qaeda in

Iraq) as a staging ground for foreign fighters

21

entering Iraq since early 2005. The 3d Armored

Reconnaissance Regiment (3d ACR), under

Colonel H. R. McMaster, and two brigades of the

3rd Iraqi Army Division carried out the assault on

the city. McMaster had directed that civilians be

evacuated from the town in order to allow his

forces to use artillery and attack helicopters to

overcome insurgent makeshift fortifications.

Groups of perhaps hundreds of insurgents

massed to counterattack the advancing U.S. and

Iraqi forces, but the Abrams tanks and Bradley

fighting vehicles tore them apart.21

After the battle, McMaster positioned his soldiers in 29 outposts throughout the city to hold

the cleared areas. From these outposts, his forces

saturated Iraqi neighborhoods with patrols.

Once civilians had returned to the city, the use

of force was minimized. Second Battalion, 325th

Airborne Infantry Regiment, killed no civilians at

all, which won the appreciation of the locals.

Building intelligence on insurgents was made

easier through the cooperation of the significant

Shi'a minority in Tal Afar.22 Similarly, McMaster

could recruit a police force because tile Shi'a

were willing to serve, whereas the Sunnis still

considered the Iraqi Army and police to be their

enemy.23

The second operation was the clearing of alQa'im (Operation Steel Curtain) in November

2005. After the second battle of Falujah, insurgents affiliated with AQI had fled to al-Qa'im, a

city of 200,000 that lies on the Euphrates River at

the Syrian border, and turned it into a base of

operations. Two reinforced Marine infantry battalions (2,500 Marines) and one Iraqi battalion

(roughly 500 soldiers) cleared the city from

November 5 to 16, killing roughly 100 insurgents.24

Like Tal Afar, the operations after the battle

were more important than the battle itself.

Lieutenant Colonel Dale Alford, commander of

3d Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, dispersed his

Marines into small sub-units, integrating them

thoroughly with the Iraqi Army brigade. Every

platoon lived and worked with an Iraqi platoon

in one of 12 outposts. Tile platoons conducted

intensive satellite patrolling both day and night.

Living close to the population generated intelli-
gence and forced the Marines to learn how to

interact with them.25 Even more important was

the determination of the Albu Mahal tribe to

keep AQI out. AQI had impinged upon their traditional control over the al-Qa'im area, causing

the tribe to align itself with the Coalition after

having fought as insurgents over the previous

two years. Within three months of the completion of Operation Steel Curtain, the Albu Mahal

had devoted 700 tribesmen to the resident Iraqi

Army brigade and 400 to a newly established

police force.26

Off the battlefield, Casey took steps to institute the lessons learned since mid-2004. These

included setting up a counterinsurgency academy at Taji (just north of Baghdad) that all incoming regimental and battalion commanders had to

attend for eight days. Additionally, Casey personally went to every division and brigade to brief

them on his strategic vision.

In the United States, the Army and Marine

Corps revamped their services training programs.

The emphasis of the Marine Corps' combined

arms exercise program at Twentynine Palms,

California, and the U.S. Army's National Training

Center at Fort Irwin, California, changed from

testing units against a Soviet-style conventional

opponent to testing . them against insurgents.

Furthermore, in 2006, the U.S. Army set up a 60-

day training program for its advisers at Fort Riley,

Kansas: Finally, Petraeus and Mattis (now both in

charge of their respective services' training establishments in the United States) together sponsored a new counterinsurgency manual (Field

Manual 3-24) for the Army and Marine Corps that

was issued in December 2006.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice contributed to the reforms by transferring the concept of provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs)

from Afghanistan, where they had performed

fairly well, to Iraq. Manned by State Department

diplomats, workers from USAID (United States

Agency for International Development), agricultural experts, and engineers, PRTs focused on

providing economic assistance and developing

local governmental bodies within each province.

Unfortunately, Tal Afar and al-Qa'im masked

problems that still existed in U.S. counterinsur22

gency. At the same time as al-Qa'im was being

mopped up, Marines in Haditha killed 24 civilians after being hit with a roadside bomb. Major

General Eldon Bargewell, who investigated the

incident, reported:

The most remarkable aspect of the follow-on action with regard to the civilian

casualties from the [November 191 Haditha

incident was the absence of virtually any

kind of inquiry at any level of command

into the circumstances surrounding the

deaths.27

While this incident was extreme, the use of air

strikes, the detainment of innocent civilians, the

occupation of homes, and checkpoints shooting

at oncoming vehicles ('escalation of force incidents") were common. A later poll by the U.S.

Army Surgeon General cited widespread attitudes

within both the Marines and Army that devalued

Iraq life. Almost a third of the respondents said

officers had not made it clear that harming civilians was unacceptable.28

Other problems existed in the counterinsurgency effort as well. Some commanders still

focused on mechanized sweeps or air assaults that

never held an area after it had been cleared. Some

battalions were shifted from actively patrolling

urban areas to operating out of large U.S. bases,

reducing their ability to work with the people.

The inconsistency, of the U.S. reform effort

derived from the decentralized command and

control structure developed for conventional war.

Part of the doctrine was to delegate as much decision-making authority as possible to prevent any

pause in operational tempo. Consequently,

brigade and battalion commanders enjoyed a freedom to conduct operations as they saw fit. The

system might have worked if commanders had

been thoroughly trained in counterinsurgency.

Instead, commanders often reverted to their conventional training and conducted operations that

were too methodical or heavy-handed. The cOmmanders that instituted real change within their

units, such as Petraeus and Alford, were the ones

who were more directive with their subordinates.

High-value targeting remained the one tactic
truly consistent throughout the U.S. forces. The

detainment or death of a key leader undoubtedly disrupted insurgent operations. However, raids

to capture insurgent leaders tended to disturb

Iraqi homes and sweep up innocent Iraqis,

which only increased local resentment. City

council meetings regularly featured complaints

about raids. Furthermore, capturing or killing an

insurgent leader rarely caused insurgent operations to fall apart, even in a local area. Indeed,

the killing of Zarqawi himself in an air strike on

June 7, 2006 caused no discernible drop, in

attack levels or long-term injury to AQI's organizational abilities.

Worst of all, the centerpiece of Casey's strategy was not performing well. The U.S. strategy

depended upon the Iraqi Army taking over security duties. By early 2006, the Iraqi Army had

grown to 10 divisions that actively participated in

operations. Nevertheless, they could not suppress insurgent activity. This was partly because

of deficiencies in their advising, training, and

equipping. For example, 10 to 12 advisers were

shown to be too few to train an Iraqi battalion

plus go on tactical operations with them. On top

or that, they were often reservists or national

guardsmen rather than the most capable activeduty personnel. However, the real problem lay in

the army's Shi'a ethnicity. In Sunni areas, the

population viewed the Iraqi Army as a Shi'a

occupation force and refused to provide the

intelligence necessary to eradicate insurgents.

Polling in 2006 found that 77 to 90 percent of the

respondents in al-Anbar Province considered the

government to be illegitimate. A majority considered the Iraqi Army to be a threat.29 Other polls

obtained similar results for the Sunnis overall.30

In Ramadi, at the height of the sweltering summer, locals refused to take free water offered by

Iraqi soldiers (some angrily poured it on the

ground) and did not stop insurgents from bombing mobile clinics devised by the resident army

brigade to render medical care to the people.

Shi'a ethnicity also posed a problem in Shi'a

or mixed areas. Some soldiers and officers. had

connections to Shi'a militia and many admired

Sadr. Consequently, Iraqi Army units often

turned a blind eye to militia attacks on Sunnis in

23

Baghdad and Diyala Provinces, the sectarian battlegrounds. Worse, the special police commandos (later known as the National• Police), the

paramilitary force of the Ministry of Interior, were

heavily influenced by the Badr Corps (a Shi'a

militia) and actively participated in ethnic cleansing.

Civil War

The sectarian divide between the Sunni and

Shi'a communities widened during 2005 as the

new Iraqi government took shape. The October

2005 referendum passed a constitution allowing

for federalism, which threatened to deny the

Sunnis a share of oil profits, polarizing the two

communities. Sunnis voted en masse in

December, but as a means of maximizing political representation rather than in support of a system that promised power to the Shi'a majority.

The election of a Shi'a majority in the legislative

body (the Council of Representatives) i-left the

Sunnis discontented. Polls found that the majority of Sunnis did not consider the new, democratic government to be legitimate and preferred that

a strong leader take charge of Iraq.31

On February 22, 2006, AQI bombed the

Askariya (Golden) Mosque in Samarra, a Shi'a

holy site. Zarqawi had long been trying to instigate sectarian violence through suicide bombings

in Shi'a areas. The Golden Mosque bombing was

the spark that caused the Shi'a militia—Jaysh al

Mahdi and the Badr Corps—to retaliate against

the Sunni community in Baghdad, murdering

suspected insurgents and eventually pressing

Sunnis out of mixed neighborhoods. Over 30,000

civilians fled their homes in the month after the

bombing. In turn, more Sunnis took up arms to

defend themselves and their families.

The U.S. leadership did not recognize that the

two pillars of its counterinsurgency strategy—

democratization and developing the Iraqi

Army—could not circumvent the civil war.

Neither Casey nor Abazaid wanted to call for U.S.

reinforcements. They firmly believed doing so

would only reinforce Iraqi dependency on the

United States. Also, according to Casey,

American reinforcements could inflame the
insurgency. He noted, "We are the rationale for

the resistance and a magnet for the terrorists,"

and persisted with plans to start withdrawing

U.S. brigades by the end of the year.32 The Bush

administration did not object to this decision

because it helped avoid domestic criticism of the

war.33

Accordingly, Casey relied on the Iraqi Army to

provide the numbers to quell sectarian violence,

especially inside Baghdad. With the Iraqi Army

ineffective, the Coalition lost control of the capital. Shi'a militias murdered scores of Sunnis while

AQI set off devastating car bombs in Shi'a neighborhoods (over 100 civilians could be killed in a

single day). Lieutenant General Chiarelli, now

Casey's operational commander, launched two

operations to regain control of the city:

Operation Together Foward I (June 14-July 20,

2006) and Operation Together Forward II (August

8-October 24, 2006). In the former, U.S. and Iraqi

soldiers set up security checkpoints, established

a curfew, and increased their patrolling and

high-value targeting efforts. In the latter operation, 15,000 U.S. soldiers cleared disputed neighborhoods block by block. The role of holding

the neighborhoods fell to the Iraqi Army.

Incapable of gathering intelligence on Sunni

insurgents and often unwilling to confront the

Shi'a militias, the Iraqi soldiers could not provide

security. Indeed, only 1,000 of the 4,000 Iraqi

Army reinforcements even showed up.34 On

October 19, Major General William Caldwell, the

Coalition spokesman, acknowledged that

Operation Together Forward II had failed.

During its duration, attacks rose 22 percent.35

Attacks on civilians by Shi'a militias and Sunni

insurgents had quadrupled, with over 1,000

dying each month.36

The situation throughout Iraq deteriorated as

well. Attacks grew from 70 per day in January

2006 to 180 per day in October. The situation

was particularly bad in al-Anhar. The I Marine

Expeditionary Force fought for months with

hardened AQI cadres to clear Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar, without any positive results. In

Basrah, the hands-off British approach left Shi'a

militias (Jaysh al Mahdi, the Badr Corps, and the

Fadhila Party) vying for control of the city. The

24

militias escalated sectarian attacks on the city's

sizeable Sunni minority in the wake of the

Golden Mosque bombings, largely expelling

them.

Sectarian violence undermined attempts at

reconciliation between the Sunni and Shi'a communities. Sunni leaders felt even more marginalized from the government. A Fallujah city leader

said at a city council meeting:

We want to participate in government

but what are the results; What are the benefits? We know the results. It is total failure.

We still see the killing in the streets.

Baghdad is in chaos. Iran's hands are

everywhere .37

That summer, Fallujah city leaders told Marine

officers that if the United States would not act

against the "Iranians," then the Sunnis must be

allowed to defend themselves.38 Indeed, 34 percent of Sunnis considered attacks on Iraqi government forces to be acceptable; only 1 percent

of Shi'a felt the same way.39 Shi'a leaders, including Prime Minister Nun al Maliki's new government, considered militias merely a form of protection against the real threat to Iraq—the

Ba'athists and AQI. The growth of the Iraqi Army

(as well as the Badr Corps and Jaysh al-Mahdi)

and majority control over the new democratic

government gave Shi'a leaders little reason to

compromise. Consequently, they rejected serious

attempts at political reconciliation or restraining

attacks upon the Sunnis.40

The most promising event of 2006 was the rise

of certain Sunni tribes in al-Anbar against alQaeda in Iraq. This had little to do with U.S.

counterinsurgency tactics. The Coalition had

long been trying to motivate the tribes and traditional Sunni entities, such as the former military,

to fight AQI, exemplified by the efforts of Special

Forces teams and Mattis' CAP platoons. It was

not until it became clear that AQI was taking

over the economic and political sources of

power within society that tribes, many of which

had formerly been part of the insurgency, started

to turn. The first had been the Albu Mahal in alQa'im in 2005. The tide truly turned in
September 2006, though, when Shaykh Abd alSittar Bezia Ftikhan al Rishawi openly announced

the formation of a tribal movement, Sahawa a!-

Anhar, opposed to AQI. Sittar's movement

backed local police forces. Because they were

Sunni, the local community would give the

police intelligence, enabling them to kill or

detain more insurgents than the Iraqi Army. The

number of police actively involved in operations

grew from fewer than 1,000 in early 2006 to over

7,000 in early 2007. By April, the police had managed to suppress insurgent activity in Ramadi

and most of the key tribes of al-Anbar had

aligned with Sittar's movement.

A New Commander and a New

Strategy

The civil war forced a major change in U.S.

strategy The Republican defeat in the midterm

elections, followed by the Iraq Study Group

report, made it impossible for Bush to ignore the

deteriorating situation. The Iraq Study Group, a

team of "prominent former US policy-makers—

inclu ding former Secretary of State James Baker,

former Senator Lee Hamilton, and former

Director of Central Intelligence Robert Gates—

recommended placing greater effort in expanding and training the Iraqi security forces, particularly the Iraqi Army. The group also called for

benchmarks to measure the progress of the Iraqi

government toward political reconciliation, and

negotiating with Iraq's neighboring countries.

Bush announced his new strategy on January

10, 2007. While he acknowledged the main recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, the

focus of the new strategy was reinforcing the

140,000 U.S. personnel in Iraq with another

20,000-25,000 in five brigade combat teams and

two Marine infantry battalions, known as "the

surge."

To execute the surge, Bush replaced Casey,

due to leave Iraq in a few months, with Petraeus.

Upon taking command on February 10, Petraeus

incorporated the best lessons from Tal Afar, a!-

Qa'im, and the new counterinsurgency manual

into the security plan for Baghdad (Operation

Fard al-Qanun). More than 50 small outposts

25

(joint security stations) manned by Iraqi police,

Iraqi Army, and U.S. soldiers were emplaced

throughout the city. His top priority was protecting the people rather than building the Iraqi

Army (although that remained a critical task). In

his view, the point of the surge was to create a

breathing space in the violence, particularly in

Baghdad, in which political reconciliation could

take place. Petraeus wrote to his troops on March

19:

Improving security for Iraq's population

is . . . the over-riding objective of your strategy. Accomplishing this mission requires

carrying out complex military operations

and convincing the Iraqi people that we

will not just "clear" their neighborhoods of

the enemy, we will also stay and help

"hold" the neighborhoods so that the

"build" phase that many of their communities need can go forward.41

Conclusion

Nearly four years of undiminished insurgent

activity forced a change in American strategy in

Iraq in 2007. The United States had made a serious attempt at adapting—shown by the subordination of military offensives to political priorities,

the adoption of the clear-hold-build approach,

the establishment of advisory teams, and the creation of provincial reconstruction teams. Yet

shortcomings remained, especially in regard to

minimizing the use of force and, more importantiy, adjusting to the impact of the sectarian divide.

The two pillars of U.S. strategy—democratization

and the building of a national and integrated

Iraqi Army—did not match the sectarian realities

of Iraq. The democratization process put the

Sunnis in a position in which they stood to gain

more by waging war than accepting the outcome

of the political process. The election of a legitimate government based on a Shi'a majority actually encouraged Sunnis to fight.

Nor was the Iraqi Army, Casey's main effort,

suited to maintaining stability. The sectarian

divide meant that Sunnis would not provide the

Iraqi Army with the intelligence necessary to

suppress insurgent activity. Conversely, the
army's own sectarian sympathies made it a poor

instrument for keeping Shi'a militias in line.

Consequently, gaining ground between 2003

and 2007 was a matter of fundamentally reorienting the whole American strategy, not just learning new tactics or making a few wiser political

decisions. This is not to say that the U.S. war

effort was doomed, but that the failure to structure strategy around the sectarian divide was a

major reason for the difficulties experienced

before 2007. Whether such a reorientation was a

realistic option is a separate question.

Abandoning democracy surely would have

incurred disapproval from domestic and international political audiences, not to mention the

Shi'a majority in Iraq. And placing less reliance

on the Iraqi Army may not have been possible,

given the small size of the U.S. military presence

and the absence of large numbers of locally

recruited Sunni forces until 2006. Indeed, even

during the surge, the Iraqi Army remained essential to U.S. counterinsurgency efforts.

In terms of the larger history of counterinsurgency, Iraq highlights the effect that social or

political constraints, in this case the sectarian

divide, have on the success of attempts to adapt

and on the kind of strategy that will be most

effective. Other factors—such as the presence of

a capable commander, an institutional willingness to adapt, or experience in fighting insurgencies—certainly play a role in effective counterinsurgency, but any successful strategy must conform to the social and political environment in

which a conflict is ensconced.

Notes

Chapter reprinted from Daniel Marston and

Carter A. Malkasian, eds., Counterinsurgency in

Modern Warfare (New York: Osprey, 2008), 241-

59. Reprinted by permission of Osprey

Publishing and Shire Publications.

1. For information on the conventional war, see

Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, Cobra H: The

Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

(New York: Pantheon Books, 2006).

2. For background on the history of Iraq, including its

sectarian divisions, see Phebe Marr, The Modern

History of Iraq (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004).

26

3. Zarqawi letter, www.cpa-iraq.org/transcripts

/20040212_zarqawi_full.html.

4. L. Paul Bremer, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle tO

Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Shuster

2006), 213, 302, 330; and Bob Woodward, State of

Denial. Bush at Wa, Part HI (New York: Simon ahd

Schuster, 2006), 229.

5. Thomas Ricks, Fiasco; The American Military

Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin, 2006), 233-34,

283; "Clash of Cultures Fuels Low Level War of

Increasing Animosity," London Financial Times, June

2, 2003).

6. Alissa Ruhin and Patrick McDonnell, "U.S. Gunships

Target Insurgents in Iraq Amid Copter Crash Inquiry,"

Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2003.

7. LtGen David Petraeus, "Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq," Military

Review, September-October 2006, 48.

8. Discussion with MajGen Andrew Graham, Camp

Victory, September 8, 2004, and Multi National

Division Southeast, Basrah, November 30, 2004.

9. Bremer, My Year in iraq, 317.

10. Address by LtGen Ricardo Sanchez, Camp Fallujah,

April 3, 2004, and I MEF Brief to Gen John Ahizaid,

Camp Fallujah, April 9, 2004.

11. Camp Fallujah, I MEF Refugee Planning Meeting,

April 10, 2004.

12. Bremer, My Year in Iraq, 326-27, 333-34.

13. Report to Congress, "Measuring Stability and

Security in Iraq" (Washington, DC, July 2005), 6.

14. ICRSS Poll, April 20-29, 2004.

15. Discussions with 1st Battalion, 23d Marine

Regiments, Camp Al Asad, October 31, 2004.

16. Meeting with LtGen James Conway and LtGen

John Sattler, Camp Fallujah, September 10, 2004.

17. Again, the fighting spread to other cities. British

battalions in Basrah and Al Amarah experienced heavy

fighting putting down the uprising, having to conduct

air strikes and patrol in Warrior fighting vehicles and

Challenger 2 tanks to deal with the militia attacks.

18. Fallujah Confirmation Brief to Gen Casey and Lt

GenMetz, Camp Fallujah, November 5, 2004.

19. For further information see John Sattler and Daniel

Wilson, "Operation Al Fajr: The Battle of Fallujah Part

II," Marine Corps Gazelle, July 2005, 12-24, and Bing

West, No True Glory. A Frontline Account of the Battle

of Failujah (New York: Bantam Books, 2005).

20. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, press release,

October 26, 2005, and speech on Iraq's Constitution,

August I, 2005.

21. George Packer, "The Lesson of Tal Afar," New

Yorker, vol. 82. no. 8 (April 10, 2006).

22. Chris Gibson, "Battlefield Victories and Strategic

Success: The Path Forward in Iraq," Military Review,

September-October 2006, 50-55.

23. H. R. McMaster, Georgetown University, December

2006.

24. Discussions with 3d Battalion, 6th Marine
Regiment (3/6), Camp al-Qa'irn, February 21, 2006.

25. Ibid.

26. .Discussions with 3/6, Camp al-Qa'im, February 21,

2006, and with 3d Brigade, 7th Iraqi Brigade military

transition team, Camp Al Asad, July 15, 2006.

27. Josh White, "Report on Haditha Condemns

Marines," Washington Post, April 21, 2007.

28. Mental Health Advisory Team IV Final Report.

Office of the Surgeon General. U.S. Army Medical

Command (November 17, 2006), 35.

29. Al-Anbar Survey 11: September/October 2006

(October 2006); Al Anbar Survey 7: May 2006, Lincoln

Group Survey Report (June 10, 2006).

30. World Public Opinion Poll, www.worldpublicopinion.org (January 2, 2006) 75 percent of Sunnis had little confidence in the Iraqi Army according to Iraq Poll

2007, BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV, USA Today

(March 2007).

31. World Public Opinion Poll; Iraq Poll, BBC, ABC

News, ARD German TV, USA Today (March 2007).

32. Gen George Casey, Brief to I Marine Expeditionary

Force, Camp Fallujah, March 13, 2006.

33. Brief to the Commandant of the Marine Corps,

Camp Fallujah, April 11, 2006.

34. Solomon Moore and Julian Barnes, "Many Iraq:

Troops are No-Shows in Baghdad," Los Angeles Times,

September 23, 2006.

35. John Burns, "U.S. Says Violence in Baghdad Rises,

Foiling Campaign," New York Times, October 2, 2006.

36. LtGen Michael Maples, DIA Testimony to the

Senate Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC,

November 15, 2006.

37. Fallujah City Council Meeting, Mayor's Complex,

July 25, 2006.

38. Discussion with Fallujah city leaders, Fallujah

CMOC, August 1, 2006.

39. Iraq Poll, BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV, USA

Today (March 2007).

40. Vali Nasr, "When the Shiites Rise," Foreign Affairs,

July/August 2006.

41. Gen David Petraeus, Note to Troops, March 19,

2007.

27

About the Author

Carter A. Malkasian directs the Small Wars Program at the Center

for Naval Analyses. Prior to his current job, he was assigned to the

I Marine Expeditionary Force as an advisor on counterinsurgency,

He deployed with I MEF to Iraq from February to May 2003,

February 2004 to February 2005, and February to August 2006.

Iraq's Civil War

by James D. Fearon

Foreign Affairs, March-April 2007

No Graceful Exit

s sectarian violence spiked in Baghdad

around last Thanksgiving [2006], Bush

dministration spokespeople found themselves engaged in a strange semantic fight with

American journalists over whether the conflict in

Iraq is appropriately described as a civil war. It is

not hard to understand why the administration

strongly resists the label. For one thing, the U.S.

media would interpret a change in the White

House's position on this question as a major concession, an open acknowledgment of dashed

hopes and failed policy. For another, the administration worries that if the U.S. public comes to

see the violence in Iraq as a civil war, it will be

even less willing to tolerate continued U.S. military engagement. "If it's a civil war, what are we

doing there, mixed up in someone else's fight?"

Americans may ask.

But if semantics could matter a lot, it is less

obvious whether they should influence U.S. policy. Is it just a matter of domestic political games

and public perceptions, or does the existence of

civil war in Iraq have implications for what can

be achieved there and what strategy Washington

should pursue?

In fact, there is a civil war in progress in Iraq,

one comparable in important respects to other

civil wars that have occurred in postcolonial

states with weak political institutions. Those

cases suggest that the Bush administration's

political objective in Iraq—creating a stable,

peaceful, somewhat democratic regime that can

survive the departure of U.S. troops—is unrealistic. Given this unrealistic political objective, military strategy of any sort is doomed to fail almost

regardless of whether the administration goes

with the "surge" option, as President George W.

29

Bush has proposed, or shifts toward a pure training mission, as advised by the Iraq Study Group.

Even if an increase in the number of U.S. combat troops reduces violence in Baghdad and so

buys time for negotiations on power sharing in

the current Iraqi government, there is no good

reason to expect that subsequent reductions

would not revive the violent power struggle.

Civil wars are rarely ended by stable power-sharing agreements. When they are, it typically takes

combatants who are not highly factionalized and

years of fighting to clarify the balance of power.

Neither condition is satisfied by Iraq at present.

Factionalism among the Sunnis and the Shiites

approaches levels seen in Somalia, and multiple

armed groups on both sides appear to believe

that they could wrest control of the government

if U.S. forces left. Such beliefs will not change

quickly while large numbers of U.S. troops

remain.

As the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad proceeds,

the weak Shiite-dominated government is

inevitably becoming an open partisan in a nasty

civil war between Sunni and Shiite Arabs. As a

result, President Bush's commitment to making a

"success" of the current government will increasingly amount to siding with the Shiites, a position

that is morally dubious and probably not in the

interest of either the United States or long-term

regional peace and stability. A decisive military

victory by a Shiite-dominated government is not

possible anytime soon given the favorable conditions for insurgency fought from the Sunni-dommated provinces. Furthermore, this course

encourages Sunni nationalists to turn to al-Qaeda

in Iraq for support against Shiite militias and the

Iraqi army. It also essentially aligns Washington

with Tehran against the Sunni-dominated states

to the west.

As long as the Bush administration remains

absolutely committed to propping up the govërnment of Prime Minister Noun al-Maliki or a
similarly configured successor, the U.S. government will have limited leverage with almost all of

the relevant parties. By contrast, moving away

from absolute commitment—for example, by

beginning to shift U.S. combat troops out of the

central theaters—would increase U.S. diplomatic

and military leverage on almost all fronts. Doing

so would not allow the current or the next U.S.

administration to bring a quick end to the civil

war, which most likely will last for some time.

But it would allow the United States to play a

balancing role between the combatants that

would he more conducive to reaching, in the

long run, a stable resolution in which Sunni,

Shiite, and Kurdish interests are well represented

in a decent Iraqi government. If the Iraqis ever

manage to settle on the power-sharing agreement that is the objective of current U.S. policy,

it will come only after bitter fighting in the civil

war that is already under way.

War Records

A civil war is. a violent conflict within a country fought by organized groups that aim to take

power at the center or in a region, or to change

government policies. Everyday usage of the term

"civil war" does not entail a clear threshold for

how much violence is necessary to qualify a conflict as a civil war, as opposed to terrorism or

low-level political strife. Political scientists sometimes use a threshold of at least 1,000 killed over

the course of a conflict. Based on this arguably

rather low figure, there have been around 125

civil wars since the end of World War II, and

there are roughly 20 ongoing today. If that

threshold is increased to an average of 1,000

people killed per year, there have still been over

90 civil wars since 1945. (It is often assumed that

the prevalence of civil wars is a post-Cold War

phenomenon, but in fact the number of ongoing

civil wars increased steadily from 1945 to the

early 1990s, before receding somewhat to late1970s levels.) The rate of killing in Iraq—easily

more than 60,000 in the last three years—puts

the conflict in the company of many recent ones

that are routinely described as civil wars (for

example, those in Algeria, Colombia, Guatemala,

30

Peru, and Sri Lanka). Indeed, even the conservative estimate of 60,000 deaths would make Iraq

the ninth-deadliest civil war since 1945 in terms

of annual casualties.

A major reason for the prevalence of civil wars

is that they have been hard to end. Their average

duration since 1945 has been about 10 years,

with half lasting more than seven years. Their

long duration seems to result from the way in

which most of these conflicts have been fought:

namely, by rebel groups using guerrilla tactics,

usually operating in rural regions of postcolonial

countries with weak administrative, police, and

military capabilities. Civil wars like that of. the

United States, featuring conventional armies facing off along well-defined fronts, have been

highly unusual. Far more typical have been conflicts such as those in Algeria, Colombia, Sri

Lanka, and southern and western Sudan. As

these cases illustrate, rural guerrilla warfare can

be an extremely robust tactic, allowing relatively

small numbers of rebels to gain partial control of

large amounts of territory for years despite

expensive and brutal military campaigns against

them.

The civil war in Iraq began in 2004 as a primarily urban guerrilla struggle by Sunni insurgent

groups hoping to drive out the United States and

to regain the power held by Sunnis under

Saddam Hussein. It escalated in 2006 with the

proliferation and intensification of violence by

Shiite militias, who ostensibly seek to defend

Shiites from the Sunni insurgents and who have

pursued this end with "ethnic cleansing" and a

great deal of gang violence and thuggery.

This sort of urban guerrilla warfare and militia-based conflict differs from the typical post1945 civil war, but there are analogues. One little-discussed.but useful comparison is the violent

conflict that wracked Turkish cities between 1977

and 1980. According to standard estimates, fighting among local militias and paramilitaries aligning themselves with "the left" or "the right" killed

more than 20 people per day in thousands of

attacks and counterattacks, assassinations, and

death-squad campaigns. Beginning with a massacre by rightists in the city of Kahramanmaras in

December 1978, the left-right conflicts spiraled
into ethnic violence, pitting Sunnis against

Alawites against Kurds against Shiites in various

cities.

As in Iraq today, the organization of the

Turkish combatants was highly local and factionalized, especially on the left; the fighting often

looked like urban gang violence. But, also as in

Iraq, the gangs and militias had shady ties to the

political parties controlling the democratically

elected national parliament as well. (Indeed, one

might describe the civil conflicts in Turkey then

and in Iraq now as "militarized party politics.")

Intense political rivalries between the leading

Turkish politicians, along with their politically

useful ties to the paramilitaries, prevented the

democratic regime from moving decisively to

end the violence. Much as in Iraq today, the

elected politicians fiddled while the cities

burned. Fearing that the lower ranks of the military were becoming infected with the violent factionalism of the society at large, military leaders

undertook a coup in September 1980, after

which they unleashed a major wave of repression against militias and gang members of both

the left and the right. At the price of military rule

(for what turned out to be three years), the urban

terror was ended.

Especially if the United States withdraws from

Iraq, the odds are good that a military coup in

which some subset of the Iraqi army leadership

declares that the elected government is not working and that a strong hand is necessary to impose

order will result. It is unlikely, however, that a

military regime in Iraq would be able to follow

the example of the one in Turkey in the early

1980s. The Turkish military was a strong institution with enough autonomy and enough loyalty

to the Kemalist national ideal that it could act

independently of the divisions tearing the country apart. Although the army favored the right

more than the left, Turkish citizens saw it as largely standing apart from the factional fighting—and

thus as a credible intervenor. By contrast, the

Iraqi army and, even more, the Iraqi police force

appear to have little autonomy from society and

politics. The police look like militia members in

different uniforms, Sometimes with some U.S.

training. The army has somewhat more institu31

tional coherence and autonomy, but it is Shiitedominated and has few functional mixed units.

Some evidence suggests that high-level figures in

the army are facilitating, if not actively pursuing,

ethnic cleansing. Accordingly, a power grab by a

subset of the army leadership would be widely

interpreted as a power grabby a particular Shiite

faction—and could lead the army to break up

along sectarian and, possibly, factional lines.

What happened in Lebanon in 1975-76 may

offer better insights into what is likely to happen

in Iraq. As violence between Christian militias and

Palestine Liberation Organization [PLOI factions

started to escalate in 1975, the Lebanese army

leadership initially stayed out of the conflict, realizing that the army would splinter if it tried to

intervene. But as the violence escalated, the army

eventually did intervene—and broke apart.

Lebanon then entered a long period of conflict

during which an array of Christian, Sunni, Shiite,

and PLO militias fought one another off and on

(as much within sectarian groups as between

them). Syrian and Israeli military involvement

sometimes reduced and sometimes escalated the

violence. Alliances shifted, often in surprising

ways. The Syrians, for example, initially sided

with the Christians against the PLO.

A similar scenario is already playing out in

Iraq. Whether U.S. forces stay or go, Iraq south of

the Kurdish areas will probably look more and

more like Lebanon during its long civil war.

Effective political authority will devolve to

regions, cities, and even neighborhoods. After a

period of ethnic cleansing and fighting to draw

lines, an equilibrium with lower-level, more intermittent sectarian violence will set in, punctuated

by larger campaigns financed and aided by foreign powers. Violence and exploitation within

sects will most likely worsen, as the neighborhood militias and gangs that carried out the ethnic cleansing increasingly fight among themselves

over turf, protection rackets, and trade. As in

Lebanon, there will probably be a good deal of

intervention by neighboring states—especially

Iran—but it will not necessarily bring them great

strategic gains. To the contrary, it may bring them

a great deal of grief, just as it has the United

States.
Learning to Share?

When they do finally end, civil wars typically

conclude with a decisive military victory for one

side. Of the roughly 55 civil wars fought for control of a central government (as opposed to for

secession or regional autonomy) since 1955, fully

75 percent ended with a clear victory for one

side. The government ultimately crushed the

rebels in at least 40 percent of the 55 cases,

whereas the rebels won control of the center in

35 percent. Power-sharing agreements that

divide up control of a central government among

the combatants have been far less common. By

my reckoning, at best, 9 of the 55 cases, or about

16 percent, ended this way. Examples include El

Salvador in 1992, South Africa in 1994, and

Tajikistan in 1997.

If successful power-sharing agreements rarely

end civil wars, it is not for lack of effort.

Negotiations on power sharing are common in

the midst of civil wars, as are failed attempts,

often with the help of outside intervention by

states or international institutions, to implement

such agreements. The point of departure for both

the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the rebel

attack that ended it, for example, was the failure

of an extensive power-sharing agreement

between the Rwandan government, Huffi opposition parties, and the Tutsi insurgents.

Power-sharing agreements rarely work in

large part because civil wars cause combatants to

be organized in a way that produces mutually

reinforcing fears and temptations: combatants are

afraid that the other side will use force to grab

power and at the same time are tempted to use

force to grab power themselves. If one militia

fears that another will try to use force to win control of the army or a city, then it has a strong

incentive to use force to prevent this. The other

militia understands this incentive, which gives it

a good reason to act exactly .as the first militia

feared. In the face of these mutual, self-fulfilling

fears, agreements on paper about dividing up or

sharing control of political offices, the military,

or, say, oil revenues are often just that—paper.

They may survive while a powerful third party

implicitly threatens to prevent violent power

32

grabs (as the United States has done in Iraq), but

they are likely to disintegrate otherwise.

The Bush administration has attempted to

help put in place an Iraqi government based on

a power-sharing agreement among Shiite, Sunni,

and Kurdish leaders, but it has done so in the

midst of an escalating civil war. The historical

evidence suggests that this is a Sisyphean task.

The effective provision of security by an intervening power may even undermine the belief

that the government could stand on its own without the third party's backing. U.S. military intervention in Iraq is thus unlikely to produce a government that can survive by itself whether the

troops stay 10 more months or 10 more years.

Could Iraq in 2007 be one of the rare cases in

which power sharing successfully ends a civil

war? Examining earlier such cases suggests that

they have two distinctive features that make

power sharing feasible. First, a stable agreement

is typically reached only after a period of fighting

has clarified the relative military capabilities of

the various sides. Each side needs to come to the

conclusion that it cannot get everything it wants

by violence. For example, the Dayton agreement

that divided power among the parties to the

Bosnian war required not only NATO intervention to get them to the table and enforce the deal

but also more than three years of intense fighting, which had brought the combatants essentially to a stalemate by the summer of 1995. (Even

then, the agreement would not have held, and

the government would surely have collapsed, if

not for a continued third-party guarantee from

NATO and effective sovereign control by the

Office of the High Representative created under

Dayton.)

Second, a power-sharing deal tends to hold

only when every side is relatively cohesive. How

can one party expect that another will live up to

its obligations if it has no effective control over

its own members? Attempts to construct powersharing deals to end civil wars in Burundi and

Somalia, for example, have been frustrated for

years by factionalism within rebel groups.

Conversely, the consolidation of power by one

rebel faction can sometimes enable a peace

agreement—as occurred prior to the deal that
ended the first war between Khartoum and

southern Sudanese rebels in 1972.

Neither of these conditions holds for Iraq.

First, there are many significant (and well-armed)

Sunni groups that seem to believe that without

U.S. troops present, they could win back control

of Baghdad and the rest of the country. And

there are many Shiites, including many with

guns, who believe that as the majority group

they can and will maintain political domination

of Iraq. Moreover, among the Shiites, Muqtada alSadr seems to believe that he could wrest control

from his rivals if the United States left. Indeed, if

the United States withdraws, violence between

Shiite militias will likely escalate further. Open

fighting between Shiite militias might, in turn,

reaffirm the Sunni insurgents' belief that they will

be able to retake power.

Second, both the Sunnis and the Shiites are

highly factionalized, at the national political level

and at the level of neighborhood militias and

gangs. Shiite politicians are divided into at least

four major parties, and one of these, Dawa (the

party of Prime Minister Maliki), has historically

been divided into three major factions. Sadr is

constantly described in the U.S. media as the

leader of the largest and most aggressive Shiite

militia in Iraq, but it has never been clear if he

can control what the militias who praise his

name actually do. The Iraqi Sunnis are similarly

divided among tribes outside of Baghdad, and

the organizational anarchy of Sunni Islam seems

to make group-wide coordination extremely difficult.

If Maliki had the authority of a Nelson

Mandela, and a party organization with the (relative) coherence and dominance of the African

National Congress in the anti-apartheid struggle,

he would be able to move more effectively to

incorporate and co-opt various Sunni leaders

into the government without fear of undermining

his own power relative to that of his various

Shiite political adversaries. He would also be better able to make credible commitments to deliver on promises made to Sunni leaders. As it is,

intra-Shiite political rivalries render the new government almost completely dysfunctional. Its

ministers see their best option as cultivating mili33

tias (or ties to militias) for current and coming

fights, extortion rackets, and smuggling operations.

Tragically, more civil war may be the only

way to reach a point where power sharing could

become a feasible solution to the problem of

governing Iraq. More fighting holds the prospect

of clarifying the balance of forces and creating

pressures for internal consolidation on one or

both sides, thereby providing stronger grounds

for either a victory by one side or a stable negotiated settlement. Should the latter eventually

come into view, some sort of regional or international peacekeeping force will almost surely be

required to help bring it into being. The Iraq

Study Group report is quite right that Washington

should be setting up diplomatic mechanisms for

such eventualities, sooner rather than later.

Balancing Act

Hopefully, this analysis is too pessimistic.

Perhaps Iraq's elected politicians will muddle

through, and perhaps the Iraqi army will, with

U.S. support, develop the capability and motivation to act effectively and evenhandedly against

insurgents and militias on all sides. The optimistic scenario is so unlikely, however, that policy makers must consider the implications if civil

war in Iraq continues and escalates.

Suppose that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad

continues and Sunni insurgent groups and Shiite

militias continue to fight one another, U.S.

troops, and civilians. If the Bush administration

sticks to its "stay the course toward victory"

approach, of which the surge option is the latest

incarnation, it will become increasingly apparent

that this policy amounts to siding with the Shiites

in an extremely vicious Sunni-Shiite war. U.S.

troops may play some positive role in preventing

human rights abuses by Iraqi army units and

slowing down violence and ethnic cleansing. But

as long as the United States remains committed

to trying to make this Iraqi government "succeed" on the terms President Bush has laid out,

there is no escaping the fact that the central function of U.S. troops will be to backstop Maliki's

government or its successor. That security gives
Maliki and his coalition the ability to tacitly pursue (or acquiesce in) a dirty war against actual

and imagined Sunni antagonists while publicly

supporting "national reconciliation."

This policy is hard to defend on the grounds

of either morality or national interest. Even if

Shiite thugs and their facilitators in the government could succeed in ridding Baghdad of

Sunnis, it is highly unlikely that they would be

able to suppress the insurgency in the Sunnimajority provinces in western Iraq or to prevent

attacks in Baghdad and other places where

Shiites live. In other words, thecurrent U.S. policy probably will not lead to a decisive military

victory anytime soon, if ever. And even if it did,

would Washington want it to? The rise of a brutal, ethnically exclusivist, Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad would further the perception of Iran as the ascendant regional power.

Moreover, U.S. backing for such a government

would give Iraqi Sunnis and the Sunni-dominated countries in the Middle East no reason not to

support al-Qaeda as an ally in Iraq. By spurring

these states to support Sunni forces fighting the

Shiite government, such backing would ultimately pit the United States against those states in a

proxy war.

To avail itself of more attractive policy

options, the Bush administration (or its successor) must break off its unconditional military

support for the Shiite-dominated government

that it helped bring to power in Baghdad.

Washington's commitment to Maliki's government undermines U.S. diplomatic and military

leverage with almost every relevant party in the

country and the region. Starting to move away

from this commitment by shifting combat troops

out of the central theaters could, accordingly,

increase U.S. leverage with almost all parties.

The current Shiite political leadership would then

have incentives to try to gain back U.S. military

support by, for example, making more genuine

efforts to incorporate Sunnis into the government

or reining in Shiite militias. (Admittedly, whether

it has the capacity to do either is unclear.) As U.S.

troops departed, Sunni insurgent groups would

begin to see the United Statesless as a committed ally of the "Persians" and more as a potential

34

source of financial or even military backing.

Washington would also have more leverage with

Iran and Syria, because the U.S. military would

not he completely bogged down in Baghdad and

Anbar Province—and because both of those

countries have a direct interest in avoiding

increased chaos in Iraq.

Again, none of this would make for a quick

end to the civil war, which will probably last for

some time in any event. But it would allow the

United States to move toward a balancing role

that would be more conducive to ultimately gaining a stable resolution in which Sunni, Shiite, and

Kurdish interests are represented in a decent

Iraqi government.

Despite the horrific violence currently tearing

Iraq apart, in the long run there is hope for the

return of a viable Iraqi state based on a political

bargain among Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish leaders. Indeed, they may end up cooperating on

terms set by a constitution similar to the current

one—although only after a significant period of

fighting. The basis for an Iraqi state is the common interest of all parties, especially the elites, in

the efficient exploitation of oil resources.

Continued civil war could persuade Shiite leaders that they cannot fully enjoy oil profits and

political control without adequately buying off

Sunni groups, who can maintain a costly insurgency. And civil war could persuade the Sunnis

that a return to Sunni dominance and Shiite quiescence is impossible. Kurdish leaders have an

interest in the autonomy they have already

secured but with access to functioning oil

pipelines leading south.

There are, of course, other possible outcomes

of continued civil war in Iraq, including a formal

breakup of the country or a decisive victory

south of the Kurdish areas by a Sunni- or Shiitedominated military organization that would

impose a harsh dictatorship. Insofar as the

United States can influence the ultimate outcome, neither of these is as good a long-term

policy objective as a power-sharing agreement.

As the Iraq Study Group has argued, attempting

to impose some kind of partition would probably increase the killing. In addition, there are no

obvious defensible borders to separate Sunnis
from Shiites; the Sunnis would not rest content

with an oil-poor patch of western Iraq; it is not

clear that new Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish states

would be much more peaceful than Iraq is at

present; and there would be considerable economic inefficiencies from making three states

from one in this area. It is conceivable that civil

war will someday lead the combatants in Iraq to

agree on Iraq's partition anyway, but this is a

decision for Iraqis rather than outsiders to make.

Most civil wars end with a decisive military

victory—and this one may as well—but a decisive military victory and political dictatorship for

some Sunni or Shiite group is even less appealing as a long-term U.S. policy objective. A decisive military victory for a Shiite-dominated faction would favor both Iran and al-Qaeda, and a

decisive victory for Sunni insurgents would

amount to restoring oppressive minority rule, a

major reason for the current mess.

Two less extreme outcomes would be much

better for most Iraqis, for regional peace and stability, and for U.S. interests in the region. The

first would be a power-sharing agreement among

a small number of Iraqi actors who actually commanded a military force and controlled territory,

to be stabilized at least initially by an international peacekeeping operation. The second would

be the rise of a dominant military force whose

leader had both the inclination and the ability to

cut deals with local 'warlords" or political bosses from all other groups. Neither outcome can be

imposed at this point by the United States. Both

could be reached only through fighting and bargaining carried out primarily by Iraqis.

To facilitate either outcome, the U.S. government would have to pursue a policy of balancing, using diplomatic, financial, and possibly

some military tools to encourage the perception

that no one group or faction can win without

sharing power and resources. A balancing policy

might be pursued from "offshore," implemented

mainly by supplying monetary and material sup35

port to tactical allies, or "onshore," possibly

drawing on air strikes or other forms of U.S. military intervention originating from bases in Iraq

or close by. The mechanics would necessarily

depend on a complicated set of diplomatic, political, and military contingencies. The important

point is that the only alternative to some form of

balancing policy would be to support decisive

victory by one side or the other, which would

probably be undesirable even in 'the unlikely

event that victory came soon.

Even if the coming "surge" in U.S. combat

troops manages to lower the rate of killing in

Baghdad, very little in relevant historical experience or the facts of this case suggests that U.S.

troops would not be stuck in Iraq for decades,

keeping sectarian and factional power struggles

at bay while fending off jihadist and nationalist

attacks. The more likely scenario is that the Bush

administration's commitment to the "success" of

the Maliki government will make the United

States passively complicit in a massive campaign

of ethnic cleansing. Standing back to adopt a

more evenhanded policy in the civil war already

in progress is a more sensible and defensible

course. To pursue it, the Bush administration or

its successor would first have to give up on the

idea that a few more U.S. brigades or a change

in U.S. tactics will make for an Iraq that can, in

President Bush's words, "govern itself, sustain

itself, and defend itself' once U.S. troops are

gone.

Notes

Foreign Affairs, March-April 2007, 2-16.

Reprinted by permission of the Council on Foreign

Relations, Inc. (www.ForeignAffairs .com), © 2007.

About the Author

James D. Fearon is Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the

School of Humanities and Sciences and professor of political science at Stanford University He is also an affiliated faculty member with the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Part II: Counterinsurgency and Irregular

Warfare—Observations and Principles

T

he first part of America's war with Iraq was char-i

acterized by large-scale maneuver operations as

U.S. combat units sped across the Iraqi desert to

unseat Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime. This phase

was relatively brief, lasting only a few weeks. The gen:

eral insurgency against the U.S. presence in Iraq has

lasted significantly longer.

The need to defeat the Iraq insurgency and bring

order and stability to the country provoked a debate

within the U.S. military about the best and most effective means to conduct counterinsurgency operations.

While the U.S. armed services, and the Marine Corps in

particular, had a long tradition of conducting such operations, the transition from maneuver combat to irregular warfare was nevertheless a difficult one that

required radical changes in how to assess and confront

enemy forces. The initial reaction of many units was to

make liberal use of heavy firepower to destroy the

insurgent forces. However, this tactic endangered Iraqi

civilians and threatened to provoke even more opposition to the U.S. presence in the country. Other

American commanders championed tactics that focused

on protecting the civilian population and building local

infrastructures and civic institutions. Other leaders, such

Multi National Force-Iraq commander General George

W. Casey Jr., USA, favored building local Iraqi forces to

prosecute counterinsurgency operations, thus permitting a drastic reduction of U.S. forces.

The period from 2004 to 2008 saw the production of

a number of works aimed at developing new strategies

and tactics for combating insurgencies. These works

presented broad principles and strategies that drew on

century's old concepts about the nature of irregular

warfare and the best way of battling insurgencies.

David Kilcullen's "Twenty-Eight Articles," for example,

made a conscious decision to draw upon one of the first

modern theorists of insurgencies in the Middle East,

British Colonel T. E. Lawrence. Kilcullen's article, modeled after Lawrence's own article, "Twenty-Seven

Articles"1 aims to demonstrate the critical differences

between irregular warfare and maneuver warfare, while

also stressing the need to understand the culture and

37

circumstances of the area of operations.

In 2006, the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps published a new doctrine, Counterinsurgency (Field Manual

3-24/Marine Corps Publication 3-33.5). The commanders

who directed the creation of the manual, Lieutenant

General David H. Petraeus, USA, Lieutenant General

James N. Mattis, and Lieutenant General James F. Amos,

were all division commanders during Operation Iraqi

Freedom II who advocated counterinsurgency tactics

based on respecting local culture and customs, engaging

and protecting the population, building local institutions, and using highly mobile patrols to hunt down and

kill insurgents without resorting to large-scale use of

firepower. General Petraeus's 2006 article, "Learning

Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in

Iraq," draws on his experience as the commander of the

101st Airborne Division in the northern Iraqi city of

Mosul. The article outlines a number of principles that

would help shape the new counterinsurgency manual.

Kilcullen's and Petraeus's articles are reprinted below.

As military thinkers developed new approaches to

counterinsurgency doctrine, the question of air power

was often overlooked. With insurgents operating out of

often densely population urban centers, aerial bonbardment, no matter how accurate, often threatened killing

civilians and causing excessive damage. As a consequence, many commanders perceived the use of airpower as an unnecessary risk that would cause a rift

between the local population and U.S. forces and

enflame the insurgency. In "Making Revolutionary

Change: Airpower in COIN Today," Major General

Charles A. Dunlap Jr., USAF, nevertheless argues that air

power can and should play a role in effective counterinsurgency operations. Focusing on unmanned aerial vehicles and the logistical support air power can provide to

the combat zone, Dunlap makes the argument that air

power constitutes a critically overlooked component of

irregular warfare.

1. T.E. Lawrence, "Twenty-Seven Articles," The Arab Bulletin,

20 August 1917 (online at http://www.hu.edu/mzank/

Jerusalem/tx/lawrence.htm).

Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of

Company-Level Counterinsurgency

by David Kilcullen

Marine Coips Gazette, July 2006

y

our company has just been warned for

deployment on counterinsurgency operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. You have read

David Galula, T. E. Lawrence, and Sir Robert

Thompson. You have studied Field Manual 3-24,

Counterinsurgency, and now understand the history, philosophy, and theory of counterinsurgency.

You watched Black Hawk Down and The Battle of

Algiers, and you know this will be the most difficult challenge of your life. But what does all of the

theory mean at the company level? How do the

principles translate into action—at night, with the

global positioning system down, the media criticizing you, the locals complaining in a language you

don't understand, and an unseen enemy killing

your people by ones and twos? How does counterinsurgency actually happen?

There are no universal answers, and insurgents

are among the most adaptive opponents you will

ever face. Countering them will demand every

ounce of your intellect. But be comforted; you are

not the first to feel this way. There are tactical fundamentals you can apply to link the theory with

the techniques and procedures you already know.

What is Counterinsurgency?

If you have not studied counterinsurgency theory, here it is in a nutshell. It is a competition with

the insurgent for the right and the ability to win

the hearts, minds, and acquiescence of the population. You are being sent in because the insurgents, at their strongest, can defeat anything weaker than you. But you have more combat power

than you can or should use in most situations.

Injudicious use of firepower creates blood feuds,

homeless people, and societal disruption that fuels

and perpetuates the insurgency. The most beneficial actions are often local politics, civic action,

39

and beat-cop behaviors. For your side to win, the

people do not have to like you, but they must

respect you, accept that your actions benefit them,

and trust your integrity and ability to deliver on

promises, particularly regarding their security. In

this battlefield, popular perceptions and rumor are

more influential than the facts and more powerful

than 100 tanks.

Within this context, what follows are observations from collective experience—the distilled

essence of what those who went before you

learned. They are expressed as commandments,

for clarity, but are really more like folklore. Apply

them judiciously and skeptically.

Preparation

Time is short during predeployment, but you

will never have more time to think than you have

now. Now is your chance to prepare yourself and

your command.

Article 1. Know your turf Know the people,

topography, economy, history, religion, and culture. Know every village, road, field, population

group, tribal leader, and ancient grievance. Your

task is to become the world expert on your district. If you don't know precisely where you will

be operating, study the general area. Read the

map like a book; study it every night before sleep,

and redraw it from memory every morning until

you understand its patterns intuitively. Develop a

mental model of your area—a framework in which

to fit every new piece of knowledge you acquire.

Study handover notes from predecessors; better

still, get in touch with the unit in-theater and pick

their brains. In an ideal world, intelligence officers

and area experts would brief you. This rarely happen. Even if it does, there is no substitute for personal mastery. Understand the broader "area of

influence." This can be a wide area, particularly

when insurgents draw on "global" grievances.

Share aspects of the operational area among pla-
toon leaders and noncommissioned officers; have

each individual develop a personal specialization

and brief the others. Neglect this knowledge and

it will kill you.

Article 2. Diagnose the problem. Once you

know your area and its people, you can begin to

diagnose the problem. Who are the insurgents?

What drives them? What makes local leaders tick?

Counterinsurgency is fundamentally a competition

between many groups, each seeking to mobilize

the population in support of their agenda.

Counterinsurgency is always more than two sided,

so you must understand what motivates the people and how to mobilize them. You need to know

why and how the insurgents are getting followers.

This means you need to know your real enemy,

not a cardboard cutout. The enemy is adaptive,

resourceful, and probably grew up in the region

where you will operate. The locals have known

him since he was a boy. How long have they

known you? Your worst opponent is not the psychopathic terrorist of Hollywood; it is the charismatic "follow me" warrior who would make your

best platoon leader. His followers are not misled

or naïve. Much of his success is due to had government policies or security forces that alienate

the population. Work this problem collectively

with your platoon and squad leaders. Discuss

ideas, explore the problem, understand what you

are facing, and seek a consensus. If this sounds

"unmilitary," get over it. Once you are in-theater,

situations will arise too quickly for orders or even

commander's intent. Corporals and privates will

have to make snap judgments with strategic

impact. The only way to help them is to give them

a shared understanding, then trust them to think

for themselves on the day.

Article 3. Organize for intelligence. In counterinsurgency, killing the enemy is easy. Finding

him is often nearly impossible. Intelligence and

operations are complementary. Your operations

will be intelligence driven, but intelligence will

come mostly from your own operations, not as a

"product" prepared and served up by higher headquarters. So you must organize for intelligence.

You will need a company S-2 intelligence section—including analysts. You may need platoon S2s and S-3s (operations), and you will need a

40

reconnaissance and surveillance (R&S) element.

You will not have enough linguists—you never

do—but consider carefully where best to employ

them. Linguists are battle-winning assets; but like

any other scarce resource, you must have a prioritized "hump plan" in case you lose them. Often

during predeployment preparations the best use of

linguists is to train your command in basic language skills. You will probably not get augmentation for all of this, but you must still do it. Put the

smartest Marines in the S-2 section and the R&S

squad. You will have one less rifle squad, but the

intelligence section will pay for itself in lives and

effort saved.

Article 4. Organize for interagency operations.

Almost everything in counterinsurgency is interagency. And everything important—from policing

to intelligence to civil-military operations to trash

collection—will involve your company working

with civilian actors and local indigenous partners

you cannot control but whose success is essential

for yours. Train the company in interagency operations. Get briefings from the State Department,

aid agencies, and the local police or fire brigade.

Train point men in each squad to deal with .the

interagency. Realize that civilians find rifles, helmets, and body armor intimidating. Learn how not

to scare them. Ask others who come from that

country or culture about your ideas. See it through

the eyes of a civilian who knows nothing about

the military. How would you react if foreigners

came to your neighborhood and conducted the

operations you planned? What if somebody came

to your mother's house and did that? Most importantly, know that your operations will create temporary breathing space, but long-term development and stabilization by civilian agencies will

ultimately win the war.

Article 5. Travel light and harden your combat

service support (CSS). You will be weighed clown

with body armor, rations, extra ammunition, communications gear, and 1,000 other things. The

enemy will carry a rifle or rocket propelled

grenade, a shemagh (a traditional Arab head scarf

worn as protection from bright sunlight, sun glare,

and blowing sand in the desert), and a water bottle if he is lucky. Unless you ruthlessly lighten your

load and enforce a culture of speed and mobility,
the insurgents will consistently outrun and outmaneuver you. But in lightening your load, make

sure you can always "reach back" to call for fire

power or heavy support if needed. Also, remember to harden your CSS. The enemy will attack

your weakest points. Most attacks on coalition

forces in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, outside of preplanned combat actions like the two batles of

Fallujah or Operation Iron Horse, were against CSS

installations and convoys. You do the math.

Ensure that your CSS assets are hardened, have

communications, and are trained in combat operations. They may do more fighting than your rifle

squads.

Article 6 Find a political/cultural adviser In a

force optimized for counterinsurgency, you might

receive a political/cultural adviser at company

level—a diplomat or military foreign area officer

who is able to speak the language and navigate

the intricacies of local politics. Back on planet

Earth, the division commander will get a political/cultural advisor. You will not, so you must

improvise. Find a political/cultural adviser from

among your people, perhaps an officer, perhaps

not. (See Article 8.) Someone with people skills

and a "feel" for the environment will do better

than a political science graduate. Don't try to be

your own cultural adviser. You must be fully

aware of the political and cultural dimension, but

this is a different task. Also, don't give one of your

intelligence people this role. They can help, but

their task is to understand the environment. The

political adviser's job is to help shape it.

Article 7. Train the squad leaders and then

trust them. Counterinsurgency is a squad and platoon leader's war, and often a private Marine's

war. Battles are won or lost in moments. Whoever

can bring combat power to bear in seconds on a

Street corner will win. The commander on the spot

controls the fight. You must train the squad leaders to act intelligently and independently without

orders. If your squad leaders are competent, you

can get away with average company or platoon

staffs. The reverse is not the case. Training should

focus on basic skills—marksmanship, patrolling,

security on the move and at the halt, and basic

drills. When in doubt, spend less time on compafly and platoon training and more time on squad

41

training. Ruthlessly replace leaders who do not

make the grade. But once people are trained, and

you have a shared operational "diagnosis," you

must trust them. We talk about this, but few company or platoon leaders really trust their people.

In counterinsurgency, you have no choice.

Article 8. Rank is nothing; talent is everything.

Not everyone is good at counterinsurgency. Many

people don't understand the concept, and some

who do can't execute it. It is difficult, and in a conventional force only a few people will master it.

Anyone can learn the basics, but a few "naturals"

do exist. Learn how to spot these people and put

them in positions where they can make a difference. Rank matters far less than talent; a few good

men under a smart junior noncommissioned officer can succeed in counterinsurgency where hundreds of well-armed Marines under a mediocre

senior officer will fail.

Article 9. Have a game plan. The final preparation task is to develop a game plan—a mental picture of how you see the operation developing.

You will be tempted to try to do this too early. But

wait. As your knowledge improves, you will get a

better idea of what needs to be done and of your

own limitations. Like any plan, this plan will

change once you hit the ground and may need to

be scrapped if there is a major shift in the environment. But you still need a plan, and the process of

planning will give you a simple, robust idea of

what to achieve, even if the methods change. This

is sometimes called "operational design." One

approach is to identify basic stages in your operation. For example, establish dominance, build

local networks, and marginalize the enemy. Make

sure you can easily transition between phases,

both forward and backward in case of setbacks.

Just as the insurgent can adapt his activity to yours,

you must have a simple enough plan to survive

setbacks without collapsing. This plan is the "solution" that matches the shared "diagnosis" you

developed earlier. It must be simple and known to

everyone.

The Golden Hour

You have deployed, completed reception and

staging, and (if you are lucky) attended the in-
country counterinsurgency school. Now it is time to

enter your sector and start your tour. This is the

golden hour. Mistakes made now will haunt you for

the rest of the tour, while early successes will set

the tone for victory. You will look back on your

early actions and cringe at your clumsiness. So be

it, but you must act.

Article 10. Be there. The first rule of deployment

in counterinsurgency is to be there. You can almost

never outrun the enemy. If you are not present

when an incident happens, there is usually little

you can do about it. So your first order of business

is to establish presence. If you cannot do this

throughout your sector, then do it wherever you

can. Establishing presence demands a residential

approach—living in your sector, in close proximity

to the population, rather than raiding into the area

from remote, secure bases. Movement on foot,

sleeping in local villages, night patrolling, all of

these seem more dangerous than they are. These

actions establish links with the locals who see you

as real people they can trust and do business with,

not as aliens who descend from an armored box.

Driving around in an armored convoy—day-tripping like a tourist in hell—degrades situational

awareness, makes you a target, and is ultimately

more dangerous.

Article 11. Avoid knee-jerk responses to first

impressions. Don't act rashly; get the facts first. The

violence you see may be part of the insurgent strategy, it may he various interest groups fighting it

Out, or it may he people settling personal vendettas. Or, it may just be daily life. "Normality" in

Kandahar is not the same as in Kansas. So you need

time to learn what normality looks like. The insurgent commander also wants to goad you into lashing out at the population or making a mistake.

Unless you happen to be on the spot when an incident occurs, you will have only secondhand reports

and may misunderstand the local context or interpretation. This fragmentation and "disaggregation"

of the battlefield—particularly in urban areas—

means that first impressions are often highly misleading. Of course, you cannot avoid making judgments. But if possible, check them with an older

hand or a trusted local. If you can, keep one or two

officers from your predecessor unit for the first part

of the tour. Try to avoid a rush to judgment.

42

Article 12. Prepare for bandover from day one.

Believe it or not, you will not resolve the insurgency on your watch. Your tour will end, and

your successors will need your corporate know!-

edge. Start handover folders, in every platoon and

specialist squad, from day one. Ideally, you would

have inherited these from your predecessors, hut

if not, you must start them. The folders should

include lessons learned, details about the population, village and patrol reports, updated maps,

photographs—anything that will help newcomers

master the environment. Computerized databases

are fine, but keep good backups and ensure that

you have a hard copy of key artifacts and documents. This is boring, tedious, and essential. Over

time you will create a corporate memory that

keeps your people alive.

Article 13. Build trusted networks. Once you

have settled into your sector, your next task is to

build trusted networks. This is the true meaning

of the phrase "hearts and minds," which comprises two separate components. "Hearts" means persuading people that their best interests are served

by your success; "minds" means convincing them

that you can protect them and that resisting you is

pointless. Note that neither concept has to do

with whether people like you. Calculated selfinterest, not emotion, is what counts. Over time, if

you successfully build networks of trust, these will

grow like roots into the population, displacing the

enemy's networks, bringing him out into the open

to fight you, and seizing the initiative. These networks include local allies, community leaders,

local security forces, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other friendly or neutral nonstate actors in your area, and the media. Conduct

village and neighborhood surveys to identify

needs in the community and then follow through

to meet them, build common interests, and mobilize popular support. This is your true main effort;

everything else is secondary. Actions that help

build trusted networks serve your cause.

Actions—even killing high-profile targets—that

undermine trust or disrupt your networks help the

enemy.

Article 14. Start easy. If you were trained in

maneuver warfare you know about surfaces and

gaps. This theory applies to counterinsurgency as
much as any other form of maneuver. Don't try to

crack the hardest nut first. Don't go straight for the

main insurgent stronghold, try to provoke a decisive showdown, or focus efforts on villages that

support the insurgents. Instead, start from secure

areas and work gradually outward. Do this by

extending your influence through the locals' own

networks. Go with, not against, the grain of local

society. First win the confidence of a few villages

and then see with whom they trade, intermarry, or

do business. Now win these people over. Soon

enough the showdown with the insurgents will

come. But now you have local allies, a mobilized

population, and a trusted network at your back.

Do it the other way around and no one will

mourn your failure.

Article 15. Seek early victories. In this early

phase your aim is to stamp your dominance in

your sector. Do this by seeking an early victory.

This will probably not translate into a combat victory over the enemy. Looking for such a victory

can be overly aggressive and create collateral

damage, especially since you really do not yet

understand your sector. Also, such a combat victory depends on the enemy being stupid enough

to presentyou with a clear-cut target, a rare windfall in counterinsurgency. Instead, you may

achieve a victory by resolving long-standing

issues your predecessors have failed to address or

co-opting a key local leader who has resisted

cooperation with your forces. Like any other form

of armed propaganda, achieving even a small victory early in the tour sets the tone for what comes

later and helps seize the initiative, which you

have probably lost due to the inevitable hiatus

entailed by the handover/takeover with your

predecessor.

Article 16 Practice deterrent patrolling.

Establish patrolling methods that deter the enemy

from attacking you. Often our patrolling approach

seems designed to provoke, then defeat, enemy

attacks. This strategy is counterproductive; it leads

to a raiding, day-tripping mindset or, worse, a

bunker mentality. Instead, practice deterrent

patrolling. There are many methods for deterrent

patrolling, including "multiple" patrolling where

you flood an area with numerous small patrols

working together. Each is too small to be a worth43

while target, and the insurgents never know

where all of the patrols are, making an attack on

any one patrol extremely risky. Other methods

include so-called "blue-green" patrolling where

you mount daylight overt humanitarian patrols

that go covert at night and hunt specific targets.

Again, the aim is to keep the enemy off balance

and the population reassured through constant

and unpredictable activity that, over time, deters

attacks and creates a more permissive environment. A reasonable rule of thumb is that one- to

two-thirds of your force should be on patrol at

any time, day or night.

Article 17. Be prepared for setbacks. Setbacks

are normal in counterinsurgency, as in every other

form of war. You will make mistakes, lose people,

or occasionally kill or detain the wrong person.

You may fail in building or expanding networks.

If this happens, don't lose heart. Simply drop back

to the previous phase of your game plan and

recover your balance. It is normal in company

counterinsurgency operations for some platoons

to be doing well, while others do badly. This is

not necessarily evidence of failure. Give local

commanders the freedom to adjust their posture

to local conditions. This freedom creates elasticity

that helps you survive setbacks.

Article 18. Remember the global audience. One

of the biggest differences between the counterinsurgencies our fathers fought and those we face

today is the omnipresence of globalized media.

Most houses in Iraq have one or more satellite

dishes. Web bloggers; print, radio, and television

reporters; and others are monitoring and commenting on your every move. When the insurgents ambush your patrols or set off a car bomb,

they do so not to destroy one more track, but

because they want graphic images of a burning

vehicle and dead bodies for the evening news.

Beware of the "scripted enemy" who plays to a

global audience and seeks to defeat you in the

court of global public opinion. You counter this

tactic by training people to always bear in mind

the global audience, assume that everything they

say or do will be publicized, and befriend the

media. Document everything you do. Have a

video or photographic record, or an independent

witness, wherever possible. This documentation
makes it harder for the enemy to put negative

"spin" on your actions with disinformation. Get

the press on your side, help them get their story,

and trade information with them. Good relationships with nonembedded media—especially

indigenous media—dramatically increase your situational awareness and help get your message

across to the global and local audience.

Article 19. Engage the women; beware of the

children. Most insurgent fighters are men. But in

traditional societies, women are hugely influential

in forming the social networks that insurgents use

for support. Co-opting neutral or friendly women

through targeted social and economic programs

builds networks of enlightened self-interest that

eventually undermine the insurgents. You need

your own female counterinsurgents, including

interagency people, to do this effectively. Win the

women and you own the family unit. Own the

family and you take a big step forward in mobilizing the population. Conversely, though, stop

your people from fraternizing with local children.

Your troops are homesick; they want to drop their

guard with the kids. But children are sharp-eyed,

lacking in empathy, and willing to commit atrocities that their elders would shrink from. The insurgents are watching. They will notice a growing

friendship between one of your people and a

local child and either harm the child as punishment or use him against you. Similarly, stop

throwing candies or presents to children. It

attracts them to your vehicles, creates crowds the

enemy can exploit, and leads to children being

run over. Harden your heart and keep the children at arm's length.

Article 20. Take stock regularly. You probably

already know that a "body count" tells you little,

because you usually cannot know how many

insurgents there were to start with, how many

moved into the area, how many transferred from

supporter to combatant status, or how many new

fighters the conflict has created. But you still need

to develop metrics early in the tour and refine

them as the operation progresses. They should

cover a range of social, informational, military,

and economic issues. Use metrics intelligently to

form an overall impression of progress—not in a

mechanical "traffic light" fashion. Typical metrics

44

include percentage of engagements initiated by

our forces versus those initiated by insurgents,

longevity of friendly local leaders in positions of

authority, number and quality of tip-offs on insurgent activity that originate spontaneously from the

population, and economic activity at markets and

shops. These mean virtually nothing as a snapshot. Trends over time are the true indicators of

progress in your sector.

Groundhog Day

Now you are in "steady state." You are established in your sector, and people are settling into

that "groundhog day" mentality that hits every

unit at some stage during every tour. It will probably take people at least the first third of the tour

to become effective in the environment, if not

longer. Then in the last period you will struggle

against the short-timer mentality. So this middle

part of the tour is the most productive. But keeping the flame alive and bringing the local population along with you takes immense leadership.

Article 21. Exploit a "single narrative." Since

counterinsurgency is a competition to mobilize

popular support, it pays to know how people are

mobilized. In most societies there are opinion

makers—local leaders, pillars of the community,

religious figures, media personalities, and others

who set trends and influence public perceptions.

This influence—including the pernicious influence of the insurgents—often takes the form of a

single narrative—a simple, unifying, easily

expressed story or explanation that organizes

people's experience and provides a framework

for understanding events. Nationalist and ethnic

historical myths, or sectarian creeds, provide such

a narrative. The Iraqi insurgents have one, as do

al-Qaeda and the Taliban. To undercut their influence you must exploit an alternative narrative, or

better yet, tap into an existing narrative that

excludes the insurgents. This narrative is often

worked out for you by higher headquarters, but

only you have the detailed knowledge to tailor

the narrative to local conditions and generate

leverage from it. For example, you might use a

nationalist narrative to marginalize foreign fighters

in your area, or a narrative of national redemption
to undermine former regime elements that have

been terrorizing the population. At the company

level you do this in baby steps by getting to know

local opinion makers, winning their trust, learning

what motivates them, and building on this trust to

find a single narrative that emphasizes the

inevitability and rightness of your ultimate success. This is art, not science.

Article 22. Local forces should mirror the

enemy, not ourselves. By this stage you will be

working closely with local forces, training or supporting them, and building indigenous capability.

The natural tendency is to build forces in our own

image with the aim of eventually handing our role

over to them. This is a mistake. Instead, local

indigenous forces need to mirror the enemy's

capabilities and seek to supplant the insurgent's

role. This does not mean they should be "irregular" in the sense of being brutal or outside proper

control. Rather, they should move, equip, and

organize like the insurgents but have access to

your support and be under the firm control of

their parent societies Combined with a mobilized

population and trusted networks, this allows local

forces to "hardwire" the enemy out of the environment, under top cover from you. At the company level, this means that raising, training, and

employing local indigenous auxiliary forces

(police and military) are valid tasks. These tasks

require high-level clearance, of course, but if support is given, you should establish a company

training cell. Platoons should aim to train one

local squad and then use that squad as a nucleus

for a partner platoon. Company headquarters

should train an indigenous leadership team. This

mirrors the "growth" process of other trusted networks and tends to emerge naturally as you win

local allies who want to take up arms in their own

defense.

Article 23. Practice armed civil affairs.

Counterinsurgency is armed social work, an

attempt to redress basic social and political problems while being shot at. This situation makes

civil affairs a central counterinsurgency activity,

not an afterthought. It is how you restructure the

environment to displace the enemy from it. In

your company sector, civil affairs must focus on

meeting basic needs first and then progress up

45.

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs as each

successive need is met. A series of village or

neighborhood surveys, regularly updated, is an

invaluable tool to help understand the population's needs and track progress in meeting them

over time. You need intimate cooperation with

interagency partners here—national, international,

and local. You will not be able to control these

partners. Many NGOs, for example, do not want

to be too closely associated with you because

they need to preserve their perceived neutrality.

Instead, you need to work on a shared diagnosis

of the problem, building a consensus that helps

you self-synchronize. Your role is to provide protection, identify needs, facilitate civil affairs, and

use improvements in social conditions as leverage

to build networks and mobilize the population.

Thus, there is no such thing as impartial humanitarian assistance or civil affairs in counterinsurgency. Every time you help someone, you hurt

someone else—not the least the insurgents. So

civil and humanitarian assistance personnel will

be targeted. Protecting them is a matter not only

of close-in defense, but also of creating a permissive operating environment by co-opting the beneficiaries of aid—local communities and leadersto help you help them.

Article 24. Small is beautiful. Another natural

tendency is to go for large-scale, mass programs.

In particular, we have a tendency to template

ideas that succeed in one area and transplant

them into another, and we tend to take small programs that work and try to replicate them on a

larger scale. Again, this strategy is usually a mistake. Often programs succeed because of specific

local conditions of which we are unaware, or

because their very smallness kept them below the

enemy's radar and helped them flourish unmolested. At the company level, programs that succeed

in one district often also succeed in another

(because the overall company sector is small), but

small-scale projects rarely proceed smoothly into

large programs. Keep programs small. Small scale

makes them cheap, sustainable, low key, and

(importantly) recoverable if they fail. You can add

new programs—also small, cheap, and tailored to

local conditions—as the situation allows.

Article 25. Fight the enemy's strategy, not his
forces. At this stage, if things are proceeding well,

the insurgents will go over to the offensive. Yes,

the offensive because you have created a situation

so dangerous to the insurgents, by threatening to

displace them from the environment, that they

have to attack you and the population to get back

into the game. Thus it is normal, even in the most

successful operations, to have spikes of offensive

insurgent activity late in the campaign. This activity does not necessarily mean you have done

something wrong (though it may—it depends on

whether you have successfully mobilized the population). At this point the tendency is to go for the

jugular and seek to destroy the enemy's forces in

open battle. This strategy is rarely the best choice

at the company level, because provoking major

combat usually plays into the enemy's hands by

undermining the population's confidence.

Instead, attack the enemy's strategy. If he is seeking to recapture the allegiance of a segment of the

local population, then co-opt them against him. If

he is trying to provoke a sectarian conflict, go

over to "peace enforcement mode." The permutations are endless, but the principle is the same—

fight the enemy's strategy, not his forces.

Article 26 Build your own solution—only

attack the enemy when he gets in the way. Try not

to be distracted or forced into a series of reactive

moves by a desire to kill or capture the insurgents. Your aim should he to implement your

own solution—the game plan you developed

early in the campaign and then refined through

interaction with local partners. Your approach

must be environment-centric (based on dominating the whole district and implementing a solution

to its systemic problems) rather than enemy centric. This means that, particularly late in the campaign, you may need to learn to negotiate with

the enemy. Members of the population that support you also know the enemy's leaders (they

may have grown up together in the small district

that is now your company sector), and valid

negotiating partners sometimes emerge as the

campaign progresses. Again, you need close interagency relationships to exploit opportunities to

co-opt segments of the enemy. This helps you

wind down the insurgency without alienating

potential local allies who have relatives or friends

46

in the insurgent movement. At this stage, a defection is better than a surrender, a surrender is better than a capture, and a capture is better than a

kill.

Getting Short

Time is short, and the tour is drawing to a

close. The key problem now is keeping your peopie focused, preventing them from dropping their

guard, and maintaining the rage on all of the multifarious programs, projects, and operations that

you have started. In this final phase, the previous

articles still stand, but there is an important new

one.

Article 27. Keep your extraction plan secret.

The temptation to talk about home becomes

almost unbearable toward the end of a tour. The

locals know you are leaving and probably have a

better idea than you of the generic extraction

plan. Remember, they have seen units come and

go. But you must protect the specific details of the

extraction plan, or the enemy will use this time as

an opportunity to score a high-profile hit, recapture the population's allegiance by scare tactics

that convince them they will not be protected

once you leave, or persuade them that your successor unit will be oppressive or incompetent.

Keep the details secret, within a tightly controlled

compartment in your headquarters. And resist the

temptation to say goodbye to local allies. You can

always send a postcard from home.

Four 'What Ifs'

The articles above describe what should happen, but we all know that things go wrong. Here

are some "what ifs" to consider.

What f you get moved to a dfferent area?

You prepared for Ramadi and studied Dulaim

tribal structures and Sunni beliefs. Now you are

going to Najaf and will be surrounded by alHassan and Unizzah tribes and Shi'a communities. But that work was not wasted. In mastering

your first area, you learned techniques you can

apply—how to "case" an operational area or

how to decide what matters in the local societal

structure. Do the same again. This time the
process is easier and faster. You have an existing

mental structure and can focus on what is different. The same applies if you get moved frequently within a battalion or brigade area.

What if higher headquarters doesn't 'get"

counterinsurgency? Higher headquarters is

telling you that the mission is to "kill terrorists"

or is pushing for high-speed armored patrols and

a base camp mentality. They just do not seem to

understand counterinsurgency. This is not

uncommon since company grade officers today

often have more combat experience than senior

officers. In this case, just do what you can. Try

not to create expectations that higher headquarters will not let you meet. Apply the adage "first

do no harm." Over time you will find ways to do

what you have to do. But never lie to higher

headquarters about your locations or activities:

They own the indirect fires.

What if you have no resources? Yours is a

low-priority sector. You have no linguists, the aid

agencies have no money for projects in your

area, and you have a low priority for funding.

You can still get things done, but you need to

focus on self-reliance, keeping things small and

sustainable, and ruthlessly prioritize effort. Local

community leaders are your allies. They know

what matters to them more than you do. Be honest with them, discuss possible projects and

options with community leaders, and get them to

choose what their priorities are. Often they will

find the translators, building supplies, or expertise that you need and will only expect your support and protection in making their projects

work. And the process of negotiation and consultation will help mobilize their support and

strengthen their social cohesion. If you set your

sights on what is achievable, the situation can

still work.'

What if the theater situation shifts under

your feet? It is your worst nightmare. Everything

has gone well in your sector, but the whole theater situation has changed and invalidates your

efforts. Think of the first battle of Fallujah, the alAskariya shrine bombing, or the Sadr uprising.

What do you do? Here is where having a flexible, adaptive game plan comes in. Just as the

insurgents drop down to a lower posture when

things go wrong, now is the time to drop back a

47

stage, consolidate, regain your balance, and prepare to expand again when the situation allows.

But, see Article 28. If you cede the initiative, you

must regain it as soon as the situation allows, or

you will eventually lose.

Conclusion

This then is the tribal wisdom, the folklore

that those who went before you have learned.

Like any folklore it needs interpretation and contains seemingly contradictory advice. Over time,

as you apply unremitting intellectual effort to

study your sector, you will learn to apply these

ideas in your own way and will add to this store

of wisdom from your own observations and

experience. So only one article remains. If you

remember nothing else, remember this one.

Article 28. Whatever else you do, keep the initiative. In counterinsurgency, the initiative is everything. If the enemy is reacting to you, you control

the environment. Provided you mobilize the population, you will win. If you are reacting to the

enemy—even if you are killing or capturing him in

large numbers—then he is controlling the environment, and you will eventually lose. In counterinsurgency, the enemy initiates most attacks, targets

you unexpectedly, and withdraws too fast for you

to react. Do not be drawn into purely reactive

operations. Focus on the population, build your

own solution, further your game plan, and fight

the enemy only when he gets in the way. This

strategy gains and keeps the initiative.

Notes

Marine Corps Gazette, July 2006, 53-60.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright Marine Corps

Gazette.

About the Author

David Kilcullen is a partner at the Crumpton Group, a

Washington-based strategic advisory firm, and author of The

Accidental Guerrilla. Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big

One (2009). A former Australian infantry officer with 22 years'

service, including operational deployments in East Timoi

Bougainville, and the Middle East, he was a senior counterinsurgency advisor to General David H. Petraeus, USA, in Iraq in 2007

and a special advisor for counterinsurgency to Secretary of State

Condoleezza Rice in 2008.

Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations

from Soldiering in Iraq

by Lieutenant General David H Petraeus, USA

Military Review, January-February 2006

T

he Army has learned a great deal in Iraq

and Afghanistan about the conduct of counterinsurgency operations, and we must continue to learn all that we can from our experiences

in those countries.

The insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were

not, in truth, the wars for which we were best prepared in 2001; however, they are the wars we are

fighting and they clearly are the kind of wars we

must master. America's overwhelming conventional military superiority makes it unlikely that future

enemies will confront us head on. Rather, they will

attack us asymmetrically, avoiding our strengths—

firepower, maneuver, technology—and come at us

and our partners the way the insurgents do in Iraq

and Afghanistan. It is imperative, therefore, that

we continue to learn from our experiences in

those countries, both to succeed in those endeavors and to prepare for the future.

Soldiers and Observations

Writing down observations and lessons learned

is a time-honored tradition of Soldiers. Most of us

have done this to varying degrees, and we then

reflect on and share what we've jotted down after

returning from the latest training exercise, mission,

or deployment. Such activities are of obvious

importance in helping us learn from our own

experiences and from those of others.

In an effort to foster learning as an organization, the Army institutionalized the process of collection, evaluation, and dissemination of observations, insights, and lessons some 20 years ago with

the formation of the Center for Army Lessons

Learned.1 In subsequent years, the other military

services and the Joint Forces Command followed

suit, forming their own lessons learned centers.

More recently, the Internet and other knowledgemanagement tools have sped the processes of col49

lection, evaluation, and dissemination enormously.

Numerous products have already been issued

since the beginning of our operations in

Afghanistan and Iraq, and most of us have found

these products of considerable value as we've prepared for deployments and reviewed how different units grappled with challenges our elements

were about to face.

For all their considerable worth, the institutional structures for capturing lessons are still dependent on soldiers' thoughts and reflections. And soldiers have continued to record their own observations, particularly in recent years as we have

engaged in so many important operations. Indeed,

my own pen and notebook were always handy

while soldiering in Iraq, where I commanded the

101st Airborne Division during our first year there

(during the fight to Baghdad and the division's

subsequent operations in Iraq's four northern

provinces), and where, during most of the subsequent year-and-a-half, I helped with the so-called

"train and equip" mission, conducting an assessment in the spring of 2004 of the Iraqi security

forces after their poor performance in early April

2004, and then serving as the first commander of

the Multi National Security Transition CommandIraq and the NATO Training Mission-Iraq.

What follows is the distillation of a number of

observations jotted down during that time. Some

of these observations are specific to soldiering in

Iraq, hut the rest speak to the broader challenge of

conducting counterinsurgency operations in a vastly different culture than our own. I offer 14 of

those observations here in the hope that others

will find them of assistance as they prepare to

serve in Iraq or Afghanistan or in similar missions

in the years ahead.

Fourteen Observations

Observation Number 1 is 'Do not try to do too

much with your own hands." T. E. Lawrence

offered this wise counsel in an article published
in The Arab Bulletin in August 1917. Continuing,

he wrote: "Better the Arabs do it tolerably than

that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you

are to help them, not win it for them. Actually,

also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia,

your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is. It may take them longer and

it may not be as good as you think, hut if it is

theirs, it will be better."2

Lawrence's guidance is as relevant in the 21st

century as it was in his own time in the Middle

East during World War I. Like much good advice,

however, it is sometimes easier to put forward

than it is to follow. Our Army is blessed with

highly motivated soldiers who pride themselves

on being action oriented. We celebrate a "can

do" spirit, believe in taking the initiative, and

want to get on with. business. Yet, despite the

discomfort in trying to follow Lawrence's advice

by not doing too much with our own hands,

such an approach is absolutely critical to success

in a situation like that in Iraq. Indeed, many of

our units recognized early on that it was important that we not just perform tasks for the Iraqis,

but that we help our Iraqi partners, over time

enabling them to accomplish tasks on their own

with less and less assistance from us.

Empowering Iraqis to do the job themselves

has, in fact, become the essence of our strategy—and such an approach is particularly applicable in Iraq. Despite suffering for decades

under Saddam, Iraq still has considerable human

capital, with the remnants of an educated middle

class, a number of budding entrepreneurs, and

many talented leaders. Moreover, the Iraqis, of

course, know the situation and people far better

than we ever can, and unleashing their productivity is essential to rebuilding infrastructure and

institutions. Our experience, for example, in

helping the Iraqi military reestablish its staff colleges and branch-specific shools has been that,

once a good Iraqi leader is established as the

head of the school, he can take it from there,

albeit with some degree of continued Coalition

assistance. The same has been true in many

other areas, including in helping establish certain

Army units (such as the Iraqi Army's 9th Division

(Mechanized), based north of Baghdad at Taji,

50

and the 8th Division, which has units in five

provinces south of Baghdad) and police academies (such as the one in Hillah, run completely

by Iraqis for well over six months). Indeed, our

ability to assist rather than do has evolved considerably since the transition of sovereignty at

the end of late June 2004 and even more so since

the elections of 30 January 2005. I do not, to be

sure, want to downplay in the least the amount

of work still to be done or the daunting challenges that lie ahead; rather, I simply want to

emphasize the importance of empowering,

enabling, and assisting the Iraqis, an approach

that figures prominently in our strategy in that

country.

Observation Number 2 is that, in a Situation

like Iraq, the liberating force must act quickly,

because every army of liberation has a half-life

beyond which it turns into an army of occupation. The length of this half-life is tied to the perceptions of the populace about the impact of the

liberating force's activities. From the moment a

force enters a country, its leaders must keep this

in mind, striving to meet the expectations of the

liberated in what becomes a race against the

clock.

This race against the clock in Iraq has been

complicated by the extremely high expectations

of the Iraqi people, their pride in their own abilities, and their reluctant admission that they

needed help from Americans, in particular.3

Recognizing this, those of us on the ground at

the outset did all that we could with the

resources available early on to help the people,

to repair the damage done by military operations

and looting, to rebuild infrastructure, and to

restore basic services as quickly as possible—in

effect, helping extend the half-life of the army of

liberation. Even while carrying out such activities, however, we were keenly aware that sooner or later, the people would begin to view us as

an army of occupation. Over time, the local citizenry would feel that we were not doing enough

or were not moving as quickly as desired, would

see us damage property and hurt innocent civilians in the course of operations, and would

resent the inconveniences and intrusion of

checkpoints, low helicopter flights, and other
military activities. The accumulation of these perceptions, coupled with the natural pride of Iraqis

and resentment that their country, so blessed in

natural resources, had to rely on outsiders,

would eventually result in us being seen less as

liberators and more as occupiers. That has, of

course, been the case to varying degrees in much

of Iraq.

The obvious implication of this is that such

endeavors—especially in situations like those in

Iraq—are a race against the clock to achieve as

quickly as possible the expectations of those liberated. And, again, those expectations, in the

case of Iraqi citizens, have always been very high

indeed.4

Observation Number 3 is that, in an endeavor

like that in Iraq, money is ammunition. In fact,

depending on the situation, money can be more

important than real ammunition—and that has

often been the case in Iraq since early April 2003

when Saddam's regime collapsed and the focus

rapidly shifted to reconstruction, economic

revival, and restoration of basic services. Once

money is available, the challenge is to spend it

effectively and quickly to rapidly achieve measurable results. This leads to a related observation

that the money needs to be provided as soon as

possible to the organizations that have the capability and capacity to spend it in such a manner.

So-called CERP (Commander's Emergency

Reconstruction Program) funds—funds created

by the Coalition Provisional Authority with captured Iraqi money in response to requests from

units for funds that could be put to use quickly

and with minimal red tape—proved very important in Iraq in the late spring and summer of

2003. These funds enabled units on the ground

to complete thousands of small projects that

were, despite their low cost, of enormous importance to local citizens.5 Village schools, for

example, could be repaired and refurbished by

less than $10,000 at that time, and units like the

101st Airborne Division carried out hundreds of

school repairs alone. Other projects funded by

CERP in our area included refurbishment of

Mosul University, repairs to the Justice Center,

numerous road projects, countless water projects, refurbishment of cement and asphalt facto51

ries, repair of a massive irrigation system, support for local elections, digging of dozens of

wells, repair of police stations, repair of an oil

refinery, purchase of uniforms and equipment

for Iraqi forces, construction of small Iraqi Army

training and operating bases, repairs to parks

and swimming pools, support for youth soccer

teams, creation of employment programs, refurbishment of medical facilities, creation of a central Iraqi detention facility, establishment of a

small business loan program, and countless other

small initiatives that made big differences in the

lives of the Iraqis we were trying to help.

The success of the CERP concept led Congress

to appropriate additional CERP dollars in the fall

of 2003, and additional appropriations have continued ever since. Most commanders would

agree, in fact, that CERP dollars have been of

enormous value to the effort in Iraq (and in

Afghanistan, to which the concept migrated in

2003 as well).

Beyond being provided money, those organizations with the capacity and capability to put it

to use must also be given reasonable flexibility in

how they spend at least a portion of the money,

so that it can be used to address emerging

needs—which are inevitable. This is particularly

important in the case of appropriated funds. The

recognition of this need guided our requests for

resources for the Iraqi security forces "train and

equip" mission, and the result was a substantial

amount of flexibility in the 2005 supplemental

funding measure that has served that mission

very well, especially as our new organization

achieved the capability and capacity needed to

rapidly put to use the resources allocated to it.6

Observation Number 4 reminds us that

increasing the number of stakeholders is critical

to success. This insight emerged several months

into our time in Iraq as we began to realize that

more important than our winning Iraqi hearts

and minds was doing all that we could to ensure

that as many Iraqis as possible felt a stake in the

success of the new Iraq. Now, I do not want to

downplay the importance of winning hearts and

minds for the Coalition, as that extends the halflife I described earlier, something that is of obvious desirability. But more important was the idea
of Iraqis wanting the new Iraq to succeed. Over

time, in fact, we began asking, when considering

new initiatives, projects, or programs, whether

they would help increase the number of Iraqis

who felt they had a stake in the country's success. This guided us well during the time that the

10 1st Airborne Division was in northern Iraq and

again during a variety of initiatives pursued as

part of the effort to help Iraq reestablish its security forces. And it is this concept, of course, that

undoubtedly is behind the reported efforts of the

U.S. Ambassador in Iraq to encourage Shi'a and

Kurdish political leaders in Iraq to reach out to

Sunni Arab leaders and to encourage them to

help the new Iraq succeed.

The essence of Observation Number 5—that

we should analyze costs and benefits of operations before each operation—is captured in a

question we developed over time and used to

ask before the conduct of operations: "Will this

operation," we asked, 'take more bad guys off

the Street than it creates by the way it is conducted?" If the answer to that question was, "No,"

then we took a very hard look at the operation

before proceeding.

In 1986, General John Galvin, then

Commander in Chief of the U.S. Southern

Command (which was supporting the counterinsurgency effort in El Salvador), described the

challenge captured in this observation very effectively: "The ... burden on the military institution

is large. Not only must it subdue an armed adversary while attempting to provide security to the

civilian population, it must also avoid furthering

the insurgents' cause. If, for example, the military's actions in killing 50 guerrillas cause 200

previously uncommitted citizens to join the

insurgent cause, the use of force will have been

counterproductive. "

To be sure, there are occasions when one

should he willing to take more risk relative to

this question. One. example was the 101st

Airborne Division operation to capture or kill

Uday and Qusay. In that case, we ended up firing well over a dozen antitank missiles into the

house they were occupying (knowing that all the

family members were safely out of it) after Uday

and Qusay refused our call to surrender and

52

wounded three of our soldiers during two

attempts to capture them.8

In the main, however, we sought to carry out

operations in a way that minimized the chances

of creating more enemies than we captured or

killed. The idea was to try to end each day with

fewer enemies than we had when it started. Thus

we preferred targeted operations rather than

sweeps, and as soon as possible after completion

of an operation, we explained to the citizens in

the affected areas what we'd done and why we

did it.

This should not be taken to indicate that we

were the least bit reluctant about going after the

Saddamists, terrorists, or insurgents; in fact, the

opposite was the case. In one night in Mosul

alone, for example, we hit 35 targets simultaneously, getting 23 of those we were after, with

only one or two shots fired and most of the operations requiring only a knock on a door, vice

blowing it down. Such operations obviously

depended on a sophisticated intelligence structure, one largely based on human intelligence

sources and very similar to the Joint Interagency

Task Forces for Counter-Terrorism that were

established in various locations after 9/11.

That, logically, leads to Observation Number

6, which holds that intelligence is the key to suc- cess. It is, after all, detailed, actionable intelligence that enables "cordon and knock" operations and precludes large sweeps that often

prove counterproductive. Developing such intelligence, however, is not easy. Substantial assets

at the local (i.e., division or brigade) level are

required to develop human intelligence networks and gather sufficiently precise information

to allow targeted operations.. For us, precise

information generally meant a 10-digit grid for

the target's location, a photo of the entry point,

a reasonable description of the target, and directions to the target's location, as well as other

information on the neighborhood, the target site,

and the target himself. Gathering this information

is hard; considerable intelligence and operational

assets are required, all of which must be pulled

together to focus (and deconflict) the collection,

analytical, and operational efforts. But it is precisely this type of approach that is essential to
preventing terrorists and insurgents from putting

down roots in an area and starting the process of

intimidation and disruption that can result in a

catastrophic downward spiral.

Observation Number 7, which springs from

the fact that civil affairs are not enough when

undertaking huge reconstruction and nationbuilding efforts, is that everyone must do nationbuilding. This should not be taken to indicate

that I have anything but the greatest of respect

for our civil affairs personnel, because I hold

them in very high regard. I have personally

watched them work wonders in Central America,

Haiti, the Balkans, and, of course, Iraq. Rather,

my point is that when undertaking industrialstrength reconstruction on the scale of that in

Iraq, civil affairs forces alone will not suffice;

every unit must be involved.

Reopening the University of Mosul brought

this home to those of us in the 10 1st Airborne

Division in the spring of 2003. A symbol of considerable national pride, the university had graduated well over a hundred thousand students

since its establishment in 1967. Shortly after the

seating of the interim governor and province

council in Nineveh Province in early May 2003,

the council's members established completion of

the school year at the university as among their

top priorities. We thus took a quick trip through

the university to assess the extent of the damage

and to discuss reopening with the chancellor. We

then huddled with our civil affairs battalion commander to chart a way ahead, but we quickly

found that, although the talent inherent in the

battalion's education team was impressive, its

members were relatively junior in rank and its

size (numbering less than an infantry squad) was

simply not enough to help the Iraqis repair and

reopen a heavily-looted institution of over 75

buildings, some 4,500 staff and faculty, and

approximately 30-35,000 students. The mission,

and the education team, therefore, went to one

of the two aviation brigades of the 101st

Airborne Division, a brigade that clearly did not

have "Rebuild Foreign Academic Institutions" in

its mission .essential task list. What the brigade

did have, however, was a senior commander and

staff, as well as numerous subordinate units with

53

commanders and staffs, who collectively added

up to considerable organizational capacity and

capability.

Seeing this approach work with Mosul

University, we quickly adopted the same

approach in virtually every area—assigning a

unit or element the responsibility for assisting

each of the Iraqi Ministries' activities in northern

Iraq and also for linking with key Iraqi leaders.

For example, our signal battalion incorporated

the civil affairs battalion's communications team

and worked with the Ministry of

Telecommunications element in northern Iraq,

helping reestablish the local telecommunications

structure, including assisting with a deal that

brought a satellite downlink to the central switch

and linked Mosul with the international phone

system, producing a profit for the province (subscribers bore all the costs). Our chaplain and his

team linked with the Ministry of Religious Affairs,

the engineer battalion with the Ministry of Public

Works, the division support command with the

Ministry of Youth and Sports, the corps support

group with the Ministry of Education, the military

police battalion with the Ministry of Interior

(Police), our surgeon and his team with the

Ministry of Health, our staff judge advocate with

Ministry of Justice officials, our fire support element with the Ministry of Oil, and so on. In fact,

we lined up a unit or staff section with every

ministry element and with all the key leaders and

officials in our AOR, and our subordinate units

did the same in their areas of responsibility. By

the time we were done, everyone and every element, not just civil affairs units, was engaged in

nation-building.

Observation Number 8, recognition of the

need to help build institutions, not just units,

came from the Coalition mission of helping Iraq

reestablish its security forces. We initially focused

primarily on developing combat l4nits—army and

police battalions and brigade headquarters—as

well as individual police. While those are what

Iraq desperately needed to help in the achievement of security, for the long term there was also

a critical need to help rebuild the institutions that

support the units and police in the field—the

ministries, the admin and logistical support units,
admin policies and procedures, and the training

organizations. In fact, lack of ministry capability

and capacity can undermine the development of

the battalions, brigades, and divisions, if the ministries, for example, don't pay the soldiers or

police on time, use political rather than professional criteria in picking leaders, or fail to pay

contractors as required for services provided.

This lesson underscored for us the importance of

providing sufficient advisors and mentors to

assist with the development of the security ministries and their elements, just as we provided

advisor teams with each battalion and each

brigade and division headquarters.9

Observation Number 9, cultural awareness is

a force multiplier, reflects our recognition that

knowledge of the cultural "terrain" can be as

important as, and sometimes even more important than, knowledge of the geographic terrain.

This observation acknowledges that the people

are, in many respects, the decisive terrain, and

that we must study that terrain in the same way

that we have always studied the geographic terrain.

Working in another culture is enormously difficult if one doesn't understand the ethnic

groups, tribes, religious elements, political parties, and other social groupings—and their

respective viewpoints; the relationships among

the various groups; governmental structures and

processes; local and regional history; and, of

course, local and national leaders. Understanding

of such cultural aspects is essential if one is to

help the people build stable political, social, and

economic institutions. Indeed, this is as much a

matter of common sense as operational necessity. Beyond the intellectual need for the specific

knowledge about the environment in which one

is working, it is also clear that people, in general, are more likely to cooperate if those who

have power over them respect the culture that

gives them a sense of identity and self-worth.

In truth, many of us did a lot of "discovery

learning" about such features of Iraq in the early

months of our time there. And those who

learned the quickest—and who also mastered

sOme "survival Arabic"—were, not surprisingly,

tionships with local leaders and citizens and

achieved the most progress in helping establish

security, local governance, economic activity,

and basic services. The importance of cultural

awareness has, in fact, been widely recognized

in the U.S. Army and the other services, and it is

critical that we continue the progress that has

been made in this area in our exercises, military

schools, doctrine, and so on.1°

Observation Number 10 is a statement of the

obvious, fully recognized by those operating in

Iraq, but it is one worth recalling nonetheless. It

is that success in a counterinsurgency requires

more than just military operations. Counterinsurgency strategies must also include, above

all, efforts to establish a political environment

that helps reduce support for the insurgents and

undermines the attraction of whatever ideology

they may espouse.11 In certain Sunni Arab

regions of Iraq, establishing such a political environment is likely of greater importance than military operations, since the right political initiatives might undermine the sanctuary and assistance provided to the insurgents. Beyond the

political arena, other important factors are economic recovery (which reduces unemployment,

a serious challenge in Iraq that leads some outof-work Iraqis to be guns for hire), education

(which opens up employment possibilities and

access to information from outside one's normal

circles), diplomatic initiatives (in particular,

working with neighboring states through which

foreign fighters transit), improvement in the provision of basic services, and so on. In fact, the

campaign plan developed in 2005 by the Multi

National Force-Iraq and the U.S. embassy with

Iraqi and Coalition leaders addresses each of

these issues.

Observation Number 11—ultimate success

depends on local leaders—is a natural reflection

of Iraqi sovereignty and acknowledges that success in Iraq is, as time passes, increasingly

dependent on Iraqi leaders-at four levels:

•• Leaders at the national level working together,

reaching across party and sectarian lines to keep

the country unified, rejecting short-term expedithe professional military education systems, the most effective in developing productive rela54
ent solutions such as the use of militias, and pursuing initiatives to give more of a stake in the

success of the new Iraq to those who feel left

out;

• Leaders in the ministries building the capability and capacity necessary to use the tremendous

resources Iraq has efficiently, transparently, honestly, and effectively;

•. Leaders at the province level resisting temptations to pursue winner-take-all politics and resisting the urge to politicize the local police and

other security forces, and;

• Leaders in the security forces staying out of

politics, providing courageous, competent leadership to their units, implementing policies that

are fair to all members of their forces, and fostering loyalty to their army or police band of brothers rather than to specific tribes, ethnic groups,

political parties, or local militias.

Iraqi leaders are, in short, the real key to the

new Iraq, and we thus need to continue to do all

that we can to enable them.

Observation Number 12 is the admonition to

remember the strategic corporals and strategic

lieutenants, the relatively junior commissioned

or noncommissioned officers who often have to

make huge decisions, sometimes with life-ordeath as well as strategic consequences, in the

blink of an eye.

Commanders have two major obligations to

these junior leaders: first, to do everything possible to train them before deployment for the various situations they will face, particularly for the

most challenging and ambiguous ones; and, second, once deployed, to try to shape situations to

minimize the cases in which they have to make

those hugely important decisions extremely

quickly.

The best example of the latter is what we do

to help ensure that, when establishing hasty

checkpoints, our strategic corporals are provided

sufficient training and adequate means to stop a

vehicle speeding toward them without having to

put a bullet through the windshield. This is, in

55

truth, easier said than it is done in the often

chaotic situations that arise during a fast-moving

operation in such a challenging security environment. But there are some actions we can take to

try to ensure that our young leaders have adequate time to make the toughest of calls—decisions that, if not right, again, can have strategic

consequences.

My next-to-last observation, Number 13, is

that there is no substitute for flexible adaptable

leaders. The key to many of our successes in

Iraq, in fact, has been leaders—especially young

leaders—who have risen to the occasion and

taken on tasks for which they'd had little or no

training,12 and who have demonstrated enormous initiative, innovativeness, determination,

and courage.13 Such leaders have repeatedly

been the essential ingredient in many of the

achievements in Iraq. And fostering the development of others like them clearly is critical to the

further development of our Army and our military.14

My final observation, Number 14, underscores

that, especially in counterinsurgency operations,

a leader's most important task is to set the right

tone. This is, admittedly, another statement of the

obvious, but one that nonetheless needs to be

highlighted given its tremendous importance.

Setting the right tone and communicating that

tone to his subordinate leaders and troopers are

absolutely critical for every leader at every level,

especially in an endeavor like that in Iraq.

If, for example, a commander clearly emphasizes so-called kinetic operations over non-kinetic operations, his subordinates will do likewise.

As a result, they may thus be less inclined to

seize opportunities for the nation-building

aspects of the campaign. In fact, even in the

101st Airborne Division, which prided itself on

its attention to nation-building, there were a few

mid-level commanders early on whose hearts

really weren't into performing civil affairs tasks,

assisting with reconstruction, developing relationships with local citizens, or helping establish

local governance. To use the jargon of Iraq at

that time, they didn't "get it." In such cases, the

commanders above them quickly established that

nation-building activities were not optional and
would be pursued with equal enthusiasm to

raids and other offensive operations.

Setting the right tone ethically is another

hugely important task. If leaders fail to get this

right, winking at the mistreatment of detainees or

at manhandling of citizens, for example, the

result can be a sense in the unit that "anything

goes." Nothing can be more destructive in an element than such a sense.

In truth, regardless of the leader's tone, most

units in Iraq have had to deal with cases in

which mistakes have been made in these areas,

where young leaders in very frustrating situations, often after having suffered very tough

casualties, took missteps. The key in these situations is for leaders to ensure that appropriate

action is taken in the wake of such incidents, that

standards are clearly articulated and reinforced,

that remedial training is conducted, and that

supervision is exercised to try to preclude recurrences.

It is hard to imagine a tougher environment

than that in some of the areas in Iraq.

Frustrations, anger, and resentment can run high

in such situations. That recognition underscores,

again, the importance of commanders at every

level working hard to get the tone right and to

communicate it throughout their units.

Implications

These are, again, 14 observations from soldiering in Iraq for most of the first two and a half

years of our involvement there. Although I presented them as discrete lessons, many are inextricably related. These observations carry with

them a number of implications for our effort in

Iraq (and for our Army as well, as I have noted

in some of the footnotes).15

It goes without saying that success in Iraq—

which clearly is important not just for Iraq, but

for the entire Middle East region and for our own

country—will require continued military operations and support for the ongoing development

of Iraqi security forces.

Success will also require continued assistance

and resources for the development of the emerging political, economic, and social institutions in

56

Iraq-efforts in which Ambassador Zalmay

Khalilzad and General George Casey and their

teams have been engaged with their Iraqi counterparts and have been working very hard.

Lastly, success will require time, determination, and resilience, keeping in mind that following the elections held in mid-December 2005,

several months will likely be required for the

new government—the fourth in an 18-month

period—to be established and functional. The

insurgents and extremists did all that they could

to derail the preparations for the constitutional

referendum in mid-October and the elections in

mid-December. Although they were ineffective in

each case, they undoubtedly will try to disrupt

the establishment of the new government—and

the upcoming provincial elections—as well. As

Generals John Abizaid and George Casey made

clear in their testimony on Capitol Hill in

September 2005, however, there is a strategy—

developed in close coordination with those in

the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and with our interagency, Coalition, and Iraqi partners—that

addresses the insurgency, Iraqi security forces,

and the other relevant areas. And there has been

substantial progress in a number of areas.

Nonetheless, nothing is ever easy in Iraq and a

great deal of hard work and many challenges

clearly lie ahead.16

The first six months of 2006 thus will be of

enormous importance, with the efforts of Iraqi

leaders being especially significant during this

period as a new government is seated and the

new constitution enters into force. It will be

essential that we do all that we can to support

Iraq's leaders as they endeavor to make the most

of the opportunity our soldiers have given them.

Conclusion

In a 1986 article titled "Uncomfortable Wars:

Toward a New Paradigm," General John R.

Galvin observed that "an officer's effectiveness

and chance for success, now and in the future,

depend not only on his character, knowledge,

and skills, but also, and more than ever before,

on his ability to understand the changing environment of conflict."17 General Galvin's words
were relevant then, but they are even more

applicable today. Conducting counterinsurgency

operations in a vastly different culture is exceedingly complex.

Later, in the same article, noting that we in the

military typically have our noses to the grindstone and that we often live a somewhat cloistered existence, General Galvin counseled: "Let

us get our young leaders away from the grindstone now and then, and encourage them to

reflect on developments outside the fortresscloister. Only then will they develop into leaders

capable of adapting to the changed environment

of warfare and able to fashion a new paradigm

that addresses all the dimensions of the conflicts

that may lie ahead."18

Given the current situation, General Galvin's

advice again appears very wise indeed. And it is

my hope that, as we all take time to lift our noses

from the grindstone and look beyond the confines of our current assignments, the observations provided here will help foster useful discussion on our ongoing endeavors and on how we

should approach similar conflicts in the futureconflicts that are likely to be the norm, rather

than the exception, in the 21st century.

Notes

Military Review, January-February 2006, 2-12.

Reprinted by permission.

1. The Center for Army Lessons Learned website can

be found at <http://call.Army.mil/>.

2. T. E. Lawrence. "Twenty-Seven Articles," Arab

Bulletin (20 August 1917). Known popularly as

"Lawrence of Arabia," T. E. Lawrence developed an

incomparable degree of what we now call "cultural

awareness" during his time working with Arab tribes

and armies, and many of his 27 articles ring as true

today as they did in his day. A website with the articles can be found at <www.pbs.org/lawrenceofarabia/revolt/warfare4.html>. A good overview of

Lawrence's thinking, including his six fundamental

principles of insurgency, can be found in "T. E.

Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent," Army (July

2005): 31-37.

3. I should note that this has been much less the case

57

in Afghanistan where, because the expectations of the

people were so low and the abhorrence of the Taliban

and further civil war was so great, the Afghan people

remain grateful to Coalition forces and other organizations for all that is done for them. Needless to say, the

relative permissiveness of the security situation in

Afghanistan has also helped a great deal and made it

possible for nongovernmental organizations to operate

on a much wider and freer basis than is possible in

Iraq. In short, the different context in Afghanistan has

meant that the half-life of the Army of liberation there

has been considerably longer than that in Iraq.

4. In fact, we often contended with what came to be

known as the "Man on the Moon Challenge—i.e., the

expectation of ordinary Iraqis that soldiers from a

country that could put a man on the moon and overthrow Saddam in a matter of weeks should also be

able, with considerable ease, to provide each Iraqi a

job, 24-hour electrical service, and so on.

5. The military units on the ground in Iraq have generally had considerable capability to carry out reconstruction and nation-building tasks. During its time in

northern Iraq, for example, the 101st Airborne

Division had four engineer battalions (including, for a

period, even a well-drilling detachment), an engineer

group headquarters (which is designed to carry out

assessment, design, contracting, and quality assurance

tasks), two civil affairs battalions, nine infantry battalions, four artillery battalions (most of which were "out

of battery" and performed reconstruction tasks), a sizable logistical support command (generally about 6

battalions, including transportation, fuel storage, supply, maintenance, food service, movement control,

warehousing, and even water purification units), a military police battalion (with attached police and corrections training detachments), a signal battalion, an air

defense battalion (which helped train Iraqi forces), a

field hospital, a number of contracting officers and

officers authorized to carry large sums of money, an

air traffic control element, some nine aviation battalions (with approximately 250 helicopters), a number

of chaplain teams, and more than 25 military lawyers

(who can be of enormous assistance in resolving a

host of problems when conducting nation-building).

Except in the area of aviation assets, the 4th Infantry

Division and the 1st Armored Division, the two other

major Army units in Iraq in the summer of 2003, had

even more assets than the 101st.
6. The FY 2005 Defense Budget and Supplemental

Funding Measures approved by Congress provided

some $5.2 billion for the Iraqi security force's train,

equip, advise, and rebuild effort. Just as significant, it

was appropriated in just three categories—Ministry of

Defense, Ministry of Interior, and Quick Reaction

Funds—thereby minimizing substantially the need for

reprogramming actions.

7. General John R. Galvin, "Uncomfortable Wars:

Toward a New Paradigm," Parameters, 16, no. 4

(Winter 1986): 6.

8. As soon as the "kinetic" part of that operation was

complete, we moved into the neighborhood with

engineers, civil affairs teams, lawyers, officers with

money, and security elements. We subsequently

repaired any damage that might conceivably have

been caused by the operation, and completely

removed all traces of the house in which Uday and

Qusay were located, as the missiles had rendered it

structurally unsound and we didn't want any

reminders left of the two brothers.

9. Overtime, and as the effort to train and equip Iraqi

combat units gathered momentum, the Multi National

Security Transition Command-Iraq placed greater and

greater emphasis on helping with the development of

the Ministries of Defense and Interior, especially after

the mission to advise the ministries' leaders was shifted to the command from the embassy's Iraq

Reconstruction Management Office in the fall of 2005.

It is now one of the command's top priorities.

10. The Army, for example, has incorporated scenarios that place a premium on cultural awareness into its

major exercises at the National Training Center and

Joint Readiness Training Center. It has stressed the

importance of cultural awareness throughout the

process of preparing units for deployments to Iraq and

Afghanistan and in a comprehensive approach adopted by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command.

As part of this effort, language tools have been developed: e.g., the Rosetta Stone program available

through Army Knowledge Online, and language training will he required; e.g., of Command and General

Staff College students during their 2d and 3d semesters. Doctrinal manuals are being modified to recognize the importance of cultural awareness, and instruction in various commissioned and noncommissioned

officer courses has been added as well. The Center for

Army Lessons Learned has published a number of

58

documents to assist as well. The U.S. Marine Corps has

pursued similar initiatives and is, in fact, partnering

with the Army in the development of a new

Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

11. David Galula's classic work, Counterinsurgency

Warfare. Theory and Practice (St. Petersburg, 'FL:

Mailer Publishing, 2005) is particularly instructive' on

this point. See, for example, his discussion on pages

88-89.

12. As I noted in a previous footnote, preparation of

leaders and units for deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan now typically includes extensive preparation for the kind of "non-kinetic" operations our leaders are called on to perform, with the preparation period culminating in a brigade combat team mission

rehearsal exercise at either the National Training

Center or the Joint Readiness Training Center. At each

Center, units conduct missions similar to those they'll

perform when deployed and do so in an environment

that includes villages, Iraqi-American role players,

"suicide bombers," "insurgents," the need to work with

local leaders and local security forces, etc. At the next

higher level, the preparation of division and corps

headquarters culminates in the conduct of a mission

rehearsal exercise conducted jointly by the Battle

Command Training Program and Joint Warfighting

Center. This exercise also strives to replicate-in a command post exercise format driven by a computer simulation-the missions, challenges, and context the unit

will find once deployed.

13. A great piece that highlights the work being done

by young leaders in Iraq is Robert Kaplan's "The

Future of America-in Iraq," latiines.coin, 24 December

2005. Another is the video presentation used by Army

Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker,

"Pentathlete Leader: 1LT Ted Wiley," which recounts

Lieutenant Wiley's fascinating experiences in the first

Stryker unit to operate in Iraq as they fought and conducted nation-building operations throughout much of

the country, often transitioning from one to the other

very rapidly, changing missions and reorganizing

while on the move, and covering considerable distances in short periods of time.

14, In fact, the U.S. Army is currently in the final stages

of an important study of the education and training of

leaders, one objective of which is to identify additional programs and initiatives that can help produce the

kind of flexible, adaptable leaders who have done
well in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the issues being

examined is how to provide experiences for our leaders that take them out of their "comfort zone." For

many of us, attending a civilian graduate school provided such an experience, and the Army's recent decision to expand graduate school opportunities for officers is thus a great initiative. For a provocative assessment of the challenges the U.S. Army faces, see the

article by U.K. Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster.

"Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency

Operations," Military Review (November-December

2005): 2-15.

15. The Department of Defense (DOD) formally recognized the implications of current operations as well,

issuing DOD Directive 3000.05 on 28 November 2005,

"Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and

Reconstruction Operations," which establishes DOD

policy and assigns responsibilities within DOD for

planning, training, and preparing to conduct and support stability operations. This is a significant action

that is already spurring action in a host of different

areas. A copy can be found at <www.dtic.

mil/whs/directives/corres/html/300005.htm>.

59

16. A brief assessment of the current situation and the

strategy for the way ahead is in Ambassador Zalmay

Khalilzad's "The Challenge Before Us," Wall Street

Journal, 9 January 2006, 12.

17. Galvin, 7. One of the Army's true soldier-statesman-scholars, General Galvin was serving as the

Commander in Chief of U.S. Southern Command at the

time he wrote this article. In that position, he oversaw

the conduct of a number of operations in El Salvador

and elsewhere in Central and South America, and it

was in that context that he wrote this enduring piece.

He subsequently served as the Supreme Allied

Commander, Europe, and following retirement, was

the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts.

18. Ibid.

About the Author

General David H. Petraeus, USA, assumed command of U.S.

Central Command in October 2008 after serving more than 19

months as Commanding General, Multi National Force-Iraq. At the time this article was published, he was commanding the U.S.

Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Making Revolutionary Change: Airp ower in

COIN Today

by Major General Charlesj DunlapJr, USAF

Parameters, Summer 2008

Much of the reporting on the Iraqi and

Afghan wars focuses on the ground dimension The fact remains, however, that

Iraq and Afghanistan are air wars as well,

and wars where airpower has also played a

critical role in combat.

Anthony H. Cordesman1

at a difference a year makes. The idea

that airpower would be playing a critical role in the Iraq and Afghanistan

wars would hardly have been predicted in

December 2006, when the Army and Marine

Corps issued a completely revised—but airpower

"lite"—counterinsurgency (COIN) manual commonly known as Field Manual (FM) 324.2

Complimentary reviews appeared in unlikely

venues such as the New York Times Book Review.3

What seems to have captured the imagination of

many who might otherwise be hostile to any military doctrine were the manual's much-discussed

"Zen-like" characteristics, particularly its popular

"Paradoxes" section.4 This part of the manual

contained such trendy (if ultimately opaque) dictums as "sometimes, the more force is used, the

less effective it is" and "some of the best weapons

for counterinsurgents do not shoot."5

These maxims helped create the perception

that the new doctrine was a "kinder and gentler"

form of COIN that largely eschewed the concept

of "killing or capturing" enemy fighters as a

means of suppressing an insurgency.6

Supporting this interpretation is the fact that FM

3-24 favors deploying enormous numbers of

forces—20 per 1,000 residents7—each of whom,

according to the manual, "must be prepared to

become . . . a social worker, a civil engineer, a

school teacher, a nurse, a boy scout."8 Further, as

popularly understood, the aim of this revamped

61

force was not to confront the insurgents themselves, but rather to win "hearts and minds" of the

indigenous population.9 To do so, the manual

prefers a low-tech approach compatible with traditional Army culture that has individual soldiers

engaging in close, personal contact with the "target." In FM 3-24's interpretation of COIN, that target is a country's populace.

All of this discussion left little theoretical room

for the role of airpower. FM 3-24's examination of

airpower is confined to a brief, five-page annex

that essentially conceives airpower as aerial

artillery. Accordingly, airpower is discouraged not

just because the use of force is generally disdained by the popular interpretation of the manual's theory, but also because of the mistaken

idea that air-delivered munitions are somehow

more inaccurate than other kinds of fires.10 In

perhaps no other area has the manual been

proven more wrong by the events of 2007. As this

article will outline, the profound changes in airpower's capabilities have so increased its utility

that it is now often the weapon of first recourse

in COIN operations, even in urban environments.

As to weapons' accuracy, by early 2008 Human

Rights Watch senior military analyst Marc

Garlasco made the remarkable concession that

today "air strikes probably are the most discriminating weapon that exists."11

It is important to underline that the manual's

flawed conclusions about airpower are not the

result of nefariousness or service parochialism.

Rather, FM 3-24 draws many of its lessons from

counterinsurgency operations dating from the

1950s through the 1970s. While this approach is

remarkably effective in many respects, it inherently undervalues airpower. The revolutions in

airpower capabilities that would prove so effective during 2007 were unavailable to counterinsurgents in earlier eras. The writers of FM 3-24

were stuck with antiquated ideas about what airpower might contribute to a joint COIN effort.
In any event, many welcomed the "kinder and

gentler" approach to COIN as being a near-total

reversal of the less-than-successful strategy then

in effect in Iraq. In early 2007 one of FM 3-24's

principal architects, General David H. Petraeus,

arrived in Iraq as the senior US commander, and

the manual quickly became known as "The

Book" on efforts there.12 Shortly thereafter, some

30,000 additional forces, mostly Army units,

"surged" into Iraq. By the end of 2007 the level of

violence was significantly reduced.

Was airpower omitted from the operations that

produced 2007's successes? Hardly. Of enormous

significance is the fact that air strikes in Iraq

increased fivefold between 2006 and 2007.13 In

addition, virtually every other aspect of airpower

was exploited during the surge with great

effect.14 In short, contrary to the assumptions

bred by FM 3-24, ground-force commanders

rather unexpectedly embraced airpower's potential and created the modern era's most dramatic

revolution in COIN warfare.

This article examines why airpower became

critical to COIN operations in 2007, a trend continuing today and one with huge implications for

the future. Among other things, it will discuss the

revolutions in precision and persistence that have

so radically enhanced airpower's value in COIN

warfare. It will also outline the strengths and

weaknesses of the Air Force's new doctrine on

irregular warfare which seeks to capture the service's COIN approach. The author argues that

while FM 3-24's surface-force-centric approach to

COIN can work, recent experience in Iraq

demonstrates that leaders of all services want a

more joint and interdependent concept that

exploits airpower in all its dimensions. Such an

approach can reduce the need for the enormous

numbers of U.S. ground forces FM 3-24 entails,

freeing them to prepare for other kinds of conflicts. Airpower can help, this article contends, to

provide options for decision makers faced with a

COIN challenge that capitalize on systems which

are also useful in other kinds of conflicts.

FM 3-24 Can Work

It cannot be emphasized enough that there has

62

never been a question as to whether FM 3-24's

ground-centric approach could work. It can; its

force ratios alone would overwhelm any insurgency, even without implementing any of the

manual's "Zen-like" features. The American soldier is, without doubt, the finest infantryman in

the world, perhaps in the history of warfare. U.S.

ground forces, if deployed in the numbers FM 3-

24 dictates, simply cannot be defeated by any

insurgency.

The real question, especially when looking to

the future, is whether FM 3-24's approach is a

practical, sustainable, and optimal strategy for the

21st century. Maintaining large numbers of forces

in Iraq has strained the entire U.S. military, especially the ground components. What is worrisome

about a strategy so dependent upon "boots-onthe-ground" is that there are nearly .40 countries

more populous than Iraq, some of which are failing or already failed states. FM 3-24's force ratios

would be unattainable if the United States intervened in many of these nations.

The manual's solution is not just manpowerintensive; it requires a particular kind of manpower that is difficult to recruit, train, and maintain. As already noted, FM 3-24 calls for counterinsurgents who are experts at "soft power"

activities. Although the Army recently met its

recruiting goals, it has done so by inducting thousands of troops without high school degrees and

thousands more requiring "moral waivers" due to

otherwise disqualifying factors. While such

recruits may make competent general-purpose

forces, they are not the prized counterinsurgency

professionals described in FM 3-24.

In framing strategy for the future, it is important to evaluate to what extent experience in Iraq

has matched the perception of the doctrine. Has

the situation improved because soft power. techniques won hearts and minds? Or did the exercise

of hard power predominate? While thousands of

ground troops did surge into Iraq, relatively few

were the highly trained counterinsurgents FM 3-

24 desires. All the same, important aspects of the

manual were implemented with great success.

Troops were deployed from their sprawling compounds into scores of small outposts. Sadly, as

many predicted, this contributed to 2007 being
the deadliest year of the war for U.S. forces.

Still, the physical presence of the additional

forces had the sanguinary effect of stifling insurgent activity in Iraq's most prominent media center, Baghdad, and apparently creating a sense of

security and progress beyond the city's limits.

Additionally, FM 3-24's tenet of encouraging the

reestablishment of the rule of law was markedly

advanced by the creation of a secure "Green

Zone" for law enforcement and judicial facilities,

along 'ith housing for Iraqi personnel and their

families. 15

As important as these developments were (and

are) to the COIN effort, there is strong evidence

that 2007's successes were attributable to other

than the "kinder, gentler" aspects of the manual.

Were hearts and minds won? Polls indicate that

while Iraqi perceptions of Americans improved

somewhat, the overwhelming numbers suggest

that the vast majority of the population remains

unchanged in their dislike of American forces.

For example, 63 percent of Iraqis thought the

surge had either made things worse or had no

effect, and only four percent gave U.S. forces

credit for improved security.16 Additionally, 79

percent of Iraqis had little or no confidence in

American troops, and—amazingly—42 percent

still think attacks on American forces are "acceptable."17

Yet security did improve. Giving some credence to the soft power techniques that popularized FM 3-24 does not change the fact that there

was an extraordinary amount of "killing and capturing" during 2007. Although figures of enemy

casualties are hard to verify, in September 2007

military officials told USA Today that the number

of insurgents killed was already 25 percent ahead

of 2006.18 By the end of the year, some unconfirmed reports indicated the total number killed

may have more than doubled compared with the

previous year.19 As regrettable as it may be,

killing does seem to suppress violence in locations where "hearts and minds" remain mostly

"lost."

Capturing helps too. In Iraq, the number of

suspected insurgents captured and detained skyrocketed from 15,000 at the end of 2006 to more

than 25,000 during 2007.20 What makes this num63

her so important is that as late as the fall of 2006,

the total number of insurgents then at large was

estimated by the Brookings Institution as totaling

20,000 to 30,000.21 In other words, notwithstanding the chic interpretations of effective COIN doctrine, capturing and imprisoning tens of thousands of Iraqi males seems to have had a profoundly positive effect on reducing violence.

Of course "killing and capturing" were not the

only reasons for the decline in violence.

Accommodations were made with Sunni and Shia

leaders that produced separate sectarian fiefdoms. There is the much-reported "Awakening"

in Anhar Province that armed and employed

many former insurgents to protect their religiously homogenized territories. Similar offers were

extended to other groups with some success. In

a real sense, however, violence may have subsided in many of the "protected" areas because

the purging of the other sects was already complete. It remains to be seen the degree to which

peace came at the price of pluralism, tolerance,

and genuine democracy.22

Obviously, there are several factors that produced the relative peace Iraq enjoyed by the end

of 2007. Nevertheless it is undeniable that, as the

Congressional Research Service observed in

February 2008, "one of the major shifts [in strategy] has been in the kinetic use of air power."23

The Precision and Persistence

Revolutions

Why did airpower's COIN utility become so

prominent in 2007? The short answer might be

captured in developments in two areas that are

nothing short of revolutionary: precision and persistence. Together, these elements do not just

physically degrade an insurgency's ability to

wreak violence; they also can create psychological effects upon insurgents that COIN practitioners

are only beginning to understand.

Historian Paul Gillespie labeled precision-guided munitions the "ultimate weapon" in conventional fights, largely because of their vastly

increased ability to avoid collateral damage.24 In

fact, he cites a study that concluded only "twenty

of twenty-three thousand munitions dropped by
NATO in the 1999 Kosovo campaign caused collateral damage or civilian casualties,"25 Though

Gillespie recognizes that even the most precise

weaponry has limits with respect to the strategic

and political results it can achieve, he nevertheless insists that precision-guided munitions "have

changed the modern battlefield, and in the

process created a new American way of war.' 26

Changes in munitions themselves complement

their newfound accuracy. Some of these have

been customized for COIN operations to explicitly mitigate collateral damage,27 and the results

have proven effective. As Lieutenant General Gary

L. North explained regarding the small diameter

bomb (SDB):28

The SDB is uniquely qualified for urban

targets that call for precision accuracy and

reduced collateral damage and in close-airsupport missions that our aircrews find

themselves in during Operation Iraqi

Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

We now have the ability to put ordnance in

places where collateral damage might be a

concern.29

The concept of precision is more than the ability of the weapon to hit the right place; it is as

much about knowing the right place to strike.

That revolution involves advanced concepts of

command and control that ever-improving intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (TSR)

capabilities facilitate. With regard to the latter,

much of the improvement is not so much in the

sensors themselves, but in the length of time the

sensors are able to sense.

What has been "game-changing" in this regard

is the increased availability of various long-loiter,

armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms.

In the fall of 2007, retired Army General Barry

McCaffrey used terms very similar to Gillespie's to

describe the astonishing advances in airborne ISR

capabilities that are revising the way war is conducted. In essence, General McCaffrey was

describing the persistence revolution in TSR when

he said:

We have already made a 100-year war64

fighting leap-ahead with MQ-1 Predator,

MQ-9 Reaper, and Global Hawk.3° Now we

have loiter times in excess of 24 hours, persistent eyes on target, micro-kill with Hellfire and 500-pound JDAM [Joint Direct

Attack Munition] bombs, synthetic aperture

radar, and a host of ISR sensors and communications potential that have fundamentally

changed the nature of warfare.31

Likewise, in March 2008 defense analyst Loren

Thompson told USA Today that current UAV assets

"present a whole new dimension to detecting and

destroying of terrorists' cells."32 These technological innovations have transformed COIN's allimportant intelligence-gathering function. As

Thompson said, a UAV is "almost like having your

own little satellite over a terrorist cell."33 Ground

commanders realize the value of airborne TSR,

and this explains recent reports that cite such

assets as General Petraeus's "top hardware priority in Iraq."34

TSR developments have major implications for

the way airpower is used in COIN. Conventional

COIN theory as reflected in FM 3-24 places great

emphasis on intelligence obtained from the

indigenous population. While such intelligence

can be quite valuable, it has to be viewed through

a cultural lens and is vulnerable to a multitude of

subjective machinations of those furnishing the

information.

Visual observations have a grammar all their

own. A May 2008 U.S. News and World Report article explained how sophisticated aerial surveillance had become by noting that Air Force TSR

capabilities often can provide a superior perspective than even the "boots on the ground."35 The

article noted that at the forward deployed Air

Operations Center UAVs are used to:

[Elstablish a "pattern of life" around

potential targets—recording such things as

the comings and goings of friends, school

hours, and market times. Despite the distance, the real-time video feeds often give

them a better vantage point than an Army

unit has just down the street from a group

of insurgents.36
Similarly, journalist Mark Benjamin provides

an exceptionally incisive illustration of how the

persistence revolution complements the new precision capabilities by observing that ISR assets

can now effectively track individual people for

extended periods.37 Benjamin reports:

The Air Force recently watched one man

in Iraq for more than five weeks, carefully

recording his habits—where he lives, works,

and worships, and whom he meets. . . The

military may decide to have such a man

arrested, or to do nothing at all. Or, at any

moment they could decide to blow him to

smithereens.38

The last statement may be more insightful than

perhaps even Benjamin realized. The precision

and persistence of today's airpower creates

opportunities to dislocate the psychology of the

insurgents. Insurgents' sheer inability to anticipate

how high-technology airpower might put them at

risk can inflict stress, thereby greatly diminishing

their effectiveness. For example, The Los Angeles

Times reported in April 2008 that in Afghanistan

NATO "forces recently have had unusual success

in tracking and targeting mid-level Talihan field

commanders, killing scores of them in pinpoint

air strikes." Because the Taliban believed that cell

phone signals were being used to target them,

they began blowing up telecommunications towers. The result, The Times reported, "could hardly have been a worse public-relations move for

the insurgency" because ordinary Afghans were

enraged; many had become dependent upon cell

phones, and the system was a source of national

pride.39

Another data point comes from the 2008 operations in Basra. When the Iraqi Army's effort ran

into difficulties, U.S. airpower proved instrumental in stabilizing the situation.4° Again, evidence

is emerging to suggest airpower is having the

proper psychological effects. Specifically, according to CNN, Shi'a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered

his militias to stand-down in a "nine-point statement [that] followed U.S. air strikes" in Baghdad

areas considered strongholds of his Mehdi

Army.41

65

Airpower can unnerve even the fiercest fighters. Though they may be willing to die heroically in battle against U.S. forces, that is not the

death contemporary airpower permits. As one

Afghan told the New York Times, "We pray to

Allah that we have American soldiers to kill" but

added pessimistically that "these bombs from the

sky we cannot fight."42

The helplessness that airpower inflicts on

insurgents' thinking can produce real effects. In

Colombia, for example, the rebel group known

as the Revolutionary Armed Force of Colombia

(FARC in its Spanish acronym) is facing accelerating desertions, raising the possibility that the

entire insurgency may unravel. Why? According

to interviews with former rebels, "the sheer terror

of being bombed by Colombian fighter planes"

was a crucial factor in their decision to desert.43

In short, the psychological effects of persistent

ISR and precision airpower are revising the oftmisunderstood notion of airpower's strategic

impact. Where historically there was much discussion about the effect, or lack thereof, of airpower on the civilian populations of hostile

nations, now the issue is much different: It focuses on the psychological impact on the insurgents

themselves, not the civilian population. As one

report put it:

Iraqi insurgents have learned to fear the

drones. "They hear some sort of air noise

and they don't know exactly what it is, but

they know it's associated with 'my buddy

getting killed," says [a U.S. soldier].

"Anything that makes them uneasy makes

me happy."44

As that anecdote reveals, airpower can now

inflict on insurgents the same kind of disconcerting sense of vulnerability that the enemy sought

to impose upon U.S. troops via improvised explosive devices, the most deadly weapon COIN

forces face.45 Today, the situation is muchreversed as a result of American air assets: U.S.

"soldiers do not have to feel like they are sitting

ducks for every ambusher or bomb maker. As

they peer up at that . . . bird . . . it's the insurgents who have to worry."46
As important as imposing this kind of "friction"

on the'minds of enemy combatants may be, it is

also still possible in certain circumstances to use

airpower kinetically to influence the civilian population, albeit not in the traditional way. Doing so

can help win hearts and minds. For example,

consider the effect when B-i bombers destroyed

an al-Qaeda torture compound in early March

2008. After the facility was flattened, a former

Iraqi victim declared, "I'm a lot happier now.

It was like my mother gave birth to me again."

Furthermore reports say that "[als Coalition forces

left the area, villagers stood on the side of the

road cheering and clapping to be rid of this remnant of al-Qaida."47

Air Force Doctrine; Needs a

"Vector Check"?

Ironically, the Air Force's own recently published doctrine is not especially reflective of the

precision and persistence revolution as implemented in the field beginning in 2007. The drafting of

that doctrine began only when it became clear that

FM 3-24, with its "airpower-lite" views, would function not just as service doctrine for the Army and

Marine Corps, but also as the design for the entire

operation in Iraq. By early spring 2007, the Air

Force's historical complacence regarding COIN

abruptly ended as it convened a COIN conference

that "jump started" its own doctrine-development

project.48

That effort produced Air Force Doctrine

Document (AFDD) 2-3, Irregular Warfare, which

was fielded the following August.49 AFDD 2-3,

which aims to cover counterterrorism and other

operations in addition to COIN, does represent a

marked advance in Air Force thinking. It references

Air Force key capabilities in the areas of ISR,

mobility, agile combat support, precision engagement, and command and control. Importantly, it

makes the vital point that the introduction of a

large U.S. ground force on foreign soil "may exacerbate the local situation while providing adversaries a new target set for attacks and propaganda."

Airpower, on the other hand, "can deliver a variety

of effects from great distance without increasing

force presence in a region or country."50

66

Still, there are issues. The Air Force doctrine

mimics FM 3-24's tendency to overemphasize

what "hearts and mind-winning" efforts by occupying troops can accomplish in situations where

xenophobia imbues the populace, and the insurgency's core is comprised of ideologically immovable extremists. Thus, it undervalues the function

of force in suppressing intractable insurgents.

Perhaps most surprising is its seeming replication

of FM 3-24's relegation of airpower to an

"enabling" role as opposed to that of an independent maneuver force.51

Much like FM 3-24, AFDD 2-3 declares several

times that irregular warfare (1W) "is not a lesserincluded form of traditional warfare" as if it were

relevant to an Air Force approach to COIN.52

Actually, the record of 2007 forcefully demonstrates that airpower's instrumentalities of traditional war include—lesser or otherwise—tremendous capabilities across the full spectrum of conflict. This utility extends, for example, beyond the

kinetic uses previously addressed. To illustrate: by

taking 5,000 trucks off dangerous Iraqi roads in a

single month, C-17 transports—the same aircraft

that would be employed in high-end war—

became, in effect, perfect counter-lED weaponry.53 This concept is vitally important because airpower's inherent flexibility differentiates it from

ground power's assertion (as reflected in FM 3-24)

that its conventional capability cannot easily transition from the traditional fight to a COIN role.54

The failure of AFDD 2-3 to emphasize this agility

as a central and unique strength of airpower

detracts from the overall doctrine. Additionally,

the doctrine does not examine at all how airpower may be used (as it was in 2007) to inflict a psychological toll on insurgents.

Most troubling, a central pillar of the doctrine

is "building partnership capacity," or BPC. While

BPC may have strategic, "big picture" value apart

from 1W, it has little practical utility in most COIN

environments. It is very often too expensive and

too time consuming. Iraq is a perfect example: It

will take nearly three years before the Iraqis are

able to conduct their first airborne kinetic strike,

and that will likely be a small-scale, relatively lowtech operation involving a few Russian helicopters55
While this minimal capability may have some

morale value for the Iraqis, its true military value

in COIN is marginal. It should not be overlooked

that the emergence of U.S. airpower as a premier

COIN weapon in 2007 depended greatly upon

what has been described as a "battery of technology" involving "drone aircraft, three-dimensional

satellite images, and increasingly small precision

weapons guided by lasers or Global Positioning

systems."56 For a host of reasons, few "partner"

nations will have access to such high-tech capabilities, and it is simply too difficult to build these

technologies on a timeline that will make a difference in most COIN scenarios.

Similarly, some advocates are urging the Air

Force's acquisition of low-tech, fixed-wing aircraft, specifically for a COIN role. While there

may be instances where such aircraft could prove

effective, overall it is not a solution the U.S. military ought to embrace without having a rationale

beyond COIN. Slow-moving, low-altitude, fixedwing aircraft are simply too vulnerable, even to

older antiaircraft systems. In a real way, implementing this suggestion would build an air force

with significant manpower and infrastructure

requirements yet with all the low-tech deficiencies that consigned airpower to a peripheral role

in FM 3-24. It is simply not the kind of "airpower" that proved successful in 2007.

This is another example of how AFDD 2-3

embraces a concept appropriate for ground

forces but not for air forces. While a few months

of training can turn a poorly educated but culturally imbued host-nation soldier into an effective

counterinsurgent, such is not the case with airpower. It takes years of education and training to

produce an airman, time and resources many

nations do not have. Finally, why should the Air

Force acquire a capability useful in only one kind

of conflict, especially when doing so will burden

the service with yet another platform having

unique operational and sustainment requirements?

If a modest, demonstrably cost-efficient aerial

kinetic capability is desired for indigenous forces,

the BPC ought to focus on acquiring rotary assets

already part of the Army's aviation arm. Indeed,

if all that is desired is a standoff, precision-strike

67

system, the Army's satellite-guided Excalibur

artillery round would seem to be a better, quicker fit for local forces.57 These assets have utility

across the full spectrum of conflict, not simply

COIN, a tenet that should drive the bulk of the US

military's future equipment purchases.

The Way Ahead

The experience of 2007 (and extending into

2008) indicates that neither FM 3-24 nor AFDD 2-

3 have the doctrine quite right.58 While each

manual arguably advances a valued perspective,

neither really captures the principles that should

guide an American COIN doctrine designed to

optimize a truly interdependent joint team.

Several factors call for a reevaluation

First, the efficacy of "killing and capturing"

insurgents needs to be fully acknowledged. In

fairness, the perceptions of FM 3-24 in this regard

seem to frustrate its authors. Lieutenant Colonel

John Nagl, one of the manual's primary drafters,

insists the manual is more about ensuring the

right people were killed and captured as opposed

to suggesting that killing or capturing could be

avoided altogether by some collection of nonviolent means. Likewise, General Petraeus bristles at

the suggestion the manual "shy[sI away from the

need to kill the enemy" arguing that "[tihe words

'kill' and 'capture' are on every page."59

We need to understand that the complex

nature of today's insurgent threat differs from that

of the 20th century. According to former Army

officer John R. Sutherland, the 21st century has

given rise to what he calls the "iGuerrilla" which

he describes as "the New Model TechnoInsurgent" who exploits technology in a wide

variety of ways.60 What is key, Sutherland contends, is that the iGuerrilla "cannot be swayed by

logic or argument" and is markedly different from

those insurgents of the 20th century who, he contends, are relegated to the "dustbin of history."61

"Hearts and minds" campaigns, however successful they may be among the bulk of the population, cannot by themselves end the pattern of

near-anarchic violence the hardcore iGuerrillas

use to block COIN success. Counterinsurgents

can, however, defeat the "New Model Techno-
Insurgent" at his own techno-game if they accept

the fact that technology is a centerpiece of their

culture; it is, in fact, our "asymmetric" advantage.

Recently, strategic theorist Cohn Gray noted:

[Hugh technology is the American way in

warfare. It has to be. A high-technology

society cannot possibly prepare for, or

attempt to fight, its wars in any other than a

technology-led manner.62

The United States has to develop technology

capable of substituting for "boots-on-the-ground"

in order to provide future decision makers with

broader options. Pragmatism drives this

approach, not any deficiency in the valor or dedication of U.S. ground forces. Apart from the difficulty—and risks—of acquiring and maintaining

a COIN-focused Army, there is the mind-numbing

price of a manpower-intensive COIN strategy.63

Currently, it costs more than $390,000 to deploy

each U.S. soldier to Iraq,64 an expense complicated by the political reality that COIN seldom

engages, as Jeffrey Record observes, "core U.S.

security interests,"6 at least in the public's perceptions. This fact is likely one of the main reasons why, despite the real success of the past

year, a poll found that 62 percent of Americans

think the United States should have stayed out of

Iraq,66 and another survey shows that 56 percent

want the troops brought home.6

Beyond the potential reluctance of the U.S.

electorate, another difficulty in using significant

numbers of U.S. ground forces as counterinsurgents is the fact that although America's image is

improvin around the globe, it is still extremely

negative.OS That no country on the entire continent of Africa would host the U.S. Africa

Command headquarters is but one indicator that

for the foreseeable future a large "footprint" of

American ground combat forces in any overseas

operation should expect to be unwelcome by the

indigenous population.69

Thus, the notion that American COIN or

nation-building efforts can best be executed by

infusing the host state with large numbers of U.S.

troops is fundamentally flawed. In fact, the

deeply entrenched view of U.S. troops as an

68

occupation force is now the main rallying point

for anti-American feelings among many Iraqis.70

More broadly, in a new book Middle Eastern

expert William R. Polk argues that the "fundamental motivation" of insurgents during the past

three centuries is traceable to an "aim primarily to

protect the integrity of the native group from foreigners."71

Considering all the brutal realities of 21st century insurgencies it is imperative, as strategist

Philhip Meilinger observes, to completely recast

America's approach to COIN in an effort to

achieve "politically desirable results with the least

cost in blood and treasure."72 Doing so,

Meilinger contends, requires the adaptation of a

new paradigm that leverages airpower's precision

strike and persistent ISR capabilities with U.S.

Special Forces and indigenous troops on the

ground—much the formula employed with great

success in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and

northern Iraq in the early 1990s. Overarching this

effort would be a re-conceptualization of the

entire fight against extremism, one that makes

psychological operations the main "weapon" and

posits an intelligence entity as the supported

command.

To be sure, a COIN doctrine compatible with

America's posture in the world, as well as its

high-tech strengths, does not necessarily eliminate the need for "boots-on-the-ground." It does,

however, emphasize that indigenous forces

should comprise the bulk of the counterinsurgent

force ratios outlined in FM 3-24. They can be supported by U.S. Special Forces, along with specially trained Army advisers, but the "face" of the

COIN effort interfacing with the local population

should be native, not American.74 This blend of

local ground forces reinforced with U.S. advisers

and sophisticated American technology can

work; recent reports, for example, "showed the

Iraqi Army to be considerably resilient when

backed by Coalition airpower."75 Necessary for

success, however, is not just any kind of airpower, but rather the high-tech precision and persistence enabled airpower that has proven so effective since 2007.

Of course, the solution to any COIN situation

will never be exclusively military. Yet at the same
time it is a mistake to underestimate what military

means can accomplish. In that respect, exploitation of the air weapon can contribute as never

before. The experience of 2007 clearly demonstrates that its newfound precision and persistence have revolutionized COIN warfare. U.S.

doctrine must evolve to fully capitalize airpower's

newly enhanced prowess.

Notes

Reprinted from Parameters, Summer 2008, 52-

56. Used by permission.

1. Anthony H. Cordesman, "Air Combat Trends in the

Afghan and Iraq Wars," Center for Strategic and

International Studies, 11 March 2008 (http://www

.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080318_afgh-iraqairhrief

.pdf).

2. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-24,

Counterinsurgency (Washington: Headquarters

Department of the Army, 15 December 2006).

3. Samantha Power, "Our War on Terror," New York

Times, 29 July 2007 (http://select.nytimes .com/preview/2007/07/29/books/1 154682945065 html).

4. See John A. Nagl, Foreword to the University of

Chicago Press Edition, in The U.S. Army and Marine

Coips Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 2007) (http://www.press

.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/84l5l9foreword.html).

5. FM 3-24, paras. 1-150, 1-153.

6. Ibid., Appendix A, para. A-SO.

7. Ibid., para. 1-67.

8. Ibid., para. 2-42.

9. Ibid., Appendix A, para. A-26.

10. Ibid., Appendix E, para. E-5.

11. As quoted by Josh White, "The Man on Both Sides

of Air War Debate," Washington Post, 13 February 2008,

A06 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/O2/1 2 /AR200802 1202692. html).

12. Dan Ephron, "The Book on Iraq," Newsweek (Web

exclu sive), 1 SDecember2006(http ://www.

newsweek.com/id/38O21).

13. See, e.g., Anthony H. Cordesman, "USAirpower in

Iraq and Afghanistan: 2004-2007," Center for Strategic

and International Studies, 13 December 2007

(http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/O7121 3_oifoef_airpower.pdf).

69

14. Ibid.

15. Michael Gordon, "In Baghdad, Justice Behind the

Barricades," New York Times, 30 July 2007 (http://www

.nytimes.comJ2007/07/3O/world/middleeast/3Omilitary.ht

ml?ref=world).

16. ABC News/BBC/ARD/NHK Poll, "Iraq Five Years

Later: Where Things Stand," 17 March 2008 (http://

www.abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1060a1IraqW

hereThingsStand.pdf).

17. Ibid.

18. Jim Michaels, "19,000 Insurgents Killed in Iraq Since

'03," USA Today, 26 September 2008 (http:// www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-O9-26-insurgents_N.htm).

19. See, e.g., "List of Insurgent Fatality Reports in Iraq,"

Wikipedia , 2April2008(http :1/en. wikipedia

.org/wiki/List_of_insurgents_killed_in_Iraq).

20. Gordon Lubold, "Do U.S. Prisons in Iraq Breed

Insurgents?" Christian Science Monitor, 20 December

2007 (http://www.csmonitor.com /2007/1220/pOlsOlwoiq.html).

21. Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jason H. Campbell, "Iraq

Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security

in Post-Saddam Iraq," Brookings Institution, 1 October

2007 (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index

.pdO.

22. Steven Simon, "The Price of the Surge," Foreign

Affairs, May/June 2008, 57 (http://www.foreignaffairs

.org/2008O5Olfaessay873O5/steven-simon/the-price-ofthe-surge.html).

23. Catherine Marie Dale, Operation Iraqi Freedom:

Strategies, Approaches, Results, and Issues for Congress

(Washington: Library of Congress, Congressional

Research Service, 22 February 2008) (http://www.fas.

org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34387.pdf).

24. Paul G. Gillespie, "The Ultimate Weapon," MHQ: The

Quarterly journal of Military History 20 (Winter 2008): 56.

25. Ibid., 63.

26. Ibid., 56.

27. See generally, Ernie Haendschke, "Adding Less-Lethal

Arrows to the Quiver for Counterinsurgency Air

Operations," Air & Space Power Journal 22 (Summer

2008): 33 (http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/

airchronicles/apj/apjO8/sumO8/haendschke.html).

28. Department of the Air Force, "GBU-39B Small

Diameter BombWeapon System," August 2006 (fact sheet)

(http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp ?id4500).

29. See Air Force Print News, "USAFE Unit Debuts

Small Diameter Bomb in Combat," 5 October 2006
(http://www.af. mil/news/story.asp?storylD= 12

3028471).

30. Department of the Air Force, "MQ-1 Predator

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle," January 2007 (fact sheet)

(http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet .asp?fsID=1 22);

Department of the Air Force, "MQ-9 Reaper Unmanned

Aerial Vehicle," January 2007 (fact sheet)

(http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet. asp?fsID=

6405); Department of the Air Force, "Global Hawk,"

October 2005 (fact sheet) (http://www .nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=347).

31. Barry R. McCaffrey, "Memorandum for Colonel

Mike Meese, United States Military Academy, Subject:

After Action Report," 15 October 2007, 5.

32. Tom Vanden Brook, "Air Force Seeks More Fighter

Drones," USA Today, 6 March 2008, 6 (http://

www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-03-05-

Reapers_N.htm).

33. Ibid.

34. Matthew Cox and Gina Cavallaro, "Petraeus: ISR

Gear is Key to Success," ArmyTimes.com, 11 April 2008

(http://www.armytimes.com/nevs/2008/04/military_

petraeus_gear_042108/).

35. Anna Mulrine, "A Look Inside the Air Force's

Control Center for Iraq and Afghanistan," US. News

and World Report, 29 May 2008 (http://www.usnews

.com/articles/news/ world/2008/05/29/a-look-insidethe-air-forces-control-center-for-iraq-andafghanistan.html).

36. Ibid.

37. Mark Benjamin, "Killing 'Bubba' from the Skies,"

Salon.corn, 15 February 2008 •(http://www.salon

• .com/news/feature/2008 /02/15/air_warn.

38. Ibid.

39. Laura King, "In Afghanistan, Insurgents Attacking

Cellphone Network," Los Angeles Times, 23 April 2008

(http ://www.latimes. com/news/nationworld

/world/la-fg-cellphones23apr23, 1 ,3026509.stoiy).

40. Sholnn Freeman, "U.S. Airpower Joins Basra

Offensive," Washington Post, 29 March 2008, AlO

(http ://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content

/article/2008/03/28/AR2008032801 167_pf.html).

41. Mohammed Tawfeeq and JonathanWald, "Al-Sadr

Calls off Fighting, Orders Compliance with Iraqi

Security," CNN.com, 30 March 2008 (http:// www

.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/30/iraq.main/index.

htrnl?iref=topnews).

42. Barry Bearak, "A Nation Challenged: Death on the

70

Ground," New York Times, 13 October 2001, BOl.

43. Juan Forero, "Colombia's Rebels Face Possibility of

Implosion," Washington Post, 22 March 2008, AOl

(http ://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content

/article/2008/03/21/AR2008032103536_pf.html).

44. John Barry and Evan Thomas, "Up in the Sky, An

Unblinking Eye," Newsweek, 9 June 2008 (http://

www.newsweek.com/id/139432).

45. See generally Multi National Force-Iraq, "Terrorist

Tactics," 3 January 2007 (http://www.mnf-iraq.com

/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=

727&Itemid=44); and Clay Wilson, Improvised

Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq: Effects •and

Countermeasures (Washington: Library of Congress,

Congressional Research Service, 10 February 2006)

(http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA 454399).

46. Barry and Thomas.

47. Joel Langton, "B-lB Destroys al-Qaida Torture

Compound in Iraq," Air Force Print News, 11 March

2008 (http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=12308966

6).

48. See Christine Harrison, "Doctrine Center 'Jiimp

Starts' Irregular Warfare Doctrine," Air Force News, 1

March 2007 (http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp

?id=123043045).

49. Department of the Air Force, Air Force Doctrine

Document 2-3, Irregular Warfare (Washington:

Headquarters Department of the Air Force, 1 August

2007) (http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/shared/media

/epubs/AFDD2-3.pdf).

50. Ibid., 15.

51. Ibid., 10 (identifying as a COIN "truth" for airmen

the notion that the "Air Force provides critical capabilities that enable joint force operations in COIN").

52. See, e.g., ibid., viii.

53. Robert M. Gates, "Remarks to Air War College"

(Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University, 21 April

2008) (http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/speech

.aspx?speechid=1231).

54. See, e.g., FM 3-24, ix (Western militaries "falsely

believe that armies trained to win large conventional

wars are automatically prepared to win small, unconventional ones. In fact, some capabilities required for

conventional success—for example, the ability to execute operational maneuver and employ massive firepower—may be of limited utility or even counterproductive in COIN operations.")

55. Erik Holmes, "We're Starting to See it Clicking," Air
Force Times, 31 March 2008, 25.

56. Benjamin.

57. Matthew Cox, "GPS-Guided Excalibur Debuts in

Afghanistan," Army Times.com, 20 March 2008

(http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/03/army_exca

libur_031808w/).

58. See, e.g., Ernesto Londoflo and Amit R. Paley, "In

Iraq, a Surge in U.S. Air strikes," Washington Post, 23

May 2008, AlO (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR200805220386

9_pf.html).

59. Charles M. Sennot, "The Good Soldier," Men's

Journal, June 2008, 108, 114.

60. John R. Sutherland, "iGuerrilla: TheNewModel

Techno-Insurgent," Armchair General, May 2008, 62.

61. Ibid.

62. Cohn S. Gray, The Airpower Advantage in Future

Warfare (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University,

Airpower Research Institute, 2007), 32 (http://aupress

.maxwell.af.mil/ARI_Papers/GrayARI2 .pdD.

63. See, e.g., Gian P. Gentile, "Listen to the Airman,"

Militaiy Review, March-April 2008, 114 (expressing

concern about the dominance of COIN thinking in the

Army) (http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview /English

/MarAprO8/GentileINSIGHTSEngMarAprO8 .pdf).

64. Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and

Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11

(Washington: Library of Congress, Congressional

Research Service, 11 April 2008) (http://www.fas

.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL331 10.pdf).

65. See Jeffrey Record, The American Way of War:

Cultural Barriers to Successful Counterinsurgency,

Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 577, 1 September

2006, 1 (http://www.cato .org/pubs/pas/pa577.pdf).

66. CBS/New York Times Poll, 28 March-2 April 2008

(http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm).

67. Andrew Kohut, "The Iraq Challenge," New York

Times, 1 June 2008 (http://campaign-stops.blogs

.nytimes.comJ2008/06/01/the-iraq-challenge/).

68. Mark Rice-Oxley, "Global BBC Poll Shows

71

Improved U.S. Image," Christian Science Monitor, 2

April 2008 (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0402

/pOlsl3-woeu.html).

69. Karen DeYoung, "U.S. Africa Command Trims Its

Aspirations," Washington Post, 1 June 2008, A18

(http ://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content

/article/2008/05/31/AR2008053102055.html?sub=new).

70. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, "The Smart Way Out of a

Foolish War," Washington Post, 30 March 2008, B03 ("It

is also important to recognize that most of the anti-U.S.

insurgency in Iraq has not been inspired by al-Qaeda.

Locally based jihadist groups have gained strength only

insofar as they have been able to identify themselves

with the fight against a hated foreign occupier.")

(http://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/27/AR2008032702405 _pf.html).

71. William R. Polk, Violent Politics. A History of

Insurgency, Terrorism & Guerrilla War, From the

American Revolution to Iraq (New York: Harper, 2007),

xiv-xv.

72. Phillip S. Meilinger, "Airpower in COIN: Verities,

Legends, Surprises and Suggestions" (London: Royal

Aeronautical Society, January 2008, copy on file with

the author).

73. Ibid.

74. See John A. Nagl, "A Battalion's Worth of Good

Ideas," New York Times, 2 April 2008 (http://

www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/opinion/02nagl.html).

75. Michael Knights, "Rocky Road for Basra Operation,"

Jane's Defence Weekly, 23 April 2008, 28.

About the Author

Major General Charles J. Dunlap Jr., USAF, is Deputy Judge

Advocate General, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, DC,

and is the author of the Air University monograph Shortchanging

the Joint Fight? An Airman s Assessment of FM 3-24 and the

Case for Developing Truly Joint COIN Doctrine (2008). He

served in both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi

Freedom

Part III: U.S. Marines, Counterinsurgency,

and Urban Warfare in Iraq

F

or the U.S. Marine Corps, the war in Iraq was

primarily an urban conflict. The largest battles, such as First and Second Fallujah, anNajaf, and Ramadi, were characterized by fierce

street fighting between Marines and insurgent fighters. Insurgents fully exploited the urban environment to their advantage. In all of these battles,

Marines implemented many important elements of

counterinsurgency operations, drawing from its

legacy fighting in small wars and from new ideas

developed during the Iraq conflict. Both the summaries of action produced by the I Marine

Expeditionary Force and II Marine Expeditionary

Force attest to this fact and provide readers with a

detailed overview of the major military and civil

operations conducted by the Marines in Iraq from

2004 through 2006.

The other selections in this section provide readers with a more in-depth view of counterinsurgency

operations in Iraq during this period. Several focus

on the battles of Fallujah. The two battles for the

city of Fallujah (fought in April and November

2004, respectively) constituted the fiercest fighting

the Corps had faced since the Vietnam War. As

Jonathan F. Keiler's article, "Who Won the Battle of

Fallujah?" reminds readers, the battles also demon73

strated the complex challenges of battling an insurgency. Militarily, the Marine Corps did not lose

either battle. Yet the first battle of Fallujah,

launched to clear the city of insurgents in April

2004, was a major setback for the Coalition's operations in Iraq. Major Alfred B. Connable's "The

Massacre That Wasn't" examines the reasons the

insurgents were able to retain the initiative during

the battle. The second battle of Fallujah, in contrast,

was a decisive victory that effectively cleared the

city of insurgents. In their piece, "Operation Al Fajr:

The Battle of Fallujah—Part II," Lieutenant General

John F. Sattler and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel H.

Wilson present a commander's perspective on the

battle to retake the city in November 2004.

The final two selections present further perspective on the tactics and challenges of urban combat.

Colonel Eric T. Litaker's "Efforts to Counter the TED

Threat" examines efforts to defeat the insurgents'

most ubiquitous weapon, the improvised explosive

device. Finally, William Langewiesche's article

"Rules of Engagement" examines the Haditha incident, considering how the stresses of battling an

insurgency led to the deaths of 24 civilians under

questionable circumstances in the Iraqi town in

November 2005.

The Massacre That Wasn't

by Major Alfred B. "Ben" Connabie

Ideas as Weapons: Influence and Perception in

Modern Warfare (2009)

D

uring the fighting in Fallujah in April

2004, the Associated Press reported that

the U.S. Marines had bombed a mosque

in the city, killing 40 civilians gathered innocently for prayer. The story was picked up by the

major international news networks and rebroadcast around the world. This report became the

focal point for the intensive media backlash

against the Fallujah assault that eventually forced

a Marine withdrawal. Over the summer, Fallujah

became a safe haven for the worst of the criminal gangs, insurgents, and terrorists, including

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The problem was the

Marines did not kill 40 innocent people at that

mosque.

I was working with the 1st Marine Division

staff in Ramadi on April 7, 2004, at the height of

the first Fallujah campaign. As the fight for the

streets of the city developed, we watched a company of Marines in a firefight via the transmitted

picture from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

We were seeing everything unfold on the streets

of Fallujah in a surreal but very clear, live, televised shot. The Marines were in a tough spot,

pinned by insurgents laying down accurate fire

from the minaret of the large Abdul-Aziz alSamarai mosque that dominated the surrounding

terrain. Other insurgents moved in and out of the

ground floor during the fight, but if the Marines

were unable to eliminate the snipers the advance

in that sector would be stalled.

For several hours, the two sides traded shots,

during which five Marines were wounded.1

Tightly restricted by rules of engagement from

using anything heavier than a light machine gun

against the mosque, the Marines struggled unsuccessfully to put a "golden round" into the narrow

slit at the top of the tower. After careful consid75

eration and a clear discussion with the staff

lawyers, the Marine commander eventually

approved the launch of a single Hellfire missile

into the tower to kill the snipers while minimizing damage to the mosque.2

We watched as the helicopter-launched missile streaked an errant path along one side of the

tower, harmlessly slamming into the ground

below and leaving the snipers unscathed. The

minaret was too small a target, and the Marines

were loath to take a second shot for fear of

another missile going astray.

Pressure to advance increased as units on

their flanks became exposed by the lack of

progress around the mosque. The Marines on the

ground asked to drop two bombs along the

retaining wall around the mosque so they could

rush the insurgents without becoming easy targets as they tried to break through. There was

another heated debate, a command decision, and

a fixed-wing jet aircraft3 dropped two 500-pound

bombs along the wall at 3:53 p.m.4

The camera caught the explosion of the

bombs on film.5 A huge cloud of black smoke

flew up, and then settled, as the Marines rushed

forward and cleared the mosque. The bombs had

smashed a gap in the wall but clearly left the

building completely intact. We saw no bodies

live or otherwise near the wall before or after the

impact of the bombs. As the unmanned aircraft

slowly circled the compound, it became clear

that the insurgents had fled. Some young infantry

Marines climbed those steps and made sure the

snipers were gone. They radioed back their

report: mosque secured. They found no other

personnel, weapons, or equipment, just empty

shell casings on the ground floor. There were no

bodies inside or outside the building.

Acutely aware that our entry into the mosque

might make for negative media headlines, I

began to monitor the news websites. It didn't

take long for an AP reporter, Abdul-Qader Saadi,
to relay "eyewitness accounts" of the incident to

his bureau:

Associated Press (3:01 p.m. UK Time)—

A U.S. helicopter fired three missiles at a

mosque compound in the city of Fallujah

on Wednesday, killing about 40 people as

American forces batted Sunni insurgents,

witnesses said. Cars ferried bodies from the

scene, though there was no immediate confirmation of casualties. The strike came as

worshippers gathered for afternoon

prayers, witnesses said. They said the dead

were taken to private homes in the area

where temporary hospitals had been set

up.6

Alarmed by what appeared to be an impending and wholly unwarranted public relations disaster, we scrambled to gather the facts so we

could work a release through our public affairs

officer, then-Lieutenant Eric Knapp. Our first task

was to confirm that we were all talking about the

same mosque (we were). We then interviewed

the Marines in charge of the video feed, and they

confirmed that no unarmed people were seen

anywhere near the fighting or the bomb impact

site.

We ran the feed of the bomb drops again, taking video snapshots of the undamaged and completely intact mosque, the two craters, and the

broken wall. We reviewed the facts as we knew

them from our constant observation and the

reporting from the Marines on the ground. There

were no indications of any casualties, civilian or

other. If anyone had been gathering in that

mosque for prayers, they were long gone after

the half-day intensive firefight in broad daylight.

In order to give the press an accurate and

convincing rebuttal to the AP headline, we wanted to issue a copy of the video frames showing

the intact mosque along with our version of

events. Unfortunately, because the image was

taken from a classified video system, the photo

was considered classified and the word "Secret"

was clearly visible inside the margins. It took us

more than eight hours to get the image cropped

and prepared for release; by that time the story

76

had taken on a life of its own. The BBC picked

up the lead from the AP:

BBC (April 7, 2004)—A U.S. air strike

has killed up to 40 people inside a mosque

compound during heavy fighting in the

Sunni Muslim Iraqi town of Fallujah, witnesses say. Forty Iraqis were reportedly

killed when a U.S. helicopter struck a

mosque with three missiles today in the

central Iraqi city of Fallujah. Cars ferried

bodies of the dead from the scene and part

of the wall surrounding the Ahdul-Aziz alSamarrai mosque was demolished, said an

AP reporter, Abdul-Qader Saadi, who

added that the mosque building itself was

not damaged. The strike came as worshippers gathered for afternoon prayers, witnesses said. An angry crowd gathered as

the wounded were taken to makeshift hospitals.7

Our frustration grew as we watched what we

knew to be fictions develop into reported fact—

the Americans bombed a mosque and killed 40

innocent people in the midst of peaceful prayer.

Things quickly got worse as the official AP report

hit the Internet.8 In a story entitled "U.S. Bombs

Fallujah Mosque; More than 40 Worshippers

Killed," by Bassem Mroue and Abdul-Qader

Saadi, the AP reported the following:

An Associated Press reporter in Fallujah

saw cars ferrying the dead and wounded

from the Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque.

Witnesses said a helicopter fired three missiles into the compound, destroying part of

a wall surrounding the mosque but not

damaging the main building. The strikecame as worshippers had gathered for

afternoon prayers, witnesses said.

Temporary hospitals were set up in private

homes to treat the wounded and prepare

the dead for burial.

Most important, the inset picture AP story's by

Agence France-Presse photographer Cris

Bouroncle depicted three Marines on the streets
of Fallujah. It was accompanied by this caption:

U.S. Marines from the 1st Marine

Expeditionary Force move into Fallujah.

U.S. Marines pressing an offensive in this

Iraqi town west of Baghdad bombed a central mosque filled with worshippers and

killed up to 40, a Marine officer said.

Now the AP was attributing the story of the

massacre to an official, although unnamed,

Marine source. We ran a request for information

down the chain of command and quickly ascertained that nobody had confirmed this version of

events. Reporters and editors were passing along

the original AP report as if they were playing a

had game of 'telephone." Every report seemed

to loop back on the original story by Saadi. Later

that day, Gwen Ifill interviewed Tony Perry, a

reporter for the Los Angeles Times who spent a

considerable amount of time in al-Anbar

Province. He depicted a different version of

events from the AP story:

Ifill: . . . We did hear today about an

attack on a mosque that killed anywhere

from 40 to 60 people. Were you with that

unit and can you describe what happened?

(Note: Now Ifill has introduced the number

"60" into the story.)

Perry: Yeah, I'm with the unit right now.

The first reports are a little misleading.

What happened here . . . there are several

mosques that have been used by the insurgents as places to either gather or strategize

or even fire at Marines. One particular

mosque had 30 to 40 insurgents in it. They

had snipers. They wounded five Marines.

There were ambulances that drove up and

the Marines let them come in to take the

insurgent wounded away. But instead, people with RPGs. . . jumped out of the ambulances and started fighting with the

Marines. Ultimately, what the Marines did is

call in airpower. A helicopter dropped a

Hellfire missile and then an F-16 dropped a

laser-guided bomb on the outside of the

mosque, put a huge crater outside the

.7

mosque. There's sort of a plaza outside the

mosque. And suddenly, the firing inside

stopped. But when the Marines examined

the mosque and went in and went door-todoor in the mosque and floor-to-floor, they

found no bodies, nor did they find the kind

of blood and guts one would presume if

people had died. Now one of two things

must have happened: either the people

died inside and were carted off somehow—and there is a tradition of the insurgents carting off their dead very quickly; or

two, frankly, they escaped before the bomb

was dropped. We cannot confirm that anybody actually died in that mosque. The

Marines were quite willing to kill everybody in the mosque because they were

insurgents. They had been firing at people,

at Marines. And as the lieutenant colonel

who ordered the strikes said, this was no

longer a house of worship; this was a military target.9

Tony Perry had developed a reputation with

the Marines for both professionalism and objectivity. Admittedly fearful of combat and death, he

gained tremendous respect with his willingness

to travel into hot spots alongside the Marines.

However, he was never afraid to point out our

failures or shortcomings on the front page of the

Los Angeles Times.

If Perry, who was right on the scene, couldn't

find evidence of any massacre, how did Saadi get

the chain of events so confused?1° I hesitate to

question the fact that he personally witnessed

carloads of casualties. There does not seem to be

any evidence, however, that he confirmed the

wounded and dead were actually removed from

the compound, had been innocently gathering

for prayer, had been hit by an air strike, or were

not just insurgent fighters being evacuated from

the ongoing fight down the street.

Even assuming Saadi's first-person account of

casualties coming from the area around the

mosque is accurate, the rest of the story relies

entirely on secondhand accounts from Fallujah

residents or, possibly, savvy insurgent fighters

who regularly dropped their weapons to blend
in with the civilian population. Reporting these

secondhand stories as nearly unquestioned fact

seems to be where truth separated from the fiction in the confusion of battle.

If "eyewitness" reports are to be taken at face

value, the preponderance of Marine attacks on

insurgent targets in Fallujah between April and

November 2004 resulted in the deaths of women

and children. Reporters regularly overlooked the

fact that most of these accounts came from a

spokesman in the insurgent-controlled hospital

on the southwestern peninsula of the city or

from other questionable sources.11 Few media

outlets seemed to take into account the power of

Fallujan xenophobia or the active insurgent

propaganda campaign aimed at the American

and international media. The "truth" in Fallujah

often wallowed helplessly somewhere between

frantic street rumor and outright lie.

No matter whether the people reporting the

story to Saadi were actual witnesses, insurgents,

or simply Fallujans angered at the fighting

around the mosque, some logical questions

regarding the AP story remain:

• Why were Fallujah Muslims gathering for

prayer at 3:53 p.m. when the closest prayer times

for April 7, 2004, were 1:08 p.m. and 4:43 p.m.?'2

• Why were 40 people gathering for prayer at

the mosque on a Wednesday afternoon when

this kind of communal prayer gathering is usually reserved for Friday mornings?

• Why were 40 people gathering peacefully

for prayer at a mosque that had become the focal

point for a broad daylight, raging firefight?

• If the Marine bombs killed up to 40 innocent people, why were there no signs of any

blood or bodies in or around the mosque compound?

Despite the doubts raised by Tony Perry, a

CNN online article that seemed to dismiss the

casualties as rumor,13 protestations of the Marine

battalion commander on site, and lengthy denials

by military spokesman Brigadier General [Mark

T.1 Kimmet, the story of the massacre at the

Abdul-Aziz al-Samarrai mosque is now part of

the official history of Iraq. The website for the

78

group "Iraq Body Count" (IBC), lists the incident

not once but twice, accounting for 40 deaths

"confirmed" by the Associated Press and Middle

East Online.14 Antiwar bloggers made haste to

turn the AP version of the incident into political

fodder. An April 8 article by Anthony Gregory on

antiwar.com entitled, "Fallujah Revenge and the

War Disease" leads with the following paragraph:

The recent bombing of a mosque in

Fallujah meant fiery deaths for about 40

Iraqis, but if the hawks get their way, it will

be only the beginning of the deadly reprisals

waged by the U.S. against that town in retaliation for the massacre of Americans there

last week.'5

The New World Blogger adds:

This isn't good—an understatement. If

even during the Middle Ages someone could

call for sanctuary within a church, shouldn't

mosques, churches and synagogues be off.

limits for bombing as well? Not only do they

represent relentless revenge, hut they also

plant further seeds for anti-U.S. hatred

among those who feel their religion has

been disrespected. I think we have seen

enough of what blind retaliation has to offer

us.16

The bloggers aren't the only ones to capitalize

on the massacre-that-wasn't in Fallujah. Al Jazeera

added a new twist to the story in its April 7

English-online Internet reporting:

The bomb hit the minaret of the mosque

and ploughed a hole through the building,

shattering windows and leaving the mosque

badly damaged.17

With the Associated Press and BBC stories to

back up its claims, nobody bothered to question

the Al Jazeera version of events. It should he noted

that then-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi banned Al

Jazeera from reporting in Iraq prior to the second

Fallujah campaign because of ongoing collusion

with the insurgents and blatant propagandizing.
There is no indication that the Associated

Press or any other agency made any effort to

confirm or deny the original story by Saadi.

None of the post-incident interviews seems to

indicate that the AP reporter actually entered

the mosque compound to check his facts. Tony

Perry's on-scene reporting was simply ignored.

What impact, if any, did this false report have

on the conduct of the war? According to indepth interviews and research done by Bing

West, the author of No True Glory, stories like

the one about the mosque "massacre" beamed

across the BBC airwaves led in large part to a

dramatic shift in British public opinion against

the Fallujah assault. 18 The resulting pressure

and public outcry over the reports of civilian

deaths and images of dead babies repeatedly

broadcast by Al Jazeera forced Prime Minister

Tony Blair to pressure President Bush to cease

offensive combat operations. Although not

strictly causal by itself, the AP report was certainly a central factor in the media disaster that

led to the withdrawal from Fallujah in the

spring.

This withdrawal left the city in the hands of

men like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abdullah

Janabi, and Omar Hadid. They turned it into a

safe haven for criminals, terrorists, and murderers of every stripe. These men cut off Nick

Berg's head and brutally slaughtered other

Western hostages. They kidnapped, tortured,

and murdered innocent Iraqi civilians who happened to get in their way. The Fallujah haven

allowed them to conduct hundreds of operations that killed and maimed our Marines and

soldiers across the al-Anbar and northern Babil

provinces in mid-2004.

We were eventually able to respond with

Operation al-Fajr, the intensive Marine and

Army assault to retake the city in November.19

The six-month interval between Operations

Vigilant Resolve and al-Fajr allowed the insurgents to dig tunnels, prepare defenses, and

stock weapons and ammunition. We suffered

more than 500 U.S. and Iraqi military casualties

in this battle. Learning their lesson from the

propaganda victory in April, the insurgents

turned almost every mosque in Fallujah into a

79

fortress and weapons depot in the hope they

would take return fire during the fighting.

Unfortunately, the fighting did indeed cause

some damage, and the AP was there to point

Out American culpability.20

The reported events at the Abdul-Aziz alSamarrai mosque continue to provide ammunition to the antiwar crowd and contribute to the

outrage in the greater Arab world. The story

seems to be handcrafted for extremist religious

leaders trying to coerce young Muslim men to

travel to Iraq and kill Americans. The Iraq Body

Count casualty list that includes the numbers of

dead reported by the AP is regularly quoted as

fact. The official BBC Iraq timeline figures the

mosque incident prominently, reminding its

readers of this supposed atrocity and continuing

to erode support for the war.21

Many reporters working stories in Iraq are

professional, relatively unbiased, and willing to

risk their lives to get first-person accounts.

However, military and diplomatic officers also

regularly complain about shallow, inaccurate

reporting that exaggerates violence, ignores

incremental success, and undermines American

popular support. Some of the most vociferous

critics of military cultural training display a stunning ignorance of post-Saddam culture when

quoting the Iraqi street. Spend enough time on

the ground and one finds reporters content to

rereport wire stories from the Green Zone (with

a suitably dramatic backdrop) or rely wholly on

Iraqi stringers who may or may not be working

with insurgents, exaggerating events, or simply

creating stories to turn a buck in the face of

high unemployment. There are even a few

mainstream reporters with dedicated antiwar

agendas. One prominent wire service correspondent is well known for going on "hunting

missions," looking for that one disgruntled

Marine or soldier who will give him a gripe or

a pithy, antiwar comment, while ignoring positive or upbeat interviews.

It is unlikely that Mr. Abdul-Qader Saadi was

hunting for a negative story. He was obviously

brave and willing to risk his life on the streets of

Fallujah, and his report was very straightforward

and seemingly professional. It was technically
accurate: some people told him that the

Americans had bombed a mosque and killed 40

innocent people. He says he saw people carting

away casualties. He never says that he followed

through with an investigation and did not confirm the details of the incident in any meaningful way. This is typical of AP "up-to-the minute"

coverage.

It took the assumptions and circular reporting

of the BBC, Iraq Body Count, the Agence FrancePresse photographer, Al Jazeera. and the bloggers to cement "the massacre that wasn't" into

the history of the Iraq War. Some of them wanted the story to be true and will never question

the facts. Those with a professional reputation

for objectivity to uphold may want to take a second look. The Marines learned their lesson; it

will never again take eight hours to release critical evidence to the media in the heat of battle.

Perhaps if the truth had been told we could have

avoided the murder and mayhem that emanated

from the "city of mosques" throughout the long,

hot summer of 2004. We may never know how

many more reports like this one are woven into

the narrative of the war in Iraq.

Notes

Reprinted from G. J. David and T. R.

McKeldin, eds., Ideas as Weapons: Influence and

Perception in Modern Warfare (Washington, DC:

Potomac Books, 2009), 341-50. Used courtesy of

Major Connable and by permission from

Potomac Books.

Other sources of information used for this

story:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_ea

st/story.jsp?story=509467

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Abdul-Aziz_alSamarrai_mosque

http://www.countercurrents.org/iraqmccarthy240404 .htm

http: //www. uncensoredpress. corn!

http://rense.com/general53/dde.htm

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/iracL04-

07-04.htmt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763, 12

02163,00.html

80

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CT

VNews/2 0040407/fallujahcasualtiesj)40407?s

_name=&no_ads=

Keiler, Jonathan F., "Who Won the Battle for

Fallujah?" U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings,

January 2005.

1. All five were wounded in the initial contact when

a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) fired from the

mosque compound struck a Marine vehicle.

According to press reports one later died, although

this has not been confirmed by the Marine Corps.

2. The AGM-114 series Hellfire is a laser-guided antitank missile with a small, shaped charge warhead typically used to destroy armored vehicles.

3. "Eyewitness" accounts would later incorrectly identify a Marine helicopter as the source of all three

strikes: the missile and the two bombs. Marine helicopters do not carry or employ 500-pound aerial

bombs

4. This time is taken from the original time stamp on

the uncleared, classified imagery.

5. Images sanitized and cleared for release by the

appropriate Marine Corps units and public affairs officials.

6. "IBC Falluja April 2004 News Digest," Iraq Body

(bunt (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/resources/falluja/ibc_fal!uja_apr_07.php#bna 1).

7. BBC News, "U.S. Bombards Iraq Mosque Complex,"

April 7, 2004 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/l/hi/middle

_east/3609665.stm).

8. Bassem Mroue and Abdul-Qader Saadi, "U.S.

Bombs Fallujah Mosque; More Than 40 Worshippers

Killed," CommonDreams.org News Center, April 7,

2004 (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines

04/0407-06.htm).

9. "IBC Falluja April 2004 News Digest."

10. Perry himself later filed a joint report with

Edmund Sanders (Tony Perry and Edmund Sanders,

"U.S. Bombs Mosque in Falluja: Military Says Site Was

Used to Launch Strikes; Troops' Tours May Be

Extended," Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2004) that

repeated both the eyewitness claims and the Marine

denials. This version did not point out that there had

been no confirmation of deaths in or around the

mosque and did not go into the level of detail presented in the Ifill interview.

11. See http://www.fair.org/activisim/nyt-fallujah.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6890A8DA

AF79-45AD-BB4F-42C060978A07.htm; Brian Dominick, "Fallujab, U.S. Declares War on Hospitals,

Ambulances," The New Standard, November 9, 2004

(http ://newstandardnews . net/content/index. cfm

/items/1208); Iraq Body Count website (http://

www.iraqbodycount.org). All websites accessed

November 30, 2006.

12. Exact prayer times for April 7, 2004, in Fallujah

can be found at http://www.islamicfinder. org.

13. CNN.com, "Marines: U.S. Bombed Iraqi Mosque

Wall," April 7, 2004 (http://www.cnn.com/2004

/WORLD/meast/04/07/fallujah.strike/index.html).

14. Iraq Body Count typically (and commendably)

lists only incidents confirmed by two sources.

However, in this case they refer to the original AP

story and a website that references the AP story in an

obvious case of circular reporting.

15. Anthony Gregory, "Fallujah Revenge and the War

Disease," Anti-War.com, April 8, 2004 (http://www

.antiwar.com/orig/gregory.php?articleid=2274).

16. New World Blogger.com, "New Additions," April

10, 2004 (http://new-world-blogger.blogspot.com

/2004_04_04_new-wor!d-blogger_archive.html).

17. Al Jazeera English website: http://english

81

aljazeera .net/NR/exeres/A73529F1-1 554-4C68-8774-

BA478D565B02.htm (accessed November 30, 2006).

18. Bing West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of

the Battle for Fallujah (New York: Bantam, 2005).

West refers to the incident at the mosque from two

separate vantage points.

19. "Phantom Fury" is the other name for al-Fajr.

"Vigilant Resolve" was the code name for the first

Marine assault on Fallujah.

20. AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, "An Iraqi Man Inspects

Damage," November 8, 2004 (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1 108-08.htm).

21. BBC News, "Timeline: Iraq," October 14, 2005

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4343078

.stm).

About the Author

Major Alfred B. "Ben" Connable served as the Middle East desk

officer at Headquarters Marine Corps Intelligence Department

before being assigned to 1st Marine Division as a foreign area officer. In 2003 and 2004, he was the division's foreign area officer and

intelligence operations officer. Connable has retired from the

Marine Corps and is working for the RAND Corporation as an intelligence policy analyst.

I Marine Expeditionary Force Summary

of Action

by Commande, US. Marine Forces, Central

Command

Adapted from Unit Award Recommendation

Unit:! Marine Expeditionary Force

Recommended Award: Presidential Unit Citation

Period of Award: 2 August 2004-1 February 2005

Status: Secretary of the Navy

Originator: Commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces

Central Command

Citation:

F

or extraordinary heroism and exceptional performance of duty in actions against enemy

forces from 2 August 2004 to 1 February 2005,

in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II. I Marine

Expeditionary Force (Reinforced) (I MEF) conducted

a coordinated campaign across a 400 mile arc of the

Euphrates River Valley to eliminate insurgent control

over the key cities of an-Najaf and al-Fallujah and the

remainder of the local population in the I Marine

Expeditionary Force area of responsibility. The battles for an-Najaf and al-Fallujah were the largest U.S.-

led urban operations since the Vietnam War. Both

battles saw the introduction of new and innovative

tactics, techniques, and procedures which became

key to I Marine Expeditionary Force's success. Throughout 24 days of intense conflict in an-Najaf,

the Marines conducted destruction raids on insurgent

strongholds, captured weapons caches, and engaged

in fierce close-quarters battle. During this operation,

I Marine Expeditionary Force killed over 1,500 enemy

insurgents while simultaneously preserving the

sacred Imam Ali Shrine and Mosque Complex. In

response to violent insurgent actions in al-Fallujah, a

coalition force of 12,500, led by I MEF, boldly

breached the city's fortifications and destroyed a

heavily armed and well-entrenched fanatical enemy.

Countless acts of individual bravery in al-Fallujah

resulted in over 2,000 enemy killed or captured as

83

the Marines, Soldiers, and Sailors fiercely fought and

cleared the city house by house. By their outstanding

courage, resourcefulness and aggressive fighting spirit in combat against the enemy, the officers and

enlisted personnel of I Marine Expeditionary Force

reflected great credit upon themselves and upheld

the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the

United States Naval Service.

The Battle to Liberate an-Najaf

In August 2004, I Marine Expeditionary Force (I

MEF) was. called upon to conduct full spectrum

offensive operations in order to defeat insurgent

Mahdi militia forces in Najaf and Kufa and restore

normal civil authorities to the cities of Najaf and Kufa.

In sustained urban combat, I MEF destroyed and otherwise forcibly removed a well-entrenched enemy

militia from Najaf, the holiest city in Iraq, without

damaging the holy Imam Ali Shrine and Mosque

Complex.

Combat operations were characterized by intense

and close combat. Infantry fought at close range

through a huge cemetery, honeycombed with tunnels, crypts, and other concealed positions. Close air

support and main tank direct fire enabled ground

units to dislodge Mabdi militias from improved fighting positions in the cemetery and buildings around

the mosques. During the entire 24 days of combat in

Najaf, I MEF forces suffered minimal casualties but

inflicted an estimated 1,500 enemy killed in action.

The defeat of the enemy in Najaf also represented

the beginning of the end for the organized Mahdi

militia insurgency and the marginalization of a dangerous militant Shi'ite insurgent movement. The

strategic outcome later helped shape future combat

operations in Fallujah and encouraged Shi'ite support

for a national election.

Summary of Ground Combat Operations

On 7 August 2004, Task Force 1st Battalion, 5th

Cavalry Regiment (TF 1-5 CAV) arrived to reinforce
the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (11th MEU) for

further combat operations, while the Iraqi National

Guard (ING) led an Iraqi operation to raid Sadr's

house in Najaf. This engagement resulted in four

enemy killed in action and the capture of two Mahdi

militia. On 8 August 2004, TF 1-5 CAV cleared the

remainder of the Najaf cemetery and encountered little to no resistance moving into the cemetery. On 9

August 2004, Multi National Force-West (MNF-W)

assumed tactical control of 11th MEU with the arrival

of the I MEF (Fwd) Command Element, commanded

by the I MEF Deputy Commanding General,

Brigadier General Dennis J. Hejlik, USMC. Upon his

arrival, and during the duration of operations, I MEF

(Fwd) Command Element conducted rounds of sustained peace negotiations with Iraqi interim government and Mahdi militia officials, while still planning,

overseeing and supervising combat operations.

On 11 August 2004, 11th MEU forces engaged

anti-Iraqi forces in the southwest, northwest, and

northeast portions of the city. As of 11 August 2004,

enemy killed in action was estimated at 460. On 12

August 2004, Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 1/4 (1st

Battalion, 4th Marines) and members of 405th ING

conducted a raid near Sadr's house to destroy antiIraqi forces and gather information of intelligence

value. The raiders attacked and cleared four buildings against a platoon-sized enemy armed with small

arms, sniper rifles, and mortars, resulting in three

enemy ,killed in action and 18 enemy wounded in

action. Exploitation of Sadr's house produced numerous documents, computer hard drives and other

material of intelligence value. On 13 August 2004, the

11th MEU Maritime Special Purpose Force, in support

of 36th Civil Defense Order and Iraqi Counter

Terrorism Force, conducted a direct action mission

on the Sahlah Mosque in Kufa. BLT 1/4 forces provided exterior cordon while 36th Civil .Defense Order

and Iraqi Counter Terrorism Force established the

interior cordon and conducted the assault, resulting

in three enemy killed in action and the capture of

eight Mahdi militia.

On 15 August 2004, both TF 1-5 CAV and Task

Force 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry (TF 2-7 CAy) were

engaged numerous times by direct and indirect fire.

Both units returned fire killing or wounding numerous enemies. Later that day, the Governor of an-Najaf

announced that the provincial council voted to oust

84

the Mahdi militia and demanded the Mahdi militia

forces leave an-Najaf. Sporadic fighting continued

with the Mahdi militia intentionally using the no-fire

area as a safe haven from which to attack or retreat.

On 17 August 2004, Alpha Company, BLT 1/4,

attached to TF 2-7 CAy, conducted a destruction raid

on a suspected enemy weapons cache in Najaf while

Charlie Company TF 2-7 CAV conducted a destruction raid on a suspected enemy stronghold. These

raids resulted in the capture of a Mahdi militia and a

weapons cache. At the request of IF 2-7 CAy, aviation assets engaged an enemy mortar position near

the hotel district within the old city.

18 August 2004 saw sustained engagements

involving every battalion in the special Marine Air

Ground Task Force (MAGTF). TF 1-5 CAV was

engaged with rocket-propelled grenades in the cemetery. Alpha Company, TF 2-7 CAV received heavy

machine-gun, small arms, and RPG fire from a building just inside the ring road. After Bravo Company,

BLT 1 /4 was engaged by mortar fire, aviation assets

surgically destroyed the mortar system, located within the restricted fire area. Reinforced by the Iraqi

National Guard, the Iraqi police established a traffic

control point for all traffic approaching the ring road

and succeeded in containing the Mahdi militia inside

the Imam Mi Mosque Complex. On 20 August 2004,

after IF 1-5 CAV received mortar fire in the cemetery,

an AC-130 gunship destroyed the enemy position.

On 21 August 2004, Alpha Company, BLT 1/4 conducted a raid on Kufah to clear a former Iraqi police

station. In support of this raid, Bravo Company

attacked by fire onto a Mahdi militia checkpoint. 2d

Platoon of Alpha Company and BLT 1/4

Reconnaissance established a screen line to prevent a

southern egress from Kufah. An AC-130, in coordination with attack helicopters, brought effective fire on

the target during the attack. The coordinated attack

was a success. Both objectives were secured with an

estimated 45 enemy killed in action and 29 Mahdi

militia captured.

On 22 August 2004, IF 1-5 CAy, reinforced with

elements of BLT 1/4, conducted a probing attack on

the western portion of a parking garage. The probing

element encountered heavy resistance, centered

mainly on the buildings to the southwest of the parking garage. An AC-130, which had been prosecuting

targets of opportunity on the western end of the
parking garage and surrounding buildings, engaged a

mortar position. After TF 2-7 CAY received sniper fire

from four buildings to the east of the restricted fire

area, aviation assets destroyed the targets, resulting in

an unknown number of enemy killed in action.

Despite rumors of peace talks, the fighting continued

on 23 August 2004. After TF 2-7 CAV received RPG

and heavy machine-gun fire from the northern end of

the old city, AC-130 fire destroyed the target.

Following a rocket-propelled grenade and small arms

fire attack on TF 1-5 CAV from west of the shrine,

artillery fire destroyed the target.

Combat operations continued on 24 August 2004

when TF 2-7 CAy, TF 1-5 CAY and BLT 1/4 crossed

the line of departure to conduct limited objective

attacks in their respective zones. They were supported by 155mm artillery, AC-130, AV-8B Harriers, F-18

Hornets and AH-1W Cobras. TF 2-7 CAY came in

contact immediately and executed numerous close

air support missions. Hellfire missiles and several

rockets helped IF 2-7 take several buildings in the

eastern portion of the old city. TF 1-5 engaged the

enemy with tank main gun, 25mm, and heavy

machine gun fire. Following their attack, TF 1-5

moved south into the old city to conduct a reconnaissance by force. TF 1-5 encountered a deliberate

obstacle with imbedded improvised explosive

devices, sporadic rocket-propelled grenades, and

small arms fire. An AC-130 engaged the obstacles,

resulting in a large secondary explosion and the partial reduction of the obstacle. The AC-130 also

engaged a bus near the garage complex. BLT 1/4 successfully cleared their zone with little contact. The

battalion landing team's actions forced a Mahdi militia retreat south and east, where 36th Commando

conducted a preplanned ambush, resulting in an

unknown number of enemy killed in action.

On 24 August 2004, a UH-1N Huey employed a

Bright Star laser designator for the first time in combat. The aircraft designated a building that housed

five to 15 Mahdi militia and a possible antiaircraft

artillery piece. The building and enemy were

destroyed by Hellfire missiles from an AH-1W, which

were emplOyed in conjunction with the Bright Star

laser. On 24 August, TF 2-7 CAV established attack by

fire positions around the eastern side of the ring road

in order to support the pending BLT 1/4 attack south

through• the cemetery and into the northwest corner

85

of the old city. Two key buildings were seized, followed by systematic clearing of Mahdi militia forces

throughout the night. In support of this attack and

the final assault planned for 26 August 2004, several

key targets were engaged by fixed-wing aviation

assets; To help shape the conditions for the final

assault on the shrine and mosque, GBU-12 bombs

(500 pounds) and GBU-31 bombs (2,000 pounds)

were delivered on key buildings, which housed

Mahdi militia, with good effects. During this assault,

an estimated 51 enemy killed in action were

assessed, with Marine expeditionary unit forces sustaining 13 friendly wounded in action.

Sporadic fighting continued throughout the morning and into the early afternoon on 26 August 2004.

BLT 1/4 attacked the Mahdi militia through the northwest corner of the old city. Alpha Company BLT 1/4

attacked east and tied in by fire with TF 1-5 near the

intersection of the ring road and Route Nova. TF 2-7

pressed the attack from east to west. By 1500 on 26

August 2004, the Imam Mi Shrine and Mosque was

surrounded and final planning continued on decisive

actions to storm the site. However, Multi National

Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) released an order directing I MEF

to cease offensive operations in Najaf in order to

allow Iraqi political and religious officials the opportunity to peaceably resolve the removal of Mahdi

militia from the Imam Mi Shrine and Mosque

Complex. On 27 August 2004, the Grand Ayatollah

Sistani received the keys to the Imam Ali Shrine and

Mosque Complex, signaling the end of hostilities

there.

Summary ofAir Combat Operations

Support by I MEF's air combat element, the 3d

Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), was noteworthy and

impressive. 3d MAW's CH-46E Sea Knights provided

casualty evacuation and medical evacuation support,

while H-is and AV-8Bs were heavily engaged in close

air support missions throughout the city. CH-53E

Super Stallions flew nightly missions from Al Asad to

Forward Operating Base Duke, bringing equipment

and ammunition. On 5 August 2005, 3d MAW experienced a combat loss when a UH-1N was shot down

by enemy fire. Although the two crew members sustained injuries, they were quickly recovered by a CH46 and flown to Babylon for appropriate medical

treatment.
Fixed-wing and rotary wing close air support

proved to be extremely challenging due to clearance

of fire issues, the importance of minimizing collateral damage, and the various restricted fire areas and

no-fire areas placed around the Imam Ali Shrine and

Mosque Complex. As the pressure from Coalition

forces mounted, the Mahdi militia began to hide

within these buffer zones. On 25 August 2004, precision air strikes were conducted on multiple buildings

occupied by the Mahdi militia forces within the

buffer zone around the Imam Au Shrine.

During the battle of an-Najaf, the H-is expended

more than 90 Hellfire missiles, 600 2.75mm rockets,

and 7,000 rounds of 20mm shells while the AV-8B

Harriers delivered seven GBU-i2 bombs, nine AGM65E Maverick missiles, and 100 rounds of 25mm

shells. During the battle of Najaf, CH-46 helicopters

transported a total of 100 casualty evacuation support

missions and routinely responded to calls for assistance in 30 minutes or less. 3d MAW aircraft flew over

1,800 hours, 1,100 sorties, and delivered 300,000

pounds of cargo in support of operations in the city

of an-Najaf.

Summary of Combat Service Support

Operations

1st Force Service Support Group (1st FSSG) provided superior assistance to 11th MEU in developing

actionable intelligence in Kufa to defeat Mahdi militia. 1st FSSG's subordinate commands provided combat support to ensure the success of Operation Najaf,

including providing a detachment of corpsman and

AN/VRC-90 radios to 11th MEU in support of this

operation; coordinating transportation for personnel

and associated equipment to Forward Operating

Base Duke; and ensuring that proper equipment custody procedures were followed to transfer the equipment from force service support group EKMS

[Electronic Key Management System] account to 11th

Marine Expeditionary Unit EKMS account.

Summary of Reconstruction Operations

In the aftermath of the August battle of Najaf, 11th

MEU established an extremely aggressive and proactive program to repair battle damage by making

reconstruction and condolence payments to the innocent victims of the battle. An aggressive patrolling

package was utilized to identify potential civil affairs

86

projects while maintaining a force protection posture

commensurate with the cessation of hostilities. The

Gulf Investment Company processed 45 cases, generating over $90,000 in payments. In the span of one

month, 11th MEU spent $3.5 million on over 100 civil

affairs projects in Najaf.

In the months that followed, the Marine expeditionary unit worked closely with Najaf government

officials, Iraqi security forces and nongovernmental

organizations to identify, screen and provide nearly

18,000 condolence payments of approximately $10

million dollars in aid and to facilitate repairs for these

victims. Such a large and rapid undertaking in providing battle damage condolence payments was

unprecedented in Iraqi history. The successful reconstruction operations in Najaf served as a template for

future operations in Fallujah. . The Battle to Liberate Fallujab,

Operation al-Fajr

Operation al-Fajr (formerly known as Operation

Phantom Fury) was the battle to liberate the city of

al-Fallujah from the control of entrenched foreign

fighters, terrorists, and insurgents in November 2004.

The battle represented an unprecedented joint and

combined operation, which broke the back of a

strong insurgency in al-Anbar Province and effectively disrupted insurgent operations throughout the

region. The success of Coalition forces in Fallujah, in

one of the most fiercely difficult urban combat battles

to be recorded, is credited with tremendously

strengthening the Interim Iraqi Government and

swaying moderate Iraqis to support the peaceful transition to local control.

Summary of Ground Combat Operations

Decisive ground combat operations in Fallujah

were preceded by weeks of carefully planned and

executed Phase I shaping and Phase II enhanced

shaping operations. Phase I shaping operations

included precision air strikes, a massive regimentsized feint, as well as other smaller mounted and dismounted raids and snap vehicle checkpoints.

During Phase I shaping operations, I MEF executed an effective information operations campaign that

drove wedges between the local population and the

anti-Iraqi forces, created paranoia among the insur-
gents and caused the local population to slowly

vacate the battlespace before the attack. This information campaign helped reduce the risk of collateral

damage and avoided a humanitarian crisis had the

civilian population suddenly fled the city.

Incessant I MEF Phase I shaping operations and

troop movements disrupted anti-Iraqi forces command and control and forced the anti-Iraqi forces to

commit their defenses to the south and west of the

city. Other shaping operations consisted of precision

air strikes, which destroyed key targets deep in the

heart of the city with only minimal collateral damage.

Precision air strikes targeted anti-Iraqi forces leadership; key command and control nodes; weapons systems and platforms; ammunition and weapons

caches; and berms, bunkers and fortifications. A carefully thought Out information operations and public

affairs operation shaping campaign headed off

adverse reaction to potential collateral damage by

reminding the local and world audience that antiIraqi forces were illegally using protected places, like

mosques, hospitals and schools, to carry out attacks.

Phase II enhanced shaping began on 7 November

2004. Enhanced shaping included a complex electronic attack, the isolation of Fallujah, movement into

attack positions, the securing of two key bridges on

the western peninsula, the continued integration of

Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force

(CJSOTF) snipers and precision air strikes, which

destroyed scores of improvised explosive devices

and improved fighting positions and obstacles. These

surgical air strikes created breaches and opened lanes

for follow-on troop movement.

During Phase II enhanced shaping, the Iraqi 36th

Civil Defense Order, supported by 3d Light Armored

Reconnaissance Battalion, seized a hospital on the

peninsula west of the city, which had served as an

insurgent command and control node. The 36th Civil

Defense Order raised the Iraqi flag as a symbol of the

great things to come. These units also secured the

two bridges that connected the peninsula with the

city and established blocking positions on each. The

U.S. Army's "Black Jack" Brigade then encircled the

city to prevent any insurgents from escaping and to

prevent any insurgent reinforcements from entering.

Regimental Combat Team 1 (RCT-1) and Regimental

Combat Team 7 (RCT-7) moved into their attack positions just north of the city, with RCT-1 assigned to the

87

western portion of the city and RCT-7 assigned to the

east. On cue, power was cut to the city to disorient

the insurgents and take greater advantage of the technological capabilities of the multinational forces.

Phase III decisive operations began at 1900 on 8

November 2004. Unfolding exactly as planned, decisive operations consisted of the rapid mechanized

penetration by RCT-1 and RCT-7, a combined arms

attack, "search and attack in zone" operations and the

continued blocking of the city, along with rear area

security. RCT-1 commenced the attack by seizing the

apartment complex just north of the city. Snipers

used the apartment complex to kill dozens of antiIraqi forces, forward observers, and defenders on the

northern edge of the city. Breaching of the train

tracks and a mechanized-supported infantry assault

into the city quickly followed. RCT-7 conducted similar assaults from north to south. - The original plan anticipated RCT-1 to experience

a great deal of resistance in the northwest portion of

the city. Less resistance was expected for RCT-7 in

the northeast quadrant. Therefore, RCT-7 was scheduled to turn and sweep through the southeast quadrant into the southwest and drive any resistance into

the river to the city's west. However, as operations

progressed, both regimental combat teams moved

more quickly than expected. Utilizing the branches

and sequels developed in advance, the division commander modified the plan and, on 11 November

2004, directed both regimental combat teams to continue their assault directly to the south.

By 13 November 2004, the initial attack through

the city was complete and Phase Ill-B (Search and

Attack) operations commenced as the units went

back through the city and conducted detailed clearing of any remaining insurgents. During the Search

and Attack phase, operations targeted anti-Iraqi

forces that might have escaped operations.

Simultaneously, I MEF conducted other brigade, regiment, and division-level operations throughout Area

of Operations Atlanta to disrupt enemy forces, develop actionable intelligence, and set conditions for

elections that• soon followed. Those operations

occurred in Amariyah, Saqlawiyah, Khalidiyah and

Habbaniyah, Kharma, Nasser Wa Salam, and

Khandaria.

During Phase III operations, I MEF troops seized

over 520 weapons caches; secured 60 mosques,
which had been used as fighting positions; discovered 24 improvised explosive device factories and

two vehicle—borne improvised explosive device factories; destroyed 13 command and control nodes;

discovered 7 suspected anti-Iraqi forces chemical laboratories; and found eight hostage locations. The gritty success of I MEF during Operation al-Fajr has been

likened to the Marine Corps' hard won victory in the

historic urban battle for Hue City. However, while I

MEF suffered modest casualties during the assault,

enemy losses were estimated at over 1,000 killed in

action and 1,000 captured.

Phase III operations were notable for the successful employment of joint fixed- and rotary-wing close

air support in the urban environment, which minimized collateral damage. The• bold decision to

employ joint and combined armor/infantry units disrupted anti-Iraqi forces command and control and

exploited I MEF's superior firepower, armor protection, and command-and-control advantages. The

Iraqi security forces proved their value by aggressively attacking and seizing culturally sensitive sites such

as mosques. They easily identified foreign fighters

and gathered intelligence. Iraqi security forces also

put an Iraqi face on Coalition efforts by providing

humanitarian assistance. I MEF's decision to integrate

Iraqi security forces into I MEF operations again reenforced that the 1SF could fight as an effective force, if

properly supported and led. As with Najaf, success of

combat operations in Fallujah produced positive

atmospherics and allowed reconstruction efforts to

begin even before clearing operations were completed throughout the city.

Summary ofAir Combat Operations

3d MAW played an historic role in providing close

air support, casualty evacuation and air traffic management missions during Operation al-Fajr. Intricate

coordination of third-generation sensors and precision guided weapons with the ground scheme of

maneuver allowed an incredibly precise level of

close air support in the urban environment.

As ground combat operations began, 3d MAW

supported the initial phases of combat operations

through enhanced shaping strikes in northern and

southern Fallujah. A railroad berm which would have

impeded RCT-l's progress was reduced by multiple

joint direct attack munitions strikes. This action

88

enabled RCT-l's subsequent main effort attack with

mechanized fighting vehicles and tanks. As the

ground units pressed south toward the government

center and Jolan Park, 3d MAW provided continuous

close air support of troops in contact while continuing to shape targets in the south.

By 10 November 2004, as ground forces enjoyed

excellent success in seizing Jolan Park and the government center with relatively few casualties, 3d

MAW continued providing fixed- and rotary-wing

close air support. Close air support aided troops in

contact and shaped the southern end of Fallujah by

destroying fortified positions within the coordinated

fire line box. The continuation of the attack south

was commenced with a branch plan being executed

on 11 November 2004. By 14 November 2004, the

penetration was complete and the search and attacks

commenced. 3d MAW supported throughout this

phase with continued surge air operations providing

precise and effective close air support to the ground

combat element.

During Operation al-Fajr, 3d MAW continued to

conduct convoy escort and route reconnaissance missions, in order to protect mission critical logistics

trains. Additionally, over 25 direct action operations

were planned and conducted with 1st Marine

Division, 11th, 24th, and 31st MEU's ground elements. These actions proved vital in capturing and

exploiting critical high value targets and uncovering

large weapons caches throughout the I MEF area of

operations.

The Marines of 3d MAW continued to distinguish

themselves with the unprecedented ability to perform

emergency casualty evacuation and medical evacuation operations within the I MEF area of operations.

3d MAW aircraft performed 196 casualty evacuation

missions and 79 medical evacuation missions in support of combat operations. The actions of Marine

Aircraft Group 16's (MAG-16) casualty evacuation

and medical evacuation crews were directly responsible for saving numerous lives in support of combat

operations throughout the al-Anhar Province, Iraq.

3d MAW's Marine Unmanned Squadron 1 (VMU-1)

conducted unmanned reconnaissance, surveillance,

target acquisition, indirect fire adjustment, battlefield

damage assessment, and support for the rear area

security plan during combat and surveillance operations. The Watchdogs of VMU-1 fulfilled their mission
and exceeded all expectations by surging for 12 days

(7-18 November 2004) in support Of Operation a!-

Fajr. During this period, VMU-1 flew 57 unmanned

sorties for a total 273.9 flight hours, averaging 22.8

flight hours per day. The quality of support to I MEF

was nothing short of extraordinary.

Marine Aerial Refueler and Transport Squadron

452 (VMGR-452 [-1 lReinforced]) added an additional

C-130 aircraft from VMGR-352 for surge operations in

support of Operation al-Fajr. The KC-130 tankers of

VMGR-452 (-)(Reinforced) provided 24-hour aerial

refueling coverage in the Elena and Daytona tracks to

the north and west of Fallujah, respectively. KC-130s

transferred 4.3 million pounds of fuel to 502 receivers

consisting of the AV-8B, FA-18, and EA-6B Prowlers

throughout the operation.

Ordnance expenditures for Operation al-Fajr were

robust, as was the precision targeting. The following

ordnance was expended in support of the 1st Marine

Division during Operation al-Fajr, from 7—18

November 2004: 183 GBU-12 bombs; 46 GBU-38

bombs; 12 GBU-31 bombs; 121 Hellfire missiles; 34

Laser Maverick; 32 tube launch, optical tracked, wire

guided (TOW) missiles; 70,009 20mm high explosive

incendiaries; 39,411 rounds of .50-caliber rounds;

30,582 rounds of 7.62 rounds; 8 five-inch rockets; 188

2.75-inch rockets; 1,473 25mm rounds; and 4,237

20mm rounds.

3d MAW provided full-scale flight operations in

support of I MEF, flying 5,733 sorties, generating

9,730.8 flight hours, moving 10,182 passengers, and

hauling 2.4 million pounds of cargo throughout the I

MEF area of responsibility during the operation. . Summary of Combat Service Support

Operations

1st FSSG and I Marine Expeditionary Force

Engineer Group (I MEG) personnel and equipment

were provided to Camps Fallujah and Baharia in support of requirements for Operation Phantom Fury. A

surge in camp population required the construction

of several tent camps. This surge in population was

the result of the anti-Iraqi forces intimidation campaign where local nationals and third-country nationals were hesitant to continue working for Coalition

forces. The decrease in work force created an opportunity for 1st FSSG to fulfill construction and camp

improvement efforts in support of the operations.

89

Marines, sailors, operators, and equipment were provided to support camp infrastructure and improvements.

Responding to the Marine expeditionary force's

decision to create a forward-based supply point, colloquially referred to as an "Iron Mountain" of supplies, 1st FSSG expertly and methodically developed

a plan to meet the multitude of requirements of supported units and balance those requirements against

the management capabilities inherent within the

receiving combat service support element.

The 1st FSSG ensured that forward provisioning of

support occurred without unnecessarily overburdening parallel support agencies. The results of this

detailed coordination include the delivery of over 11

million rounds of ammunition, 424 secondary

repairables worth in excess of four million dollars,

210 line items of Class IX repair parts worth close to

one million dollars, over two million bottles of water

in more than 175,000 cases, and over 750,000 readyto-eat meals.

I MEG contributed 2,500 man-days of construction

support to I MEF during Operation al-Fajr. Seabees

and soldiers emplaced force protection habitability

improvements for firm bases including boarding up

and sandbagging windows, placing HESCO and

Texas barriers, repaired battle damaged generators

and made other electrical upgrades. Improvements to

RCT l's forward command post increased the quality

of life of the Marines posted there and subsequently

improved security in Fallujah.

Seabee Engineer Reconnaissance Teams (SERfl

played a vital role in Phase III of Operation al-Fajr.

They executed multiple engineering and construction

assessment missions to determine the state of essential services and critical infrastructure. The hasty

repairs and assessments for permanent repair of the

Qanishyah Bridge for main supply route Mobile, a

critical route running from Baghdad to the Jordanian

border, were particularly notable. SERT teams also

assessed the breach points cut across the railroad

tracks north of Fallujah during the initial drive into

the city and reviewed damage and repair requirements for main supply route Michigan's Euphrates

River Bridge. Battle damage repairs were performed

at various locations on main supply route "Mobile,"

including hasty repair of craters caused by improvised explosive device detonations. These repairs
were vital to the safety of all convoys traveling on

this critical main supply route.

Summary of Reconstruction Operations

Fighting the "three-block war," I MEF executed

Phase IV civil-military operations, including rubble

removal, the dewatering of flooded streets, infrastructure repair, mortuary affairs operations, claims payments, food and water distribution and the re-population of Fallujah even as Phase III decisive actions continued in other parts of the city. The repopulation of

the city commenced on 23 December 2004. During

Phase IV operations, I MEF oversaw a huge and complex logistical, engineering, and security effort, while,

at the same time, supporting historic elections, discussed below.

Civil affairs operations prepared the city for civilian return. During the months of insurgent control of

the city, all maintenance of basic services had ceased.

Already neglected for some time before the attack, the

city sustained significant damage from combat operations. First, military debris had to be removed.

Hundreds of dead bodies lined the streets, yards, and

houses of the cities. Mortuary affairs personnel from

1st FSSG collected the remains and processed them

for burial. More than 520 caches containing tons of

weapons and unexploded ordnance had to be

cleared.

Repairs to the city's services followed. Damage to

the water pumping stations had caused a large portion of the city to flood. Each pumping station had to

be repaired. Waste removal, pest control, repair of the

city's electrical grid, restoration of phone services,

rubble removal, and the opening of the main roads

soon followed.

A civil-military operations center (CMOC) was

established to coordinate civilian population return.

Entry control points were created to limit and coordinate access. Once food distribution centers were

emplaced to support the returning population, the

city began repatriating its citizens. Spread over 18

days, the population smoothly began resettling into

their liberated neighborhoods.

I MEG, supported by 1st FSSG, led the effort to

provide reconstruction of physical infrastructure. I MEG organized engineer assessment teams to determine the state of essential city services in Fallujah and

to inventory battle damage to critical infrastructures.

90

The information was used to determine when the

conditions would permit the return of the civilian

population to Fallujah, and to determine how battle

damage would affect security and force protection in

the city after the defeat of the insurgents.

I MEG established a reconstruction cell within the

civil-military operations center to execute repair and

reconstruction activities that facilitated the return of

displaced residents. I MEG, through the reconstruction cell, oversaw and efficiently coordinated reconstruction activities, with a priority of effort set by the

Iraqi interim government and I MEF. The reconstruction cell assisted and advised the civil-military operations center, validated and prioritized reconstruction

projects, facilitated execution of general engineering

missions, and reported the status of reconstruction

work and emerging requirements.

The I MEG Reconstruction Cell facilitated the

restoration and reconstruction of 10 essential service

and public infrastructure sectors including water and

power distribution, and the citywide drainage system.

This effort required cooperation and coordination

with six national ministries, six city departments, various Coalition commands and numerous contractors.

Reconstruction cell members worked closely with the

Fallujah municipal managers and workers to identify

repair and reconstruction requirements and to return

maintenance and operation of the Fallujah public

works to Iraqi control.

I MEG's determination to boldly establish a course

of action for Fallujah reconstruction resulted in the

identification of over 120 restoration and reconstruction projects valued at over $140 million. The

Reconstruction Cell effectively addressed critical

short-term infrastructure repairs while developing a

viable long-term redevelopment plan for the city of

Fallujah.

Through the reconstruction cell, I MEG improved

security in Fallujah and provided force protection. I

MEG rubble removal crews worked for 37 days, hauling 7,500 tons of rubble out of the city and clearing

lines of communications. I MEG also supported rubble removal with a total of 11 rubble removal contracts valued at over $1.6 million. I MEG tactical construction teams constructed entry control points to the

city and improved firm bases for Marines and Iraqi

security forces throughout the city.

4th Civil Affairs Group (4th CAG) spearheaded the
efforts to transition Fallujah to local control. With the

beginning of kinetics, the 4th Civil Affairs Group civil

affairs teams began tactical engagement in support of

Operation al-Fajr. Civil affairs teams in nearby

Saklawiyah distributed food, water, and blankets to

displaced citizens. As kinetics progressed, the civil

affairs teams entered the city of Fallujah with their

supported regimental combat teams. There, civil

affairs teams began initial assessments for humanitarian assistance needs of the population and conducted

assessments of key infrastructure/essential services.

Civil affairs teams began humanitarian assistance at

local mosques where minor medical treatment was

provided as well. Humanitarian assistance distribution

sites also included the Fallujah Liaison Team (FLT) site

and the cement factory north of the site.

Civil affairs medical officers established an ambulance exchange point- in coordination with MNF-I

whereby injured civilians would be transported to the

Abu Ghraib General Hospital for treatment. Both the

civil affairs group surgeon and Iraqi interim government Ministry of Health representatives conducted initial assessments of medical facilities in the city, and

4th CAG headquarters worked with the division staff

to support the initial delivery of trucks of humanitarian assistance from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society.

The Iraqi Red Crescent Society delivered supplies

to the citizens gathered at the Saklawiyah apartments

and the Iraqi interim government provided supplies

to those assembled near Habbaniyah.

4th CAG's Municipal Support Team held meetings

with the military governor, General Abdul Qadr, to

develop combined plans for reconstruction in

Fallujah. The Municipal Support Team also engaged

in key discussions with the Iraqi Ministerial Working

Group concerning Fallujah reconstruction to include

the establishment of a local 'Reconstruction

Administration' to prioritize and coordinate reconstruction activities within the city.

Elections in al-A nbar, an-Najaf

Babil and Karbala Provinces

Just weeks after executing urban combat missions

associated with Operation al-Fajr, I MEF was instrumental in securing legitimate elections throughout its

vast area of operations, including al-Anbar, an-Najaf,

Babil, and Karbala Provinces. These historic elections

91

were accomplished despite a dogged, effective and

brutal insurgency, which systematically targeted

politicians, voters and elections officials.

I MEF planned for and oversaw a massive security and logistic support effort to the Independent

Electoral Commission Iraq (IECI) and its contractors.

This feat ensured that elections could be held as

scheduled on 30 January 2005. Nearly one million

people voted in Karbala and Najaf at more than 430

polling centers. Due to an impressive force protection posture and disruption operations, none of the

polling centers secured by I MEF were subjected to

an effective indirect force or direct attack.

Summary of Ground Combat Operations

Having identified the number and locations of

centers, the I MEF staff began obtaining essential

force protection and communication assets for the

polling centers. Great resourcefulness and initiative

was exercised to find products (walk-thru metal

detectors, wands, barriers, commercial phones, etc.)

that could be delivered on very short notice to alAnbar sites to support election day activities.

The Independent Electoral Commission also stated in late January that it might not be able to hire sufficient polling center workers for al-Anbar by the

election day. I MEF again offered support. Within

days, I MEF's major subordinate commands, through

coordination with community and government leaders, assembled hundreds of Iraqi citizens from alAnbar to work for the IECI in polling centers. This

local group included over 100 citizens from Fallujah

who worked in polling centers across al-Anbar. In a

logistical feat, 3d MAW and U.S. Air Force C-130s

safely returned over 1,100 other IECI election volunteers to their home cities in south-central Iraq.

To support Iraqi polling center workers, the 1st

Marine Division provided election support teams for

each polling center. These support teams consisted of

a senior noncommissioned officer or officer and a

translator from the major subordinate element that

was providing security for the polling center

assigned. The election support teams had the responsibility to provide liaison with the Independent

Electoral Commission Iraq workers at their respective

polling centers and to help coordinate security, life

support and training for the elections. The election

support teams met their polling center workers at
Taqqadum and arranged for their air transport from

Taqqadum to various forward operating bases

throughout al-Anbar. Upon arrival at the forward

operating bases, each election support team and the

Independent Electoral Commission workers were

transported to the designated polling centers and

immediately began setting up the spaces to be ready

by 0700 on 30 January 2005 for the voters. For many

teams, this resulted in a 24-hour day and then another full day of working security issues for voters. On

the morning of election day, these election support

teams moved Out of the polling center along with the

Marines and soldiers who were providing outer cordOn security.

As a collateral mission, I MEF sought to ensure

that all polling center workers, both locally recruited

and electoral commission provided, had a very positive experience. I MEF succeeded in sending all the

workers home enthusiastic about their positive experiences with MNF and the democratic process. This

extra effort was believed essential to support successful polling center recruiting for future elections in

October and December of 2005.

Another challenge I MEF faced was the lack of

effort and the lack of success the Independent

Electoral Commission Iraq had experienced in providing voter education on the election and the election process. I MEF information operations worked

closely with the electoral commission, producing and

distributing hundreds of products released in concert

with a deliberate education campaign. This campaign

was designed to inform voters of the existence of the

election, the date of the election, the importance of

the election to Iraq's future, and then in the last few

days the exact locations of polling centers. Polling

center locations were not released until 28 January

2005 for force protection reasons.

In conjunction with the information operations

campaign, I MEF leadership, supported by civil affairs

Marines, engaged almost daily with local and provincial government leaders, sheiks, religious leaders, former military leaders, and business leaders to solicit

their support for the elections. Battalion commanders, regimental/brigade/MEU commanders, as well as

the assistant division commander and commanding

general promoted the elections message. This multifaceted method of delivering the message proved

highly successful, particularly in Fallujah.

92

On 30 January 2005, all division polling centers

were set for success. All polling centers opened on

time. Citizens voted at all centers. No injuries or fatalities were incurred at any center. Ballots were tallied,

boxed, and returned to Taqqadum without incident.

Locally hired workers were paid on site and released

in good spirits. Within 48 hours and as planned, all

polling centers had been cleared of personnel, equipment, and barriers and returned to their original state.

Summary ofAir Combat Operations

3d MAW was tasked to support I MEF operations

to ensure successful elections within the al-Anhar

Province. In order to ensure success, 3d MAW conducted offensive air and assault support. Offensive

air operations disrupted anti-Iraqi Forces and prevented interference with elections. Assault support

ensured safe transport of Independent Electoral

Commission Iraq polling workers and material

throughout the area of responsibility.

3d MAW safely flew over 500 sorties in support of

the actual election movement, flying over 4,080 passengers and 83,570 pounds of polling materials in a

four-day period, spanning the I MEF area of operations from an-Najaf in southern Najaf Province to alQaim in northwestern al-Anbar Province.

During Operation Citadel II, 3d Marine Aircraft

Wing transported over 4,002 passengers and 80,880

pounds of cargo. This effort was conducted by over

455 carefully planned sorties. Maintaining this level

of vigilance and focus on mission over such a long

period of time was truly noteworthy.

Summary of Combat Service Support

Operations

To support Electoral Commission Elections, 1st

FSSG's support was broken into 5 phases to mirror

the phases of I MEF operations. Each phase utilized

the current infrastructure to enable the Iraqi national

elections to move forward in the al-Anbar Province.

During Phase I, 1st FSSG built 'Iron Mountains' within all forward operating bases and set infrastructure

in place to receive, billet and provide basic life support to over 1,000 electoral commission personnel.

During Phase II, 1st FSSG received and secured the

Independent Electoral Commission Iraq polling materials and personnel aboard Camp Taqaddum in support of elections within Anbar Province. The materi-
als were sorted, distributed and staged at the forward

staging location. During Phase III, 1st FSSG prepared, and distributed the necessary materials and

life support for three days of supply to the polling

centers. During Phase IV, 1st FSSG broke down the

electoral commission into flight groups for onward

movement by 3d MAW to the polling centers lOT to

begin election operations. During Phase V, 1st FSSG

ensured the polling center materials and nonconsumable life support was retrograde from the polling centers and collated at Camp Taqaddum.

End State

Unlike other areas of Iraq, I MEF was requested to provide unprecedented direct security and

logistical support to the electoral commission. In

addition to tight security around polling areas, I

MEF single-handedly accounted for all voter education efforts in al-Anbar. Also, in a logistical feat,

I MEF was solely responsible for the unprecedented recruitment, out-fitting, berthing and tactical movement of electoral commission workers

throughout the al-Anbar Province.

Intelligence reports through election day mdi93

cated that I MEF disruption actions (i.e., snap

vehicle checkpoints, cordon and search operations, high value targets, targeted raids, and presence operations) made it difficult for the insurgency to conduct deliberate operations or plan

actions against voting centers. The absence of

attacks against polling centers on election day is

evidence of the success of this offensive strategy

and the quality of its execution. I MEF sustained

only one friendly killed in action on election day.

The success of the historic free and balanced

elections in Iraq is attributable to I MEF's "behind

the scenes" planning, logistical support, voter

education, and Independent Electoral

Commission employment efforts. These elections

represented a significant boost to the interim

Iraqi government and swayed many uncommitted Iraqis that the insurgency was impotent to

halt the progress of democracy.

Notes

Reprinted from the I Marine Expeditionary

Force Unit Award Recommendation (2005).

Operation Al-Fajr:The Battle of Fallujah—

Part II

by Lieutenant General John F Sattler and

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel H Wilson

Marine Corps Gazette, July 2005

Q

peration al-Fajr represented a major success for the Iraqi government and

Coalition forces. The November 2004

assault and subsequent reconstruction efforts have

turned Fallujah from an insurgent base of operations into the cornerstone of progress in the alAnbar Province. Success in Operation al-Fajr resulted from pre-battle shaping (information operations, feints, and precision air strikes), the contribution of Iraqi and joint forces, and the

indomitable fighting spirit of the Coalition forces.

Background

The first battle of Fallujah (Operation Vigilant

Resolve) was fought from 5 to 30 April 2004, and

ended with an agreement to cede the security

responsibilities within the city to the hastily formed

Fallujah Brigade. The agreement included provisions for the surrender of heavy weapons by insurgents and stipulated that the Fallujah Brigade

would initiate investigations to identify the murderers and mutilators of the four American citizens

(Blackwater employees) killed on 31 March. There

was a feeble attempt by the Fallujah Brigade to collect and turn over weapons and ammunition to our

forces that netted a few small pickup trucks' worth

of rusty, inoperable rifles, mortar tubes, and mortar

rounds. The insurgent and terrorist factions in

Fallujah used their sanctuary to turn the "City of

Mosques" (officially 72) into a way station for

exporting their acts of terror to all parts of Iraq.

Foreign fighters, weapons, ammunition, equipment, and money were all brought into the insurgent safe haven and facilitated their activities

against Coalition forces and the people of Iraq.

Our planners immediately resumed planning for

combat operations in Fallujah. All felt it was not a

95

matter of "iF' but just a matter of "when" those

operations would commence. The situation in

Fallujah continued to deteriorate through the summer months (2004) and into the fall. A slow drain

of the city's estimated 250,000 residents occurred

as the insurgents and terrorists expanded their grip

over the populace through intimidation, brutality,

and murder. The effectiveness of the Fallujah

Brigade quickly waned as various insurgent and

terrorist groups vied for greater control in the city.

While some viewed the Fallujah Brigade as a failed

experiment, it actually provided an insight into the

insurgency that was previously nonexistent. The

Fallujah Brigade was an Iraqi solution to the

Fallujah problem, and when it failed to maintain

the peace, the blame could no longer be pinned on

the Coalition forces. In fact, the failure of the

Fallujah Brigade provided the Coalition forces with

opportunities for the psychological operations

(PsyOp) campaign that was effective in driving a

wedge between competing factions and the residents of Fallujah. For example, it was pointed out

in PsyOp products that the lack of stability in

Fallujah, caused by factional infighting, denied the

residents the benefit of $30 million waiting to be

invested in community improvement projects.

Equally significant, the Fallujah Brigade experiment

demonstrated that the insurgency was factionalized, and therein was its real weakness. Without

the presence of Coalition forces to galvanize cooperation, the factions would fight each other for

dominance.

The Threat

The threat in Iraq comes from a variety of insurgent, terrorist, tribal, extremist, and criminal networks—each with its own agenda. Foreign fighters

are mixed in with these networks, with the primary

foreign threat represented by Abu Musab alZarqawi and his al-Qaeda terrorist network. While

there is no single unifying leader of the insurgency,
these various groups cooperate with each other in

a loose alliance when it is convenient to do so.

The predominant insurgent and terrorist leaders

in Fallujah were Sheik Abdullah Janabi, Omar

Hadid and, of course, al-Zarqawi. These three

thugs were the real power brokers in the city and

collaborated when it suited their purposes. In early

August, when Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman [Hamad

al-Marawi}, Commander, 506th Iraqi National

Guard (ING) Battalion, confronted Hadid about the

abduction of his intelligence officer, he himself was

abducted and beaten to death. Residents understood that the real message behind this brutal murder was that Omar Hadid was a force to be reckoned with in Fallujah. Reporting suggested that he

had as many as 1,500 fighters loyal to him. Inside

sources also reported that Sheik Janabi was cornplicit in the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Suleiman

and had even presided over a Sharia court that

found the commander guilty of treason through his

association with Coalition forces. This incident was

a red flag to the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I

MEF) and the Interim Iraqi Government (hG). It

signaled the complete loss of any legitimate provision of security to the residents of Fallujah.

Coupled with the theft of weapons, vehicles, and

equipment from the compounds of the 505th and

506th ING Battalions, it became clear that Fallujah

needed to be liberated from the mugs, thugs, and

intimidators. The JIG put out a decree disbanding

the 505th and 506th ING Battalions. The ING battalions had become ineffective, and many of their

members were themselves involved in insurgent

activities. Fallujah had become the bright ember in

the ash pit of the insurgency, and the IIG knew it

must be eliminated.

The threat assessment of Fallujah in September

and October 2004 revealed that the insurgents

were fully expecting an attack by Coalition forces.

Three hundred and six well-constructed defensive

positions were identified, many of which were

interlaced with improvised explosive devices

(IEDs). The Orientation of the bulk of their defenses indicated that they expected an attack into the

southeast sector of the city, leading the planners to

recommend an attack from north to south.

Intelligence also identified 33 of 72 mosques in

Fallujah being used by insurgents to conduct meet96

ings, store weapons and ammunition, interrogate

and torture kidnap victims, and conduct illegal

Sharia court sessions. In our experience, the insurgents and terrorists justify their actions as jihad

(holy war) when it is convenient, and in order to

appeal to a broader Muslim audience, but their

actual actions and motives are in stark contrast to

the religious tenets of Islam.

Operations Planning

Planning for combat operations in Fallujah continued during September and October. Intelligence

improved as captured insurgents turned on their

"brothers." The results of precision targeting of

insurgent safe houses began to have the desired

effect. Insurgent factions were turning on one

another, as each suspected the other of providing

us with intelligence. It seemed to them that our

intelligence was too good for it not to have come

from inside sources, and in some instances it did.

Through various means that idea was perpetuated

and encouraged, which increased the internecine

strife among insurgent groups. We estimated that

there were approximately 5,600 insurgent fighters

operating in the Fallujah-Ramadi corridor at that

time, with 4,500 in the city of Fallujah, including

foreign fighters and terrorists. It is more probable

that there were actually closer to 3,000 in Fallujah

at the time, and this proved to be quite close to the

number actually captured or killed during the

major kinetic phase of operations.

The MEF plan called for five phases. Initially, it

was named Operation Phantom Fury, but then was

appropriately renamed by Prime Minister Ayad

Allawi as Operation al-Fajr (New Dawn). We knew

it would be important to include the Iraqi security

forces (1SF) in the battle and have the decision to

conduct the operation made by none other than

the Prime Minister himself. Previously, during the

April battle of Fallujah, only the 36th Iraqi

Commando Battalion had joined us for the fight,

with the remainder of assigned Iraqi forces refusing to deploy. During August two Iraqi

Intervention Force (hF) battalions had fought sideby-side with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit

(11th MEU) in Najaf, reinforced by two U.S. Army

battalions, to crush Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia
around the Imam Au and Kufa Mosques. These

same two hF battalions, along with six other 1SF

battalions, joined the I MEF for Operation al-Fajr.

The 1SF had come a long way by November in

their training and willingness to fight.

Phase I of Operation al-Fajr was preparation

and shaping. The primary activities during this

phase were moving the forces into position, building the iron mountain (prestaged supplies, ammunition, and fuel), collecting intelligence, planning,

and shaping the battlefield by various means, both

kinetic and nonkinetic. This shaping was steady

and precise for two months prior to Operation alFajr. Special operations forces (SOF) provided specific intelligence-based targeting information.

These targets were struck with a variety of Marine

Corps, Coalition, and SOF assets. Marine battalions

manning vehicle checkpoints (VCPs) or participating in feints were extremely successful in targeting

fixed enemy defenses and degrading insurgent

command and control (C2) capabilities. A series of

feints conducted by 1st Marine Division (1st

MarDiv) deceived the insurgents as to the time and

location of our main attack. They knew we were

coming, hut they didn't know when or from where.

The feints also allowed us to develop actionable

intelligence on their positions for targeting in Phase

II. The Commanding Officer, 3d Battalion, 1st

Marines, whose Marines manned the southern

VCPs around Fallujah, described this period as a

real-world fire support coordination exercise that

provided a valuable opportunity for his fire support coordinator and company fire support teams

to work tactics, techniques, and procedures and to

practice coordinating surface and air-delivered

fires.

Building the iron mountain was a concept

derived from a lesson learned during April 2004 in

the first battle of Fallujah. Our supply lines were

heavily targeted at that time by the insurgents. A

disruption of the supply lines was one of our

worst-case planning assumptions, and building the

iron mountain mitigated this risk. The just-in-time

logistics concept was not practical in this situation.

Quantity has a quality of its own, and the iron

mountain was a textbook example of that maxim.

Guidance for Operation al-Fajr was to have a 15-

day excess amount of supplies, foodstuffs, ammu97

nition, and fuel aboard each forward operating

base prior to commencement of combat operations. The iron mountain also minimized the need

for any routine resupply convoys to travel the dangerous routes. 1st Force Service Support Group (1st

FSSG) was the main effort during this phase, and

they literally moved mountains of supplies, equipment, and ammunition to build the iron mountain.

Their exceptional around-the-clock efforts set the

conditions for success during subsequent phases of

the operation.

A monumental task of Phase I was the buildup

of Camp Fallujah by the Marines and sailors of the

I MEF Headquarters Group (MHG) as the central

hub for C2, logistics, and medical services. Camp

Fallujah experienced an overnight surge as units

poured in for Operation al-Fajr. Camp facilities felt

the strain as they fought to accommodate nearly 21⁄2

times the camp's normal capacity. The Seahees of

the MEF Engineering Group (MEG) rose above and

beyond the call of duty to build the East Fallujah

Iraqi Camp (EFIC) after the contractor failed to fulfill his contractual obligations. The MEG built the

EFIC in mere days to accommodate the 1SF battalions that were arriving. A temporary joint mortuary

affairs (MA) facility at Camp Fallujah was opened

to provide excess capacity for casualties. This

detachment was later moved to the potato factory

just outside Fallujah to provide MA support for the

insurgent dead.

Information operations in close concert with

combat operations during Phase I encouraged

Fallujah's residents to leave the city. A "whisper

campaign," PsyOp, and multiple feints convinced

the overwhelming majority of the citizens to depart

Fallujah, while disguising when and where the

assault would occur. Estimates are that there were

less than 500 civilians remaining in the city when

Phase III combat operations commenced. These

efforts were instrumental in ensuring that few civilians were injured in combat operations. The information campaign was very effective and as important to this operation as the actual combat offensive to liberate the city. We stole the strategic communications initiative from the enemy and never

gave it back.

We were keenly aware of the strategic necessity

to get ahead of the bow wave of publicity regular-
ly associated with these types of combat actions.

The influx of embeds from a variety of media outlets was welcomed with open arms. We were confident they would get the truth out if they were

embedded with our forces. There were 91 embeds,

representing 60 media outlets, at the peak of

Operation al-Fajr. Their only restriction was not

releasing operational information that would jeopardize lives. Anytime a significant target was struck,

the public affairs Section was ready with a straightforward, accurate, and timely press release. This

guiding principle prevented us from being in the

reactive mode of countering insurgent propaganda.

Joint and Combined Operations

Operation al-Fajr was joint and Coalition warfare

at its finest. The best capability set was quickly

assembled from throughout Iraq and massed for the

battle. The flexibility of this force was later demonstrated shortly after offensive operations were

underway, when the Stryker battalion (equipped

with light armored wheeled vehicles—similar to the

Marine light armored vehicle) was pulled in the

midst of battle to return to its home area of Mosul

in order to quell the insurgency there. The Army's

Black Jack Brigade (2d Brigade Combat Team (2d

BCT), 1st Calvary Division) arrived from Baghdad

just days before the fight. A look at the task organization of the Black Jack Brigade is a revelation of

the joint integration that existed for this battle. An

Army troop of tanks and Bradley's was under the

tactical control (TaCon) of 2d Marine Reconnaissance Battalion; which in turn was TaCon to the

Black Jack Brigade, which in turn was TaCon to 1st

MarDiv. Other Army battalions arrived that had participated in combat operations in Najaf during

August. The heavy armor shock and firepower they

brought to the fight was invaluable, and two of

these task forces became the main penetration elements for our regimental combat teams (RCTs) in

the attack. Joint special operations sniper teams

(three teams of six) were integrated with the assault

regiments. They performed superbly in the battle as

a combat multiplier and were credited with numerous confirmed kills. All in all, the attack force

included nine U.S. Army and Marine battalions, six

Iraqi battalions, and attack aviation from all of the

98

Military Services, to include naval air flying off an

aircraft carrier. The full assault force included some

12,000 Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen, and 1SF.

The keys to successful integration of this joint and

Coalition force were complementary war fighting

capabilities, a single chain of command, advances

in technology, and the unifying vision of liberating

a city from the oppressive grip of the insurgents

and terrorists. Rehearsals of the concept and confirmation briefs solidified the plan in the minds of the

combatants. You could feel the energy among the

Coalition forces—it was a contagious, confident

enthusiasm.

Other MEF units provided forces and supporting

missions critical to the success of Operation al-Fajr.

11th MEU in the Najaf Province contributed a rifle

company, sniper teams, an engineer platoon,

explosive ordnance disposal teams, tanks, assault

amphibious vehicles, air/naval gunfire liaison company teams, and additional linguists in direct support of combat forces involved in the fight. They

also ensured the peace and stability in the Najaf

Province during Operation al-Fajr, allowing the

MEF to concentrate additional combat power for

the battle. 31st MEU, U.S. Central Command's

strategic reserve, was deployed to the al-Anbar

Province just prior to Operation al-Fajr. They took

command of the western area of the province from

RCT-7. 31st MEU's presence freed up RCT-7's command post to participate in combat operations. The

31st MEU chopped their battalion landing team

(Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 3d Marines)

TaCon to RCT-7 for the Fallujah fight. 31st MEU

conducted supporting operations that prevented

foreign fighters, weapons, and financing from

crossing the borders and points of entry (POEs)

into Iraq. They enforced the hG's complete closure

of the Syrian POEs to military-aged males, preventing the insurgency from receiving foreign recruits

for their cause. 24th MEU, operating in the northern

portion of the Babil Province, kept a lid on the

insurgency in their area. The British Black Watch

Battalion deployed from southeastern Iraq in support of 24th MEU, and their combined force sealed

off the escape routes of insurgents down through

the Euphrates River corridor into Babil. 2d BCT, 2d

Infantry Division (from Korea) conducted dozens of

supporting operations in the Fallujah-Ramadi corn-
dor throughout Operation al-Fajr that disrupted

insurgent activity to the north and west of Fallujah

proper. The addition of units to the regular I MEF

structure expanded our numbers from a pre-al-Fajr

32,000 to 45,000 during the operation. The temporaw augmentation was needed for full focus of

combat power, without any loss of capability in the

rest of the MEF's area of operations. Everyone

arrived ready for action, and the noteworthy performance by all of the organic and joined units

guaranteed the success of Operation al-Fajr.

The final act of Phase I was the isolation of

Fallujah through blocking positions established by

the Black Jack Brigade. They were also responsible

for security of the routes leading to Fallujah, coinciding with an hG ban on vehicular traffic in and

around the city. The JIG closed the border POEs

from Syria into Iraq, which cut back significantly on

the smuggling of foreign fighters, weapons, and

financial support to the insurgency. A portion of the

insurgent and terrorist leadership, in spite of public

proclamations to fight to the death, had cowardly

slipped out of the city with the civilian exodus. The

insurgents still in the city were isolated with few

options remaining—escape, surrender, or die.

Phase II, enhanced shaping, began on 7

November at 1900 local time—D-day and H-hour

respectively. This was an intense 12- to 24-hour

period of electronic, aviation, and indirect fire

attacks against the insurgents' C2 nodes and defensive positions. All fires were delivered against precise targets. The fury of the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing

(3d MAW) and all of the joint aircraft in support was

unleashed. Artillery and mortar rounds added to the

fires descending on enemy targets. The synchronization of fires into this confined urban area (5

kilometers by 5 kilometers) was facilitated by the

establishment of a high-density airspace control

zone (HIDACZ). The HIDACZ and fire support

coordination measures, such as the coordinated fire

line, allowed for the simultaneous employment of

fixed- and rotary-wing fires in concert with ground

direct and indirect fires, unmanned aerial vehicles,

and AC-130 gunships. AC-130 aircraft in support of

Operation al-Fajr were devastatingly effective in

destroying targets with their accurate weapons systems. The Coalition Force Air Component

Commander's air support operations center and the

99

MEF's direct air support center synchronized and

deconflicted the intricate movements of aircraft and

indirect fires in and around the HIDACZ.

A ground attack was conducted up the peninsula to the west of Fallujah during this phase by Task

Force LAR (light armored reconnaissance battalion

[TF LARI) to set the final conditions for Phase III,

which included Marines of 3d LAR; a company from

1st Battalion, 23d Marines; a company of Soldiers

from the 1-503d Infantry Battalion, 2d BCT; and the

soldiers of the 36th Iraqi Commando Battalion. This

attack was conducted as the final operation of

Phase II to complete the isolation of Fallujah proper from the west, while the Black Jack Brigade isolated the city from the east and south. The hospital

at the northern tip of the peninsula was also to be

seized, as it had been used by the insurgents as a

C2 center and weapons storage facility.

The attack up the peninsula proceeded according to plan and accomplished its intended purpose.

The 36th Iraqi Commando Battalion quickly seized

the hospital from a small group of insurgents that

included some foreign fighters. The bridges allowing access to western Fallujah were secured by TF

LAR that encountered sporadic small arms fire and

suffered some wounded from IEDs that were

placed on the roads leading to the bridges. The

insurgents mistook D-day for the actual attack, and

cell leaders were on the speaker systems in

Fallujah's mosques calling their fighters to pick up

weapons and report to designated locations. This

tactical deception was a useful diversion for the real

blow to come from the north 24 hours later. It also

kept the insurgents in an alert status for a full day,

sapping their physical and mental energies for the

real fight to come. Phase II was a crucial part of

properly setting the stage for the main attack. The

precision attacks degraded the insurgents' ability to

C2 their fighters and destroyed many of the hazards

that would have impeded our forces' attack into the

city.

Hammer Blows

The twin hammers of Operation al-Fajr were

RCT-1 and RCT-7. They rolled Out of their various

staging areas through the night of 7 November and

during the day of 8 November (A-day for attack
day). This was a sequenced movement of forces

that first staged RCT-7 in position by daylight in the

event that an early supporting attack was required

to keep the insurgents off balance, or in the event

that indirect fires made their attack positions untenable. The main effort, RCT-1, moved into position

near simultaneously, but slightly behind RCT-7.

RCT-1 completed its movement into its final attack

positions just prior to the hour of attack (A-hour,

1900 local time). They literally moved into their

attack positions and rolled onward into the attack.

Each RCT had a penetration force consisting of an

armor-heavy battalion TF from the Army. TF 2-7

(2d Cavalry Squadron, 7th Regiment, 1st Cavalry

Division) led the way for RCT-1, with TF 2-2 (2d

Battalion, 2d Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry

Division) advancing in zone for RCT-7. These penetrating forces were critical to quickly slicing

through the insurgents' defenses and disrupting

their ability to conduct coordinated counterattacks.

The firepower and armor protection these battalions brought to the fight added significantly to the

caçability set of the assault force. Marine and 1SF

battalions conducted supporting attacks and

moved closely behind the penetration forces to

conduct follow-on search and attack missions. The

fighting was intense, close, and personal, the likes

of which has been experienced on just a few occasions since the battle of Hue City in the Vietnam

War. We attacked at night to take advantage of our

superior night-fighting capability.

The assault force dominated the urban battle

from the start. The Army penetration did what it

was designed to do and fractured the enemy's ability to execute a cohesive defense. The young

Marines, soldiers, and Iraqi soldiers expanded and

cleared the wedge of remaining insurgent groups.

Wherever the insurgents stood to fight, they died.

In spite of their pre-battle braggadocio, they were

no match for our combined and joint force. Many

fought fiercely but were never able to overcome

our troops' advantage in leadership, training, and

morale. The smart insurgents quickly went into survival mode. They scurried from .building to building trying to avoid our forces until they had a window of opportunity to make a suicidal defense that

would produce the greatest amount of casualties

among our forces. In some cases they built spider

100

holes in the floors of houses and buildings to use

as ambush positions from which to attack our

clearing forces as they entered the structures. In

other instances, they built "panic rooms" in the

interior of structures, complete with light discipline, where they waited for an opportune

moment to attack. The insurgency rapidly dissolved into small groups that moved between

houses using tunnels, ladders across rooftops, and

holes that they had knocked out of exterior walls.

Oftentimes they would double back into an area

already "cleared" by our forces and wait for their

chance to make a last-ditch suicidal stand.

In our pre-battle planning we had anticipated

reaching the center of town within 72 to 96 hours.

In reality the battle progressed at a faster tempo

than our best planning assumptions, with elements

of RCT-7 crossing the road (Main Supply Route

[MSRI Michigan/Phase Line [PL] Fran) that runs

from east to west through the center of Fallujah in

just 14 hours. The main effort (RCT-1) encountered

some of the insurgents' toughest defensive positions in the Jolan District but still managed to fight

to PL Fran within 43 hours of the commencement

of the attack. The end of 10 November 2004—the

Marine Corps' 229th Birthday—saw both RCT-1

and RCT-7 in control of MSR Michigan, having

secured all initial 1st MarDiv objectives. Contrdlling

MSR Michigan was a key tactical victory because it

opened up a shorter resupply route from Camp

Fallujah, three miles to the southeast. The 1st

MarDiv's original plan at this point of the battle

was for RCT-7 to reorient, drive to the west, and

become the main effort. However, RCT-1 was

doing so well in driving from north to south, and

resistance had been heavier in the northeastern

quadrant of the city, that an audible was called to

execute a branch plan instead. We deemed that the

time delay to move and reorient the necessary

forces to attack from east to west would give the

enemy a chance to catch his breath when we had

him back on his heels. The branch plan involved

both RCTs continuing on their north-south attack in

zone to the southern portion of the city. The division's execution of the branch plan maintained the

momentum of the attack. The RCTs continued

south on 11 November, and by the end of the day

their forward units were at the southernmost edge
of Fallujah. Full combat operations continued side

by side with search-and-attack operations through

the remainder of Phase III.

Phase Ill-B was the search and attack period of

operations. There was no defining date that neatly

separates the two subphases. Phase Ill-B activities

featured small unit combat actions that were as

equally intense and lethal as the Phase Ill-A combat operations. The city was divided into six sectors with the mission to go through each area in

detail to eliminate remaining pockets of insurgents

and to identify weapons caches. With the departure of TF 2-2 and TF 2-7 at the end of November,

the city was reapportioned into four sectors, maintaining the same mission. Enough cannot be said

about these competent professional soldiers who

brought a tremendous capability and warrior spirit

to the fight. In turn, they will proudly wear the

recently authorized Blue Diamond patch of the 1st

MarDiv on their uniforms.

During Phase III we actually commenced Phase

IV-type humanitarian and reconstruction activities

simultaneously with the search-and-attack operations. We knew it was critical to get a head start in

restoring the city for the inevitable return of its residents. This is where the "three block" war literally

became the "three building" war. On the same

block, within steps of each other, combat operations were taking place in one building, while a

few buildings away humanitarian aid was being

rendered, and rubble was being cleared from the

streets just down the block.

The search and attack operations of Phase Ill-B

progressed steadily through the rest of November

and into December. The city was divided into 86

sectors, and the status of operations was tracked

with a color-coded map. Green, for example,

meant that the sector had been cleared in detail,

with weapons caches and boobytraps removed.

Slowly but surely our combined forces turned sector after sector into green. Prime Minister Allawi

wanted the city reopened to its citizens as soon as

possible, but we held firm that the city needed to

be cleared of insurgents and weapons caches

before opening the floodgates to the residents. Too

much blood of courageous warriors was being

spilled to not get the job done right. Furthermore,

we wanted to make sure that Fallujah was safe and

101

secure for returning residents. We established a

civil-military operations center (CMOC) at the site

of the former government center in the heart of the

city. Our Seabees and civil affairs group (GAG) personnel worked around the clock to prepare the city

for the return of residents. Many of the streets were

filled with rubble and downed power lines that

had to be cleared. Portions of Fallujah are below

the water table, and the water pumps that kept

river water out had ceased operating. Standing

water was perhaps the biggest problem and was

eventually solved by the Seabees of the MEG.

Essential services across the board were nonexistent. The GAG established three humanitarian distribution sites at key junctures in the city to provide

relief supplies to returning residents. These sites

eventually supplied humanitarian relief to 87,620

residents. The removal of enemy dead bodies was

another important job that was completed by our

joint MA teams. These teams worked closely with

the combat forces, often at great peril, to ensure

that enemy bodies were handled morally and in

accordance with Islamic customs. In several cases

the insurgents had boobytrapped the bodies of

their dead in a final attempt to inflict casualties

among our forces. The MA teams carefully recovered all located bodies and transported them to the

potato factory for processing. Each body was

meticulously checked and documented while

being prepared for burial. Sunni Imams were flown

in from Baghdad to perform their religious rites

and ensure that the bodies were buried in compliance with religious traditions.

Open the City

The Prime Minister made the decision to open

the city for returning residents on 23 December,

and thus began Phase IV of Operation al-Fa jr—the

civil affairs phase. Reopening the city was accomplished through a sequenced phasing plan that

repopulated Fallujah by opening up one district at

a time (total of 18 districts) to returning residents.

This control was necessary as there were still sectors of the city being cleared. Five entry control

points (EGPs) were established at key roads leading into the city. Vehicles were searched by

Marines and 1SF soldiers, and military-aged males
were registered with the biometric automated tool

set (BATS). The BATS was linked to a database that

would alert us if a military-aged male had a previously recorded history of insurgent or criminal acts.

Female military personnel played a critical role in

this process by searching the women and children.

Unfortunately, women and children needed to be

searched to prevent insurgents from using them as

smugglers. hG workers and civilian contractors

flooded the city to begin the process of reconstruction. We insisted that contractors hire Fallujan residents in their reconstruction projects. It was important that the rebuilding of Fallujah be an inclusive

process, so the people of Fallujah would vehemently reject any attempts by insurgents to regain

control. Thousands of Fallujans have been hired in

the cleanup and reconstruction of their city. With

unemployment running 60 percent in the al-Anbar

Province, this was a win-win situation for all

involved in rebuilding Fallujah. The CAG held

weekly town hall meetings at the CMOC that were

attended by national ministerial representatives,

provincial government representatives, and local

sheikhs. A $200 humanitarian payment was made

to heads of household to help them get reestablished. It secured a temporary reservoir of good

will with the returning residents. A total of

$6,509,200 was paid to 32,546 heads of household.

The Payoff

One of the most memorable and gratifying

moments of Phase IV occurred on election day—

30 January 2005. Free from intimidation, the Sunni

residents turned out in droves—proof positive that

in an environment free of intimidation, the average

citizen wants to exercise his or her right to freely

determine his/her government. The 7,679 male and

female residents who voted in Fallujah accounted

for 40 percent of the entire vote cast in the alAnbar Province. The elections were another strategic victory emanating from the decisive tactical victory of Operation al-Fajr.

The residents of Fallujah are eager about the

opportunities that lie ahead. They are friendly and

cooperative in our combined efforts to restore the

city. One can hardly get out of a vehicle without

being swarmed by children and residents.

102

Residents have even identified weapons caches to

our Marines and their 1SF partners. A newfound

sense of freedom and confidence prevails in the

city, and the atmosphere is positive and electric.

The immediate impact of the first four phases of

Operation al-Fajr has produced a turning of the

tide in the fight against the insurgency in the a!-

Anbar Province. By the end of March we had

recovered 629 weapons caches, just from the city

itself. The amount of weapons, equipment, and

ordnance is mind-boggling—literally, enough to

equip a good-sized army. The number of attacks

throughout the MEF's area of operations dropped

40 percent between October and December. The

insurgents are on the run, and those who escaped

have fled out west along the Euphrates River. The

1st MarDiv's subsequent pursuits, Operations River

Blitz and River Bridge, further disrupted the intimidators' ability to conduct organized attacks and

uncovered even more weapons caches they will

not be able to use. Raids conducted with actionable intelligence continue to roll up cell leaders.

Calls to the tips line rose 630 percent between the

beginning of January and the middle of March, as

the citizens are becoming fed up with the insurgents, who are turning more and more to criminal

activities to finance their operations. Another good

measure of the effect of Operation aI-Fajr has been

the 90 percent, across the board, rise in the price

of weapons and ammunition on the black market.

It was recognized by the planners that the compensation to homeowners and businessmen for

damage to their homes and buildings would be

key to sealing the strategic victory. Full compensation would demonstrate to the Sunni residents that

the predominantly Shi'a-controlled government

cared about their plight and wanted to include

them in the new Iraq. It would open up multiple

avenues for the inclusion of the Sunni population

in the political process and turn Fallujah into a

model for the entire Sunni heartland. The tactical

military success of November 2004 was subsequently turned into a political strategic victory with

the issuing of the first compensation checks at the

CMOC to Iraqi homeowners on 14 March. The

Iraqi government made good on its promises, and

the good will it has engendered will spawn a new

era of political engagement with the previously dis-
enfranchised Sunni population. This, in turn, will

be the death knell of the insurgency. While the tactical military victory of Operation al-Fajr was a

knockdown blow, the strategic consequences that

will flow from political engagement with the

Sunni's will be the knockout punch to the insurgency.

The Future

Operation al-Fajr continues on, as Phase V has

yet to be implemented—transition to local control—at the time of this writing [20061. However,

great inroads have been made in the right direction. The bulk of the joint forces providing security for Fallujah have been phased out. In their

place, the 1SF have increasingly taken control of

the day-to-day security for the city. The 1SF are the

right force for this role. They instinctively identify

foreigners and undesirables and stop them at the

ECPs. They interact well with the local population

and, since they are from other provinces, can resist

the normal family and tribal influences of "homegrown" forces. Traffic police have been on the

streets of Fallujah since February •directing the

ever-increasing volume of traffic as the city springs

back to life. A new Fallujah police force is being

established, with tight screening of applicants to

ensure there is no return of the corrupt old guard.

The new police force will start to populate the city

this summer. Specially designed and constructed

police forts are being built to improve their force

protection and to reduce their vulnerability to

insurgent attacks. In fact, these structures will

become a model for other troubled parts of Iraq.

Operation al-Fajr was a classic example of integrated staff planning, interaction, and collaboration

between the MEF's major subordinate commands

(1st MarDiv, 3d MAW, 1st FSSG, MHG, MEG, CAG,

and 11th MEU), the MEF staff, and higher headquarters. Commanders at all levels were personally involved on a daily basis in both planning and

execution. The commanding general, 1st MarDiv,

and key staff were up front every day during the

battle to maintain their situational awareness and

rapidly adjust to changing circumstances. The commanders of Multi National Corps-Iraq and Multi

National Force-Iraq provided the MEF with tremen103

dous support—evident in the allocation of roughly

six Iraqi battalions plus the Army's Blackjack

Brigade to the operation. They went out of their

way to fulfill every request for additional

resources—such as the extension of the Black Jack

Brigade—and provided the political top cover that

allowed the MEF to focus on the mission at hand.

The heroics and tactical details of the battle of

Fallujah will be the subject of many articles and

books in the years to come. The real key to this

tactical victory rested in the spirit of the warriors

who courageously fought the battle. They deserve

all of the credit for liberating Fallujah. Their spirit

is epitomized by an encounter with a wounded

Marine noncommissioned officer at our Bravo surgical treatment facility on Camp Fallujah. When

asked what we could do for him, he held up his

right hand and extended his index finger, then

replied, "Sir, send me back to my team. My triggerfinger is still good!" This indomitable spirit was the

consistent theme of all of the wounded fighters.

They wanted to immediately return to the fight

with their comrades. We were honored and privileged to have had the opportunity to serve with the

soldiers, sailors, airmen, special forces, Marines,

and Iraqi soldiers who selflessly gave their all to

liberate Fallujah. "Remember Fallujah" is no longer

the rallying cry of the insurgency. Our warriors

took that from them and made it our rallying cry.

Notes

Marine Corps Gazette, July 2006, 12-24.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright Marine Corps

Gazette.

About the Authors

Lieutenant General John E Sattler was, at the time this article was

published, commander of I Marine Expeditionary Force. Prior to

his retirement from the Marine Corps in 2008, he served as the Joint

Staff's Chief of Strategic Plans and Policy.

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel H. Wilson is commanding officer of

the Infantry Training Battalion at the School on Infantry West at

Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. During Operation Iraqi

Freedom II, he was future operations planne liaison officer to the

Black Jack Brigade, and the current operations officer for I Marine

Expeditionary Force. At the time this article was published, he was

the deputy current operations offices I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?

by Jonathan FKeiler

US. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2005

as Fallujah a battle we lost in April 2004,

with ruinous results? Or was it a battle we

won in November? The answer is yes. If

that sounds awkward, it is because Fallujah was an

awkward battle without an easy parallel in U.S. military history. It is hard to say whether the drawn-out

process of securing that medium-sized Iraqi city was

a one-time event or the beginning of a trend. I hope

it is the former. And to make that outcome probable,

I will objectively evaluate the battle here and offer

comparisons of Marine Corps and Israel Defense

Forces (IDF) doctrine and operations.

The United States is likely to face more Fallujahs in

the near future. The Marine Corps' reputation as an

elite and feared combat force will ride in part on how

Fallujah and similar battles are perceived at home and

abroad. In evaluating the battle, I considered the differing objectives of the two opposing forces and how

close each came to achieving those objectives. One

side's objectives were more limited than the other's.

Third parties, such as Syria and Iran, may perceive the

battle differently. Reaching honest answers to these

questions requires looking beyond convenient bromides that recount U.S. heroics or anticipate favorable

outcomes that remain largely unpredictable.

Operation Valiant Resolve*

After its impressive initial victory in Operation Iraqi

Freedom (OIF), I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF)

returned to Iraq in 2004 to replace Army forces in

parts of central and western Iraq. The 1st Battalion,

5th Marine Regiment (1/5), was sent to Fallujah to

relieve troops of the 82d Airborne Division. On 31

March 2004, four U.S. contractors driving through that

city were ambushed and killed by Iraqi insurgents;

*Editors note: The operation identified as Valiant

Resolve in this article is much more commonly

known as Vigilant Resolve.

105

their bodies were mutilated and displayed publicly

before frenzied crowds in a scene reminiscent of the

battle of Mogadishu. A forceful response was vital and

anticipated widely. Accordingly, 1/5, along with the

2d Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment (2/1), and supporting Army and Air Force special operations units were

ordered to enter Fallujah for an operation dubbed

Valiant Resolve. Their mission was to find and eliminate—or apprehend—the mujahedeen and any

accomplices who had perpetrated the ambush.

Resistance was expected. Rather than a stability and

security operation, Valiant Resolve was to consist of

deliberate assaults on prepared defenses.1

When the attack commenced 5 April 2004, lead

Marine elements were engaged quickly by wellarmed and organized enemy units effectively using

hit-and-mn urban warfare. Despite heavy resistance,

the Marines limited their firepower, relying mostly on

rifles, machine guns, and snipers. They restricted air

support to Cobra attack helicopters and AC-130 gunships.2 On a few occasions—only after considerable

deliberation—fixed-wing aircraft dropped guided

bombs on insurgent targets, including a mosque used

as a center of resistance.3 In general, Marine units

fought with impressive skill and with exceptional care

for civilian lives and property. This solicitude, however, quickly limited the scope of the advance to outlying areas of the city. They did not attempt to penetrate the heart of the city, apparently because U.S.

casualties would have been excessive, as would casualties among the inhabitants. The Marines did not

want to "rubble the city."4

On 1 May 2004, Iraqi insurgents took to the streets

of Fallujah to declare victory over the Marines. "We

won," an Iraqi insurgent told a reporter, explaining

they had succeeded by keeping U.S. forces from taking the city.5 Newspaper and televised reports

showed Muslim gunmen celebrating their "triumph"

with weapons, flags, and victory signs. U.S. authorities explained that a new Iraqi Fallujah Brigade would

assume security duties in the city and ultimately

accomplish the mission.
According to the 1st Marine Division, by 13 April

2004, 39 U.S. Marines and soldiers had died in the battle, along with approximately 600 enemy fighters.6 In

much of the Arab and Muslim world, the Marines'

withdrawal was viewed as a U.S. defeat, an outlook

encouraged by Al Jazerra television and other Islamic

media.

In some important respects, the initial push into

Fallujah violated guidelines in the Corps' urban warfare manual, MCWP 3-35.3. Often cautionary, the

manual discusses 22 examples of modern urban warfare in detail and warns, "regardless of the size or

quality of defensive forces, the defender usually

extracts large costs from the attacker in time,

resources, and casualties."7 Located 40 miles west of

Baghdad, Fallujah is a city of about 300,000 people

and 30 square kilometers of area. Its western edge lies

along the Euphrates River. The Marines faced a mixed

bag of urban guerrillas with few heavy weapons, but

nonetheless they were armed for close-quarter combat. Before the battle, the enemy force was estimated

to he 2,000.

Marine Corps doctrine calls for isolating cities

before the assault. "No single factor is more important

to success than isolation of the urban area." In all the

examples provided in MCWP 3-35.3, "the attacker

won all battles where the defender was isolated."8

The two battalions assigned the mission also were to

cordon off the city: 2/1 from the north and 1/5 to the

south and east. Although both cordoning and attacking a city of this size was a demanding task for two

battalions, it appears the Marines effectively isolated

the city early in the operation.9

In addition to isolation, "overwhelming superiority

is needed if all costs are to be minimized." Here it

may be that the objectives and means of Valiant

Resolve became incompatible. Two reinforced battalions were tasked with isolating and attacking a medium-sized city. MCWP 3-35-3 notes, "in an attack on a

built-up area (population of 100,000+), the GCE

[ground combat elementl of a MEF would be a Marine

division."10 Fallujah's population exceeds 100,000,

but it is not Shanghai. Thus, while a division (normally composed of three infantry regiments and supporting units) was not needed to cope with the insurgent

force in April, the Marines were at less than regimental strength.

During the battle of Jenin in 2002, two Israeli

106

infantry battalions engaged several hundred

Palestinian guerrillas. Jenin's population of about

26,000 was much smaller than Fallujah's.U According

to Randy Gangle, director of the Center for Emerging

Threats and Opportunities (a private concern in partnership with the Marine Corps Warfighting

Laboratory), the Marines would have operated in

Jenin with a single battalion, given its one square mile

area." The refugee camp where the main battle was

waged is smaller still and densely populated. A

Marine battalion probably would have done as well as

the Israelis in Jenin. The tasks assigned to 1/5 and 2/1

in Fallujah, however, were of a different magnitude

and beyond their capabilities—at least within what

were deemed to be acceptable limits of friendly and

civilian casualties and property destruction.

Superiority does not necessarily entail a numerical

advantage in men. At the same time, urban warfare

marginalizes traditional Marine attributes, such as

superior training and discipline.

Depending on the tactical situation, manpower

shortages may be compensated for by increased firepower, which Marine commanders were unwilling—

or unable—to apply in Valiant Resolve. Indeed, it

appears that leaders at the scene quickly came to this

conclusion. The operation never progressed beyond

the foothold stage. Marines gained access to the

urban area (in that case, outlying industrial neighborhoods), hut did not penetrate to the heart of the city,

much less take it. After a few days of active combat,

Marines cordoned off the area and the matter was

"resolved" politically by establishment of the Fallujah

Brigade. The bulk of the enemy force remained at

large in the city and was reinforced. Fallujah became

an insurgent stronghold and base for kidnappings,

murders, and attacks that would cost the coalition

dearly in the following months.

Operation al-Fajr

Between April and November 2004, both sides

busily prepared for a rematch. Iraqi insurgents and

foreign mujahedeen dug tunnels, emplaced mines

and booby traps, and improved their defenses.

Meanwhile, most of Fallujah's civilian population fled

the city, which greatly reduced the potential for noncombatant casualties. The emptying city invited

greater applications of air power. U.S. warplanes and
artillery launched highly selective attacks, weakening

insurgent defenses, hitting leadership targets, and laying the groundwork for a renewed assault. Although

some estimates put insurgent strength before al-Fajr as

high as 5,000, many of them—including most of their

top leadership—fled before the battle. When U.S.

troops crossed the line of departure, it is estimated

that 2,000-3,000 insurgents remained in the city.

The combined Marine-Army-Iraqi force for

Operation al-Fajr was many times larger than the

force employed in April 2004. Numerous press reports

placed the total size of Coalition forces at 10,000-

15,000. The actual assault element comprised about

6,000 U.S. troops in four Marine battalions (3/1, 1/3,

3/5, 1/8) and Army Task Force 2-2 (two mechanized

battalions).12 About 2,000 Iraqi troops bolstered the

assault force, which was supported by aircraft and

several Marine and Army artillery battalions.

With Fallujah cordoned by the remaining troops,

the assault force struck from the north on 8 November

2004, quickly breaching insurgent defenses and

reaching the heart of the city. Although fighting was

at times severe, by 12 November, U.S-Iraqi forces

controlled 80 percent of the city.13 Combatants and

observers recognized a heavier and broader application of firepower. By 10 November, U.S. artillery batteries had fired at least 800 rounds into the city; a frequently cited report claimed 24 sorties were flown

over the city on the first day of combat and a total of

four 500-pound bombs was dropped.14

Fallujah is sometimes called "the city of mosques";

and insurgents made heavy use of them as command

posts, arms depots, and defensive positions. Inside

the Saad Abi Bin Waqas Mosque in central Fallujah,

Marines found small arms, artillery shells, and parts of

missile systems. Marines and soldiers engaged insurgents emplaced in mosques, but always with great

caution and often using Iraqi troops to finish off

assaults. It took Company B, 1/8, fighting on foot, 16

hours of house-to-house combat to capture the

Muhammadia Mosque, during which time they were

attacked with everything from rocket-propelled

grenades to suicide bombers.15

Resistance stiffened in southern Fallujah as the

assault force faced sometimes uniformed opponents

who fought with increased professionalism and discipline. 'When we found those boys in that bunker

with their equipment, it became a whole new ball107

game" said one soldier. He continued, "The way these

guys fight is different than the insurgents.'16

Nonetheless, by 20 November, the attackers had routed the remaining insurgents and taken the city.

U.S. casualties in Operation al-Fajr were 51 killed

and 425 seriously wounded; Iraqi government troops

suffered 8 dead and 43 wounded; and as many as

1,200 insurgents were reported killed. Some knowledgeable analysts described these losses as historically light for an urban battle of Fallujah's scale—and

there is a sound basis for this claim. The U.S. forces

avoided major disasters like the Soviets suffered in

Grozny, and even more limited reversals, such as the

IDF suffered in Jenin, when most of a platoon was

destroyed in an ambush.17

Yet despite the superb performance of Marines

and soldiers in Fallujah, there is reason for concern.

The 476 U.S. casualties represent about 8 percent of

the total assault force, a low but not insignificant loss

for less than two weeks' combat.18 Moreover, a surprising number of U.S. troops are wounded and

returned to duty in Iraq—about 45 percent overall.

For example, as• of 12 November 2004, I MEF

Commander Lieutenant General John Sattler reported

that, while 170 troops had been wounded seriously,

another 490 Marines and soldiers suffered wounds but

were able to return to duty. 19 Extrapolating U.S. losses based on a 45 percent rate of wounded returning

to duty, actual wounded in Fallujah might have been

616. Considering General Sattler's actual figures, total

wounded might have been more than 1,200 men

(about 20 percent of the assault forces), a casualty rate

that is not significantly lower than historical precedents. It is gratifying that U.S. troops are willing and

able to fight on despite their wounds, but it is cause

for concern when they are expected to take considerable casualties to spare civilians and infrastructure

and appease the U.S. and international media.

Analysis

In many respects, the U.S. approach in Fallujah

resembled Israeli tactics in the West Bank and Gaza.

This is not surprising because numerous sources indicate that Marine and Army officers studied Israeli tactics prior to OIF. Israeli urban warfare tactics are

sophisticated, effective, and well practiced. In many

respects, however, the IDF has different operational
and strategic objectives from U.S. forces. In addition,

the IDF historically—for example, in Jerusalem in

1967, Beirut in 1982, and Jenin in 2002—has proved

willing to take high casualties in urban warfare.

Dating from the siege of Beirut in 1982, Israel has

practiced a complex and limited form of urban warfare. In Beirut, this involved a cordon around the city,

accompanied by limited attacks with artillery, ground,

and air forces to put pressure on the Palestinian

Liberation Organization (PLO) and Syrian forces

inside. The IDF did not launch a genera! assault on

the city; it awaited a political solution that resulted in

evacuation of enemy forces under the auspices of

outside powers. Despite the IDF's restraint, it was

depicted as little short of barbaric by much of the

international media. The PLO's evacuation was treated as a victory parade, rather than the retreat it was,

and the PLO lived to fight another day. The battle was

a tactical victory for Israel, but a strategic defeat.

The Beirut experience and ongoing domestic and

international pressures color Israeli doctrine.

Throughout the current struggle, the IDF generally

has not occupied Palestinian cities, a notable exception being seizure of the Jenin refugee camp. (The

Jenin operation is the exception that proves the rule:

the IDF was castigated for its assault on Jenin and

falsely accused of perpetrating a massacre.) IDF urban

warfare doctrine effectively bans the use of fixedwing aircraft and artillery in support of ground operations. Troops rely on attack helicopters and direct

fire weapons—usually only small arms and machine

guns. Israeli units cordon Palestinian cities and towns,

seize a few key buildings or areas, and launch raids

against suspected terrorists. Although these operations tend to be quite effective tactically, they result in

strategic stalemate because Palestinian forces are left

in place after the IDF withdraws.

Tactically and operationally, fighting Israeli style in

an urban setting requires a heavy commitment of

ground troops to make up for reduced fire support,

and to intimidate rather than confront enemy forces.

This allows Israeli units to achieve limited objectives.

In June 2004, the IDF's tunnel raids in Rafah, a small

city in Gaza, required deployment of almost a division

of Israel troops. (Israeli divisions are somewhat smaller than their U.S. counterparts, and the force in Rafah

would have operated without artillery and other supporting elements). Rafah has about half the popula108

tion of Fallujah (167,000) and it is tiny in comparison:

5-6 square kilometers.

In Valiant Resolve, U.S. tactics and highly restrictive rules of engagement closely mirrored Israeli techniques. Owing to these restrictions and too small a

force, the operation was aborted, with arguably disastrous results for U.S. policy in Iraq. Many mistakes

were corrected during al-Fajr. Heavy armor was

employed, and air and artillery strikes were more liberally authorized. Even so, dropping four 500-pound

bombs on the first day of a major assault remains an

extremely selective application of firepower. Despite

predictable claims that Fallujah was devastated, photos reveal superficial damage to most buildings and

an occasional structure demolished. Television coverage of Marines engaged in harrowing room-to-room

combat belie hysterical stories that entire city blocks

were leveled.

What would have happened had we met a

tougher, more professional opponent in Fallujah? The

insurgents were formidable because many were willing to fight to the death—but in the main, they were

an indifferently armed rabble who could inflict casualties because of the nature of urban warfare and U.S.

sensibilities. What if U.S. forces find themselves facing

Syrian commandos or well-trained Hezbollah guerrillas?

Conclusions

Large ground forces are necessary when U.S. units

adopt Israeli-style urban warfare tactics—which, to a

large extent, the Marines appear to have done in

Fallujah. To accomplish their mission in Valiant

Resolve, they needed a considerably larger force to

operate in the absence of heavy air and artillery support. Further, Israeli urban tactics are designed primarily for isolating selected areas, not seizing and holding terrain and buildings. If U.S. forces intend to take

and clear an urban area block by block, as they did

during al-Fajr, they are going to pay a heavier price.

The result in Valiant Resolve was similar to what

Israeli forces have achieved against the Palestinians:

indecisive outcomes that keep the enemy in business.

Operation al-Fajr weakened the Iraqi insurgency, but

it came too late and too temperately to have broken

the insurgency's back, despite the claims of some U.S.

officers. The men who killed the U.S. contractors—
the act that precipitated the battle—have not been

found, much less prosecuted. Many insurgents

escapdd Fallujah during the buildup after Valiant

Resolve, and al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

remains at large.

Was the battle of Fallujah a victory or a defeat? The

Marine Corps' military operations in urban terrain

doctrine recognizes that tactical success does not necessarily translate to strategic victory. It notes the

Israeli's tactical victory in Beirut was a strategic

defeat—and observes the same about the battle of

Hue in the Vietnam War, when Marines defeated an

enemy that sought to put up a good fight but never

expected to win. Much the same can be said of

Fallujah's defenders. In spite of the heating they took

in November, they will continue to assert they

repelled the initial attack and fought well thereafter.

The potential problem for the Marine Corps and

U.S. deterrence in general is more than just local.

During a visit to Israel in the early 1980s, an Israeli

acquaintance described his military service to me as

"an Israeli Marine." Israel does not have Marines; he

meant he had been in the paratroops, which were the

best and toughest soldiers in the IDF. He assumed that

an American would understand a comparison with

U.S. Marines—and I did.

At that time, the IDF could deploy paratroops to

disturbances in the West Bank or Gaza who, by simply showing up in their red berets, could settle things

down. Much has changed in 20 years. Today, no

Israeli paratrooper would be so foolish as to wear his

beret in Nablus or Ramallah. Israeli paratroopers continue to fight well. Nonetheless, a couple of decades

of persistent and inconclusive combat in Lebanon and

urban combat in the territories have done much to

erode their regional, if not international, reputation.

The handwriting is on the wall. The battle of

Fallujah was not a defeat—but we cannot afford many

more victories like it.

Notes

US. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2005, 57-

61. Reprinted by permission. Copyright © 2005 by

U.S. Naval Institute (www.usni.org). 1. Robert D. Kaplan, "Five Days in Fallujah," Atlantic

Monthly, July-August 2004, 118.

109

2. Pamela Constable, "Troops Gaining Grip on sections of

Fallujah" Washington Post, 7 April 2004.

3. GySgt Mark Oliva, "Marines Suspend Fallujah Offensive,

Push Humanitarian Aid," Marine corps News

(www.usmc.mil), 13 April 2004.

4. Brendan Miniter, "The Fallujah Brigade," The Wall Street

Journal, I June 2004.

5. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "We Won: Fallujah Rejoices in

Withdrawal," Washington Post, 2 May 2004. 6. "Marines Suspend Fallujah Offensive," Marine Corps

News, 13 April 2004.

7. Military Operations on Urban Terrain, Marine Corps

Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-35.3 (Quantico, VA: April

1998), 1-16.

8. MCWP 3-35.3, 1-16, 1-17.

9. Kaplan, "Five Days in Fallujah," 126.

10. MCWP 3-35.3, 1-17, 2-7.

11. Christian Lowe, "U.S. Israeli Armed Forces Trade UrbanWarfare Tips," Marine Corps Times, 31 May 2002. Ii. should

be noted that Israeli battalions tend to be smaller than comparable Marine units, and most of the Israeli troops involved

in the Jenin battle were reservists.

12. See www.globalsecurity.org.

13. Jackie Spinner and Karl Vick, "U.S. Forces Meet Fierce

Resistance in Fallujah," Washington Post, 13 November

2004.

14. Jackie Spinner, "Artillerymen Clear Path for the Infantry,"

Washington Post, 11 November 2004; Associated Press, 8

November 2004.

15. Sameer N. Yacoub, "Foreign Fighters Arrested in

Southern Iraq," Associated Press, 25 November 2004; Dexter

Filkins, "In Taking Falluja Mosque, Victory by the Inch,"

New York Times, 10 November 2004.

16. Jackie Spinner and Karl Vick, "Troops Battle for Last

Parts of Fallujah," Washington Post, 14 November 2004.

17. E.g., Mackubin Thomas Owens, "Two, Three, Many

Fallujahs," Weekly Standard, 6 December 2004; Jack Kelly,

"U.S. Tactic, Training Kept Casualties Down in Fallujah" (citing author and retired Army LtCol Ralph Peters), Pittsburgh

Post-Gazette, 21 November 2004.

18. It is also nearly 50 percent of total U.S. casualties suffered in the initial campaign (OIF) between 19 March and

30 April 2003: according to DoD, 109 killed and 426 wounded and not returned to duty.

19. About 45 percent of U.S. forces wounded in Iraq are

returned to duty and not evacuated. Karl Vick, "August:

1,100 Troops Wounded," Los Angeles Times, 5 September

2004; Spinner and Vick, "U.S. Forces Meet Fierce Resistance

in Fallujah."

About the Author

Jonathan F. Keiler teaches world history and art history in Prince

George's County, Maryland. He is a former Army Judge Advocate

General Corps officer and a graduate of Salisbury University and

Washington and Lee University.

II Marine

Expeditionary Force

Summary of Action

by Commandei (IS. Marine Corps Forces,

Central Command

Unit: II Marine Expeditionary Force

Recommended Award: Presidential Unit Citation

Period of Award: 1 March 2005 to 28 February

2006

Status: Secretary of the Navy

Originator: Commander, U.S. Marine Corps

Forces Central Command

Cit atiow

F

or extraordinary heroism and outstanding

performance of duty in action against

enemy forces in support of Operation Iraqi

Freedom 04-06 from 27 March 2005 to 28

February 2006. II Marine Expeditionary Force

(Forward) executed a campaign plan utilizing

kinetic and non-kinetic methods to establish a

secure environment enabling Iraqi self-governance and self-reliance. Under the constructs of

Operations Patriot Shield, Liberty Express, and

Sayaid II, hundreds of aggressive counterinsurgency operations, ranging from information

operations and reconstruction programs to high

intensity offensive combat, were carried out.

These operations, conducted in every major

population center in the area of operations,

resulted in over 1,700 enemy killed in action,

over 10,500 detentions, and over 210 tons of

explosives captured and destroyed. Anti-Iraq

Forces in al-Anbar Province were effectively

neutralized, setting the conditions for a 2,700

percent increase in voter participation in the

constitutional referendum and the parliamentary

election. Iraqi security forces were transformed

from an unorganized body numbering less than

1,600 into a structured force with over 21,000

volunteers serving in army, police, and l)Order

111
enforcement units. By their outstanding courage,

resourcefulness, and aggressive fighting spirit in

combat against the enemy, the officers and

enlisted personnel of II Marine Expeditionary

Force (Forward) reflected great credit upon

themselves and upheld the highest traditions of

the Marine Corps and the United States Naval

Service.

Operation Patriot Shield

This operation was designed to maintain

Coalition force momentum and to disrupt antiIraqi force elements throughout al-Anbar

Province and to train and integrate Iraqi security

force units for combined counterinsurgency

operations.

Ground Combat Element

During April and May, 2d Marine Division units

simultaneously conducted over 30 major counterinsurgency operations and trained, integrated,

and operated with newly formed and arriving Iraqi

security force units in order to maintain tempo and

disrupt Anti-Iraqi Forces (AIF). During Operation

Patriot Shield, the focus of effort was neutralization of insurgent forces in the city of Ramadi, the

provincial capital. Regimental Combat Team 2

(RCT-2) continued interdiction operations along

the Hit and Haditha corridor, while Regimental

Combat Team 8 (RCT-8) conducted operations to

establish control of Fallujah, Zaydon, and

Amiriyah. The subordinate operations Matador

and New Market were especially noteworthy during this period, as they were conducted in the

insurgent hotspots of al-Qaim and the Hadithah

triad. This region was used as a staging area for

foreign fighters who crossed the Syrian border illegally along traditional smuggling routes. In these

areas, foreign fighters received weapons and

equipment in order to conduct attacks in the more

populated key cities, i.e. Baghdad, Ramadi,

Fallujah, and Mosul. These operations resulted in

a significant disruption of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)

operations along the western Euphrates River valley and served as the starting point for what would

become a series of operations designed to maintain Coalition forces' momentum and neutraliza112

tion of AQI as a threat by denying them sanctuary

and restricting their movement and ability to plan

large-scale operations.

The combined success of those operations

resulted in almost 350 enemy killed in action and

the detainment of over 2,000 insurgents. A number

of high value individuals were among the captured or killed, dealing a blow to the leadership of

AQI. The 2d Marine Division units also discovered

almost 200 weapons caches which included

approximately 8,000 mortar and rocket rounds,

almost 20 SA-7s, and SA-13 surface-to-air-missiles,

two complete mortar systems and eight 500-pound

bombs.

Air Combat Element

During Operation Patriot Shield, the air combat element flew approximately 4,723 sorties and

7,609 flight hours. The missions flown by 2d

Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward) (2d MAW [Fwd])

in support of Patriot Shield included assault support, close air support, aerial reconnaissance,

offensive air support, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Marine Wing Support

Group 27 (MWSG-27) during this and other operation provided forward arming and refueling

point support and other aviation ground support

functions, and one tactical recovery of aircraft

and personnel mission. 2d MAW (Fwd) executed

90 casualty evacuation missions, transporting 254

wounded Marines to higher level medical care

facilities.

Combat Service Support Element

2d Marine Logistics Group (Forward) (2d MLG

[Fwdl) mounted a complex logistic support plan

through the distribution of Classes I, III, IV and

IX supplies. A coordinated air and ground movement plan expedited the delivery of these supplies and made efficient use of all available transportation assets. Challenging the flexibility and

capabilities of all involved, it demonstrated 2d

MLG (Fwd)'s ability to provide a quick response

and consistent logistical support.

During Operation Matador, Combat Logistics

Battalion 2 (CLB-2), with support from 2d MLG

(Fwd), provided critical combat logistical support

contributing to another successful phase in corn-
bat operations. Logistical support included:

Explosive Ordnance Demolition teams, female

search teams, fiscal support, mortuary affairs,

medical aid as well as a consistent stream of supplies (classes I, II, III, V, VIII, and IX). This consistent and ready effort ensured a healthy and

superior combat force.

Operation Guardian Sword

This operation commenced on 6 June and

lasted through the month of July, focusing on

neutralizing insurgents and strengthening the

Iraqi security forces.

Ground Combat Element

On 6 June, 2d Marine Division began a series

of counterinsurgency operations in support of

Operation Guardian Sword. This division operation focused on shaping conditions to support

the upcoming Iraqi constitutional referendum

and national elections by preventing anti-Iraqi

forces from intimidating the Iraqi populace.

Most importantly this Operation effectively prevented AQI disruption of the relief in place of

OIF 04-06-1 and 04-06-2 forces. Throughout

Operations Khanjar and Scimitar (RCT-8) and

Spear, Scimitar, and Saber (RCT-2); and 2d

Brigade Combat Team's (2 BCT) small unit counterinsurgency operations in Ramadi, the division•

killed over 250 insurgents while detaining over

2,000. In addition, units discovered over 150

weapons caches containing 2,500 mortar and

rocket rounds and 23,500 pounds of bombs. One

of the most significant caches was discovered

during an RCT-8 operation in Karmah. Coalition

forces discovered a subterranean insurgent complex, consisting of a series of underground

bunkers in an old rock quarry approximately 170

meters wide by 275 meters long. Within various

rooms, Coalition forces discovered four fully furnished living spaces, a kitchen with fresh food,

two shower facilities and a working air conditioner. Other rooms were filled with numerous

weapons and ammunition to include various

types of machine guns, ordnance, to include

mortars, rockets and artillery rounds, black uniforms, ski masks, night vision goggles, and corn113

munications equipment. The net effect of these

operations were a series of efficient transfers of

authority between 35 maneuver units. Incoming

units assumed their responsibilities and battlespace with no loss in continuity of operations.

Air Combat Element

During this operation, 2d MAW (Fwd) flew

approximately 8,134 sorties and 13,974 flight

hours. 2d MAW (Fwd)'s direct support of combat

sustainment included strip alert assets constantly

maintained at the ready to provide casualty evacuation / medical evacuation, of which there were

49 casualty evacuation missions for 598 casualties, tactical recovery of aircraft and

personnel/quick reaction force (QRF), and both

rotary-wing and fixed-wing close air support in

response to troops in contact and the needs of II

MEF (Fwd).

Combat Service Support Element

2d MLG (Fwd), Combat Logistics Battalion 2

(CLB-2), and Combat Logistics Battalion 8 (CLB8) provided a variety of combat support to

include the recovery of vehicles with their maintenance detachments, repair of vital alternate

supply routes and main supply routes to deny

the insurgents improvised explosive device

emplacement opportunities. Alternate supply

routes and main supply route maintenance was

critical in keeping Multi National Force-West

(MNF-W) stocked with combat supplies (classes

I, II, III, V, VIII, and IX.

During Operation Spear, from 15-19 June 2005

in the al-Qaim region, CLB-2 provided a variety

of combat support to include the recovery of

vehicles with their maintenance detachment and

a personnel recovery mission by Mortuary Affairs

Marines. This service was critical in keeping 2d

Marine Division mobile and strong.

During Operation Dagger, CLB-8 assisted

greatly with combat logistic resupply of Classes I,

II, III, V VIII and IX. Due to the unique weather

patterns of the Shamal, or sandstorm, season

which occurred during the timeframe of this

operation, exceptional logistic support measures

had to be taken. Because of the potential that airfield operations would be shut down and aircraft
grounded, CLB-8 forward deployed a forward

resuscitative surgical section, in order to provide

a level II surgical capability for the units participating in Operation Dagger. CLB-8 also assisted

RCT-8 in securing the main supply routes in the

area of operations during this timeframe by creating Team Truck, a task organized force of both

motor transport and military police vehicles and

personnel that assisted in patrolling the main

supply routes and alternate supply routes.

During Operation Sword, conducted in the Hit

and Haditha region, CLB-2 provided combat

resupply and maintenance support. The 2d MLG

(Fwd) developed, and enacted a survivability

plan that supplied protective barriers to reinforce

the camps from indirect fire, as well as vehicular

threats, along with multiple resupply missions to

maintain a superior force. This effort continued

throughout the month of June.

Triad Region

Ground Combat Element

Operation River Gate was conducted from 3-

19 October in the cities of Hadithah, Haqlaniyah

and Barwanah. Iraqi security forces; 3d Battalion,

1st Marines; 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance

Battalion; and the 3d Battalion, 504th Infantry

Regiment (U.S. Army), conducted counterinsurgency operations to continue the disruption of

insurgents and secure the triad region. Coalition

forces encountered numerous small arms fire

attacks and 13 improvised explosive device

attacks during the operation. Over 172 insurgents

were detained, 12 enemy killed in action, 32

caches were discovered along with 95 improvised explosive devices and mines. At the completion of the operation a permanent firm base

was establish to provide continued security.

Air Combat Element

The air combat element once again found

themselves participating in several combat operations. The major operation throughout the

month was Operation River Gate. The operation

was the first thrust of a planned string of operations to clear the Euphrates corridor of insurgent

activity. The operation lasted over three weeks,

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with MAG-26 assets successfully launching heliborne assaults with ground elements of the 82d

Airborne, 1st Recon, 2d Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st

Division of the Iraqi Army and 2d Marine

Division with the units surrounding the town of

Haditha.

Combat Service Support Element

During Operation River Gate, CLB-2 provided

combat logistics support to RCT-2 throughout the

operation. From the onset of the operation, CLB2 pushed forces from al-Asad and established a

repair and replenishment point, as well as a refueling point south of the Euphrates River between

Hadithah and Haqlaniyah. CLB-2 put a provisional rifle platoon, a transportation and material

handling detachment, recovery vehicles, engineers, heavy equipment, maintenance detachments and classes I, III (bulk fuel), IV, and V supplies at the repair and replenishment point. CLB2 would eventually place over 300 Marines and

sailors at this location while offensive counterinsurgency operations were conducted less than

1.5 miles away in Hadithah and Haqlaniyah. To

free up combat power, CLB-2 assisted the regimental combat team in manning the defensive

positions at the repair and replenishment point

allowing the ground combat element forces to

focus more combat power on the operation. . Western Border Control

Securing Iraq's border with Syria became a critical necessity to achieving Coalition force strategic

objectives. Anti-Iraqi forces using historical smuggling routes through the porous border, were fueling the insurgency by introducing a steady flow of

arms, foreign fighters, and cash into the province.

Under the construct of Operation Sayaid, a series

of subordinate operations were planned and executed. These high-intensity, kinetic efforts: Iron

Fist, River Gate, Steel Curtain, and Iron Hammer

effectively disrupted and neutralized insurgent

activities throughout the western Euphrates River

valley, and more importantly set the conditions

for the introduction of Iraqi security forces in the

region. This permanent presence of Iraqi security

forces has been a critical factor in preventing
insurgent groups from reestablishing themselves

following Coalition force kinetic operations. The

aforementioned operations culminated in a 30

November Iraqi border control ceremony held in

Husaybah to symbolize the securing of the borders through cooperation of the Ministry of

Defense, Ministry of the Interior, and Multi

National Corps-Iraq.

Ground Combat Element

While Operation Liberty Express was still in

progress, the division adjusted its main effort from

the 2d Brigade Combat Team (2 BCT) to RCT-2 for

Operation Sayaid. RCT-2 was assigned operational

and tactical control of three additional Army

maneuver battalions to provide additional maneuver capability for Operations Iron Fist, River Gate,

and Steel Curtain. Operation Steel Curtain, the

largest of the three, was a major counterinsurgency operation in the cities of Husaybah,

Karabilah, Ubaydi, and Ramana in support of the

Multi National Corps-Iraq Operation Sayaid.

Operation Steel Curtain focused on disrupting and

denying AQI safe havens and freedom of movement in western al-Anbar Province, establishing a

persistent presence in this region, restoring Iraqi

control of the border with Syria, and setting the

conditions for the constitutional referendum and

national election.

In order to effectively restrict and channel

insurgents, RCT-2's area of operations was

expanded north of the Euphrates River. Tasked to

establish Iraqi control of the Iraq-Syrian border,

RCT-2 began attacks from the Syrian border west

into Husaybah with three reinforced battalions

preceded by a mechanized feint into the Ubaydi

peninsula. The 3d Battalion, 6th Marines, along

with the 2d Battalion, 1st Marines and supporting

Iraqi Army units, successfully attacked and

cleared Husaybah, Karabilah, and New Ubaydi.

Operation Steel Curtain was instrumental in causing a significant disruption to the AQI xganization that has had lasting effects across al-Anbar

Province. In addition to destroying much of the

AQI leadership and command-and-control functions, this operation significantly improved atmospherics among the local population of western alAnbar. Insurgent organizations in western a!-

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Anbar had subjected the local populace to an

intense murder and intimidation campaign that

was successful in preventing locals from assisting

Coalition forces. Al-Qaeda freedom of movement

and sanctuary were denied. The AQI infrastructure and terror campaign was neutralized. A permanent Iraqi security force presence is now established across much of the western Euphrates River

valley, consequently eliminating AQI influence

and restoring a sense of security among the local

populace, who are now more willing to cooperate and assist Coalition and Iraqi Army forces.

Essential to the effort of securing the .border

has been the integration of the Iraqi border police

into Coalition force activities. The 2d Marine

Division in concert with Iraqi Defense Border

Enforcement has helped to stem the flow of terrorists, weapons and money from Syria by continuing with the construction of a series of border

forts along the entire length of the Iraqi-Syrian

border. A brigade of Iraqi Border Defense Police

has also been trained and equipped with assistance from the division. These border guards are

now conducting patrols, detaining smugglers and

infiltrators, and maintaining an active presence on

this critical border..

Air Combat Element

2d MAW (Fwd) executed special planning and

coordination for Operation Sayaid Phase II Bravo

and Steel Curtain. At the completion of Steel

Curtain fixed-wing and rotary-wing reconnaissance and on-call missions in the Husaybah area

enhanced the security and logistical support for

the 30 November Multi National Corps-Iraq (MNCI) Boarder Control Ceremony by facilitating the

coordination and scheduling of assault support

and F/W aircraft for combat air patrol. Extensive

coordination between MNF-W, MNC-I, Marine

Aircraft Group 26 (MAG-26) and various

squadrons was also conducted to facilitate the

successful movement of Iraqi Ministry of Defense

personnel and their freshly recruited and or

trained Iraq personnel in support of the Desert

Protector program variant 2 and 3.

Combat Service Support Element

Cumulatively, support for these Operations
was provided by the 2d MLG (Fwd)'s CLB-2, with

augmentation by Combat Logistics Regiment

(CLR-25) and 8th Engineer Support Battalion

(ESB). Logistical support included: explosive ordnance demolition teams, construction of 13 firm

bases or battle positions and a steady stream of

supplies (classes I, II, III, V, VIII, and IX) as well

as medical aid from forward located repair and

replenishment points established by CLB-2. The

logistics forces established repair and replenishment points within contested areas of the operation in order to provide expeditious support to

the ground combat element. This consistent and

ready effort ensured the success of this series of

intense, dynamic and wide ranging operations

across the entire western al-Anbar Province.

During Operation Steel Curtain, CLB-2 established a forward command cell in foreign operating base al-Qaim. This command cell was originally intended to support Contingency Operating

Location South construction. Knowing that they

would have to surge forces to the al-Qaim region,

CLB-2 planned accordingly by building an infrastructure to support up to 400 of its Marines and

sailors in forward operating base al-Qaim. From

this operating base the Marines pushed supplies

and equipment in support of Operation Steel

Curtain. Once again, materials, equipment,

Marines and sailors could not be staged early in

order to ensure Coalition forces kept the element

of surprise. CLB-2 forces, supplies and equipment

were surged to forward operating base al-Qaim

just before the operation commenced and continued to push supplies forward from al-Asad

throughout it. As the assault moved from west to

east, CLB-2 established a repair and replenishment point at Camp Gannon and provided a provisional rifle platoon for security, vehicle recovery

support, maintenance support, and Classes I, III,

IV, and V supplies for the assault on Husaybah

and Karbala. As these towns were secured, engineers moved in from forward operating base alQaim to build firm bases. The firm base fortifications provided force protection for units occupying these firm bases and provided a large physical presence in the towns. Speed was essential to

provide force protection when the Coalition

forces were most vulnerable (immediately after

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taking objectives) and to show townspeople that

Coalition forces were there to stay. After securing

towns, Iraqis woke up to heavy vehicles delivering hundreds of Texas (10,000 pounds each) and

Jersey barriers as well as heavy equipment to fortify firm bases with HESCO barriers, guard towers,

and bunkers. They built two firm bases in the

town of Husaybah and a third firm base in

Karabilah. CLB-2 also built a detainee holding

facility and assisted in constructing and supply of

a humanitarian camp for Iraqis fleeing the fighting

during this phase of the operation.

To take advantage of the forces available and

to exploit its momentum, RCT-2 extended

Operation Steel Curtain into the towns of New

Ubaydi and Old Ubaydi and the Ramana area,

north of the Euphrates River across from Ubaydi.

CLB-2 continued to provide logistics similar to

what was provided for the assault on Husaybah

and Karabilah but from forward operating base alQaim. This involved building several more firm

bases and moving forces across the river. Also,

CLB-2 supported another humanitarian camp near

New and Old Ubaydi.

Iraq Security Forces

In order to help Iraq secure its sovereign borders, II MEF (Fwd) successfully engaged the Iraqi

Ministry of the Interior and the Multi National

Security Transition Command-Iraq organization to

obtain the support and resources to produce more

border police and to build the necessary border

fort infrastructure to defend over 1,000 kilometers

of border area with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi

Arabia. Additionally, II MEF (Fwd) and its seven

border transition teams played a• vital role in the

organization, training, and equipping of a virtually ineffective border force. The Iraqi border forces

grew from approximately 2,300 personnel spread

over three brigades to 3,600. II MEF (Fwd) coordinated the construction of 30 permanent and

expeditionary border forts. These border defense

forces employed at the forts continue to grow in

operational capabilities due to the employment of

Border Transition Teams that •are focused on

deterring AIF activities along the Syrian border.

The G-5/civil-military operations cell purchased critically needed humanitarian assistance
supplies that were delivered and stored at Camp

Fallujah. They were then shipped from Camp

Fallujah to support Operation Sayaid II in the

western Euphrates River valley. The humanitarian

assistance supplies were used to support

Internally Displaced Persons camps and other

humanitarian requirements. In addition, supplies

were used to support the humanitarian mission

throughout the MNF-W area of operations including initiatives in area of operations Biloxi helping

the Army civil affairs companies successfully complete their missions.

Referendum/Elections

(Operation Liberty Express)

Operation Liberty Express, conducted

September through December, focused on

expanding Coalition forces and the Ministry of

Defense/Ministry of Interior control throughout alAnbar Province, while providing support to the

Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq for the

constitutional referendum and national elections.

These two historic events were benchmark

achievements in the story of II MEF (Fwd)'s

involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom 04-06.

Ground Combat Element

2d Marine Division units conducted over 30

major battalion/regimental operations designed to

improve the security situation across the area of

operations and create an environment conducive

to safe and secure elections. Counterinsurgency

operations were conducted in nearly every city

across al-Anbar, including Fallujah, . Amiriyah,

Zaydon, Karmah, Saqliwiyah, Ramadi, Khalidiyah,

Hit, the Haditha triad, Ubaydi, Karabilah, and

Husaybah to capitalize on the progress made thus

far in disrupting and defeating the insurgency

while preparing the province for the upcoming

elections. In addition to killing almost 1,000 insurgents and detaining almost 4,000 others, over 500

weapons caches were discovered Some of the

more significant weapons cache contents included well over 10,000 mortar, artillery, and rocket

rounds, 5 surface-to-air missile systems, and 70

250-pound bombs.

The numerous operations conducted by 2d

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Marine Division in al-Anhar Province helped disrupt and limit the ability of al-Qaeda in Iraq to

murder and intimidate the local populace, thereby ensuring the safety and maximum participation

of Iraqi citizens in the constitutional referendum

and national elections. The Iraqi security force

(1SF), demonstrating significant progress, was

responsible for providing security inside polling

sites and the area immediately around the outside

of polling locations. The presence of the Iraqi

security force proved significant as it provided the

voting populace with a sense of security and

greatly enhanced voter turnout. The 2d Marine

Division provided a wide range of support to bolster the efforts of the Independent Electoral

Commission's Election Support Teams.

During the October constitutional referendum,

2d Marine Division provided security and logistics

support for over 140 polling centers throughout

the province. While tons of materials were moved

to support the force protection requirements

around many of the centers, another key activity

was the movement of Iraqi poll workers from

Baghdad International Airport to the two special

poll worker camps in al-Anbar, and from there to

the forward operating bases where they would

stage prior to final movement to their actual

polling centers. Over 1,300 Iraqi poll workers

were safely transported and provided meals and

quarters at the forward operating bases before

and after Election Day. Additionally, 2d Marine

Division personnel moved all ballots cast to the

appropriate recovery locations. Overall, approximately 260,000 Iraqis voted in al-Anbar Province

without incident. This total represented a 1,775

percent increase in voter turnout compared to the

January 2005 election, and was a significant milestone on Iraq's road to democracy.

Two months later, 2d Marine Division replicated the security and logistics support for the

national elections. With robust planning and

smooth execution, the division provided exten

sive "long-haul" logistics support to 30 polling

centers across the western al-Anbar Province and

coordinated the movement and care of over 800

poll workers flown in from Baghdad. In the

Ramadi and Fallujah areas, an additional 135

Independent Electoral Commission operated
polling centers were established to support the

election in east al-Anbar. The expansion of this

security model, limited to Fallujah during the constitutional referendum, was a testament to the rapidly improving capabilities of the Iraqi Security

forces, as they again provided internal and point

security at polling sites in a larger geographic area

of responsibility.

The coordination of the support for the

Independent Electoral Commission polling centers in Ramadi and Fallujah was especially complex since it involved synchronization with various commission officials, Iraqi police, and Iraqi

poll workers. However, the movement of hundreds of thousands of ballots and related materials to three distribution points for Iraqi acceptance

was executed with minimal difficulty.

Furthermore, all ballots and poll workers in the

western al-Anbar Province were retrograded as

planned.

There were no significant insurgent attacks

during the election period which recorded

unprecedented Sunni voter turnout. Over

1,617,000 voters participated in the national elections in the MNF-W area of operations. According

to official results from the Independent Electoral

Commission, al-Anbar Province voter participation

continued to increase, with nearly 374,000 voters

casting ballots, accounting for a 2,690 percent

increase in voter participation from the January to

the December elections. Improved security conditions brought about by members of the 2d Marine

Division provided hundreds of thousands of citizens in al-Anbar Province the opportunity to vote.

The national election was the first time Iraqi

security force had an opportunity to vote in a

national election. With extensive division support

in opening 15 polling centers manned by

Independent Electoral Commission poll workers

around the province, about 12,000 Iraqi soldiers

were able to safely vote on the 12th of December

for the political party of their choice. The security

operations and logistic support provided during

the elections assured the smooth execution of

both electoral events. Operation Liberty Express

culminated in the successful 15 December 2005

election of a representative government for the

country of Iraq.

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Air Combat Element

MAG-26 helicopter assets provided aerial lift

for over 1,000 Iraqi voting committee members to

various polling stations throughout the al-Anbar

Province for the October Referendum.

Additionally, Marines and sailors from units of the

air combat element provided security and search

procedures at the polling stations. The success of

the referendum was a direct result of Operation

River Bridge and the aerial assets, which supported both events.

2d MAW (Fwd) also provided the flights

required for Operation Liberty Express in support

of the 15 December Iraq national elections. This

included the coordination and scheduling of

assault support and MNF-W and Combined Forces

Air Component Commander/F/W aircraft for combat air patrol and aerial refueling. Extensive coordination between MNF-W, MNC-I, MAG-26, and

various squadrons was also conducted to facilitate

the successful movement of Iraqi Ministry of

Defense personnel and their freshly recruited and

or trained Iraq personnel in support of the Desert

Protector program variant 4 and 5.

Throughout the months of September through

December, the air combat element flew approximately 11,172 sorties and 22,012 flight hours in

support of Sayaid, Liberty Express, and River

Gate. Again, they flew over 1,000 Iraqi voting

committee members to various polling stations

throughout the al-Anbar Province.

Combat Service Support Element

Operation Liberty Express was a resounding

success as the 2d Marine Logistics Group (Fwd)

assisted the Independent Electoral Commission-in

al-Anbar Province in the planning and execution

of the delivery and recovery of balloting materials

and polling center equipment at more than 140

polling sites during the 15 October referendum,

the 12 December election voting by the Iraqi

security force and the 15 December general parliamentary election. CLR25 was instrumental in

the sorting, packaging, and delivering of all balloting materials throughout the al-Anbar Province as

well as the eventual recovery and storage of

reusable items following the elections.
Additionally, 2d MLG (Fwd) provided life support

to and throughput of over 700 Independent

Electoral Commission poll workers. To support

the poll workers at Camp Taqaddum, a fully functioning temporary workers' camp was constructed, capable of housing up to 1,600 workers. The

camp included biometric automated tracking and

scanning .of personnel upon arrival. The camp

was constructed with numerous force protection

barriers, and had security, command and billeting

tents with environmental control units, sanitation

facilities and a kitchen tent. In addition to general support for the entire area of operations, 2d

•MLG (Fwd) was directly involved in the detailed

planning for the security for two polling sites

within 2d MLG (Fwd)'s battlespace in towns near

Camp Taqaddum.

During both the October referendum and the

December national, elections in the western part

of the area of operations, CLB-2 assisted RCT-2

and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU)

with the delivery of balloting materials and

polling station kits in cities throughout the entire

western portion of al-Anbar Province. CLB-2 also

delivered and emplaced force protection barriers

surrounding voting locations in Hit, Haditha, alQaim, and the Korean Village area, providing the

ability to have polling stations protected from the

threat of vehicle borne improvised explosive

devices and indirect fire. In addition to delivering

force protection materials, CLB-2 Marines assisted

in the set up of polling centers across their area of

operations. Once voting had been completed during the October referendum and December Iraqi

security force/national elections, CLB-2 Marines

were instrumental in securing and transferring

ballots and ballot materials back to MNF-W forward operating bases for initial tallying and

onward movement back to Baghdad for

Independent Electoral Commission election validation.

In the eastern part of the area of operations

during the October referendum, CLB-8 continued

to provide direct support to RCT-8 in order to

enhance the security throughout the area of operations, as well as 'ensure that the - Independent

Electoral Commission was prepared to conduct

the election with all materials necessary. This

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included three harrier-emplacements, task organized around motor transport and engineer platoons, placing over 80 barriers that blocked off

streets, allowing traffic to be more easily controlled in the city of Fallujah. For the Iraqi national election in December, CLB-8 was again emplacing barriers to support the RCT-8 security plan.

This involved four task-organized harrier

emplacement teams moving over 120 barriers.

Two teams operated in the city of Fallujah, one in

the city of Kharmah, and one operated in both

Amiriyah and Ferris in the southern portion of the

area of operations. As in the October referendum,

CLB-8 ensured that the Independent Electoral

Commission received all materials necessary for

the election, and retrieved all material after the

election. In both the October referendum and the

December national election, CLB-8 established a

Bravo command group at the Fallujah civil-military operations center, as well as establishing two

maintenance/recovery quick reaction forces, and

one clean-up/consequence management quick

reaction force to rapidly respond to any developing situation.

II MEF Headquarters Group

In October of 2005 and again in December of

2005, the Marines and sailors of II MEF

Headquarters Group established a camp at the

Baghdad International Airport (BIAP). This camp

was established to process Iraqi civilians who

would then board aircraft for movement forward

to Polling Centers throughout the western half of

Iraq. Working closely with USAF flight crews, the

Independent Electoral Commission, the U.S.

Army's 3d Infantry Division and many others, II

MHG moved 1,300 personnel to western Iraq in

October, and nearly 400 personnel in December.

Demonstrating exceptional diplomacy, skill and

energy, these Marines worked through logistical,

political, and security-related challenges to ensure

that poll workers were present to support both

events. . . Iraq Security Forces

At the time II MEF (Fwd) assumed responsibility for the MNF-W area of operations there were
two under strength brigades and no police in the

al-Anbar region. As of 28 February 2006, there are

over 21,000 Iraqi security force operating and

functioning in the area. The growth and development of the Iraqi Army in al-Anbar has been particularly significant, growing from a force of about

1,600 to over 16,000 soldiers. These forces now

consist of two full divisions, seven brigades, and

21 battalions.

Recognizing the need to establish conditions to

enable the rule of law and an effective operating

government, II MEF (Fwd) developed a comprehensive and integrated strategy to build and

employ the requisite number of Iraqi army, police

and special border police forces in the MNF-W

area of operations. This. strategy was wholly consistent with the theater commander's priorities

and, the U.S. national strategy to achieve victory in

Iraq.

Iraqi Army Development

As II MEF (Fwd) set out to execute this integrated strategy, one of first priorities to build a

capable Iraqi security force was focused on the

disestablishment of the ineffective 60th Iraqi

National Guard (eight battalions) stationed in the

al-Anbar Province. These sectarian forces proved

to be unreliable and susceptible to local insurgent

threats and intimidation. Therefore, in March

2005, II MEF (Fwd) began to methodically and

carefully disband the force by recovering all

weapons and equipment and then offering the

opportunity to integrate those that were interested into the regular army. By June 2005, six battalions were stood down and nearly 2,000 former

Iraqi National Guard soldiers were assimilated

into the regular Iraqi Army.

Once this effort was complete, II MEF (Fwd)

realized that another Iraqi Army division was

needed in the al-Anbar Province to neutralize the

insurgency and create the conditions to develop

local control and domestic security. To that end, II

MEF (Fwd) immediately began the difficult task of

standing up the 7th Iraqi Army Division headquarters and three brigades. This was a huge undertaking, but II MEF (Fwd) successfully stood up all

headquarters; planned and coordinated all equipping and training; and deployed these forces to

120

intermediate and final locations. This was a

superb achievement that greatly improved the

security situation in al-Anhar. Additionally, II MEF

(Fwd) built and managed a temporary camp for

7th Iraqi Army division headquarters within the

confines of Camp Fallujah; provided a military

transition team out-of-hide for that headquarters;

supported training of headquarters personnel; and

successfully executed a move of the division

headquarters to its permanent location in Ramadi

(Camp Blue Diamond).

Another significant accomplishment was the

employment and integration of the 1st Division

Iraqi Army Headquarters and its subordinate

forces. II MEF (Fwd) partnered and worked diligently to prepare and deploy the 1st Iraqi Army

division headquarters into al-Anbar Province from

its initial location in Tadji. In addition to preparing the facilities and infrastructure at Habbaniyah,

II MEF (Fwd) coordinated and managed the successful and incident-free movement of 1,700 division headquarters personnel from Tadji to their

new location in Habbaniyah during November

and December 2005.

As II MEF (Fwd) continued to operationalize

the Iraqi Army, one problem encountered was

maintaining sufficient unit manning levels. Due to

the harsh operating environment and violence

associated with the insurgency, the 1st and .7th

Divisions forces experienced high attrition. Since

the national force regeneration system was not

able to provide sufficient replacements, II .MEF

(Fwd) responded by utilizing the East Fallujah

Iraqi Camp to conduct local boot camp training in

order to produce trained combat replacements. As

a secure training environment the East Fallujah

Camp proved to be quite useful and helped train

and produce more than 1,100 soldiers during OIF

04-06. II MEF (Fwd) continued to maximize the

utility of the East Fallujah Camp and expanded its

use for other Iraqi security force purposes, such as

Iraqi police screening, and training Iraqi traffic

police and public order forces. In this capacity II

MEF (Fwd) used the East Fallujah Iraqi Camp to

screen over 1,700 police candidates which contributed directly to building the Fallujah police

force.

One of the key components of II MEF (Fwd)'s
strategy to develop the Iraqi Army were the

embedded transition teams. These teams were

critical to the Iraqi security force's continued

improvement, assessment, and tactical employment. These 45, 10-man teams, a third of them

formed internally from II MEF (Fwd) structure,

lived with their Iraqi security force unit to facilitate their partnership and mentorship. The contributions of these teams were diverse and far-reaching. They provided critical links to training opportunities, access to Coalition effects, administrative

tasks, a host of logistical support, and essential

feedback on the current state of Iraq security force

readiness. Coupled with effective partnering from

MNF-W Coalition force units, the transition teams

mentored and trained battalion and above headquarters and were instrumental in assisting their

respective Iraqi Army units improve their capabilities to the point where most units can perform

platoon, company and some battalion level operations. By January 2006, four of the Iraqi Army

brigades and 10 battalions were either controlling

their own battlespace or preparing to assume it.

The Iraqi Army demonstrated their resolve and

increasing capabilities during Operation Sayaid in

the western Euphrates River valley and in other

subordinate named operations. Additionally, these

forces performed extremely well during security

operations in support of the constitutional referendum and national election.

Iraqi Border Police and Iraqi Police

Service Development

Concurrent with integrating soldiers into

Coalition forces-led counterinsurgency operations,

II MEF (Fwd) expanded and improved a regional

department of border enforcement and police

academy in order to meet MNF-W training needs.

This academy was one of the first in the country

to provide advanced, follow-on group tactical

skills training for policemen who had recently

completed their entry-level national training. It

also provided basic training to Department of

Border Enforcement forces. In just a six-month

period, 24 II MEF (Fwd) Marines trained a combined total of 1,000 Iraqi police service and Iraqi

border police personnel.

With Iraqi security forces established at cities

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along the Euphrates River valley, and along the

border, the conditions existed to introduce Iraqi

police. To date, II MEF (Fwd) has enabled the

training of 3,100 new Iraqi policemen for service

in the al-Anbar Province. These efforts were

spearheaded by out-of-hide police parinership

program teams operating at the provincial and

police district level. These teams conducted

screening, training, advising, and follow-on

assessment. MNF-W equipped over 10,000 policemen in four provinces with weapons, individual

equipment, communications equipment, and

vehicles. Starting in March 2005, II MEF (Fwd)

built a 1,700-man police department in the city of

Fallujah from the ground up, restoring law

enforcement services to an area of 240,000 people

that had been without since prior to the Battle for

Fallujah in November 2004. MNF-W also began

the first meaningful police force reconstruction in

other areas of the al-Anbar Province in over a

year. These actions are set to be repeated in the

districts along the Euphrates River valley. In

December, II MEF (Fwd) initiated an aggressive

police assessment plan in the cities of al-Qaim. By

mid-February, II MEF (Fwd) assisted the

Provincial Governor in shipping 1,400 candidates

to the Baghdad police academy. Through this

aggressive plan II MEF (Fwd) has set the conditions for the rapid growth of police and improved

security throughout the western Euphrates River

valley, as well as being able to achieve the goals

and objectives outlined in the theater commander's "2006 year of the police" campaign Plan.

Iraqi Security Force Logistical Support

In order to successfully equip, sustain and support the Iraqi security force during OIF 04-06, II

MEF (Fwd) developed and executed a comprehensive logistical support and infrastructure

development strategy. II MEF (Fwd) worked tactical and strategic logistical issues through Multi

National Corps-Iraq, Multi National Forces-Iraq

(MNF-I) and Multi National Security Transition

Command-Iraq; which included procurement, military construction, developing Iraqi security force

logistic policy, sustainment, life support, health

services, maintenance, Iraqi camp management

and distribution in direct support of training and
equipping an effective Iraqi security force. The

magnitude of these efforts cannot be understated.

To field, train and equip the Iraqi security force,

325 contracting actions valued at 27 million dollars were executed for life support, equipment,

maintenance, services, sanitation and sustainment

to the Iraqi security force operating in the MNF-W

area of operations. Additionally, to support the

material needs of the Iraqi Army, police and border forces, II MEF (Fwd) coordinated the transportation, security and delivery of 1,250 vehicles,

10,000 small arms weapons, 11 million rounds of

ammunition, 1,400 pieces of communications

equipment, 2,500 sets of individual police equipment, 8,400 sets of initial issue for Iraqi Army soldiers, 10,000 sets of cold weather gear, and 100

short tons of sustainment cargo. These monumental efforts ensured that the ever increasing numbers of Iraqi security force in the area of operations were adequately provisioned to focus on the

maturation of their basic skills.

Many of the initial Iraqi security force needs

related to facilities and life support. The Iraqi

security force had few organic capabilities to support them, so close coordination was vital to

ensuring Iraqi security force forces could sustain

operations. One element of life support was a

wide-ranging array of camps and bases in the area

of operations to support Iraqi security force

employment. II MEF (Fwd) coordinated construction of 17 Iraqi Army bases totaling $183 million,

nine Iraqi police stations costing $10.9 million,

and six border forts valued at $1.9 million. These

bases and camps enabled an additional Iraqi

Army division to be located in western al-Anbar

Province. Beyond these fixed facilities, II MEF

(Fwd) developed and executed an up-armor program for Iraqi security force vehicles valued at

$760,900, providing better protection for 383 vehicles of the Iraqi Army and police from small arms

and improvised explosive devices. To sustain the

operational readiness of these vehicles and other

equipment, II MEF (Fwd) coordinated and established over $300,000 in maintenance contracts.

Ground Combat Element

During the past year the Iraqi police forces

have gone from being nonexistent to contributing

122

to the security of Fallujah and other surrounding

areas. The Iraqi highway patrol is patrolling the

roads around Fallujah and Ramadi. The traffic

police are directing traffic and performing other

functions. The Iraqi police in Fallujah are

patrolling the streets and arresting insurgents. In

Fallujah, over 90 percent of the police force have

attended formal training and are fully equipped to

perform law enforcement duties. During the

national elections in December, the Iraqi police

provided security for the polling sites and poll

workers. Their efforts combined with the Iraqi

Army and 2d Marine Division resulted in the

largest voter turnout to date in the province.

The division partnered Iraqi Army units with

the division's RCTs and BCTs. Despite considerable logistical and life support challenges, the

division was able to put in place all necessary

resources in addition to force protection measures

in time to receive Iraqi security forces. Within a

short period of time the division established and

equipped 16 Iraqi security force camps throughout the area of operations, in addition to more

than a dozen firm bases. Division units demonstrated versatility and resourcefulness in their

implementation of creative training programs for

partnered Iraqi security force units. Their efforts

considerably enhanced each unit's training and

combat effectiveness in an accelerated time frame.

The division's efforts, in concert with improved

provincial relations resulted in a continually

increasing Iraqi Army that grew from a platoon of

34 reconnaissance soldiers to two full divisions of

18,000 plus soldiers, a Border Defense Force of

over 2,000 that patrols the Syrian and Jordanian

borders and an Iraqi police force of over 11,000.

During this period, the Marines, sailors, and commanders of 2d Marine Division worked tirelessly

to train and fully integrate Iraqi security forces

into unit operations, while overcoming the challenges of language and cultural barriers. After

only six months, the Iraqi security forces are now

involved in 100 percent of the division's unit

operations. The success of their training and their

unilateral involvement has been essential to the

division's success during the electoral process and

the growing progress toward positive opinions of

the Multi National Forces by the Iraqi people. To
date, three Iraqi Army brigades and eight Iraqi

battalions conduct independent operations and

control their own battlespace.

Iraqi Security Force and Coalition Force

Basing

30th Naval Construction Regiment: The 30th

Naval Construction Regiment (30th NCR) planned

and executed over 173 projects totaling over

240,000 man-days of engineering support while

placing $49 million worth of materials and conducting over 1,100 convoy security missions

(56,000 miles) in support of the continued development of the Iraqi security force and enabling

Iraqi self reliance and self governance.

The 30th NCR provided engineering designs,

bills of materials, CL IV material acquisition and

delivery, construction of three combat outposts

and seven Iraqi security force battalion base

camps throughout the area of operations. This

effort was timed to provide direct support to

Operation Sayaid in the western Euphrates River

valley and completing camps in time to field Iraqi

security force forces prior to the December

national election.

Critical supporting projects constructed and/or

designed by 30th NCR include the following:

• Command Outpost South was designed

and constructed to house and sustain 750

troops near the Syrian border south of alQaim. This project needed 8,000 man-days

at a cost of $2.4 million in construction

materials.

• Command Outpost North was designed

to house and sustain 1,950 troops near the

Syrian border just north of al-Qaim. The

30th NCR provided the designs and bill of

materials for the construction of this $34 million contractor-constructed project and

responded with an emergency camp maintenance detachment when a contractor solution proved unsuccessful.

• The Iraqi security force Battalion and

Brigade Headquarters in al-Qaim was

designed to house and sustain 1,100 troops

and senior leadership of the Iraqi security

force which provides the command and

123

control of Syrian border operations. The

project required 9,200 man-days to construct

at a cost of $3.5 million.

Command Outpost Rawah was

designed to house and sustain 1,500 troops

at a cost of $4.3 million and 14,000 mandays. This project was completed in similar

fashion as the other command outposts.

The 30th NCR extended this capability to house

and sustain over 5,000 thousand Iraqi security

force and associated Coalition force battalion and

unit personnel throughout the area of operations

by designing, and constructing nine forward operating bases (FOBs). Each FOB provided berthing,

dining and cooking facilities, force protection,

maintenance yards, administrative facilities,

armory, ammunition storage, fuel farms, and

hygiene facilities for the troops.

Projects by location and cOst of construction

performed by 30th NCR include: • Iraqi security force Base Camp

Hadithah $ 596K

• Iraqi security force Hadithah Battalion

$1 .8M

• Iraqi security force al-Qaim Battalion

and Brigade $2.1M

• Iraqi security force Hit Battalion $2.3M

• Iraqi security force Tiger Battalion and

Brigade $1.2M

• Iraqi security force Ranger/Law College

Battalions $309K

• Iraqi security force Commando

Battalion $317K

Health Service Support: A key supporter to the

II MEF (Fwd) Iraqi security force directorate,

health service support facilitated both Coalition

forces and Iraqi Ministry of Health medical support to Iraqi Army training and combat operations. The application of timely and persuasive

influence on Multi National Security fraining

Command-Iraq assisted in formation of a medic

training school and Iraqi Army Medical clinic at

Habbaniyah Base. This action also resulted in

establishment of the first Iraqi base support unit

in al-Anbar Province. Additionally, a battlefield
distribution system using MNF-W medical logistics

assets to deliver start up equipment sets and resupply items for all Iraqi Battalions with medical

personnel was set up to assist Iraqi logistics

development.

Health service support coordinated medical

support plans with the Iraqi security force directorate to provide medical support to 20,000 Iraqi

Army soldiers and 30 U.S. transition teams. The

establishment of level one and level two medical

care for the Iraqi Army was critical to the survival

of innumerable wounded Iraqi soldiers. Health

service support communicated with multiple

organizations to facilitate the movement of medical supplies to Iraqi Ministry of Health facilities in

al-Anbar Province in support of civil affairs

actions.

Reconstruction

The security and support of the provincial and

local governments were critical to the success of

Coalition forces throughout al-Anbar Province.

Prior to February 2005, the provincial government

of al-Anbar and the city councils of most major

cities in the province were completely ineffective.

Those governing bodies that did exist were intimated and infiltrated by insurgents. Fallujah was

the only major city in which the insurgents had

been driven out and the citizens were attempting

to begin self-governance. During the past year the

2d Marine Division has driven the insurgents Out

of all the major cities; Ramadi, Habbaniyah, a!-

Qaim, and Rutbah. In the process several smaller

towns have also been made safe for the citizens

of Iraq. Immediately after each city or town was

cleared of insurgents the 2d Marine Division

began to work with the leadership of the city. The

2d Marine Division commanders maintained a

continuous dialogue with local officials in order

to address their needs and determine priorities for

projects to improve the quality of life for Iraqi citizens. The division has also greatly assisted the

provincial government. When the newly elected

governor was kidnapped and later killed during a

gun battle with insurgents, the division helped the

provincial government work through the transition of authority in accordance with the established Iraqi rules applicable to the situation.

Headquarters Battalion, 2d Marine Division

installed a communications network at the

provincial civil-military• operations center to support Coalition efforts to bolster capabilities of the

Iraqi transitional government. This service helped

facilitate a more expeditious flow of information

to research and staff reconstruction projects on

behalf of the Iraqi people. RCT-8's civil affairs

detachment rehabilitated the Fallujah mayor's

building. The facility was later used to relocate

Fallujah governance and create a backdrop of

governmental autonomy and self-sufficiency.

2d Marine Division integrated several civil-military operations center staffed with civil affairs

personnel and translators located within close

proximity of the provincial government facilities

in order to provide around-the-clock support and

immediate access to key personnel. These efforts

resulted in progressive movement within the Iraqi

political process, a favorable shift in the overall

opinion of Coalition forces and coordinated planning efforts for projects that met the cultural and

civic needs of the Iraqi people.

Division units, Iraqi forces, and civil affairs

group (CAG) personnel worked diligently

throughout every operation to build positive relationships and secure the trust of Iraqi citizens and

influential local officials. This process began with

moving and distributing over 150 billion Iraqi

dinars as financial compensation for damages and

loss caused as a result of anti-Iraqi forces insurgent activities. The Iraqi provincial reconstruction

development committee was established to build

provincial government capacity and legitimacy to

help identify how chief of mission Coalition projects are planned and executed. Two water treatment facilities were restored in addition to the

construction of five water treatment facilities for

villages in al-Anbar Province that will provide

fresh water for over 100,000 people. The division's relationship with electrical representatives

resulted in improvements to three substations and

the installation of additional electrical transformers increasing electrical output to over 500,000

residents of al-Anbar Province. The division

assisted in refurbishing over 25 schools for use by

more than 10,000 students. Several areas received

124
much needed medical supplies, incubators and

funding for new medical clinics. The GAG provided food, water, shelter, clothing, blankets, and

medical assistance to 4,000 displaced persons in

Ubaydi. In the Hit area 1,200 hygiene kits, 2,000

water buckets, 1,600 kerosene heaters, 1,700

sweaters and 10,000 blankets and several thousand pounds of food items were provided.

Additionally, GAG personnel delivered 39 primary care health care kits enabling the Iraqi

Ministry of Health to provide service to 1.5 million citizens of al-Anbar Province. The division's

reconstructive efforts have resulted in the completion of 483 projects worth $18.3 million and

183 projects valued at $13.3 million still in

progress. The division's reconstructive efforts

have done a great deal to influence the support

of the local government and Iraqi people.

155th Brigade Gombat Team (Army National

Guard) (155 BGT): The 155th BCT was an energetic force and a catalyst in transitioning local

and provincial responsibilities to the Iraqi people. •The 155 BGT built Police Partnership

Programs in three provinces. Two of these

provinces converted to provincial security control, the first provinces in MNF-W to attain such

status. Through their diligent efforts, they have

been instrumental in converting the remaining

province to local control.

The 155th BCT was also responsible for the

non-kinetic efforts which included over 100 million dollars in projects that secured and

improved critical infrastructure through establishing local confidence in Goalition forces and

strengthening local and provincial Iraqi governments. The 155th BGT, working with local Iraqi

contractors, built schools, improved roads, and

provided water irrigation. They were instrumental in helping the Iraqi police build police stations to provide centralization of local city police

and a visible sign of a force dedicated to service

and peace.

MNF-W had almost $15 million in

Gommander's Emergency Response Program

(GERP) funds to spend before the end of the fiscal year. Projects organized by Sth/6th GAG had

to be quickly identified, quotes and legal requirements completed. The G-5/civil-military opera125

tions cell of II MEF (Fwd) was able to spend

more than $15 million in GERP purchasing HA

items, generators, pumps, farm equipment and a

telecommunication project for Fallujah along

with coordinating with the U.S. Army Gorps of

Engineers to pay for five water treatment plants

in Ramadi.

The G-5/Givil Military Operations Gell

(GMOG) found there was no function plan for

economic development. Utilizing key individuals, a plan was developed to engage MNG-I,

MNF-I along with the U.S. embassy to determine

programs for economic development and what

funding was available to move an econoni ic plan

forward. From this, an engagement plan was

developed to begin pursing an economic development plan in Fallujah. Fallujah was chosen

based on the security situation. Execution began

with a simple meeting with Iraqi businessmen,

and quickly grew in size to include more businessmen, key leaders, representatives from

United States Agency for International

Development (USAID), Iraq Reconstruction

Management Office (IRMO), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Members of the

GMO cell were able to develop relationships to

fund a micro financing program, development of

a business center to promote economic growth,

training and better business practices. The plan

will inject more than $5 million in the Iraq

Reconstruction Management Office funds for

micro-financing into al-Anbar. USAID will complete training for the Iraqis who will manage the

loans. The overarching part of the plan was to

establish a mechanism to initiate large-scale

reconstruction projects anywhere in the

province. From its beginning in Fallujah, the

same plan was moved to Ramadi where 6i:h GAG

began developing a business center and microfinancing.

The planning process continued with the

attempt to develop an overall economic plan for

al-Anbar attempting to tie together the MNG-I

plan, the division Strategic Reconstruction plan

along with the Fallujah based economic plan.

The G-5/civil-military operations cell also

established an agriculture development plan

addressing irrigation as the primary means to
improve crop production. Utilizing primarily

USAID Office of Transitional Initiative Funds,

canals were cleared of debris.

The G-5/civil military operations cell supported the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) concept development and fielding in Babil Province.

The G-5/civil-military operations cell supported

the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) program helping shape its development through

interactions with the MNC-I and MNF-I Staffs.

The civil military operations cell coordinated

with the regional embassy in Hilah to ensure the

initial move of soldiers there would be expected

and supported. This was followed up by a site

visit to ensure the soldiers were being taken care

of and completing an assessment of the current

situation. This assessment along with assessments of the Najaf and Karhala government support teams allowed MNF-W to develop a position

and direction for the PRT engagement for

Ramadi.

Equally significant, MNF-W's engineers provided detailed planning input and subject matter

expertise to develop a vulnerability assessment

of critical infrastructure throughout the battlespace. The most significant efforts in this critical

activity were centered on the Hadithah hydroelectric dam. This critical infrastructure provides

electrical services to over 500,000 citizens in eastern al-Anbar Province. With a strong Marine

presence to provide security, MNF-W engineers

keenly identified the requirement to safeguard

the facility from the effects maintenance neglect.

The Marine air-ground task force tenaciously

communicated this critical vulnerability to the

operational commander and affected the deployment and employment of personnel with the

highly specialized and technical subject matter

expertise required preserve this strategic infrastructure and ensure the continued efficient

operation of the dam in support of Iraqi citizens.

MNF-W's explosive ordnance demolition technicians also led and mentored the Iraqi National

Mine action authority representatives in their

effort to work with civil military affairs in MNFW. The extensive coordination required to

accept an action authority de-mining contractor,

synchronize the efforts with the U.S. State

126

Department representatives, 5th CAG, public

affairs staff, information operations staff, and the

2d Marine Division Operations Section enabled

the clearing of minefields and unexploded ordnance that set the conditions for significant

reconstruction operations to commence within

the city of Fallujah.

The conditions of the main supply routes and

alternate supply routes are critical to the execution of ground operations and the safety of the

troops conducting the missions. It is imperative

that these routes remain operative and in good

condition. The 30th NCR has maintained these

routes in the best possible condition supporting

thousands of missions each month. Delivering

$960,000 in repair materials to complete projects

consisting of crater repairs, new route construction and repairing existing roads, bridges and

highways, 30th NCR ensured these critical lines

of communications remained open and serviceable.

The 30th NCR also provided the subject matter experts who conducted route reconnaissance

and provided the designs of a new supply route

which will serve as the primary sustainment

route for command outpost North and other

facilities north of the Euphrates River. The command provided the logistical and construction

support of this project through the procurement

of 50,000 cubic meters of gravel required for this

project. The 30th NCR executed this project with

a company augment from the 947th Combat

Support Equipment Battalion, and was further

directed to extend the scope of work to include

repairing an 18-kilometer road to augment sustainment options north of the Euphrates River.

Regional Reconstruction Operation

Center (RROC)

The RROC provided support to MNF-W, the

Iraqi government, chief of mission, and all organizations involved in the reconstruction of Iraq in

the area of operations by coordinating reconstruction efforts, information, logistics, and security between the contracting community, military,

and Iraqi government in order to better enable

all responsible for the reconstruction effort.

Acting as the central point of contact for
reconstruction projects in MNF-W, the RROC

accomplished three mission areas: reconstruction

program management oversight, support to the

PRDC, and facilitating contractor convoy movements.

Reconstruction Program Management Oversight. Advocated, monitored, and reported on the

MNF-W reconstruction program driven by a team

of agencies under the chief of mission and executed by the Army Corps of Engineers Gulf

Region Division. The reconstruction program

included 531 projects for MNF-W, valued at $440

million with 92 percent contracted and 45 percent work-in-place. The reconstruction projects

provided restoration of essential services in several infrastructure sectors including: electrical,

water, wastewater, health, education, security,

justice, transportation, and communication.

Iraqi Government Provincial Reconstruction

Development Council Support (PRDC).

Engineering support to the PRDC; advising and

assisting in planning, prioritizing, contracting,

and implementing the commander's emergency

response program (CERP) funded projects.

PRDC/CERP projects within the four MNF-W

provinces (al-Anbar, an-Najaf, Karbala, and North

Babil) have totaled 79 successfully completed

127

projects totaling almost $6.5 million. In addition,

the RROC is working with the PRDC on an additional 182 projects with an estimated value of

$51.5 million. These efforts increase the governance capacity of the provincial governments

and legitimize the governments by helping them

provide essential services.

Contractor Support and Movement

Coordination. Facilitated civilian contractor support and movement within the MNF-W area of

operation through Aegis Defense Services.

Disseminated threat warnings and unclassified

intelligence to relevant reconstruction agencies,

contractors, and vendors; providing over-watch

for civilian personnel and equipment movements; and, by providing security escort teams

(SETs) and reconstruction liaison teams (RLTs).

Provided over 390 intelligence reports, and the

RROC provided over-watch for over 1,700 civilian convoy movements. Over-watch includes

calling in military quick reaction forces or casualty evacuation when needed.

Notes

Reprinted from the II Marine Expeditionary

Force Unit Award Recommendation (2006).

Efforts to Counter the lED Threat

&y Colonel Eric T Litaker

Marine Cops Gazette, January 2005

s Coalition forces involved in both Operation

Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi

reedom (OIF) continue to come under

attack from improvised explosive devices (TEDs), the

Marine Corps and the Department of Defense (DoD)

have taken decisive action to counter this threat.

Working Group

In late 2003, Lieutenant General Edward Hanlon

Jr., then-Deputy Commandant for Combat

Development and the Commanding General (CG),

Marine Corps Combat Development Command

(MCCDC), directed the formation of an TED countermeasures working group (TED WG) to:

raise TED situational awareness, reduce

redundant efforts, capitalize on Joint/other

Service initiatives, leverage science and technology, and evaluate initiatives across the

DOTMLPF [doctrine, organization, training,

materiel, leadership, personnel, and facilities]

spectrum.1

Initially the lED WG consisted of a single engineer officer from the Expeditionary Force

Development Center (EFDC) and several part-time

members. As the WG expanded, organizational control transitioned to the Marine Corps Warfighting

Laboratory (MCWL). Today, MCWL has the lead in a

robust organization consisting of eight full-time and

more than 20 part-time members from the spectrum

of Marine Corps, DoD, and other federal organizations. The group meets weekly to review threat

trends and to develop opportunities to counter the

threat, either through the use of technology or

through the use of modifications to tactics, techniques, and procedures (TIP).

The mission of the TED WG is to identify, evalu129

ate, and facilitate the delivery of materiel and nonmateriel counter-lED solutions to ensure that operating forces have unencumbered freedom of maneuver. Its functions include evaluating and prioritizing

Marine Corps counter-lED requirements and solutions and providing a focal point for Marine

TED/counter-TED situational awareness through the

use of intelligence information, technology, TIP, and

training. The TED WG's approach is to reduce redundancy, capitalize on joint/other Service initiatives,

and leverage the science and technology community.

The group is divided into teams focusing on intelligence, technology evaluation and integration, communications, training and UP, technical support,

and programmatic support. This provides a central

focus to Marine Corps efforts to defeat the lED threat

and to facilitate the development and implementation of joint and Marine Corps-specific solutions.

Although not organizationally a part of the EFDC,

the MCWL-led effort requires a close working relationship with EFDC, Marine Corps Systems

Command (MarCorSysCom), and Headquarters

Marine Corps (HQMC). Together, the TED WG team

works with deployed operating forces to determine

in-theater requirements and how best to provide

these capabilities to the operating forces.

In addition to working closely with continental

United States-based organizations, the TED WG also

maintains close contact with I Marine Expeditionary

Force (I MEF) forces in theater and at Camp

Pendleton through the I MEF G-9 and the MCWL liaison officers (LNOs). The free flow of communications between these organizations has been the key

to their ability to maintain close contact and coordination on a wide variety of TED-related issues.

Contributions

The TED WG has been able to contribute to

counter-TED efforts by combining information from

I MEF sources on the specific nature of the threat,
and their thoughts on how to counter it, with information on technologies either already available or

currently in development. Some of these efforts

have been made directly by using MCWL or Marine

Corps resources, while others have been made indirectly by facilitating access to external resources.

Given the emerging nature of the TED threat,

there are limitations on what existing programs of

record can accomplish to counter the threat. As a

result, a portion of the work done by the TED WG

is to coordinate the resources available through

associated Marine Corps programs of record with

those available through other channels.

Additionally, the expeditionary force development

process, including the use of urgent universal needs

statements, has been used with great success to support deployed operating forces.

Nevertheless, there are also limitations on the

extent to which existing funds can he reprogrammed for an effort that, because of its emerging

nature, has not yet been incorporated into the normal budget process. One of the challenges facing

the lED WG is to find and leverage resources that

can be used for these purposes. The formation of

the Joint lED Defeat Integrated Process Team (IPT)

within DoD has given the TED WG a forum in which

to pursue resources to support Marine forces.

In early June 2004, General John Abizaid,

Commander, U.S. Central Command (CentCom),

sent a memo to the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of

Staff (CJCS) stating, "TEDs are my number one threat

in Iraq. I want a full court press on TEDs."2 In particular, General Ahizaid noted that TEDs continued

to be the primary cause of casualties in Iraq, and

questioned whether there was the equivalent of a

Manhattan Project working to counter the TED

threat. He further indicated that the enemy quickly

adjusts to new methods and that the conflict in Iraq

provides the opportunity to experiment with efforts

to defeat IEDs. One of the conclusions to be drawn

from the memo is that there is no need to wait for

a perfect solution; providing partial solutions on an

experimental basis will save lives in the near term

and will doubtless lead to increasingly better solutions in the longer term.

In part because of General Abizaid's memo, in

July 2004 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul

Wolfowitz approved the establishment of a Joint TED

130

Defeat IPT (JIDI). The purpose of this IPT is to

"focus all counter lED efforts within the Department

of Defense" and to identify, prioritize, and resource

materiel and non-materiel solutions.3 The CG

MCWL is the Marine Corps participant in the JIDI.

The JIDI has become one of the principal external

organizations with which the TED WG coordinates

in order to support deployed Marine forces.

The JIDI's approach to countering the TED threat

is to consider an TED defeat continuum, consisting

of what must be done to predict where TEDs might

be used, detect their emplacement, prevent their

detonation, neutralize them before they can be used

in attacks, or to mitigate the effects of these attacks.

In recent months the TED WG has been successful

in leveraging resources, either through the JIDI or

through other channels, to contribute to the process

of helping to meet the needs of I MEF in countering

the lED threat.

These efforts include arranging funding for the

purchase of existing technologies, working toward

the development and testing of new technologies,

coordinating the delivery of training, and participating in the development of new UP. The goal continues to be to facilitate the rapid deployment of

suitably mature technologies or the development of

nonmateriel solutions.

Adaptation and improvement of current capabilities to counter the TED threat is a continuous

process. As the only Marine Corps organization that

looks specifically at defeating the TED threat, the

TED WG understands the stakes involved and is

dedicated to doing whatever is necessary to help

deployed Marines. To date, the TED WG, in partnership with the organizations represented by its parttime members, such as MarCorSysCom; MCCDC;

HQMC Plans, Policies, and Operations; and

Programs and Resources, has been involved in the

delivery of a number of types of technologies and

equipment involved in OEF and OIF. These include

detection technology, robots, electronic countermeasures equipment, and protective devices, such

as ballistic shields and body armor.

Work Continues

For as long as this threat exists, there will he concerted efforts to seek out the people who make the
IEDs, to detect when and where they are emplaced,

to find ways to neutralize their components, and to

protect our Marines from the effects of TEDs.

The lED WG seeks to facilitate an ability to anticipate, as well as to learn from past experiences, as

part of its effort to find solutions to the lED threat.

Lessons learned include:

• While technology is both useful and

important, the most effective counter-TED

weapon is a well-trained, vigilant, and offensive-minded Marine.

• The TED fight is now largely an intelligence battle. Units at all levels must be able to

process information quickly so that it becomes

actionable. Our Marines have an outstanding

ability to kill the enemy; we need to be efficient, adaptive, and effective in intelligence

gathering and staff planning in order to ensure

that they have the opportunity to do so.

• IEDs are not a new threat, but they are

an evolving one. We need to provide our

Marines with the ability to seize the initiative

in the effort to defeat IEDs. Whoever moves

faster wins.

• There is no "silver bullet" in sight. For the

foreseeable future, the key to defeating the

131

lED threat will almost certainly be a combination of technology, UP, and an offensive

mindset.

For as long as Marines are deployed in support

of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, countering

the TED threat will continue to be a priority, and the

TED WG will continue its efforts to focus and coordinate the activities of all relevant organizations to

defeat the threat.

Notes

Marine Corps Gazette, January 2005, 29-31.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright Marine Corps

Gazette.

1. LtGen Edward Hanlon Jr., CG, MCCDC, e-mail to fellow general officers, 22 December 2003.

2. CentCom memorandum to GJCS, dated 4 June 2004.

3. JIDI information paper of 10 September 2004.

About the Author

Colonel Eric T. Litaker retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in

2009. At the time of this article's publication, he was operations

officer at the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, Quantico, Virginia.

Rules of Engagement

by William Langewiescbe

Vanity Fair, November 2006

I: One Morning in November

T

he Euphrates is a peaceful river. It meanders silently through the desert province

of Anbar like a ribbon of life, flanked by

the greenery that grows along its banks, sustaining palm groves and farms, and a string of wellwatered cities and towns. Fallujah, Ramadi, Hit,

and Haditha. These are among the places made

famous by battle—conservative, once quiet communities where American power has been

checked, and where despite all the narrow measures of military success the Sunni insurgency

continues to grow. On that short list, Haditha is

the smallest and farthest upstream. It extends

133

along the Euphrates' western bank with a population of about 50,000, in a disarray of dusty

streets and individual houses, many with walled

gardens in which private jungles grow. It has a

market, mosques, schools, and a hospital with a

morgue. Snipers permitting, you can walk it top

to bottom in less than an hour, allowing time

enough to stone the dogs. Before the American

invasion, it was known as an idyllic spot, where

families came from as far away as Baghdad to

while away their summers splashing in the river

and sipping tea in the shade of trees. No longer,

of course. Now, all through Anbar, and indeed

the Middle East, Haditha is known as a city of

death, or more simply as a name, a war cry

against the United States.

November 19, 2005, is the date people

remember. Near the center of Haditha the U.S.

Marines had established a forward operating
base they called Sparta. It was manned by the

roughly 200 Marines of Kilo Company of the 3d

Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Out of Camp Pendieton, California. This was Kilo Company's third

tour in Iraq. It had participated in the invasion,

in the spring of 2003, and again in the hardfought battle for Fallujah in the fall of 2004.

Because of normal rotations, however, only

about two-thirds of its current members had

been to Iraq before. The average age was 21.

The company commander was a captain, an

Annapolis graduate named Lucas McConnell,

who was 32 and, like all but one of his lieutenants, was on his first tour at war. McConnell

was a can-do guy, more of a believer than a

thinker, disciplined, moderately religious, somewhat moralistic, and deeply invested in his

beloved Marine Corps.

Winter was coming. At dawn Haditha was

cool and clear. McConnell dispatched a convoy

of four armored Humvees on a routine mission

to deliver hot breakfasts and a radio-coding card

to an observation post, a fortified checkpoint

about three miles away, on River Road south of

town. Some of the Humvees were equipped with

top-mounted machine guns; two were "highback" vehicles with open rear beds like those of

pickup trucks, designed to carry troops and supplies, and wrapped in high protective siding.

Between them the four Humvees held a squad of

12 heavily armed Marines, which was considered

to be the minimum desirable force even for such

a milk run as this. The men carried grenades,

9mm pistols, and variations of the basic assault

rifle, the M16. They were led by a sergeant

named Frank Wuterich, aged 25, who of all the

sergeants of Kilo Company was known to be the

most unassuming and considerate, the slowest to

anger. He was another first-timer at war.

They rolled south toward the outpost, rattling

through sleeping neighborhoods in single file,

spaced well apart. Any insurgents watching them

from the houses—and there likely were some—

would have perceived the men behind the topmounted guns as robotic figures swaddled in

protective armor and cloth, and would barely

have glimpsed the others through the small

panes of thick, dusty, bulletproof glass, or above

134

the armored high-back sides. Over the years on

the streets of Iraq, living outside the American

protective bubbles, I have often imagined that

killing Americans is easier for their anonymity,

because it allows insurgents to take on the

machines or the uniforms without dwelling on

the individuals inside. This was the experience of

resistance fighters when slaughtering hapless

German conscripts during World War II in

France, and presumably also of the mujahedeen

when killing Russians in Afghanistan. But the

men on the receiving end of an attack have a different view of the effects. They know one another as individuals and friends. Even the newcomers to Kilo Company, for instance, had spent at

least six months together already, and had grown

so close that they could identify one another on

sight, from behind, when all geared up and

walking on patrols at night.

It was a 15-minute drive from Sparta Base to

the outpost south of town. Sergeant Wuterich's

squad unloaded the hot breakfasts and other

supplies, and picked up several Iraqi soldiers

from the apprentice Iraqi Army—trainees

attached to the company, who lived in their own

compound adjoining that of the Marines. The

Iraqis were armed with the ubiquitous Iraqi

weapon, the banana-clip, Russian-designed AK47. After a brief delay the squad headed up River

Road for Sparta Base. It is possible to judge the

mood. Because the conflict in Iraq is a guerrilla

war without progressive front lines, and

American combat troops operate from immobile

forts with fixed zones of responsibility, most

patrols consist of predictable but-and-returns.

The pattern is well known to the insurgents.

Routes can be varied, but the choices typically

are limited, especially if the patrols must stick to

the roads and the distances are short. As a result,

one of the basic facts of life for those troops who

are actually in the fight is that the return to base

is the most dangerous trip in Iraq: if the mujáhedeen are going to hit you at all, the chances

are they'll hit you then. Nonetheless, for individual soldiers even in places as threatening as

Haditha, most days are quiet, and weeks can go

by with little sign of the enemy. There is no reason to believe that Wuterich's men were pumped
up for the drive home. Were they alert? Sure,

why not, but another fact of life is that you cannot see much out of an armored Humvee, and

even if you could, you have no chance of identifying the enemy until first you come under

attack. You've got all these weapons, and you've

been told that you're a mighty warrior, a Spartan,

but what are, you going to shoot—the dogs?

You're a Marine without a beach. So you sit

zipped into a filthy Humvee, trusting the guys up

on the guns to watch the rooftops and the traffic

on the road, trusting your driver to keep his eyes

on the ground ahead, holding your M16 muzzleup between your knees, calmly enduring the

ride. The radio crackles. Your head bobs with the

bumps. You don't talk much. There's not much

to say. If you're dumb you trust your luck. If

you're smart you're fatalistic. Either way it usually works out fine.

They turned west off River Road, onto a street

known to them as Route Chestnut—a wide thoroughfare running through a district of clustered

houses. It was 7:15 in the morning. Up ahead

and unbeknownst to them, insurgents had planted a land mine, probably weeks before. In the

bureaucratized language of this war, such mines

are known as improvised explosive devices, or

TED's. The ordinary ones are made from small

artillery rounds, and rigged to detonate upon

reception of an electronic signal from a shortrange line-of-sight transmitter—a cordless telephone, a garage-door opener, a toy-car remote

control. The insurgents of Haditha produced

plenty of them; Kilo Company had discovered

dozens in the previous weeks, and in the following weeks would discover many more. Most had

been laid hastily and were poorly tucked into

soft dirt or trash beside the roads, sometimes

with wires showing. But the land mine this

morning was different. It was a sizable propane

tank stuffed with high explosives. More important, it had been buried directly in the road, and

so lovingly paved over that apparently no surface disturbance was visible. The first Humvee

rolled across it without incident. On board were

three Marines, named Salinas, Rodriguez, and

Sharratt. The second Humvee crossed, carrying

Mendoza, De La Cruz, and Tatum. The third

135

Humvee was the command vehicle. It crossed,

with Wuterich, Graviss, and a medic named

Whitt. Somewhere in these vehicles sat the Iraqi

soldiers as well.

The fourth Humvee carried the final three

Marines. It was a high-back model. At the steering wheel was a veteran of the Fallujah fight, a

plump 20-year-old named Miguel Terrazas, from

El Paso, Texas, who was one of the most popular soldiers in Kilo Company, known for certain

kills he had made, and yet also for his irrepressible good humor. Sitting to his right was another

Fallujah veteran, James Crossan, aged 20, from

North Bend, Washington. Crossan was frustrated

with the mission in Haditha, which he saw as an

attempt to play policeman in the midst of an

active war. In the open back was Salvador

Guzman, aged 19, a first-timer to Iraq, who was

known as a typically easygoing Marine. Guzman

was from Crystal Lake, Illinois. He faced rearward in the Hurnvee pointing his weapon over

the protective siding, watching the street behind.

As this trio passed unsuspectingly over the

buried land mine, a spotter watching from nearby, probably in one of the houses, pushed a button. With a boom that shook the surrounding

neighborhood, the device detonated directly

under Terrazas in a fireball of violently expanding gases. The blast simultaneously lifted the

Hurnvee and split it in two, separating the top

half from the bottom. Guzman was blown clear

and landed in the dirt behind the wreckage. He

lay there bruised and stunned, with a broken

foot but no serious injury. Crossan, in the right

front seat, was not so fortunate. He was blown

through the right door and then had part of the

Humvee fall on him. He lay pinned under the

heavy steel, suffering from multiple bone fractures and internal injuries. Others from the squad

came running up. He heard someone shouting,

"Get some morphine!" and he passed out.

The morphine can only have been meant for

Crossan, because Guzman was not so badly hurt,

and Terrazas was already beyond such needs. It

is a requirement of understanding the events in

Haditha—and the circumstances of this war—not

to shy away from the physical realities here, or

to soften the scene in the interest of politics or
taste. Terrazas was torn in half. His bottom half

remained under the steering wheel. His top half

was blown into the road, where he landed

spilling his entrails and organs. He probably did

not suffer, at least. He must have lost consciousness instantly and have died soon after hitting

the ground. He had a hole in his chin. His eyes

were rolled back. He did not look peaceful at all.

He looked bloody and grotesque.

Get morphine? No, not for Terrazas. For

Wuterich and the nine intact members of the

squad, Terrazas's fate was extremely disturbing.

They were all of them professional soldiers who

had willingly assumed the risk. But just a minute

ago Terrazas had been driving home, relaxed

and good-humored as usual, and now in a flash

he was irretrievably gone. Such is the nature of

death in Iraq: you are alive, and the streets seem

calm and normal, until suddenly, inevitably, with

no warning, you are dead or maimed for the rest

of time. With no distant thunder to approach, the

loss seems worse for the lack of any ability to

prepare.

The wreckage smoked black. The air smelled

of cordite, dust, and burned rubber. Wuterich

called for backup, and for medical helicopters to

evacuate the casualties. He did what a squad

leader is supposed to do. A few Marines struggled to free Crossan. After a period of confusion

the others crouched with weapons to their shoulders, scanning the nearby rooftops, walls, and

windows in the hope of spotting the spotter, and

alert to the possibility of further attack. They

ordered the Iraqi soldiers to do the same. The

Iraqis complied, hut somewhat reluctantly, as if

perhaps they thought this was not really their

fight. In any case, though much remains confused about the immediate aftermath of the

attack, and indeed about the hours that followed,

what is nearly certain is that at first the squad

took no fire. When reinforcements arrived from

Sparta Base, after about 10 minutes, one of them

was able to kneel gently over Terrazas's remains.

He said, "You are my brother by another mother. I love you, man." He covered Terrazas with a

poncho, closing him off from sight.

By that time the killing of Iraqis had already

begun, though here again uncertainty reigns.

136

From transcripts, conversations, documents,

press reports, and above all a sense for the plausible in Iraq, it is possible to reconstruct a lot.

Nonetheless, given the complexities of guerrilla

war, and the confusion that exists in the minds of

those closest to battle, only the barest facts are

indisputable. After the land-mine explosion,

Wuterich's Marines remained in the immediate

vicinity throughout the morning and beyond.

Over the next few hours, until maybe around

lunchtime, they killed 24 Iraqis. To accomplish

the job, they used a few grenades, and maybe a

pistol, but primarily their assault rifles. They suffered not a single casualty during this time. Five

of the dead were young men who had

approached in a car. The remaining 19 were peopie from the neighborhood, found and killed in

the rooms or yards of four family houses, two on

the south side of the road, and two on the north.

They included nine men, four women, and six

children. Many had been sleeping, and were

woken by the land-mine blast. Some were shot

down in their pajamas. The oldest man was 76.

He was blind and decrepit, and sat in a wheelchair. His elderly wife was killed, too. The dead

children ranged in age from 15 to 3. They included boys and girls. The Marines later delivered the

corpses to the morgue, where they were catalogued by the local coroner. Photographs and

videos were taken independently by Americans

and Iraqis in the neighborhood and at the

morgue. The images showed blood-splattered

rooms, as well as victims. The dead did not look

peaceful. They looked bloody and grotesque.

You are my brother by another mother, you are

my daughter by my wife. The dead were buried

by angry, grieving crowds.

On the second day, a Marine Corps press officer at the big base downriver in Ramadi issued a

wildly misleading statement attributing the civilian deaths to the enemy's lED, as if the families

had crowded around the device before it exploded. That statement was later held out to he a

deliberate lie, a cover-up, but in fairness it resulted from the isolation of the base, and was more

self-delusional than underhanded. The press

statement was not seen by Captain McConnell or

his men, who had no chance therefore to correct
it. Once it was issued, it became an official truth

that the Marine Corps, even today, has rigidly

refused to retract, despite the fact that within the

Corps a more plausible official truth existed

almost from the start: the day after the press

statement was issued, McConnell visited the battalion headquarters at a dam five miles north of

Haditha, where he gave his commander,

Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, a PowerPoint briefing on the action, explaining

that some number of civilians had been killed by

Wuterich's squad while they suppressed a "complex ambush" that had started with the explosion

of the land mine and had continued with an

attack by hidden gunmen. Most of the briefing

concerned other small firefights that had erupted

in Haditha the same day. Chessani authorized the

maximum compensation payments of $2,500 to

the families for each of the dead who could be

certified not to have been insurgents. A Marine

major was assigned to do at least that much of an

investigation. McConnell's version was passed up

the chain of command. McConnell returned to

his fight for Haditha.

But one month later a reporter at Time magazine's Baghdad bureau, Tim McGirk, viewed a

gruesome video of the aftermath, which suggested that people had been shot and killed inside

the houses. Such is the nature of this war, with

its routine collateral horrors, that had McGirk

been privy to McConnell's report the video might

not have surprised him. But with only the press

statement about a land mine to go by, it was

obvious that something about the official

description was very wrong. McGirk's initial

queries to the Marine Corps were rebuffed with

an e-mail accusing him of buying into insurgent

propaganda, and, implicitly, of aiding and abetting the enemy in a time of war. Whoever wrote

the e-mail was out of his league. Negative publicity does indeed help the insurgency, but it's

the killing of bystanders that really does the trick.

Iraq is a small country with large family ties. After

three years of war, the locals hardly needed Time

to tell them the score. Rather, it was the

Americans back home who needed help—any

little insight into why the war kept getting worse.

McGirk and others in the Baghdad bureau con137

tinued with their inquiry, focusing increasingly

on the possibility that a massacre and cover-up

had occurred. They did not draw conclusions,

but laid out what was known and, in mid-March

2006, published the first of several carefully considered accounts.

Knowing that the articles were coming, the

Marine Corps had been forced to accept two

independent military investigations, one led by

an Army general, concentrating on the responsibilities of command, and the other by the criminal investigative branch of the Navy, which

focused on reconstructing events on the ground.

News from the investigations occasionally

emerged, and did not look good for the Marines.

Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha, a former Marine and a powerful friend of the

Pentagon, stated bluntly that his sources were

telling him that a massacre had indeed occurred;

he said that there had been no firefight, and that

Wuterich's squad had simply gone berserk.

Murtha's larger point was that impossible pressure was being placed on U.S. troops, and that

they should be withdrawn from a self-destructive

war. Following his statements, Haditha became

yet another test in a polarized nation, and never

mind the details: if you liked President George

W. Bush, you believed that no massacre had

taken place; if you disliked him, you believed the

opposite. As part of the package, Time came in

for Internet attacks, hate-filled attempts to find

any small discrepancies in its reporting, and,

again, never mind the underlying truth.

Amid the vitriol came allegations of other U.S.

atrocities in Iraq, some of which turned Out to be

real. The Iraqi prime minister, Nun Kamal alMaliki, who had enjoyed the strong support of

the U.S. government, stated publicly what has

long been obvious on the streets—that the abuse

of Iraqi civilians by American soldiers is routine.

He did not say what is equally obvious—that

abuse of Iraqis by Iraqis is even more routine,

and that, along with horrors inflicted by Sunni

groups, much of the worst is done by Shiite militias, who constitute a significant portion of the

government's own forces as Iraq slips into civil

war. Al-Maliki vowed to launch his own independent investigation of the Haditha killings—
wishful thinking for a government leader forced

to hunker down in Baghdad's fortified Green

Zone. But tempers were fraying in both Iraq and

the United States.

Meanwhile, Kilo Company and the rest of the

3d Battalion had returned to California on schedule in the early spring of 2006, and had been

greeted with the usual fanfare. But one week

later the division's top general relieved Captain

McConnell and Lieutenant Colonel Chessani of

their commands, stating that he had lost confidence in their abilities to lead. The two officers

remained on duty in other roles, though straining

against bitterness, and anxious about the future.

McConnell hoped that by remaining silent he

might prevail, standing against the assault as a

Spartan would. Semper fi. Nonetheless, it seems

eventually to have dawned on him that his own

beloved Corps might not be at his side.

Reluctantly, McConnell hired a private defense

lawyer, as did Wuterich and others. The naval

investigation dragged on, and in midsummer

produced a 3,500-page report. The report has not

been made public, but apparently suggests that

some members of the squad had engaged in

murder, and that afterward they and perhaps others had agreed on a narrative to hide the crime.

The Marine Corps began to ready charges, and to

prepare for military trials and lesser career-ending disciplinary actions. The trials will take place

at Pendleton, probably sometime before spring.

The penalties may include capital punishment

and prison for life. In the most general terms the

outcome is already known. A former officer close

to McConnell said to me, "The Corps has this

reflex when it feels threatened at home. It has a

history of eating its young."

II. The Fallujab Legacy

Who among these young should be eaten,

and how, are questions that Marine Corps justice

will decide. But the story of Haditha is about

more than the fate of just a few men, the loss of

their friend, or the casualties they inflicted along

the Euphrates River one cool November morning. More fully explored, it is about the observable realities of an expanding guerrilla war—

138

about mistakes that have been made and, regrettably, about the inability to fix what is wrong.

Those limitations appear to be inherent in&the

military, and though they certainly have much to

do with the reactions and resentments of the

least competent soldiers, they also, in a different

way, apply to the very best. No matter how

sophisticated or subtle our military thinkers may

be, ultimately they have use of only this very

blunt device—a heavy American force that is

simply not up to suppressing a popular rebellion

in a foreign land. Despite all the fine words and

intentions, the U.S. military turns out to he a tool

that is too large and too powerful to be sharpened. Our soldiers collectively did not want this

war, and many have come to believe that it cannot be won, but they are not in positions to act

on those thoughts, and have no choice hut to

perform their assignments as their capacities

allow.

The starting point of the Haditha killings is

early 2004, when the occupation was nearly a

year old, and the Marines were brought back to

Iraq to take over from the U.S. Army west of

Baghdad, in the Sunni strongholds of Anbar

Province. Anbar was said to be restive, but it was

already dangerous as hell. The Army had blundered there. Soon after the invasion, in April

2003, soldiers from the 82d Airborne Division

had gone into the center of Fallujah, where they

set up an observation post in a schoolhouse. The

best account yet of the consequences, and

indeed of the entire war, is contained in the

recent book Fiasco, written by Thomas E. Ricks

of the Washington Post. Ricks quotes the Army

colonel in command, who said, 'We came in to

show presence just so the average citizen would

feel safe." But it didn't work out that way, as it

has not worked out for all the iterations of "presence" ever since.

This is an aspect of the war still poorly accepted by the military, and by critics who believe that

by sending more troops the U.S. might have

done a better job, or could do so today. The

view from the street has always been different.

Iraq steps aside to let soldiers pass by, and then

immediately fills in the void behind them. The

soldiers are targets as hapless as any German
conscript ever was. Reduced to giving candy to

children, and cut off by language and ignorance

from the culture around them, they work in such

isolation that the potentially positive effects of

their presence usually amount to nil. The potentially negative effects, however, are significant.

Back in April 2003, the U.S. colonel's average

Iraqi citizen might have told him, "You don't

know what you don't know, and, sir, you don't

know a lot."

The colonel's soldiers had set up the observation post high in the schoolhouse, from which

they could see over the tops of garden walls and

into family compounds where unveiled women

did housework and hung laundry to dry. The soldiers did not understand that this amounted to a

violation of the local women, and a serious insult

to their men. An angry crowd gathered in front

of the school to demand the soldiers' withdrawal. From their positions in the building, the soldiers eyed the demonstrators warily for a while,

but then rifle rounds began to hit the walls, fired

perhaps from both a rooftop and the street, and

the soldiers responded by firing directly into the

crowd. Massive response had been the norm

during the recent invasion, when the opponents

were enemy troops, but times had changed and

these were mostly noncombatants on the street.

As. many as 71 people were wounded, and

between 5 and 17 died, depending on the truth

of the American or Iraqi versions. The commander.• of the 82d Airborne, General Charles

Swannack Jr., later claimed that his men's marksmanship had been precise—and indeed so accurate that every one of the casualties (he counted

five or six) was an identifiable instigator who

deserved what he got. In other words, within the

Army there was no question of disciplinary

action. But the schoolhouse shootings had given

the insurgency a cause, and the guerrilla war had

begun.

•By the time the Marines arrived in early 2004,

nearly two years before the killings in Haditha,

the war was out of hand. This was true not just

in Anbar but all through central Iraq, where it

was obvious that the crude tactics of the Army

were failing, and playing into the insurgents'

plans. Individual soldiers were brave, but the

139

Army as an institution was averse to risk, and it

was making a show of its fear by living on overprotected bases, running patrols only in armored

vehicles, and overdoing its responses to the pinprick attacks by the insurgents—arresting far too

many men, and answering rifle fire with tanks,

rockets, artillery, and air strikes. It became so

common to call down precision bombs against

even individual suspected insurgents (for

instance, someone spotted by drone, walking

with a shovel along a road at night) that a new

term was coined, based on the physical effects

that could sometimes he observed on video.

"Pink misting," some soldiers called it, and in

their growing frustration they said it with glee.

Excessive force was employed not merely

because the weapons were available but also

because high technology had led Americans to

expect low-casualty wars. Especially in the context of a conflict that had never been adequately

explained, the U.S. military for political reasons

could not afford any implication that jt was

squandering its soldiers' lives in Iraq. It is difficult to argue publicly that the military's caution

was not a good thing. Strictly in gaming terms,

however, there was a problem: by squandering

innocent Iraqi lives instead, in order to save

American soldiers, the Army in particular was

spawning untold numbers of new enemies who

would mount more frequent attacks against

those same soldiers in the future. This was happening, and fast. The Army was locked into a

self-defeating cycle by the very need to keep its

casualties down. Meanwhile, the insurgent campaign was expanding in proportion to the number of noncombatants dishonored, brutalized, or

killed. It was expanding in proportion to Outrage.

Perhaps because of their history in irregular

wars, the Marines seem to have a special sense

for such cycles of violence. Despite their public

image as leathernecks and fighters, they possess

a contemplative strain, and their organization,

because it is relatively small, is also relatively

amenable to change. When they returned to Iraq

in 2004, they knew that the fight had grown

much trickier than before, and they announced

that in Anbar they would demonstrate a new
approach to winning the war. They would shed

the excess of armor, use military precision rather

than power, get out of their vehicles and walk

through the towns, knock on doors rather than

break them down, and go out of their way to

accommodate the Iraqi culture. They would base

their tactics on good intelligence. They would

not overreact when provoked. They would shoot

insurgents, and even enjoy the kills, but they

would be careful not to hurt innocent

bystanders. They would provide the necessary

stability to allow a civil Iraqi society to grow.

They would be understood, and they would

make friends.

It was to be a textbook counterinsurgency

campaign. In abstraction the strategy made

sense, and it was the obvious choice—indeed,

the only potentially productive one remaining. In

practice, however, it quickly encountered an

uncooperative Iraq. With its population of

250,000, Fallujah was particularly tough. In addition to all the native insurgents there, it contained foreign fighters from elsewhere in the

Middle East, who had arrived to do battle under

the banners of God. Within a couple of weeks

the Marines were being forced by hostile fire

back into their armored vehicles, and were

encountering the same frustrations that the Army

had, of not speaking Arabic, not having reliable

translators, not knowing whose advice to trust,

and not being able to distinguish between the

enemy and ordinary people on the streets. As for

the Iraqis in Anbar, the distinction so dear to the

American forces, between the Army and the

Marines, meant little to them. The view from the

rooftops was that all these guys wore the same

stars and stripes, and were crusaders for Zionists

and oilmen, if not necessarily for Christ. Recently

on Capitol Hill, John Murtha, the congressman

and former Marine who has been so vocal about

the killings in Haditha, mentioned those early

encounters with reality to me. He said, "The

Marines came over here to my office and said,

'Jesus, they're shooting at us!' And I said, 'Well,

where did you think you were going?"

The Marines did not formally abandon their

strategy, but they saw it torn from their grasp. On

March 31, 2004, precisely two years before

140

Captain McConnell and his Kilo Company came

home from their momentous tour in Haditha,

four American employees of a security firm

called Blackwater were ambushed and killed in

Fallujah. Their corpses were hacked apart and

burned, and two of them were hung from a

bridge amid celebrations on the street. Images

were beamed around the world. Judging correctly that it could not leave the insult unanswered,

the Bush administration, after brief consideration

of the options, decided on an all-out assault

against the city. That decision continues to stand

as one of the worst of the war, ranking only

below the decision to disband the Iraqi Army

and the initial decision to invade. At the time, for

those of us living independently in Iraq outside

of the American security zones, and with some

sense therefore of the mood on the streets, it

demonstrated once again the inability of officials

to imagine the trouble that the United States was

in, and the astonishing insularity of Washington,

D.C.

The Marines knew better. They wanted to

respond to the Blackwater ambush by going after

the individual killers, and then following through

with a well-crafted counterinsurgency campaign

to stabilize and mollify the city. But when they

were overruled and ordered to do the opposite—to mount an immediate full-frontal offensive—they set aside their theories, and as professional soldiers they dutifully complied. It was a

disaster. Backed up by tanks and combat aircraft,

the Marines went into Fallujah dealing destruction, and quickly bogged down in house-tohouse fighting against a competent and determined foe. To make matters worse, the showcase

battalion of the new Iraqi Army mutinied and

refused to join the fight. The battle cost several

dozen American dead and many more wounded,

and did immeasurable damage to the prospects

for American success. It turned into a humiliation

for the United States when, after four days of

struggle, the Marines were ordered by a nervous

Washington to withdraw. Again they dutifully

complied. Afterward, the jubilant insurgents took

full public control of the city, and with the help

of the foreign fighters turned it into a fortified

haven which U.S. forces did not dare to enter.
To get a feeling for Kilo Company and the

killings in Haditha, it is necessary to remember

this. After the spring battle was lost, Fallujah

became an open challenge to the American presence in Iraq. There were plenty of other challenges, and to speak only of Fallujah is grossly to

simplify the war. Still, Fallujah was the most obvious one, and the United States, unless it was to

quit and go home, had no choice but to take the

city back. Everyone knew it, on all sides, and for

months the antagonists prepared. Because of the

fortifications and the expectation of active resistance, there was no question this time of a patient

counterinsurgency campaign: the Marines were

going to have to go in and simply smash the city

down. In November of 2004, they did just that,

with a force about 10,000 strong. Before attacking they gave the city warning, and allowed an

exodus to occur. Nearly the entire population

fled, including most of the insurgents, who

spread into Baghdad or up the Euphrates to carry

on the rebellion, leaving behind, however, a rear

guard of perhaps 1,000 gunmen who, exceptionally, wanted to make a stand. This was their mistake. The Marines attacked with high explosives

and heavy weapons. Over the 10 days it took to

move through Fallujah, and the following weeks

of methodical house-to-house clearing, they

wrecked the city's infrastructure, damaged or

destroyed 20,000 houses or more, and did the

same to dozens of schools and mosques. They

were not crusaders. They did not Christianize the

place. They turned Fallujah into Stalingrad.

Many insurgents survived the initial assaults

and emerged to contest the Marines at close

quarters, room to room and in the rubble. It is

said to have been the most intense battle by

American forces since Vietnam. The insurgents

were trapped inside cordon upon cordon of

American troops, and they fought until death.

For the Marines the rules of engagement were

necessarily loose. Rules of engagement are

standing orders that limit the targets of soldiers,

defining the difference between appropriate and

inappropriate killing according to strategic and

tactical goals, and between legal and illegal

killing according to interpretations of international law. In Fallujah the rules allowed Marines to

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kill anyone they believed to he dangerous, and

others who got in the way. In addition to those

seen carrying weapons, in practice this meant

everyone in every structure from which hostile

fire came, and any military-age male seen moving toward the Marines or running away.

Obviously, the Marines were not allowed to kill

wounded prisoners, but in a televised case one

of them did, and Marine Corps justice averted its

gaze.

The men of Kilo Company fought through the

thick of Fallujah. Lance Corporals Terrazas and

Crossan, and most of the other men of future

Haditha note, ran the course from start to finish.

Kilo Company lost four Marines killed and at

least 20 seriously wounded, and was involved in

the best-known close-quarters combat of the battle—a desperate attempt to clear insurgents from

the rooms of a house, which came to be known

as the Hell House fight. Toward the end of it, a

New York—based photographer named Lucian

Read snapped an iconic picture of a blooddrenched sergeant who had been shot seven

times and blasted with an enemy grenade, but

who nonetheless was emerging on foot from the

house, holding a pistol in one hand, supported

by a Marine on each side. The photograph

showed the Marines as they like to be seen, and

as some like to see themselves. There's a lot to

be said for going to war with a photographer in

tow, until something happens that you would

rather forget.

Fallujah was a victory for the Marine Corps,

but a victory narrowly defined. The reality is that

a quarter-million people were forced from their

homes and, when they returned, were faced with

a city in ruins, surrounded by concertina wire

and watched over by armed men in towers.

Marine General John Sattler, who had led the

assault, claimed that the insurgency had been

broken. But as the seasons slid by in 2005, guerrillas slipped back into Fallujah, or sprang up

from its ruins, and they surged forward through

all the other towns of Anhar, including Haditha.

Sattler was wrong, and embarrassingly so. Within

more contemplative circles of Marines, the battle

of Fallujah became less of a triumph than a

warning. The consequences were not difficult to
discern. A hard-pressed combat officer once put

it this way to me: "Yeah, we won Fallujah. But

before that we made Fallujah. And we definitely

can't afford to make another."

The hell of it was that the reasonable alternative—a nuanced counterinsurgency campaign—

was not showing much promise either. At its

core, the counterinsurgency campaign asked a

lot. On the Iraqi side, it required the people of

Anbar to place their faith in a United States government that had repeatedly blundered over the

previous few years, and that was unable to protect collaborators from the insurgents' knives, On

the American side, it required young Marines

with little worldly experience to show trust in a

foreign population on alien streets where they

were being shot at and blown up. Indeed, the

formula asked so much from everyone involved

that it was becoming difficult to know when it

was realistic anymore. Specialists in Washington

advocated patience and wisdom, and said the

standard thing about our instant-gratification

society. Officials in the Green Zone highlighted

the slightest positive signs. But on the ground in

Anhar the trends were all wrong.

III: First, Do No Harm

After Fallujah and the Hell House fight, Kilo

Company flew home to California, spent a halfyear retraining under its new captain, Lucas

McConnell, and then returned to Iraq in

September 2005, with Haditha in its sights.

Haditha at that point had been largely ignored by

the Marines for nearly a year. It was being ruled

by an uncompromising group of insurgents who

had instituted Islamic law and done some good

deeds, hut had also carried out public floggings

and beheadings, and were using Haditha as a

base from which to launch attacks in the region.

In April of 2005 they had taken 19 Shia fishermen to a soccer field and slaughtered them all.

The few policemen in town had resigned or fled

to avoid similar fates. Then, on August 1, roughly two months before Kilo Company returned to

Iraq, six Marine snipers from an Ohio-based

company of reservists had been ambushed and

killed on the outskirts of the city, in a scene that

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was videotaped by the insurgents and made

available on DVDs in the market. Two days later

another 14 Marines from the, same reserve company were killed when their armored personnel

carrier was destroyed by an improvised mine. By

the end of its tour, primarily around Haditha, that

company had suffered 23 dead and 36 wounded,

earning it the unfortunate distinction of having

been the most badly mauled of any company in

the war thus far. Upon returning to Ohio, one of

the sergeants described his rage after the destruction of the personnel carrier. He had busted into

a nearby house and had barely restrained himself

from shooting two women and a teenage boy

whom he found inside. He said he realized then

that he had been too long in Iraq. He had been

there seven months. He left in September 2005,

when Kilo Company arrived.

The Marines decided to clean out Haditha

once and for all. At the start of October they

positioned about 3,000 troops in an arc to the

south, west, and north, around the town.

Roughly 700 of the troops were from Pendleton's

3d Battalion under its new commander,

Lieutenant Colonel Chessani. The men of Kilo

Company were assigned the lead. They waited in

the desert west of the city center. Before the

offensive began, they knelt with their helmets off

and prayed. They expected intense resistance in

the form of rifle fire and rocket-propelled

grenades. The plan called for them to advance

on foot on a broad front, and to push the insurgents through the city until. they were backed

against the Euphrates, where they would surrender or die. The strategy was odd—as if the

Marines had forgotten exactly which war they

were in. Before dawn three bridges that crossed

the river were bombed to cut off the enemy's

escape. Later, at a Baghdad press briefing, Major

General Rick Lynch said, "We took out a portion

of each of those bridges to deny the terrorists

and foreign fighters—the insurgency—the ability

to come from north to south, or south to north,

across the Euphrates River. It was a precision

strike so that when we indeed defeat the insurgency in these areas—and we're on a glide path

to do that—we can go back and replace those

segments of the bridges so that the people in that
area can regain their own freedom of movement." It was a tidy plan for an orderly war,

everything in its place. Lynch continued, "Put

that original chart up, please, the one that I just

took down."

When the Marines advanced into Haditha, on

the first day of Ramadan, October 4, 2005, they

encountered a town so peaceful that at first it

seemed deserted. They knew that it was not—

that they were being watched from behind the

compound walls, and that the residents were

playing it safe by staying off the streets. The frustration was that the insurgents were lying equally low, and not standing to fight or run away, as

conventional combatants would. They could do

this because of a reality soon evident to ordinary

grunts but stubbornly denied by the U.S. command, which was that in Haditha the insurgency

enjoyed widespread public support, and all the

more so now with American soldiers suddenly

walking around. The insurgents did not need to

consult with experts to understand guerrilla war.

Why bother to confront these Americans immediately, when you could let them pass by and

later hunt them down? Why bother to go north to

south or south to north when you could simply

stay at home?

Within hours the Marines had walked all the

way through Haditha and had reached the

Euphrates with little to show. Over the next two

weeks Chessani's battalion remained in town,

searching house to house and encountering

hardly any opposition. Evidence of the insurgency was all around. By the time the offensive

was formally called off, the Marines had netted

119 improvised mines, several facilities for making them, two car bombs, 14 weapons caches,

and a propaganda shop equipped with computers, copiers, and several thousand blank CDs and

audiotapes. They had found a note pinned to the

door of a mosque, on which a former policeman

renounced his collaboration with the invaders

and begged the insurgents for their forgiveness.

Finally, they had detained about 130 suspects, of

whom they released about half and shipped off

the others for interrogation. Against the scale of

the rebellion, these were illusory accomplishments.

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When Chessani's battalion withdrew in midOctober, it shifted a few miles to the north and

settled into its comfortable quarters at the dam

above Haditha. McConnell and his Kilo Company

were left behind to maintain a full-time presence

in the center of town. They set up Sparta Base in

a former school administration building, in a

walled compound that could accommodate their

generators and Humvees. The perimeter was

reinforced with coils of concertina wire, sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, and blast

walls made of HESCO barriers—large dirt-filled

cubes heavy enough to limit the effects of mortars and rockets. The administration building was

H-shaped and low-slung. It contained about 15

rooms of various sizes, all with linoleum floors

and painted concrete walls. One of the rooms

was made into the company's office and called

the Combat Operations Center. Two others were

made into a chow hall and a kitchen. The

kitchen once burned because the cooks were not

paying attention, but the food that was served

was surprisingly good, and later sometimes

included crab. Most of the building was made

into general living quarters, where the men slept

on cots and kept their personal gear, including

an abundance of iPods, video games, and DVD

players. As a final special touch there was even

a makeshift photography studio where Lucian

Read, who had rejoined the company, shot individual portraits of the men. Despite all that is

said about difficulties endured by American

forces in Iraq, as time passed the Marines at

Sparta Base tended to feel that, if anything, they

were not roughing it enough.

A sign on the wall read:

Habits of Thought

1. Sturdy Professionalism

2. Make yourself hard to kill.

3. No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy

4. First, Do No Harm

5. The Iraqi People are not our enemy, but

our enemy hides amongst them.

Corollary 1: You have to look at these people as if they are trying to kill you, but you

can't treat them that way.
Corollary 2: Be polite, be professional,

have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

This was standard Marine Corps stuff, passed

down from above. It was meant as a guide to the

war in Iraq, but it was unclear and overwrought.

The men of Kilo Company had a culture of being

assertive and tough, partly because of the Hell

House fight and the publicity that had followed.

But now that this latest offensive had fizzled,

they were being asked to do exactly what? They

were wandering around Haditha just waiting to

get hit. Lieutenant Colonel Chessani, up at the

dam, was a strange guy to them. He had a reputation of being standoffish, intensely religious,

and uncommunicative; he seemed to know the

enlisted men only by the nametags on their

chests, and they felt he offered them little guidance at best. Captain McConnell was a different

story. He was seen as an accessible and straightforward guy, but also as a military lifer, whose

talks to his men, though intended to be inspirational, were dulled by Marine Corps clichés and

pre-fabricated thoughts. He was always talking

about responsibility and honor. He seemed sincerely to believe that in Haditha they were fighting the global war on terror—oh yes, and winfling it, too. He insisted that the insurgents were

cowards who lacked values, when the opposite

was evidently true. He made Wagnerian vows

like "We will not falter in the clashing of spears."

At Sparta Base sometimes it got a little thick,

especially for a place with no enemy in sight. In

fairness, however, officers who can inspire enlisted Marines are rare, and McConnell, because he

was new, was perhaps just trying too hard.

Meanwhile, the Marines mounted patrols

every day, often for no better reason than to spot

something unusual on streets that to them

remained strange. This was said to be an intelligence-based war, hut the intelligence was poor.

Sometimes the Marines detained men whose

names appeared on their lists; more often they

went into houses, asked a few questions, and

walked away empty-handed. Officially their rules

of engagement were only slightly more restrictive

than those that had applied to the free hunting in

Fallujah, with their tolerance for the killing of

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people who got in the way. In Haditha, however, there were civilians all around. Reflexively the

city was known as a battlespace, and perhaps it

was one, but if so it was barely recognizable.

Simply put, though Haditha was still largely controlled by the insurgents, during all the weeks

prior to the killings of November 19, the Marines

of Kilo Company saw very little action there.

Battlespace? They killed one man—a town idiot

who insisted on crossing their perimeter wire.

They found some munitions caches in sandy soil

along the riverbanks. They talked to some tribal

leaders. But the largest measure of their success

was a circular one—the continuing discovery of

improvised land mines, which were laid each

night, but which would not have been planted in

the first place were it not for the presence of

American troops in town. Indeed, the whole war

had become a chicken-or-egg question, around

and around with no answer possible.

The enlisted men of Kilo Company rarely philosophized. Many had joined the Corps in

response to the September 11 attacks, now four

years past, but the emotions that once had motivated them had been reduced by their participation in an enormously bureaucratic enterprise,

and by the tedium of war. Fine—they were probably better soldiers for it. These were not the taut

warriors portrayed in action movies. As they

shed their helmets and body armor, they

emerged as ordinary five-foot-nine-inch, 150-

pound middle-class Americans, sometimes pimple-faced, and often sort of scrawny. Some of

them were mentally agile, and some quite obviously were not. By the stringent standards of the

U.S. military, they were not always well behaved.

At Sparta Base there was a bit of illicit drinking,

a touch of pornography. There are rumors about

the use of narcotics as well. BUt the unit's morale

was good enough, largely because the men had

become close friends. They liked motorcycles,

they liked cars, they liked guns. They especially

liked girls a lot. Some could not speak without

f**k For instance, they f**king did not want to be

in Iraq. Not anymore, if they ever did. Those

who were returning felt they had come back way

too f**king soon. And no, they did not respect

the Iraqi culture—who the f**k would? Iraqi men
wear man-dresses. Iraqi men think everyone

wants to eyef**k their precious wives. Iraqi men

kill their own people, then turn around and kill

Marines. It's f**king bulls**t. God should paintball

the genuine bastards so the Marines could then

blow them away. Sometimes on the streets of

Haditha it seemed like every man would get

splattered.

But the Marines did not sit around Sparta Base

and worry this to death. They talked about other

things, their exploits, their party binges, the really dumb moves of their friends. They laughed

and gave each other hard times. They gave each

other names. When they mounted their patrols,

they went up and down the designated streets

and did their jobs as they were told. Be polite

and have a plan to kill everyone you meet? Yes,

sir, roger that, and on streets like these that

would mean shooting the guy from up close, sir,

at any false move on his part—is that what you

mean by a plan? If the counterinsurgency mission

in Haditha seemed half-cocked, so did any real

chance for success in Iraq, but that was for others to decide—not for the soldiers who had to

carry out the fights. The Marines of Kilo

Company were well-intentioned guys who took

pride in their conventional battlefield skills and,

partly as a result, now just wanted to go home.

As a group they were not like people who join

the police for the satisfaction of hurting others.

They were more like people who join Outward

Bound. Until the killings of November 19, there

is no evidence that in Haditha they abused the

f**king Iraqis even once.

Then suddenly on Route Chestnut, Guzman

and Crossan were wounded, Terrazas was torn in

two, and Sergeant Wuterich was calling for backup. The events that followed will never be reconstructed completely, no matter what the courts

may find. Through the dust and noise on that

Haditha street, they played out in a jumble of

semi-autonomous actions, complicated by perceptions that had been narrowed by the attack

and further confused by the ambiguities associated with fighting a guerrilla war on foreign

ground. Some of the Marines may have suspected that a line had been crossed, and that crimes

might have been committed, but in the urgency

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of the moment it would have seemed less likely

then than it seems now, and even today the principal view of those involved is anger that the

accusations are cheap, and that Kilo Company

has been unfairly singled out. There is probably

a feeling of remorse as well, but, to generalize, it

is regret that the killing of noncombatants had so

little to do with the intentions of the men, and

that the story cannot somehow be taken back

and run all over again.

IV: From House to House

The boom of the land mine exploding was

heard throughout Haditha. Immediately afterward the city went quiet, except near the convoy, from which the Marines piled out shouting.

Some ran back to the shattered Humvee to render aid as they could; the others quickly settled

down, and indeed milled around uncertainly

until Wuterich ordered them to spread out into

defensive positions. It was still barely 7:15 in the

morning, the Humvee boiled with black smoke,

and the possibility existed that its destruction

marked the start of an ambush that would now

expand into overlapping attacks with automatic

fire and rocket-propelled grenades. All through

Iraq the insurgents were laying such lethal traps.

For the moment, the houses on both sides of the

street showed no sign of activity, though certainly they contained people lying low, if only out of

fear.

Again it is important to face, the realities here.

According to counterinsurgency doctrine, these

people were not necessarily the enemy, but

Terrazas was nonetheless spilling his guts into

their street. Among these very houses was one

where the Marines had discovered a bomb factory just a few days before. Moreover, even if the

neighbors were not directly involved, they must

have known the location of this land mine,

which could not have been planted without the

locals taking notice. Surely some residents could

have found a way to warn the patrol; if they

were not the enemy, surely some could have

acknowledged that Kilo Company during its stay

in Haditha had been showing goodwill and

restraint. But no, it was apparent that to these
people Terrazas was just another dead American,

like roadkil, and good riddance to him. For

Wuterich's squad the silence of the neighborhood was therefore less reassuring than ominous. It was the quiet before the storm, the prelude to an attack. The Marines were angry and

tense. They sighted their rifles at the walls and

rooftops, thinking every variation of f**k and

waiting for the incoming rounds.

Instead, a white Opel sedan came driving up

the street. It was an unmarked taxi carrying five

young men, four of them college students bound

for school in Baghdad, the fifth their driver. They

were only about a hundred yards away from the

blast site when they happened upon the scene.

Through their windshield—dirty, bug-splattered,

against the sun—they would have seen one of

the most dangerous sights in Iraq: smoke rising

from a shattered Humvee, a stopped convoy,

and American soldiers in full fighting mettle coming at them down the street. The Marines halted

the car:from a distance. When soldiers do this in

Iraq, they are supposed to follow a progressive

escalation of force, with hand signals first, followed by raised weapons, then warning shots

with tracers visible, then shots to the engine

block, and finally, if the car keeps coming, shots

directly into the driver. Because of the risk of car

bombs, however, the procedure is typically

shortened; weapons go up, and if the car doesn't stop, the driver and other occupants are liberally sprayed with fire. Those are the rules of the

road, and so be it; given the circumstances, they

are well enough understood to seem fair.

This time the driver stopped, as most drivers

do. Some witnesses in the nearby houses later

said that he tried to back away but then desisted.

The Marines came running up, shouting and

cursing. Presumably they told the occupants to

get out of the car and to kneel on the street with

their hands on their heads. What the Marines

thought of them is not clear. Later they said they

believed the men were associated with the landmine explosion, and were perhaps the spotters

who had pushed the button, or were following

up now with a car-bomb attack. This strains

credulity for several reasons, not the least of

which is that five people in a car are about four

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too many for either purpose. Equally unlikely

was another explanation sometimes mentioned,

that these were insurgents driving up to do battle. But the truth is that the Marines neither knew

nor needed to know why they stopped the car.

The stop was legitimate. It was a necessary act to

limit the risks to the squad, and to keep the confusion from growing.

The problem is what happened next, after a

quick search revealed that the car contained no

weapons or explosives, or any other evidence

that linked the men to the insurgency. The Iraqis

perhaps should have been held for a while or,

better yet, allowed to take their car and leave.

Instead, all five of them were shot dead by the

Marines. Later, the Marines reported that they

killed them because they had started to run

away. Even if true, by normal standards this raises the question of what threat these men could

have posed when they were fleeing unarmed—

or at least what threat could have justified shooting them down. But in Iraq the question was

moot, and for reasons that give significance to

the Haditha story beyond mere crime and punishment. The first and simplest reason is that,

because of reluctance to second-guess soldiers in

a fight, the rules of engagement allow for such

liberal interpretations of threat that in practice

they authorize the killing of even unarmed military-age males who are running away. The second reason derives from the first. It is that the

killing of civilians has become so commonplace

that the report of these particular ones barely

aroused notice as it moved up the chain of command in Iraq. War is fog, civilians die, and these

fools should not have tried to escape.

The incident reemerged only because of the

insistent inquiries of Time magazine. During the

subsequent military investigations that were

forced onto the Marine Corps in the spring and

summer of 2006, grainy images from an aerial

drone were found that appeared to show the five

bodies lying clustered together beside the sedan,

with one sprawled partly atop another. Perhaps

they had been dragged back and placed there,

but this was not part of the original story.

Certainly the pattern as seen from overhead was

not one of men killed while trying to scatter.
Equally troubling were the statements of one of

the Iraqi soldiers who was with the convoy, and

who four months later was questioned by a naval

investigator. The questioning was incomplete,

full of opportunities never pursued, and further

weakened by an incompetent interpreter. A

lawyer in court could tear such testimony apart.

Nonetheless, what emerged was a picture of

murder. The Iraqi soldier said he had been only

about 25 yards away from the Opel sedan, and

had watched the entire scene. It was obvious to

him that the Iraqis were noncombatants—otherwise, why would they have driven up like this?

He said the Marines had yanked open the Opel's

doors, taken the men Out, forced them to kneel

with their hands on their heads, and, without

bothering to search them, had quickly gunned

them down. The investigator said, "Bang, bang,

bang, bang, bang." Well yeah, well no, well actually the Iraqis were sprayed with rifle rounds.

The M16 is a light, clip-fed weapon, with a plastic stock and a metal barrel. It fires a three-round

burst when it is switched to automatic. It does

not bang then, but ripples sharply. The Iraqi soldier said he saw a head come apart and a face

split in two. He also said that one of the Marines

used a pistol, and he called that man a captain,

but he did not appear to know any of the squad

members' names, and this element he seems to

have gotten wrong. By my calculation, there

were no officers yet on the scene.

Errors are too easy to make when assigning

individual blame. Sergeant Wuterich, for

instance, has been repeatedly singled out. If the

five Iraqi civilians from the car were summarily

slain, Wuterich was probably elsewhere, closer

to the center of concern, placing his men into

defensive positions and watching the houses for

hostile fire. Indeed, it is wrong to brand any of

the Marines of his squad without knowing what

each was doing, and where each one was. I do

not know those details, though by now the military prosecutors must. It appears that only a few

of the Marines handled the people from the car,

and that, while all of them were angry, only two

let loose with their guns. The killing was not

agreed upon or planned. It started without warning and finished too fast to stop. Claims have

147

been made of an extensive conspiracy to cover

up murders and protect the Marine Corps from

embarrassment—but no such conspiracy was

necessary, and it is unlikely that any occurred. As

for the killings of the car's occupants, all that

would have been required was a shift at the outset contained in two simple words. They ran. It

would not matter who first uttered the words, or

if these were the ones actually spoken. Among

the men of Wuterich's squad the elegance would

immediately have been understood. We are

brothers by other mothers. The dead do not

return to life, but some mistakes can he undone.

Killing is not wrong in Iraq, if you can say the

rules allowed it.

Within minutes the force from Sparta Base

arrived. It was a squad of about the same size as

Wuterich's, led by the only officer present on

Route Chestnut the entire morning, a young lieutenant named William Kallop. Like other lieutenants in Kilo Company, Kallop was junior in all

but rank to the senior enlisted men, to whom he

naturally deferred. He had a reputation of being

a little soft, a little lost. He was the pleasant son

of a wealthy New York family, who had joined

the Marine Corps, it was believed in Kilo

Company, to prove something to himself before

returning to a life of comfort. As a soldier he was

said to be average. When the allegations against

Kilo Company surfaced in the spring of 2006, his

parents vigorously reacted. They hired a New

York public-relations firm that specializes in legal

cases, and then engaged a defense attorney who

is a former Marine general and was once one of

the top lawyers in the Corps. The implicit warning may have had some effect. While McConnell

and Chessani were humiliated and relieved of

their commands, and Wuterich was fingered in

public, Kallop was left untouched, though technically upon his arrival at Route Chestnut on

November 19he had become the commander on

the scene.

Apparently his command didn't amount to

much. For the most part he remained on the

street by the Humvees with the rest of his squad

and allowed Wuterich and his men to work their

way through the four houses where, to repeat

the number, they killed the additional 19 Iraqis—
children, women, and men. It is virtually certain

that none of the dead were combatants, but little

else about the case is so straightforward. Strange

though it seems at first glance, the military courts

will probably have a very difficult time deciding

if war crimes were coimnitted inside the houses.

The difficulty will not be due to a Marine Corps

agenda. Indeed, the expedient solution for the

entire U.S. military would be to treat Wuterich

and his men as criminals, and to destroy

McConnell and Chessani as well, thereby avoiding the alternative conclusion, that the debacle in

Haditha is related to normal operations in the

war. But it just does not seem plausible, as John

Murtha and others have claimed, that these particular Marines, who had enjoyed a relatively

low-key tour, went so berserk after Terrazas's

death that, having already slaughtered the five

Iraqis by the car, they proceeded without specific reason or provocation to enter people's houses and execute even the children at point-blank

range in a feverish rampage sustained for several hours, even while Lieutenant Kallop and the

other recent arrivals listened to the rippling of

gunfire and the screams of the soon dead. The

killings in the houses on November 19 were

probably nothing so simple as that.

Wuterich may have explained it best, because

he has insisted that his Marines came under AK47 attack, and defended themselves as they had

been trained to do, by returning fire and surging

forward to suppress the aggressors. Critics have

expressed skepticism, pointing out that there was

little evidence of exterior damage to the houses,

and that certain neighborhood witnesses heard

no firefight before the first house was stormed.

Other witnesses, however, did hear firing, and

the same Iraqi soldier who gave the damning

description of executions by the car, and who

was certainly no friend of the Marines, repeatedly described coming under attack from the south

side of the street.

When the naval investigator asked for details,

the interpreter summarized the soldier's answers.

He said, 'Fire open at them. Shots were shooting

at them. Fighting between them and forces are

fighting at us, shooting at us.- The Americans

spread through the houses, and they stayed.

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They were going to take care of this. So they

went where the fire was coming, receiving fire,

in that direction.... Somebody's shooting at us,

we're shooting at them, but they are just shooting at us and we're shooting back."

The investigator said, "Okay. And how many

Marines did that?"

Translating directly now, the interpreter said,

"It was all mixed up. Even I was a little shaken.

I didn't see who's shooting at us."

"Did you shoot your weapon at all?"

"I shot in the air. Yeah, we shot, but we shot

in the air."

"Why did you shoot in the air?"

"He says, Who am I going to shoot? I got to

see somebody I'm shooting."

"Okay. So why shoot at all?"

"When they start firing, the Marines were like,

'Oh come on, you shoot too.' Everybody shot

five, six rounds."

Maybe this investigator had not been around

the Iraqi Army before. He said, "In the air?"

"In the air, yes, sir I mean, we have no

effect when we go out there. We have no effect

on anything because they take orders from whatever they tell us." The Iraqi soldier obviously

wanted to make it clear that he had not killed

any of the dead.

"So you shot in the air?"

"Yes, I did."

"Who told you to shoot in the air?"

"They told."

"But who told you?"

"Not all, not everybody, sir."

Evidently, the investigator tried to recover his

balance. He said, "Did you ever see anybody—

you said that you were taking shots from the

neighborhood. Did you ever see anybody shooting at you or the Marines?"

"No, I haven't seen. I know the fires were

coming at us, but from where, I don't know."

"But you're sure that you were being shot at?"

"Yes, yes. They want to kill us."

"Was it a lot of shots or just here and there?"

"Spray. It was spray continuous."

"Spray continuous. For about how long?"

"When we first received spray, and then after

that, hell break loose. All Americans were firing
and everything. I couldn't tell which one's

which."

"Okay. And you shot in the air?"

"Yes sir."

The testimony rings all too true, with compensation for some light twisting of facts. It is very

likely that the Marines did indeed begin taking

fire on Route Chestnut, a short while after the

occupants of the car were killed, and possibly in

angry response. Someone is bomb me, I am

shoot him, but he is just shoot at me, and I am

just shoot him back. This is the kind of fight that

Donald Rumsfeld could not imagine.

It was now perhaps 7:30 in the morning.

Kallop had arrived with his reinforcements. The

fire seemed to come from a house on the south

side of the street. In hindsight we know that no

insurgents were discovered there, but chances

are they were present nonetheless, if not in that

house, then in others nearby. The evidence

remains uncertain, but Wuterich, for one, insists

that his men believed the house contained

aggressors, and that they proceeded with a bythe-hook operation to clear them Out, exactly as

the rules of engagement allowed. This may very

well be. If you assume it is true, you can watch

Haditha play out from there, largely within the

legal definition of justified killing—a baseline

narrative that becomes the happiest possible version of the morning's events.

With Kallop in place among the Humvees,

Wuterich led his men from the front. They got to

the house, kicked through the door, and in the

entranceway came upon the owner, a middleaged man, whom one of them shot at close

range, probably with a three-round burst to the

chest. The Marine's M16 would barely have

kicked in his hands. Beyond the sound of the

shots, he might have heard the double pops of

the rounds entering and exiting the man, the

heavier snap of bullets against bone, perhaps the

metallic clatter of spent cartridges hitting the

ground. The Iraqi was not thrown by the rounds

as people are thrown in the movies. If no bones

were broken, he may not have felt much pain,

except for some stinging where his skin was

torn. Unless he was struck in the heart, he did

not die immediately, but soon succumbed to

149

massive hemorrhaging. Chances are his blood

first splattered against the wall, then flowed into

a dark-scarlet puddle beneath him until his heart

stopped pumping.

The power was out in the house, and the light

inside was dim, all the more so for the Marines,

who were piling in from the sunshine of the

street. Inside a hostile house, survival requires

fast reactions. The Marines fired on a figure

down the hail, who turned out too late to be an

old woman. There could have been a message

there, but guerrilla wars are tricky, and the

Marines were not about to slow down. She

screamed when she was hit, apparently in the

back, and then she died. The Marines were

shouting excitedly to one another. They worked

down the hallway until, busting open a door,

they came upon a room full of people. Later

some of the squad said they had heard AK-47s

being racked, though whatever they heard

turned out not to be that. The room was dim,

and the people were glimpsed rather than clearly seen. The Marines rolled in a grenade, hugged

the hallway for the blast, and then charged into

the dust and smoke to mop up with their rifles

as they had been trained to do. This is my

weapon, this is my gun. It was the Hell House

fight all over again, though, as it happened, without the opposition. Nine people had sheltered in

that room, three generations of the same family,

from an ancient man paralyzed by a stroke to an

infant girl just three months old. When the

grenade exploded, it blew some of them apart,

wounded others with penetrating shrapnel, and

littered the room with evil-smelling body parts.

In the urgency of the moment the old man forgot that he was paralyzed and tried to stand up.

He took rounds to the chest, vomited blood as

he fell, and then lay on the floor twitching as he

died. In that room four residents survived. A

young woman left her husband behind, grabbed

the infant girl, and managed to run away; a 10-

year-old girl and her younger brother lay wounded beside their dead mother and remained conscious enough to be terrified.

The Marines went on to the neighboring

house, still seeking insurgents, as they believed.

What happened there was a repeat of what had
just happened next door, only this time the

Americans knocked before they shot the man at

the gate, and a grenade tossed into an empty

bathroom ignited a washing machine, and a

grenade tossed into the room where the family

was sheltering failed to go off, and perhaps only

one American came in and sprayed the room

with automatic fire. This time there was just a

single survivor, a girl of about 13, who later was

able to provide some details of her family's

death. There was a lot of smoke, but:

Daddy was shot through the heart. He was 43.

Mommy was shot in the head and chest. She

was 41.

Aunt Huda was shot in the chest. She was 27.

My sister Nour was shot in the right side of her

head. She was 15.

My sister Saba was shot through the ear. She

was 11.

My brother Muhammad was shot in the hand

and I don't know where else. He was 10.

My sister Zainab was shot in the hand and the

head. She was five.

My sister Aysha was shot in the leg and I don't

know where else. She was three.

The brains of at least one of the little girls

were shoved through fractures in her skull by the

impact of a bullet. This is a standard effect of

high-velocity rounds fired into the closed cavity

of a head. Later that day, when a replacement

Marine came in to carry out the bodies, the girl's

brains would fall onto his boot.

Wuterich's men pursued the search to the

north side of Route Chestnut, where they put the

women and children under guard and killed four

men of another family. There on the north side

they found the only AK-47 that was discovered

that day—apparently a household defensive

weapon, of the type that is legal and common in

Iraq. No one has claimed that the rifle had been

fired.

On Route Chestnut the killing was over, and

the cleanup began. Nearly a year later, the

Marines who were involved unanimously insist

that it was just another sty Anbar morning. By

narrow application of military law, the upcoming

trials may indeed leave it as such. If so, however, those trials will have to justify the shootings

150

around the car and, furthermore, will have to

account for certain statements by witnesses that

call into question the scenes inside houses as I

have described them in the happiest possible

version of the events. Those statements, which

again are full of contradictions and uncertainties,

raise the possibility that, behind the privacy of

the walls, Wuterich's men were carrying out

deliberate executions and laughing about it, that

one aimed and said "You! You!" before he shot

the old man down, that they made return trips to

the killing rooms to finish people off, and that on

the north side of the road they herded their victims into a wardrobe before shooting them

through the door. Unless the Marines of

Wuterich's squad suddenly start confessing to

war crimes, these are questions only the courts

will be able to decide.

V: A Thanksgiving Prayer

On the afternoon of November 19, when the

reports of civilian casualties reached Captain Lucas

McConnell, it did not cross his mind that anything

unusual had occurred: the killing by American

forces of noncombatants in Iraq is simply so commonplace. Sergeant Wuterich reported on the fight

as he defined it. Lieutenant Kallop acquiesced. An

intelligence sergeant who surveyed the carnage

said much the same thing. Captain McConnell

scarcely reacted, because this slaughter seemed to

lie within the rules of engagement, and in that

sense was little different from any other.

McConnell inhabited a military world, full of

acronyms and equipment, and peopled by identifiable combatants—a place where spears clashed

and civilians unfortunately sometimes came to

harm. For him it had been a very active day. Soon

after the land-mine explosion that had killed

Terrazas, ambushes and firefights erupted elsewhere in Haditha, and all four of his platoons

were engaged.

The main thread started at 8:35 in the morning,

when an explosives-and-ordnance squad heading

to Route Chestnut for a post-blast analysis came

under fire from a palm grove. The squad returned

fire and drove on. Twenty-five minutes later, and

slightly to the south, an aerial drone observed 10
men meeting on a palm-grove trail between River

Road and the Euphrates. The men appeared to he

MAMs, or military-age males, and clearly were not

just farmers. Two came on foot, one by motorcycle, and seven by car. They loaded gear into the

car and, leaving three men behind, drove slowly

south along the trail. McConnell called this

"egressing." The drone circled lazily overhead,

performing well in the global war on terror. The

time was approximately 9:12. At 9:48, about a kilometer away, a Kilo Company patrol was attacked

by small-arms fire, and the Marines shot back,

resulting, they believed, in three enemy wounded

in action, or EWIA, though all of them got away.

The men in the car on the palm-grove trail were

in no particular hurry. They stopped beside other

cars on the trail, presumably to coordinate future

attacks. Eventually they came to River Road, not

far south of Route Chestnut, where they parked

the car and entered two houses. McConnell called

the houses "safe houses," perhaps because the

men calmly entered them. There was little doubt

that all seven men were insurgents, but it was

impossible to tell who else was in the houses, and

specifically whether families were sheltering

inside. Force-protection standards precluded the

possibility of checking, and since the rules of

engagement sanctioned collateral casualties with

the enemy so near, a flight of Cobra helicopters

arrived and fired two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles,

one into each house, to soften things up. Kilo

Company Marines then rushed forward to clear the

rooms as required. The first house was empty, but

as they approached the second one they were

greeted by small-arms fire and grenades. The

Marines pulled back—way back—and called in an

AV-8B Harrier jet to drop a guided 500-pound

GBU-12 Paveway bomb. The bomb crashed into

the house with impressive precision, but did not

explode.

At this point the drone saw two MAMs leave

through the back door and run into a little palmgrove patch to hide. The Marines brought the

Harrier around to pink-mist these guys with a second 500-pound bomb—this one guided into the

patch—but it, too, turned out to be a dud.

Undaunted, the troops switched weapons and hit

the patch with a $180,000 air-launched AGM-65

151

Maverick missile. The strike resulted in one EKIA.

The surviving MAM egressed the patch and

ingressed the house again. It was ridiculous. The

Harrier came back around and dropped a third

500-pound bomb directly through the roof, blowing the whole house and everyone in it to bloody

shreds.

This was McConnell's reality as Haditha settled

down for the night. He gave a talk at Sparta Base,

in which for once he did not overstretch. He said:

Men, we've had a tough day, it's sad about

Terrazas, but everyone functioned pretty well, so

good job and keep at it. He did not mention—and

apparently did not much think about—all the noncombatants who had died. Look, this was Iraq.

The clearing operations on Route Chestnut did not

stand out as being significantly different from the

other main act of the day, the use of missiles and

bombs against a house that may well have contained a family. God knows there were enough

body parts now scattered through the ruins. Killing

face-to-face with an M16 allows you at least some

chance to desist from slaughtering women and

children, which is not true once a bomb is called

down on a house. But there is no evidence that

McConnell was even thinking about these matters.

The photographer Lucian Read, who had been

traveling elsewhere in Anbar, returned the day

after the killings and later snapped digital pictures

of shrouded corpses in the houses by Route

Chestnut. Read believes McConnell was aware of

the pictures; if so, he did not try to suppress them

or to limit their distribution. McConnell was such a

company man, such a by-the-book Marine, that,

like the entire chain of command above him, he

was numb to the killings of noncombatants so

long as the rules of engagement made the killings

legal. If there was a failure here, it was not that of

McConnell but of the most basic conduct of this war.Five days after the killings, Kilo Company celebrated Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner, including stuffing and potatoes. The occasion was

recorded on video. Before the meal McConnell led

the men in prayer. He said,

Father, we thank you for this food which

you have prepared for us. Please bless this
food with your great grace, and please let us

take the sustenance that you provide for us,

and go forth and do great things in your

name. We are very grateful here in Kilo

Company for many things. We thank you for

the mission that you have provided for us, to

leave America and go into foreign lands and

try to do good things for the world and for

our country. It's our greatest honor, and we

thank you for that. We thank you for our

families, who support us back in the States,

and the brotherhood that we have here. It is

our greatest strength, and we thank you for

that as well. We also want to thank you for

the veterans and those who have gone

before us, because without them there

would he no Marine Corps legacy, and there

wouldn't be that great standard to uphold.

So we thank you for that because it guides

us, it keeps us on the right track, and it's that

steering factor that helps us go forth and do

great things. We thank you for the memory

and the life of Lance Corporal Miguel

Terrazas, who did great things in his life, did

great things for all of us, was a great friend

and a great Marine. We just ask that you help

us take this food that you've provided us

here today, help it maintain, sustain our bodies so we can uphold that legacy that our

fallen comrades have provided for us. We

say all these things in your great name.

Amen.

The men answered with Marine Corps Hoo-rahs

and Amens.

McConnell said, "Hey, please enjoy the meal.

Make sure you pat the cooks on the back. They

work hard. And if you see someone from the Four

shop here in the near future that you know, pat

them on the back, because they get all that stuff out

here, and it's not the most safest place to be pushing food around But I appreciate you all being

here, and first and foremost Happy Thanksgiving.

Go forth and do great things. Hoo-rah!"

Hoo-rah. Iraqis live in an honor-bound society,

built of tight family ties. When noncombatants are

killed, it matters little to the survivors whether the

American rules allowed it, or what the U.S. military

152

courts decide. The survivors go to war in return,

which provokes more of the same in a circular dive

that spirals beyond recovery. Haditha is just a small

example. By now, nearly one year later, hatred of

the American forces in the city has turned so fierce

that military investigators for the trials at Pendleton

have given up on going there. That hatred is blood

hatred. It is the kind of hatred people are willing to

die for, with no expectation but revenge. This was

immediately apparent on a video that was taken the

day after the killings by an Iraqi from the neighborhood—the same video that was later passed along

to Time. The Marine Corps was wrong to dismiss

the video as propaganda and fiction. It is an

authentic Iraqi artifact. It should be shown to the

grunts in training. It should be shown to the generals in command. The scenes it depicts are raw.

People move among the hideous corpses, wailing

their grief and vowing vengeance before God. "This

is my brother! My brother! My brother!" In one of

the killing rooms, a hard-looking boy insists that

the camera show the body of his father. Sobbing

angrily, he shouts, "I want to say this is my father!

God will punish you Americans! Show me on the

camera! This is my father! He just bought a car

showroom! He did not pay all the money to the

owner yet, and he got killed!"

A man cries, "This is an act denied by God. What

did he do? To be executed in the closet? Those bastards! Even the Jews would not do such an act!

Why? Why did they kill him this way? Look, this is

his brain on the ground!"

The boy continues to sob over the corpse on the

floor. He shouts, "Father! I want my father!"

Another man cries, "This is democracy?"

Well yeah, well no, well actually this is Haditha.

For the United States, it is what defeat looks like in

this war.

Notes

Vanity Fair, November 2006, 3 12-28, 350-55.

Reprinted by permission from Vanity Fair and

Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman Literary Agents on

behalf of the author.

1. Josh White and Sonya Geis, "4 Marines Charged in

Haditha Killings: Deaths of Iraqi Civilians Also Lead to
Dereliction Counts Against 4 Officers," Washington

Post, 22 December 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006

/1 2/21/AR20061221001 24.html).

2. Mark Walker, "Haditha Case Continues to Jnrave1,"

North County Times, 28 June 2008 (http://

www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/06/28/mi1itary

/zcaed43dd200c477388257472005a24b4.txt).

153

About the Author

William Langewiesche is an international correspondent for Vanity Fair. He previously worked for

Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of several

books, including Fly by Wire (2009), The Atomic

Bazaar (2007), The Outlaw Sea (2004), and

American Ground (2002).

Part IV: Building Iraqi Forces, the al-Anbar

Awakening, and the Quest to Restore

Stability to Iraq

ile counterinsurgency doctrine stresses the need to launch surgical operations aimed at pacifying territory and

cutting off the supply lines of insurgent fighters,

the need to win the support of the population

remains critical. From the day they began their

second deployment, U.S. Marines made dedicated efforts to build relationships with local leaders and the Iraqi population as a whole. Of particular importance was the need to build stability by using locally raised security forces.

The question facing Marines and Coalition

forces in general, however, was what kind of

security forces should be raised? Until 2006, most

of the Coalition's focus was on building an Iraqi

National Army. One method for constructing

such a force was to deploy Combined Action

Program (CAP) platoons. An innovation of the

Vietnam War, CAPs combined U.S. Marines with

Iraqis as a means of building a professional, Iraqi

military.

However, many Sunnis in al-Anbar Province

saw the Shi'a-dominated Iraqi National Army as

a force for occupation and oppression. As a consequence, many Marines and other Coalition

leaders found that building local police forces

was a more effective means for combating the

insurgency in western Iraq. Fearing the imminent

withdrawal of U.S. troops and subsequent domination of the region by al-Qaeda in Iraq, tribal

sheiks like Abdul Sattar Abu Risha approached

U.S. forces, offering to enroll the male members

155

of their tribes into the Iraqi police forces. This

change, known as the Anbar Awakening, thus

led to the development of a professional and

efficient police force capable of confronting alQaeda in Iraq. The Awakening represents a high

point in Marine and Army efforts to engage the

Iraqi population and build an effective security

apparatus.

The following selections provide readers with

a summary of the efforts undertaken by Marines

to build local security forces. "The Combined

Action Platoon in Iraq" examines how this legacy of the Vietnam War was adapted for the situation in Iraq. Carter Malkasian's essay 'Will

Iraqization Work?" explores the challenges of

building security forces that the Sunnis of the

Anbar province could trust in the Shi'a-dominated state. Andrew Lubin and Austen Long's essays

provide further analysis and detail about what

remains an ongoing effort to forge stability and

security in Iraq. Then-Colonel Sean B.

MacFarland and Major Niel Smith's essay focuses

on the efforts undertaken by the U.S. Army's First

Brigade Heavy Combat Team (commanded by

Colonel MacFarland) to build alliances with the

local Sunni tribes of the Anbar Province. Finally,

the diary of al-Qaeda in Iraq fighter Abu-Tariq

details the impact of the Awakening on his

force's resources and morale, as the diarist

relates the imminent collapse of al-Qaeda in Iraq

in Anbar Province.

The Combined Action Platoon in Iraq

by First Lieutenant Jason R. Goodale and First

Lieutenant Jonathan F Webre

Marine Corps Gazette, April 2005

Q

n 30 May 2004, the Marines of 3d Platoon,

Company G, Task Force 2d Battalion, 7th

Marines (TF 2/7), Regimental Combat Team

7, were activated as one of the first combined action

program (CAP) platoons since the end of the program in 1971 during Vietnam. Upon entering into

this mission, which was new to everyone involved,

the TF 2/7 CAP platoon had to "reinvent the wheel"

and use an almost forgotten model in order to wage

modern counterinsurgency warfare in the west-central al-Anbar Province, Iraq. The scope of the TF 2/7

CAP mission can be broken into three phases: initiating and founding the CAP mission, coordinating

and operating in a CAP environment, and establishing a training base to ensure the continuation of the

mission.

Phase I: Initiating the CAP

Mission

Because TF 2/7 operations continued up to the

day of the CAP platoon activation, including TF 2/7

displacement east in support of Fallujah offensive

operations in April 2004, the CAP platoon was not

able to start working with the Iraqi Security Forces

(1SF) until late May 2004. The utilization of the. CAP

platoon as a semi-independent unit within TF 2/7's

area of operations (AO) had been planned for a period of weeks, since the battalion's arrival in February

2004, and finally the opportunity to utilize it presented itself. When the order arrived, the TF 2/7 CAP

platoon, call sign "Golf 3," displaced from the battalion main forward operating base and moved 25 kilometers away into the platoon's new home near the

city of Hit, Iraq. The CAP platoon arrived at the

headquarters of the nascent Iraqi National Guard

(ING) 503d Battalion on 30 May 2004.

Upon arriving at the 503d headquarters, the pla157

toon had three goals: establish initial security, familiarize itself with new responsibilities, and sustainment. After a brief introduction to the platoon's new

host, Colonel Fahad Ab'dal Aziz, commander of the

503d, the platoon established local security and

began settling into billeting areas.

The CAP platoon quickly set in motion the necessary functions to train the 503d in anticipation of the

national transfer of sovereignty in little over a month.

The CAP platoon commander introduced the unit to

the staff and officers of the 503d and established

short-, mid-, and long-term training and operations

goals. The CAP platoon sergeant ensured that all

logistical and security concerns were immediately

addressed and that future requirements were anticipated. The platoon guide assumed the role of chief

trainer and began establishing the process of turning

the 503d into a capable Iraqi fighting force.

The noncommissioned officers (NCOs) of the platoon made sure tasks were assigned, watches and

rotations established, and everything was proceeding

according to the platoon plan. The junior Marines

had perhaps the hardest role of adapting to a foreign

culture by learning the language and working daily

with hundreds of non-English speaking, ill-trained

soldiers. Needless to say, this was all ad hoc considering that the CAP platoon's predeployment training

consisted of two days of orientation that already

proved far short of the expectations necessary to

live, eat, sleep, and fight with the 503d. Despite

these. shortcomings, the TF 2/7 CAP platoon was

cognizant that they were going to carry out this mission for the last three months of the battalion's

deployment. The platoon wanted nothing short of

success. The future local security in this AO needed

to be transferred to the Iraqis as soon as they were

ready.

Phase II: Coordination and

Operations in a CAP Environment

Perhaps the biggest challenge that the TF 2/7
CAP faced in its mission was the establishment of

procedures when it came to combined operations

with Marines and the 503d soldiers. Golf 3's role in

coordinating all U.S. and 1SF training and operations from the 503d headquarters decreased

throughout the platoon's stay in Iraq. This would

never have been possible without the addition, in

early June, of a battalion detachment led by the TF

2/7 S-3L (operations liaison officer). Along with

subject matter experts from each battalion staff section, the essential task of establishing an operational capability at the 503d battalion level was

removed from the CAP platoon.

The CAP platoon and battalion staff solidified, as

the weeks passed, into a solid band of Marines and

sailors that became known as "Team JCC" (joint

coordination center). The JCC was the operations

center at the heart of the mission. From the JCC, the

CAP platoon and TF 2/7 tracked the majority of

activity concerning the Marines, the ING, and the

Iraqi police in TF 2/7's AO. Despite some early difficulties with command and control, understandable for a mission of this type, Team JCC began to

establish useful techniques and procedures. Such

procedures consisted of receiving direction from TF

2/7 headquarters; establishing whether an Iraqionly, U.S-only, or a combined effort would act on

it; and supervising the execution of any action. As

a team, the officers from the respective agencies

would assess the situation and assign reaction

teams from the 1SF to respond. These teams were

often supported by the Marines of Company E,

located at the adjacent battalion forward operating

base, or other units of the battalion as required.

Difficulties would often arise due to lack of communications equipment and logistics assets, such as

fuel, unreliability (or lack of training) of the local

forces, or language barriers. Each one of these

problems was dealt with as it occurred, and over

the course of months the CAP managed to find creative solutions to solve each challenge.

A simple example is that of the language barriers. Many of the battalion's interpreters were either

not Iraqi or were from a different part of Iraq, making it difficult for Iraqi soldiers to understand them.

By learning enough tactical terms in the local

dialect to issue a simple order, such as checkpoint,

patrol, enemy, and weapons, while making up the

158

difference with diagrams and hand gestures, the

problem was solved. As in Vietnam, the CAP platoon's language ability was essential to mission suc- cess.Combined operations with the 1SF are rarely

smooth, but as the mission matured and evolved,

Team JCC developed a system that resulted in several successful operations against the enemy. The

CAP platoon jointly confiscated hundreds of illegal

weapons and explosive material, captured several

insurgents, and successfully engaged the enemy on

numerous occasions with no casualties to 1SF or TF

2/7 Marines.

Phase III: Establish a Training

Base

Perhaps the most visible success of CAP platoon's training mission was the establishment of

an instruction foundation that would ensure the

continuation of sustainment training throughout

the 503d. The CAP platoon initial training package trained 700 soldiers of the 503d in basic

weapons handling and marksmanship with the

AK-47 and RPK (Soviet) light machinegun. The

503d fired more than 13,000 rounds in the span

of four days and set a standard for 1SF training.

As a result of some collective thought

between the 503d trainers and Marines, a plan

developed to bring one platoon a week from

one of the four companies in the 503d (from the

cities of Hit, Baghdad, Haditha, and

Anah/Rawah) and train them in basic combat

skills. The training package, which became

known as "basic skills training," lasted from

Monday to Thursday of each week (accounting

for the Iraqi religious day on Friday) with Sunday

as a receiving day. The package included physical training and martial arts every morning and

covered the gamut of basic mission essential

tasks and combat skills to include procedures at

checkpoints; search actions for both vehicles and

personnel; basic dismounted patrolling skills,

such as hand/arm signals, mounted/dismounted

techniques; and medical training. Also included

were urban skills, such as room clearing,

patrolling, building entry techniques, and a full

day of live fire and movement training on the
503d's 300-meter rifle range that was recently

renovated by TF 2/7 civil affairs. The 503d so!-

diers learned to rely on a basic formation that

they called the "zigzag," or tactical column, for

most combat operations.

The training week culminated in a series of

graduation battle drills in which the three squads

of the 503d platoons would demonstrate—in a

series of events—all of the skills learned in the

week's training. During the CAP platoon's time

with the 503d, the 503d passed 10 platoons

(approximately 400 soldiers) through the training

package. Each week the plan fluctuated and

evolved but ultimately became smoother.

The CAP platoon's most significant training

accomplishment was the establishment of a core

group of approximately 10 Iraqi trainers led by

Major Ab'del Qader Jubair, Training Officer,

503d, and the senior enlisted trainer, Sergeant

First Class Jafa Sadeq Hatani. With the personnel

additions of other trainers, the group developed

into a highly skilled and well-versed training

cadre.

Building on TF 2/7's military police platoon

"train the trainer" package for 503d NCOs, the

CAP platoon's initial training of the 503d was

conducted entirely by Marines. After an additional train the trainer piece, the 503d trainers, affectionately referred to as the "Red Sleeves" for the

armbands they wore, assumed responsibility.

By the beginning of August 2004, the Red

Sleeves assumed full control of the basic skills

training package and shaped it as their own. The

Marines gladly and proudly allowed them to take

the reins and stood back. The CAP platoon realized that if it was theirs (the Iraqis') it was better.

Looking Back

On 9 September 2004, the last Marines of Team

JCC were extracted by helicopter, and Golf 3's CAP

mission was complete. As the helicopter circled

overhead the 503d headquarters, the Marines

reflected that in three short months a small group

of Marines had stood up an ING battalion, conducted combined operations against the enemy, and

created a training program that had been adapted

by the Iraqis as their own. As of this writing, the

training program continues beyond TF 2/7's stay. A

new CAP platoon from TF 1/23 carried on the mission.

TF 2/7 CAP platoon results were often roughly

bordered, and many times the unit had to adjust

expectations. Nevertheless, the overall goal was

defined. The Team JCC leadership was completely

confident that the mission was worthwhile. The

reactivated CAP has been a relative success in this

modern war on terror and should be closely examined as an option for future conflicts.

Notes

April 2005, 40-42.

Copyright Marine

About the Author

First Lieutenant (now Captain) Jason R. Goodale is commanding officer, Company C, 1st Battalion, 9th Marines. At the time this

article was published he was the executive officer for the weapons

company, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines.

First Lieutenant Jonathon F. Webre retired from the Marine

Corps as a captain. At the time of this article's publication, he was

attending the Military Intelligence Officer's Course.

Marine Coips Gazette,

Reprinted by permission.

Cops Gazette.

159

Will Iraqization

Work?

by Carter A. Malkasian

Center for Stability and Development, Center

for Naval Analyses, February 2007

Introduction

raqization" is a critical element in the

Iraq debate. It is central to the U.S. military strategy and a key component of

the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group.

The basic concept is that a properly trained and

equipped Iraqi Army will be able to keep insurgent violence at a low level, thereby allowing

the Coalition to withdraw forces. Conventional

wisdom is that the Iraqi Army is the sole institution capable of stabilizing Iraq. Shortcomings in

Iraqization are usually attributed to an insufficient focus on training, equipping, advising, and

manning on the part of the Coalition.

Two years of evidence on the actual performance of the Iraqi Army in al-Anbar Province suggests that the current strategy of Iraqization is

not likely to enable U.S. forces to withdraw. In

spite of its dramatic growth, there are few signs

that the Iraqi Army can suppress insurgent activity to a level that would permit the United States

to withdraw substantial forces without leaving

behind a terrorist safe haven. Improvements in

training, equipping, and advising will not make

a difference. Even the best-trained and

equipped Iraqi Army units face continual

attacks. The problem is the ethnic makeup of

the Iraqi Army. Attacks cannot be suppressed

because the Sunni population views the Shi'adominated army as an unjust occupation force,

bent on oppressing them or at least unable to

protect them from hard-core insurgents. The

population generally refuses to provide actionable intelligence on insurgents, allows insurgents to mass freely, hides insurgents, and joins

insurgents as fighters. As long as this sectarian

161
dynamic exists the Iraqi Army will do no better

at defusing the insurgency than Coalition forces.

The Iraqi Army, no matter how well trained,

advised, equipped, or manned, cannot mend the

sectarian rift within Iraq and create understanding between the Sunni and Shi'a.

This paper is based on empirical evidence

collected on Iraqization while I served as an

advisor to the I Marine Expeditionary Force in alAnbar Province from February 2004 to February

2005 and February to August 2006. The evidence

includes interviews with the Iraqi Army and

police, discussions with U.S. advisors, and direct

observation of Iraqi Army and police operations.

Al-Anbar is overwhelmingly Sunni and infamous

as a center of insurgent activity. Skeptics might

ask whether the harsh environment of al-Anbar

is a good case for testing the potential of

Iraqization in general. The answer is that the failure of Iraqization in al-Anbar matters. It means a

U.S. withdrawal would leave the Iraqi government unable to control the Sunni heartland.

Even if the Iraqi Army resorted to extreme brutality, its initial lack of artillery, air power, and an

overwhelming numerical advantage would preclude a rapid victory. The Iraqi government

could only accede to the division of the country

or engage in a long and bloody civil war to

reclaim the province. Neither would appear to

be in the interest of the United States. In both

cases, hard-core insurgents (who are predominantly Sunni), such as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI),

would be free to operate in al-Anbar for a prolonged period and organize terrorist operations

outside al-Anbar. Even if successful everywhere

else in Iraq, Iraqization will have failed as a strategy if it cannot address al-Anbar.

Iraqization may enjoy better prospects if its

focus is altered in al-Anbar. In contrast to the

Iraqi Army, local Sunni police forces have been

able both to collect intelligence and injure the

insurgency, especially hardcore groups of greatest concern to the United States, like AQI. Sunni

police forces can do this because they enjoy a

far stronger relationship with the population

than the Iraqi Army. Thus, the emphasis of

Iraqization in al-Anbar needs to be upon building local Sunni police forces as much as build162

ing an integrated national army. Even then,

Iraqization may founder. Widespread Sunni disaffection from the Iraqi government deters

Sunnis from joining the police, leaving the police

embattled and outnumbered against the insurgents. This leads to an equally important point.

Iraqization is no substitute for efforts by the Iraqi

government to reward cooperative Sunni leaders. For Iraqization to prosper, the Iraqi government must enact reforms sufficient to garner the

support of a critical mass of Sunnis for the

police. The success of Iraqization can never be

guaranteed but, with firm support from the Iraqi

government, local police forces can marginalize

AQI and secure the populated areas, which

could serve as a basis for withdrawing U.S.

forces.

The model of local Sunni police forces has

relevance beyond al-Anbar. The Iraqi Army faces

similar limitations in other Sunni areas, which

locally recruited police could overcome. Indeed,

a few local Sunni units have been formed in

northern Iraq, which seem to perform well near

their home base. The model would be less applicable in Baghdad where local police could be

drawn into sectarian violence. Furthermore, the

model has strong historical precedence. Locally

recruited forces have been an effective means of

counterinsurgency in earlier campaigns, such as

the firqats in Oman and regional and popular

forces in Vietnam. Even in Afghanistan today,

locally recruited "auxiliary police" are being

advocated as a means of countering the Taliban.

The Origins and Early Development of Ira qization

General George Casey, commander of Multi

National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I), implemented

Iraqization in the beginning of 2005. In

December 2004, a review of the MNF-I campaign

plan concluded that the formation of the Iraqi

Army was lagging and needed to be accelerated.

Multi National Support and Training Command

Iraq (MNSTC-I) had planned to create 10 Iraqi

divisions but by the end of 2004 only two

brigades had seen significant combat. The planners expected that the Iraqi Army could provide
(Fable 1) Iraqi Army Brigades in al-A nbar

vital manpower and better gather intelligence

than Coalition forces. Additionally, they believed

that, unlike Coalition forces, the Iraqi Army

would not be perceived as occupiers, undercutting a major motivation behind the insurgency.

Most importantly, there was an explicit assumption that the Iraqi Army could eventually shoulder counterinsurgency operations, allowing U.S.

forces to withdraw. The Iraqi Army would be

able to prevent AQI from forming safe havens in

Iraq and preserve the integrity of the Iraqi state.

As a result of this review, Casey directed that all

Coalition forces shift their focus from fighting

insurgents to training Iraqis. In order to accelerate Iraqi Army development, MNF-I created the

transition team concept—i 2 advisors embedded

into every Iraqi Army battalion, brigade, and

division.

The army was meant to he a national force

that integrated Kurds, Shi'a, and Sunni. After the

difficulties experienced with the Sunni Iraqi

National Guard and Fallujah Brigade in 2004,

163

MNF-I did not want all-Sunni units.1 It was

thought that such units would undermine the

development of a new Iraqi nation and cooperate with insurgents. True integration never

occurred within the army. Few Sunnis joined in

2004 and 2005. A number of battalions, brigades,

and divisions had Sunni commanders but the

vast majority of the officers and soldiers were

Shi'a.

By the end of 2006, an Iraqi Army had been

built but it appeared unable to survive on its

own. Prominent scholars cited flaws in the execution of Iraqization and generally claimed that

the United States needed to invest greater

resources into the effort. Ten divisions were considered too few to handle the insurgency.2 They

also argued that the Coalition had failed to provide sufficient training, equipment, or advisors to

the Iraqis. Iraqi Army battalions had only been

given a few weeks of formal training. In terms of

equipment, the Coalition had left the Iraqi Army

more lightly armed than the insurgents, trans-
ported in unarmored pick-up trucks, and often

bereft of essential personal items, like boots and

cold-weather jackets. Twelve advisors, often

reservists or national guardsmen rather than the

most capable active-duty personnel, were shown

to be inadequate to train, administer, and operate alongside a battalion.3

In spite of these problems, today, the consensus remains that a national, ethnically integrated,

and well-trained army is the best means of suppressing the insurgency. Ostensibly, the key to

U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is simply to invest

greater resources into the effort. General John

Abizaid, commander of Central Command, told

the U.S. Senate in November: "In discussions

with our commanders and Iraqi leaders it is clear

that they believe Iraqi forces can take more control fast, provided we invest more manpower

and resources into the Coalition military transition teams, speed the delivery of logistics and

mobility enablers, and embrace an aggressive

Iraqi-led effort to disarm illegal militias."4

Abizaid believed that U.S. forces might thereby

be able to hand over security to Iraqi forces within one year.5 Similarly, the Iraq Study Group's

highly anticipated December 2006 report emphasized: 'the urgent near-term need for significant

additional trained Army brigades, since this is the

(Figure 1) Iraqi forces as a percentage of total forces conducting counterinsurgency

164
key to Iraqis taking over full responsibility for

their own security."6 The report implied that a

shortcoming in "real combat capability" caused

the Iraqi Army to be unable to handle the insurgency. It recommended increasing the number of

U.S. advisors and personnel supporting Iraqi

Army units and providing improved equipment.7

The Iraqi Army in al-Anbar

Marine commands—the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) and II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF)—have held responsibility for al-Anbar Province since March 2004. I

MEF's first experience with the Iraqi Army

brigades in al-Anbar was in the second battle of

Fallujah, in November 2004. To the relief of

many U.S. officers, the predominantly Shi'a Iraqi

Army brigades stood and fought. After the battle,

new Iraqi Army brigades flowed into al-Anbar as

MNSTC-I trained more and more forces. In 2005,

the Ministry of Defense decided that both the 1st

and 7th Iraqi Divisions would be located in alAnbar. By April 2006, all seven brigades had

been deployed. Table 1 gives the name, location,

and time of arrival of every brigade.

Every Iraqi battalion, brigade, and division in

al-Anbar had its 12-man advisory team. National

guardsmen and U.S. Army reservists composed

the first advisory teams. By the end of 2005 the

Marine Corps devoted its own active-duty personnel to the mission. Officers slated for command and key personnel within Marine infantry

battalions became advisors. Additionally, Marine

and Army battalions partnered with Iraqi battalions, in order to assist in their operations and

training. Usually, the partnership process began

with an Iraqi company working with a U.S. company. Eventually, the company would operate

independently, followed by the battalion, and

ultimately the entire brigade.

The Capabilities of the Iraqi Army in al-Anbar

Throughout 2005, the Iraqi Army brigades in

al-Anbar developed. Figure 1 shows the percentage of Iraqis conducting counterinsurgency oper165

ations out of the total number of Coalition and

Iraq forces conducting counterinsurgency operations in al-Anbar (the figure excludes headquarters, logistics, and aviation units). By December

2005, the Iraqi Army was providing 40 to 50 percent of the manpower for counterinsurgency

operations. By March 2006, three brigades operated independently.

The Iraqi Army demonstrated strong combat

performance. Nearly every Iraqi Army battalion

stood its ground in major firefights. Most could

perform advanced tasks such as calling in close

air support, combining movement with suppressive fire, maneuvering, and assaulting insurgent

positions. On no occasion did insurgents rout or

overwhelm an Iraqi Army unit. The experiences

of two Iraqi brigades prQvide detailed proof of

the army's combat performance.

The 3d Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division (3-1 Iraqi

Brigade) operated in the rural area west of

Fallujah, along the Euphrates River. Other than

60 or so advisors, no Coalition ground forces

supported it. Some Marine officers likened the

area to Vietnam, with as many as 50 insurgents

launching coordinated attacks against Iraqi Army

outposts and patrols.8 The Iraqi soldiers generally stood and fought. Under the leadership of

their advisors, the Iraqis often employed close air

support or artillery to break attacks and maneuvered aggressively against their opponents. For

example, on 11 May 2006, insurgents coordinated two attacks against the brigade's first battalion. First, they hit a dismounted patrol with small

arms fire and RPGs. The Iraqis called for close air

support. The air support saw insurgents setting

up an ambush position. Using this surveillance,

the Iraqis counterattacked and drove off the

insurgents. Then, insurgents engaged a nearby

outpost with small arms, RPGs, and an antiaircraft gun. The Iraqis sent out their quick reaction

force, which outflanked the insurgent position.

They killed one insurgent, captured six more,

and seized the antiaircraft gun. According to its

advisors, the brigade won battles like this at least

once per month.

The 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division (1-1 Iraqi

Brigade) fought in eastern Ramadi, the scene of

the worst violence in al-Anbar. Insurgents
massed and assaulted brigade positions, sniped at

patrols, struck convoys with IEDs, and rammed

suicide car bombs into observation posts and

entry control points. As many as 100 insurgents

participated in some attacks. Firefights could last

an hour. The brigade performed well. Advisors

rated the brigade, a veteran of battles in Najaf,

Fallujah, Baghdad, and al-Qa'im, as highly competent in urban fighting. Other Coalition officers

considered Brigadier General Razzaq, the brigade

commander, the equivalent of the average U.S.

brigade commander. Razzaq's men clearly held a

tactical edge over the insurgents. Jundi (Arabic

term for an enlisted soldier) advanced under fire

and officers aggressively took the initiative. On

one occasion, 40-50 insurgents tried to pin, surround, and destroy . patrol from the brigade's

first battalion in the volatile Milaab district of

southeast Ramadi. The patrol stole the initiative

and pre-empted the attack by assaulting the insurgent positions in surrounding buildings.9 The

brigade suffered casualties and desertions from

the heavy fighting but never lost a firefight.

The other brigades succeeded in major

engagements as well. Even inexperienced and

poorly trained brigades stood and fought. For

example, Coalition officers considered 1st

Brigade, 7th Iraqi Division (1-7 Iraqi Brigade) to

be one of the two weakest brigades.

Nevertheless, its battalions endured heavy

fighting in western Ramadi. They consistently

defeated attacks involving 20 or more insurgents.10 The soldiers of the brigade's third battalion would advance under fire, assault insurgent

positions, and generally attempt to encircle and

outflank opponents. When an lED exploded they

would immediately go after the triggerman. Iraqi

officers, not just the U.S. advisors, provided the

leadership for such tactics. The jundi hunkered

down less than American troops and could be

recklessly brave in combat. Some U.S. officers

said that insurgents ran from the jundi of third

battalion.11

Besides succeeding in major firefights, the Iraqi

Army in al-Anbar showed a basic proficiency in

counterinsurgency techniques. Every battalion

conducted patrols, raids, and clearing operations,

sometimes as much as Coalition units. For example, 3-1 Iraqi Brigade aggressively patrolled their

area of operations and pressed outposts into

insurgent safe areas.12 Because of their aggressiveness, many Coalition officers candidly rated

the brigade as better than certain U.S. units. Good

Iraqi battalions sent out snipers, set ambushes,

and operated at night. U.S. officers considered 1-

1 Iraqi Brigade particularly good at squad- and

company-level tactics. The brigade's ambushes

regularly interdicted insurgents trying to enter

Ramadi.13 Iraqi units understood how to collect

intelligence and target insurgents. As will be

described later, the problem with intelligence was

not the Iraqi Army's understanding of how to collect it but the willingness of the population to

provide it in the first place. When intelligence was

available, Iraqi units could identify insurgents,

locate them, and then capture them in a raid. 14

Overall, the Iraqi Army showed it could 1)0th

fight and execute counterinsurgency techniques.

It did not operate as well as the Coalition forces

but could perform the same basic tasks. Major

Lloyd Freeman, the operations officer with the 1st

Iraqi Division military transition team, summed up

the Iraqi Army's combat performance well:

Some advisors claim the insurgents are

better than the Iraqi soldiers. However, I

have not seen an instance where an Iraqi

unit has been overrun or even required a

Coalition QRF to come to their rescue. I myself have seen enough patrols to be

appalled at some of the simple things they

are unable to do but in no case have I seen

a situation where I felt I was surrounded by

complete incompetence. I always felt they

could get the job done. It might he ugly but

the job would get done.15

Quite clearly, problems in advisors, equipment, and training were not preventing the Iraqi

Army from fighting the insurgents and displaying

a "real combat capability."

Sustained Insurgent Activity

The problem was that combat capability had little to do with the level of insurgent activity. In

166
spite of its dramatic growth and strong combat

performance, the Iraqi Army faced incessant

attacks, enduring a steady stream of attacks by

small arms fire, improvised explosive devices

(IEDs), indirect fire, and suicide car bombs. This

experience was shared by nearly all Iraqi units,

regardless of their skill level. Just like the

Coalition, the Iraqi Army could fight well and

understand counterinsurgency tactics yet still face

a vibrant insurgency. Notably, proficiency in

counterinsurgency techniques and combat performance did not save 1-1 and 3-1 Iraqi Brigades

from major attacks involving scores of insurgents.

Incident levels remained high in nearly every

brigade area of operations, regardless of the resident brigade's capabilities. Most disturbing for

U.S. interests, AQI maintained a presence

throughout the province. Overall, insurgent

attacks made it clear that the Iraqi Army could not

manage the insurgency with U.S. forces present,

which makes it highly unlikely they will be able

to do so absent U.S. forces—the primary goal of

Iraqization.

There is little reason to believe the answer to

this problem is more advising, training, or equipping. Above, I judged the Iraqi Army's combat

capability partly on the performance of two of its

best brigades, which may seem unfair. However,

1-1 and 3-1 Iraqi brigades represent critical cases

for Iraqization. One would expect them to face

fewer attacks. The fact that they did not casts

doubt on any argument that better advising, training, and equipping can enable Iraqization to succeed. If the best of the Iraqi Army brigades faced

heavy attacks, then more advising, training, and

equipping to bring the other brigades up to

speed is not likely to solve the problem.

The answer was also not that the Coalition and

Iraqi Army lacked sufficient forces to quell insurgent activity. Admittedly, Iraqi and Coalition

forces could not be everywhere, meaning the

insurgents had freedom to mass and gather for

attacks. Iraqi Army officers frequently noted that

al-Anbar was too big to be controlled by only 7

brigades. Furthermore, Iraqi battalions were

under-strength. Most operated at 30 to 80 percent

strength (150-400 men), excluding men on leave.

One-third of the 750 men in a battalion were on

167

leave at any time. Desertions and combat losses

further drained the strength of Iraqi battalions.

Desertions occurred because of poor living conditions, irregular pay, distance from home, and

constant exposure to combat. Blame falls largely

on the Ministry of Defense, which failed to pay

soldiers on time or provide combat replacements

for most of 2006. There is evidence that reinforcing or building new Iraqi Army units would have

helped. In 2004 and 2005, saturating cities with

forces, as in the second battle of Fallujah or the

battle of al-Qa'im, tended to reduce large-scale

attacks.

However, there is good reason to doubt

whether greater numbers would have made a

decisive difference. Reinforcement of counterinsurgency operations in 2006 had disappointing

results. The number of Iraqi Army units in

Ramadi, Hit, and Haditha increased substantially

in 2006 without any sustained drop in large-scale

attacks.

Indeed, attacks increased in Ramadi and

Haditha even though the number of forces met

the 20 security personnel per 1,000 civilians ratio

often touted as needed for effective counterinsurgency.16 In Ramadi, areas supposedly

"locked down" by thorough Iraqi patrolling witnessed attacks. In other words, even where the

Iraqi Army operated with sufficient numbers,

major insurgent activity did not always subside.

Thus, inadequate numbers alone do not seem to

explain why the Iraqi Army faced attacks.

Perhaps if the Ministry of Defense had flooded

al-Anbar with two or three additional divisions,

violence could have been subdued by sheer

weight of numbers. Even so, that would hardly

have been the most efficient solution and probably would not have removed the fundamental

roots of the violence.

Popular Opposition to the

Iraqi Army

The main reason that the Iraqi Army suffered

from incessant attacks is that the population sympathized with the insurgency. They generally

would not provide intelligence on the location

and identity of insurgents. Bottom-up intelligence
collection is essential to successful counterinsurgency. Without it, insurgents cannot be identified

from among the population and removed. As

Frank Kitson stated in his classic counterinsurgency text, Low Intensity Operations, "if it is

accepted that the problem of defeating the enemy

consists very largely of finding him, it is easy to

recognise the paramount importance of good

information."17 More recently, the U.S. Army and

Marine Corps new counterinsurgency manual

cited intelligence as one of the key principles of

counterinsurgency:

Without good intelligence, counterinsurgents

are like blind boxers wasting energy flailing at

unseen opponents and perhaps causing unintended harm. With good intelligence, counterinsurgents are like surgeons cutting Out cancerous tissue while keeping other vital organs intact.

Effective operations are shaped by timely, specific, and reliable intelligence, gathered and analyzed at the lowest possible level and disseminated throughout the force.18

In al-Anbar, insurgents could mass freely

because local residents would not inform the Iraqi

Army. Worse, some hid insurgents from Iraqi

Army patrols and sweeps or even joined the insurgency as fighters. Consequently, the Iraqi Army

could win every firefight and patrol diligently

without ever rooting out the insurgents.

The population opposed the Iraqi Army primarily because of its Shi'a identity. Sunnis disliked

the Shi'a-dominated Iraqi government. The government's insistence on denying Sunnis political

power and economic wealth convinced them of

its oppressive intentions. Sectarian violence in

Baghdad following the February 2006 Golden

Mosque bombing magnified the Sunni perception

that the Shi'a intended on oppressing them.

Polling in 2006 found that 77 to 90 percent of the

people viewed the government as illegitimate.

Eighty percent considered civil war likely. 19 As far

as Sunnis were concerned, Persians probably controlled the entire government. The Iraqi Army was

nothing more than a Shi'a militia bent on oppressing them. Polls confirmed that the majority of

Sunnis in al-Anbar viewed the Iraqi Army as a

threat.20

Virtually no Iraqi Army formation could gain

168

the support of a critical mass of the local population. Even the best brigades, like 3-1 Iraqi

Brigade, could not collect sufficient intelligence to

reduce insurgent activity. One battalion in that

brigade received only one actionable tip in eight

months, in spite of an active civil affairs effort.

The people in the area preferred to assist the

insurgents. They kept 3-1 Iraqi Brigade under

observation and reported its movements to insurgents. The 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division probably

held the best record in collecting intelligence but

this never sufficed to decapitate insurgent command and control or regularly warn of insurgent

attacks.21 Few people wanted to interact with the

Iraqi Army. They refused to take free water

offered by the brigade (some angrily poured it

onto the ground) and did not stop insurgents from

bombing mobile clinics devised to render medical

care to the people. One battalion commander said

he felt little sympathy from locals. Locals did not

come forward to provide information of value.

From his perspective, popular opposition to the

Iraqi Army was deeply ingrained. His officers

agreed that shaykhs and imams supported the

insurgents. The shaykhs and especially the imams

had the ear of the people and influenced them to

hide information from the Iraqi Army. In the battalion's experience, no other area of al-Anbar had

been so opposed to the army. One officer estimated that 25 to 30 percent of locals were insurgents.22

On the other side of Ramadi, the battalions of

1-7 Iraqi Brigade also could never get enough

intelligence to take out significant numbers of

insurgent leaders. One battalion commander, a

Sunni, complained that the people, mukhtars, and

city leaders were not cooperating with him. They

would not provide worthwhile information.23 He

believed locals were uncooperative because they

found government policies anti-Sunni and undemocratic.24 Another battalion commander stated

that his men got little of value from the locals.25

Some locals were openly hostile. They refused to

talk and would not provide information.26 A

Marine civil affairs team that interacted with the

population on a daily basis in Ramadi suspected

that most people hoped that Saddam would

return and the new government would leave.27
In Fallujah, locals gave the Iraqi Army minimal

information on the location of insurgents and hid

insurgents who attacked the army.28 Irnams told

locals to fight the Iraqi Army.29 Iraqi Army officers

believed the people perceived them as occupiers

and supported the insurgents.30 They never heard

an imam denounce an attack on the army. Indeed,

at one city council meeting, city officials laughed

derisively at an Iraqi officer when he noted his

men received no cooperation from locals; as if to

ask why he would expect any different. City leaders regularly accused the Iraqi Army of being

Jaysh al Mahdi, Badr Corps, or an Iranian occupation force. At meeting after meeting, they claimed

the Iranians had taken charge of the government.31 A prominent imam said that the people of

Fallujah were fighting a Persian occupation.32

Similarly, a respected teacher accused Iraqi soldiers of following their sectarian desires and being

an instrument of Iran.33 Unfounded tales of horrible Iraqi atrocities often accompanied accusations

of sectarianism. One local at a city council meeting said: "When your [Coalitioni forces question

us, we at least feel mostly safe. When the Iraqi

Army and police take us, our people are killed

and their bodies thrown into the streets."34 Some

locals called for revenge for the heavy-handedness of the Iraqi Army.

The Iraqi Army fed Sunni sectarian fears by

occasionally treating the population poorly. At

times, Iraqi soldiers cursed at Sunnis, stole items

from homes, and occupied Sunni residences as

observation posts.35 If under stress, Iraqi soldiers

could be physically brutal. In particular, the death

of a comrade could motivate jundi to randomly

detain or even beat locals. Usually, though, Iraqi

officers intervened and reinforced discipline.

For example, Razzaq tried to counteract any

abusive or sectarian tendencies in his brigade.36

And Brigadier General Abdullah, the Sunni commander of 4th Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division (4-1 Iraqi

Brigade), made a concerted effort to work with

local leaders and have an amicable relationship

with the population. City leaders in Fallujah

upheld his brigade as a model of good behavior.

Overall, brutality was an exception rather than the

rule for the Iraqi Army. In spite of some Sunni

propaganda, no Iraqi Army battalion ever acted as

169

a Shi'a death squad or persecuted the Sunni population. Some jundi and officers had connections

to a militia and many admired Moqtada Sadr. But

no entire unit pursued a sectarian agenda against

the Sunnis.

3d Brigade, 7th Iraqi Division (3-7 Iraqi Brigade)

If Sunnis fought the Iraqi Army because of its

Shi'a identity, one might expect that a Sunni

brigade would have a better ability to keep violence at a low level. Indeed, the one Iraqi

brigade with a large Sunni composition experienced minimal attacks and easily enforced security in its area. The 3d Brigade, 7th Iraqi Division

arrived in al-Qa'im in February 2006, following a

major Coalition clearing operation (Operation

Steel Curtain). The brigade obviously benefited

from Operation Steel Curtain and could not have

cleared the city on its own. What the brigade did

was prevent insurgents from infiltrating back

into the city. In other cities, such as Haditha and

to some extent Fallujah, insurgents reinfiltrated

following clearing operations and resumed

attacks. Uniquely, a large number of Sunnis filled

3-7 Iraqi Brigade's rolls. Over the next 10

months, the brigade faced few attacks in spite of

being severely undermanned, often operating at

less than 50 percent strength (excluding leave

rotations). It suffered roughly a quarter of the

casualties the Iraqi Army suffered in Fallujah, the

next most benign operating environment of

comparable size (200,000 people). The fact the

brigade was relatively untrained and undermanned yet subject to few attacks reinforces the

argument that training and numbers were not

critical to the ability of the Iraqi Army to manage

the insurgency.

The success of the brigade depended on the

Albu Mahal tribe, the most powerful tribe in the

al-Qa'im area. Roughly 20 to 40 percent of the

brigade came from that tribe.37 The Albu Mahal

had been insurgents in 2004. In 2005, AQI came

to al-Qa'im. The tribe disliked AQI's indiscriminate use of force, importation of foreign fighters,

and encroachment upon their control of the

black-market. Unfortunately, AQI defeated the
Albu Mahal in a battle for control of the city in

2005.38 Thereafter, the Albu Mahal helped the

Coalition reassert control over al-Qa'im. In particular, the Coalition formed a set of "Desert

Protector" platoons, composed of Albu Mahal

and advised by U.S. Special Forces. The Ministry

of Defense made special allowance for the formation of these militia-like units. The Desert

Protector platoons proved especially useful during Operation Steel Curtain, when they collected

large amounts of intelligence. Fellow tribesmen

readily provided information on AQI sleeper

agents, safe houses, ammunition caches, and

bomb-making workshops.39

The Iraqi government rewarded the Albu

Mahal for their support of Operation Steel

Curtain. The Ministry of Defense allowed tribesmen to serve in 3-7 Iraqi Brigade, breaking the

standard rule that brigades in al-Anbar could not

he composed of local Sunnis. An Albu Mahal

tribal leader, Colonel Ishmael, became the

brigade's commander. Two battalion commanders and several staff officers were also Aihu

Mahal. The Coalition formed a police force,

commanded by Colonel Ishmael's brother. By

the end of the year, the police force numbered

over 1,000, largely from the Albu Mahal.

The Albu Mahal received other forms of

rewards besides control over an Iraqi Army

brigade. The Ministry of Defense appointed

Major General Murthi, from the tribe, as commander of the entire 7th Iraqi Division. Another

tribal leader became mayor of al-Qa'im. In terms

of money, the tribe now had freedom to retake

control of the black market and run smuggling

operations into Syria. Control over phosphate

mines in Akashat gave the tribe a lucrative commodity to trade through al-Qa'im.40 These

rewards meant the Albu Mahal had deep interests in ensuring insurgents; particularly AQI,

never returned to al-Qa'im.

The brigade, together with the police, proved

highly effective in suppressing insurgent activity.

Insurgent infiltration back into the city was rapidly cut off. In contrast to other Iraqi Army formations, 3-7 Iraqi Brigade demonstrated a robust

capability for human intelligence collection.

Battalions collected intelligence prodigiously, in

170

spite of the fact they had been given little training. Soldiers and officers aggressively pursued

leads and regularly captured insurgents.

Information could be gathered easily from other

Albu Mahal.

The Habbaniyah Mutiny

If Shi'a identity inhibited the effectiveness of

the Iraqi Army, then the obvious answer would

seem to be to recruit more Sunnis. I MEF and II

MEF recognized that the Shi'a identity of the Iraqi

Army inflamed tensions with the local Sunni population of al-Anbar. Accordingly, recruiting Sunnis

into the army, particularly during early 2006,

became a priority. Unfortunately, outside alQa'im, recruiting Sunnis proved quite difficult.

In late 2005, the Ministry of Defense granted

that 5,000 Sunnis from al-Anbar could be recruited into the army. In early 2006, the figure was

raised to 6,500. However, the ministry did not

want all of the Sunnis serving in the 1st or 7th

Divisions. Rather, the Sunni recruits would he

deployed throughout the armed forces. The

thought was that if allowed to remain in al-Anbar

large numbers of Sunni soldiers, who would have

ties to local insurgents, might undermine the 1st

and 7th Iraqi Divisions. In the view of Ministry of

Defense as well as much of the Iraqi government,

Sunni elements of the two divisions, might

become de facto Sunni militias resistant to the

Iraqi government, like the old Fallujah Brigade (3

7 Iraqi Brigade evidently was exempt from this

concern because of the Alhu Mahal rivalry with

AQI). Consequently, only a minority of the

recruits was permitted to serve in al-Anbar.

The first recruiting effort occurred at the end of

March. It aimed for 1,000 recruits. Ultimately, I

MEF sent 1,017 recruits to training, largely from

Fallujah. Unfortunately, success had been built on

false pretenses. The Sunni recruits believed they

would be serving near their homes. They did not

know they could be deployed anywhere in Iraq

or even anywhere in al-Anhar. In fact, the mayor

of Fallujah had reassured the Fallujah recruits that

they would serve in Fallujah. By all accounts, his

assurances had induced many of them to volunteer.
on 30 April, the new soldiers graduated from

training. During the ceremony, replete with

Coalition and Iraqi generals, it was announced

that many would be deployed outside al-Anbar.

Yelling and throwing their uniforms to the

ground, 600 of the newly trained soldiers refused

to deploy. The main reason was a desire to stay

close to home hut this was connected to a fear of

Shi'a militias and sectarian retribution if they

joined predominantly Shi'a units and deployed

outside the Sunni triangle. Many told U.S. officers

that they would he attacked if they left al-Anbar.

The mayor of Fallujah supported the recruits,

telling Coalition officers: "As long as I am receiving corpses from Baghdad, I will not send soldiers

there'41 In the end, more than 600 of the 1,000

recruits deserted.42

The mutiny deterred Sunnis from subsequent

recruiting efforts. Local imams and shaykhs evidently spoke out against joining the army.43 I

MEF never found 6,500 Sunnis for the army.

The Habhaniyah Mutiny showed that Sunnis

would not serve in the Shi'a dominated army or

deploy outside al-Anbar. It is the final piece of

evidence that makes the Iraqi Army appear distinctly unable to handle the Sunni insurgency. The

Iraqi Army cannot gather the intelligence necessary for effective counterinsurgency because of its

Shi'a identity; while its structure as an integrated

and national force deters Sunnis, who alone can

collect vital intelligence, from joining.

The Year of the Police

After the Habbaniyah Mutiny, I MEF came to

the conclusion that the best way to recruit

Sunnis into the Iraqi security forces would be

through forming local police forces. Unlike the

army, the Iraqi government permitted police

forces to be locally recruited. Casey had already

dubbed 2006 the "year of the police." He wanted I MEF to recruit 11,330 police in Anbar by the

end of the year. In the view of MNF-I, the establishment of law or order by police after the Iraqi

Army had suppressed large-scale insurgent activity represented a natural progression toward stability. The commanders of I MEF tried to build

police less for this reason than because they

171

needed Sunnis to fight the insurgency.44

To the surprise of many U.S. officers, reliable

local police actually formed in Al Anbar. By the

end of 2006, roughly 20 percent of the forces

conducting counterinsurgency operations in alAnbar were police (see Figure 1). Although they

had no love for the Iraqi government, a number

of Sunnis wanted the violence and instability in

al-Anbar to end. While in 2004 Sunnis had stood

fairly united in support of the insurgency, by

2006 divisions had emerged between local Sunni

leaders and hard-core insurgent groups.45 Hardcore insurgent groups like AQI upset local Sunni

leaders with their heavy-handed tactics and

domination of the black market.46 Polls found

that the majority of Sunnis opposed the foreign

fighters affiliated with AQI and viewed them as

a significant threat. In fact, 47 to 65 percent

favored killing them.47 Accordingly, certain

Sunni leaders cooperated with the Coalition to

form police forces, most notably in Ramadi and

Fallujah. In Fallujah, a set of local tribes, civic

leaders, and imams supported the creation of a

police force of 1,200.48 None of these groups

wanted hardcore insurgents in Fallujah. In

Ramadi, a group of tribes centered on the Albu

Thiyab, Albu Mi Jassim, and Albu Risha formed

a police force of 1,000, under the leadership of

Shaykh Sittar, a leader of the Albu Risha. In

September, Sittar openly announced the opposition of those tribes to AQI and foreign-backed

terrorists.49 Other police forces equally committed to fighting AQI formed in Bagdadi, Hit, and

Haditha.

Police forces proved far more dangerous to

insurgents than the Iraqi Army. One policeman

told a Marine advisor: "What makes an insurgent's heart turn cold is to see an Iraqi policeman in uniform. It is as if he has been stabbed

in the chest with a cold knife."5° The effectiveness of the police derived from their ability as

Sunnis and members of the community to collect

actionable intelligence. In Fallujah, most tips on

insurgent activity came from the police.51

Marines patrolling or standing post with the

police were impressed with their knowledge of

insurgent activity, insurgent tactics, and the allegiances of the population in the surrounding
area. The police regularly detained insurgents,

especially in retaliation for attacks on policemen.

At least five insurgent cells were taken out in

July and August alone. In Ramadi, the police

aggressively targeted insurgents from information gathered during patrols or from their tribal

connections.52

Locals praised them.53 On one patrol into a

neighborhood controlled by AQI, locals were in

tears at the sight of police. When asked in a poll

if tribes were a good source of security, 69 percent of respondents strongly agreed (when

asked the same question about the Iraqi Army,

81 percent strongly disagreed).54 Through their

access to intelligence, the Ramadi police and

their tribes gave AQI a bloody nose during the

last months of 2006. Not just thugs and fighters

were captured or killed but leaders off Coalition

high value targeting lists, including at least two

al-Qaeda in Iraq "emirs" (senior leaders within

Ramadi). The total number of publicized killings

numbered over 20 by the end of October.55

Coalition officers were particularly impressed

with the willingness of the Ramadi police to

stand and fight. In one notable engagement,

roughly 25 insurgents positioned in an apartment complex ambushed a police raiding force.

The police held their ground despite casualties

and then assaulted the apartment complex. A

Coalition quick reaction force provided some

fire support hut the police cleared the insurgents

out of the apartments entirely on their own over

an hour of fighting, capturing many of the insurgents in the process. Insufficient numbers prevented the police from suppressing insurgent

activity throughout Ramadi but their willingness

to stand and fight plus access to intelligence

allowed them to at least keep their own tribal

areas relatively free of violence.

Unlike the Albu Mahal in al-Qa'im, police

forces in Fallujah and Ramadi were too small (for

reasons described below) to completely suppress insurgent activity. However, their ability to

reduce insurgent activity still surpassed that of

the Iraqi Army. In Fallujah, the support of

imams, shaykhs, and former military officers

enabled the police to lock down the city for the

October 2005 referendum, December 2005 elec172

tion, and March 2006 Iraqi Army recruiting

drive.6 During the referendum and election,

both the Coalition and Iraqi Army stayed within

their bases and outposts, meaning the police

handled the bulk of the security duties. In

Ramadi, the police controlled incidents within

their tribal areas and neighborhoods, even if

they could not secure the city as a whole.

Police forces only succeeded because of the

support of local leaders, such as shaykhs and

imams, who encouraged young men to volunteer and locals to provide information. The Iraqi

government motivated local leaders to build

police forces and stand against AQI through payoffs, political positions, and allowing them to

control their own security forces. These rewards

did not mean that local leaders trusted the Iraqi

government. Rather, they made it worthwhile for

local leaders to risk their lives opposing AQI in

order to secure their own communities.

In Fallujah, economic assistance did not

restore prosperity but gave the city leaders, who

supported the police, the ability to keep portions

of the population complacent. The Iraqi government provided $180 million for housing compensation and the Coalition conducted major

projects to improve power, water, sewage, and

medical care.57 Politically, the Coalition

arranged for Fallujah city leadership to have

direct access to the Iraqi government by bringing major national political leaders to Fallujah for

talks. Militarily, the Fallujah police became the

protectors of the city. People approved of the

police not only because they opposed AQI but

also because they kept out Shi'a militias from

Baghdad.

In Ramadi, Maliki purportedly awarded Sittar

and his subordinates cash gifts and salaries.58

The government turned a blind eye when Sittar

regained control of criminal activity along the

highways near Ramadi, which AQI had disturbed.59 The government also provided prestigious political positions. At the end of October,

the Ministry of the Interior granted Sittar authority over security in al-Anbar. Another leader in

his movement became the provincial police

chief. The ministry permitted the movement to

create three "emergency" battalions, totaling
2,250 men. This was a huge concession. For all

intents and purposes, the government was permitting Sittar and his movement to have their

own militia. Sittar probably received vehicles

and weapons from the Iraqi government as well.

Maliki's aides have stated that the prime minister

supports Sittar's movement and has met with its

leaders.60

Unfortunately, the government only bought

off a minority of the population. This is the reason the police could not completely suppress

insurgent activity. Given high levels of attacks,

insurgents probably outnumbered the police

everywhere except al-Qa'im. One imam said that

5 percent of the people in Fallujah were hardcore insurgents. This was undoubtedly an exaggeration but even if the figure was 2 percent, the

police would still be outnumbered. Four thousand insurgents (if Fallujah contained 200,000

people) would exceed the combined strength of

the Coalition, Iraqi Army, and police. In Ramadi,

Sittar slowly built support among other tribes but

key tribes and most of the insurgent fighters

would not oppose AQI. Sectarian violence and

disaffection with the government remained a

major concern for the bulk of the population in

both Fallujah and Ramadi that deterred wider

action against AQI. Rising sectarian violence

motivated men in Fallujah to join the insurgency,

particularly refugees from Baghdad. According

to comments from some Sunnis, these men

viewed AQI as the only means of defense

against the Shi'a militias. By mid-2006, continuing violence in Baghdad made many imams

resistant to moderation. Without their support,

the police lost their best means of securing popular sympathy and discouraging insurgents from

attacking them.61 People had similar opinions in

Ramadi. Lieutenant Colonel Adnan, chief of a

police station in Ramadi, said:

The people believe that the main reason

for problems in Iraq is the government.

Hakim and Sadr dominate the government.

They work against Iraq. The situation had

instilled hopelessness in the population.

They do not believe stability will return.

Good government in Baghdad would

173

make everything successful. It would end

sectarian violence. The government provides no help to Ramadi and hence the situation is not good.62

In many respects, the Iraqi government had

only done enough to reconcile with select

groups that had their own reasons to oppose

insurgent activity. Efforts had been insufficient to

overcome the deep grievances held by most of

the population.

At the end of 2006, the police in Fallujah and

Ramadi remained resilient hut the situation could

hardly be called stable. In Fallujah, insurgents

constantly targeted the police and their supporters with sniper attacks, suicide car bombs, and

assassinations. Casualties included the deputy

police chief, the traffic police chief, two capable

senior officers, a senior imam, and two chairmen

of the Fallujah city council. The Coalition counted over 30 assassinations in July and August

2006 alone. Locals were not willing to risk their

lives to protect the police, even if they appreciated their overall efforts. In Ramadi, AQI slew

off-duty police and members of their tribes

almost daily, including the shaykh of the Albu

All Jassim tribe.6 Still, as of January 2007, the

will of the police in al-Anbar never broke; they

continued to fight and contribute more toward

stability than either the Coalition or the Iraqi

Army.

Conclusion

This paper has asked whether Iraqization can

produce security forces able to suppress the

insurgency in al-Anbar. The answer is not with

an integrated and predominantly Shi'a army. If

the United States withdrew today, the war would

continue unabated. The Iraqi Army would be

surrounded by a population unwilling to help

them. At best, the army would operate as they

do now, unable to control much of al-Anbar. At

worst, the army would be isolated around their

posts and slowly whittled away by insurgent

attacks.

Eventually, the insurgents, including AQI,

would drive the army from al-Anbar and consol-
idate control over the province. The Shi'a government might eventually win through sheer

numbers or ruthless brutality but the stage

would be set for a long and bloody civil war.

Insurgent and AQI control over al-Anbar and a

civil war would hardly be positive outcomes for

U.S. interests in the Middle East.

This grim forecast is not likely to change, no

matter the hours of training, amount of equipment, or number of advisors invested into the

Iraqi Army. Sunnis view the Iraqi Army as an

occupation force and consequently refuse to

provide the intelligence vital to successful counterinsurgency. The recommendations of the Iraq

Study Group and other notable scholars to add

advisors, improve equipment, lengthen training,

or increase the number of brigades will improve

the efficiency of the Iraqi Army but not enable it

to reduce insurgent activity. More advisors, training, or equipment will not change the identity of

the Iraqi Army or motivate Sunnis to join it; nor

will increasing the size of the Iraqi Army.

Iraqization might still work in al-Anbar but

the Iraqi Army cannot he the lone vehicle. Any

capable security force must include Sunnis in

order to gather intelligence from the population.

Yet Sunnis will not join an army dominated by

Shi'a.

Unfortunately, the majority Shi'a share of the

population of Iraq argues that any integrated

army will inherently have a Shi'a "face."

Consequently, the Coalition should focus on

building local police forces. Under the right conditions, Sunnis have shown themselves willing to

join local police forces, which have been able to

combat AQI, America's number one enemy in

Iraq. Select areas have been formed that enjoy

restricted insurgent activity. The growth of the

police could expand these areas an enable a

reduced U.S. presence.

Furthermore, this model might be implemented outside al-Anbar. Local police forces should

be no less effective in other Sunni provinces,

where the same division between AQI and Sunni

leaders exists. To give three examples, 3d

Brigade, 2d Iraqi Division, in Ninewa Province

has a battalion of locally recruited Sunnis.

According to U.S. officers, this battalion performs well against AQI as long as it operates in

its local area. Similarly, in Mosul, the Iraqi government granted the Jabburi tribe control over

the police forces in order to counter AQI.

Finally, Prime Minister Maliki has reportedly considered implementing the model in Diyala

province, where there is a large Sunni population and AQI is present.64

The success of police in the Sunni provinces

turns on the ability of the Iraqi government to

reach out to local Sunni communities and

groups, particularly tribes, as they did with the

Fallujah city leadership, the Albu Mahal tribe,

and Shaykh Sittar's movement. So far, the Iraqi

government has not done enough to win over

more than a minority of the population. Imarns,

shaykhs, and other local leaders would need to

be lavished with political and economic rewards

for supporting the police. Such rewards could

include: political positions, command of military

formations, civil affairs projects, economic compensation packages, salaries, and permission to

run black market activities. Otherwise, local

leaders will not risk their lives against the insurgents. This form of Iraqization cannot succeed

without the support of the Iraqi government. If

the government cannot deliver rewards to the

Sunnis, then Sunnis will not form security forces

and the insurgency will not be suppressed.

To be clear, the evidence suggests that the

model, and Iraqization as a whole, can only

lessen, not eliminate, insurgent activity in Sunni

areas. Sectarian violence and some degree of

insurgent activity will continue as long as no

political solution is found to the differences

between the Sunni and the Shi'a within Iraq.

Iraqization cannot bring peace to Iraq even if it

might reduce the requirement for U.S. forces

throughout the country.

Building local police forces would be a fundamental shift from the current structure of

Iraqization, which holds an integrated national

army as the key to victory. The army should not

be abandoned; it has a proven ability to conduct

combat operations and can provide backbone to

police operations. Nevertheless, greater effort

would need to be placed behind local police

forces of a single identity. Although police in

174
name, the Coalition would essentially be allowing local .Sunni militias. The formation of a

national democracy would be undermined. The

United States would be tacitly permitting the

Sunnis, like the Shi'a with Jaysh al Mahdi and the

Badr Corps, to defend themselves. With each

community's military forces balancing against

one another, this would be one more step

toward the fragmentation of Iraq into Sunni,

Shi'a, and Kurdish areas. A real possibility exists

that Sunni police in Baghdad and other mixed

areas would clash with Shi'a militias in defense

of their neighborhoods. Under the worst case,

Sunni police might attack Shi'a areas.

Additionally, the government would be devolving power from democratically elected officials

to traditional non-elected authority figures, such

as imarps and shaykhs, which could further

undermine the democratization effort. Indeed,

the move would drive Iraqi political development backwards toward the way that Iraq was

ruled by the British, who gave the tribes considerable power in order to balance the authority of

the government. That policy eventually left the

Iraqi government dependent on certain tribes for

authority (ironically, many of the very ones now

forming local police) and may have contributed

to its ultimate downfall.

These possibilities reduce but do not eliminate the value of building local Sunni police. To

a certain extent, the costs can be exaggerated.

National unity may be weakened but it is unlikely that local police would actually fragment the

state. Outside Baghdad, Sunni police forces

probably have a better relationship with the Iraqi

government than any other element of Sunni

society and there are no cases of Sunni police

from al-Anbar attacking Shi'a areas. Sunnis may

not help the Iraqi Army detain fellow Sunnis but

all are not at open war with the Iraqi government either. The risk of clashes with Shi'a militia

could be mitigated by not forming Sunni police

within Baghdad. Furthermore, the Iraqi government has already been willing to countenance

the formation of Sunni police. This suggests that

the government does not view Sunni police as a

threat. Indeed, an official from the Maliki government told the Washington Post: "Obviously

175

some people see this as a threat, but when compared to other threats, this is a rather benign

one."6 As long as the Iraqi government is providing the economic and political rewards to

supportive Sunni groups, the likelihood of the

British experience being repeated will be limited. These Sunni groups will inherently depend

on the government for patronage and power.

They will be hard-pressed to challenge its

authority without undermining their own position.

Ultimately, the United States faces a choice. A

national and integrated state can continue to be

pushed, at the cost of the presence of hard-core

Sunni insurgents, such as AQI. Or the ties that

bind the state can be loosened in order to

remove hard-core insurgents, at the cost of formalizing sectarian divisions and weakening

democratization. The latter is hardly optimal but

still preferable to allowing America's number

one enemy—AQI—to thrive in Iraq. By reducing

the insurgency, the Iraqi government may actually gain better control over Iraq than it enjoys

now, or ever will if a national and integrated

army remains the sole focus of Iraqization.

Notes

Working paper, Center for Stability and

Development, Center for Naval Analyses,

February 2007. Reprinted by permission of the

Center for Naval Analyses.

1. In 2004, the Iraqi National Guard in al-Anbar plus the

ill-fated Fallujah Brigade performed poorly, either

because of insurgent intimidation or outright sympathy

for the insurgency. Only one of the seven Iraqi National

Guard battalions demonstrated minimal levels of effectiveness. The Fallujah Brigade was basically controlled

by the insurgents and would not cooperate with the

Iraqi government.

2. Of the 10 divisions, those in Shi'a and Kurdish areas

were locally based and could not be deployed to fight

the insurgency in Sunni areas.

3. Michael Vickers, "Military Strategies for

Unconventional Warfare," Council on Foreign Relations,

New York, 27 October 2006; Thomas X. Hammes, An

Oversight Hearing on the Planning and Conduct of the

War in Iraq," Senate Democratic Policy Hearing, 25

September 2006; Thomas Ricks, "U.S. Military is Still

Waiting for Iraqi Forces to 'Stand Up'," Washington

Post, 1 October 2006; Thomas Ricks, "Flaws Cited in
Effort to Train Iraqi Forces," Washington Post, 21

November 2006; Hans Binnendijk and Bing West,

"Force Multiplier," Wall Street Journal, 21 November

2006.

4. General John Abizaid, Testimony to Senate Armed

Services Committee, 15 November 2006.

5. Ibid.

6. The Iraq Study Group Report (New York: Vintage

Books, 2006), 70.

7. Ibid., xvi, 70-75, 77-83.

8. Discussion following I MEF Staff Visit to 3-1 Iraqi

Brigade, Camp Fallujah, 20 April 2006.

9. Discussion with 1st Battalion, 506th U.S. Infantry

Regiment (1-506 IN), Camp Corregidor, 12.

10. Discussion with 1st Battalion, 172d Infantry

Regiment (1-172 IN); Camp Ramadi, 14 March 2006.

Discussions with 3d Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment

(3/7), Hurricane Point, Ramadi, 11 March 2006.

11. Discussion with 1-172 IN, Camp Ramadi, 14 March

2006.

12. Discussion following I MEF Staff Visit to 3-1 Iraqi

Brigade, Camp Fallujah, 20 April 2006.

13. Discussion with 1-506 IN, Camp Corregidor, 12 July

2006.

14. Discussion with 1-1 Iraqi Brigade military transition

team, Combat Outpost, 10 July 2006.

15. Correspondence with 1st Iraqi Division military

transition team, 27 May 2006.

16. James Quinlivan, "Force Requirements in Stability

Operations," Parameters 25 (Winter 1995).

17. Frank Kitson, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion,

Insurgency & Peacekeeping (London: Faber and Faber,

1971), 95.

18. Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5

(Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the

Army, December 2006), 1-23.

19. Al-Aribar Survey 11: September/October 2006,

October 2006, 24; Al-Anbar Survey 7: May 2006, 10 June

2006, 43.

20. Al-Anbar Survey 7: May 2006, 10 June 2006, 43.

21. Discussions with 1-1 Iraqi Brigade military transition

team, Combat Outpost, 10 July 2006; Discussions with

1-1 Iraqi Brigade, Combat Outpost, 10 July 2006;

Discussions with 1-506 IN, Camp Corregidor, 10-12 July

2006.

22. Discussion with 1-1 Iraqi Brigade, Ramadi, 11 July

2006.

23. Provincial Reconstruction Meeting, Government

Center, Ramadi, 13 March 2006.

24. Discussion with 1-172 IN, Camp Ramadi, 14 March

2006.

25. Brief with 1-7 Iraqi Brigade, Camp Ramadi, 15

March 2006.

26. Discussion with military transition team for a battalion in 1-7 Iraqi Brigade, Ramadi, 6 July 2006.

27. Discussion with Government Support Team,

Government Center, Ramadi, 12 March 2006.

28. Fallujah City Council Meeting, Fallujah Mayor's

176

Compound, 31 July 2006.

29. Discussions with 2-1 Iraqi Brigade, CMOC, Fallujah,

20 March 2006.

30. Discussion with 2d Battalion, 2d Brigade, 1st Iraqi

Division military transition team, Fallujah, 31 July 2006.

31. Security Council Meeting, CMOC, Fallujah, 20 March

2006.

32. Fallujah City Council Meeting, Fallujah Mayor's

Compound, 31 July 2006.

33. Fallujah City Council Meeting, Fallujah Mayor's

Compound, 16 May 2006.

34. Correspondence with al-Anbar State Department

Representative, 13 March 2006.

35. Coalition units also occupied Sunni residences as

observation posts.

36. Discussion with Brigadier General Razzaq, Combat

Outpost, 11 April 2006. Discussion with 1-1 Iraqi

Brigade, Combat Outpost, 10 July 2006.

37. Discussions with Regimental Combat Team 7 (RCT7), Camp Al Asad, 23 February 2006.

38. Hannah Allam and Mohammed al Dulaimy, "Iraqis

Lament Call for Help," Philadelphia Inquirer, 17 May

2005.

39. "Iraq's Desert Protection Force at War," Front Page,

1 January 2006.

40. Discussions with RCT-7, Camp Al Asad, 15 July

2007.

41. Fallujah City Council Meeting, Mayor's Complex, 2

May 2006.

42. 1 MEF Staff Meeting, Camp Fallujah, 2 May 2006.

43. Regimental Combat Team 5 (RCT-5) Combined

Commanders' Meeting, Camp Fallujah, 10 May 2006,

44. I MEF Commanders' Conference, Camp Fallujah, 8

August 2006.

45. Hence, in 2004, the Iraqi National Guard and

Fallujah Brigade were ineffective because the Sunni

population fully supported violent resistance. By 2006,

that dynamic had changed and local Sunni forces could

be formed.

46. Michael Gordon, "Wary Iraqis are Recruited as

Policemen," New York Times, 24 July 2006.

47. AJ-Anbar Survey 11: September/October 2006,

October 2006, 29,41.

48. Discussion with Fallujah Police Transition Team,

Camp Fallujah, 25 March 2006.

49. Khalid al-Ansary and Ali Adeeb, "Most Tribes in

Anbar Agree to United Against Insurgents,"New York

Times, 18 September 2006.

50. Discussions with RCT-7, Camp Al Asad, 15 July

2006.

51. Discussion with Fallujah Police Transition Team,

Camp Fallujah, 25 March 2006; Anna Mulrine, "Getting

it Right with the Law," U.S. News & World Report, 24 July

2006.

52. Thiebauld Malterre, "Ramadi: Defended by

Insurgents Turned Police," AFP 2 December 2006.

53. Discussion with 1-506 IN, ECP-8, Ramadi, 11 August

2006.
54. Poll of Ramadi, April 2006.

55. Mussab al Khairalli, "Sunni Chiefs Offer al-Maliki

Help in War on Militants," Washington Times, 28

September 2006; Ellen Knickmeyer and Muhammed

Saif Adin, "Families Flee Iraqi River Towns on 4th Day

of Sectarian Warfare," Washington Post, 17 October

2006.

56. Discussion with Fallujah Police Transition Team,

Fallujah Police Station, 26 April 2006; Meeting with former Iraqi Army generals, Fallujah Police Station, 6 April

2006.

57. Discussion with 3d Civil Affairs Group, Fallujah

CMOC, 26 April 2006.

58. Peter Beaumont, The Guardian, 3 October 2006.

59. Mark Kukis, "Turning Iraq's Tribes Against alQaeda," Time, 26 December 2006.

60. Joshua Partlow, "Sheiks Help Curb Violence in

Iraq's West, U.S. Says," Washington Post, 27 January

2007.

177

61. Discussion with al-Anbar imam, 30 June 2006.

62. Discussions with Ramadi Police, Jazirah Police

Station, 28 July 2006.

63. Ibid.

64. Joshua Partlow, "Sheiks Help Curb Violence in

Iraq's West, U.S. Says," Washington Post, 27 January

2007.

65. Ibid.

About the Author

Carter A. Malkasian directs the Small Wars Program at the Center

for Naval Analyses. Prior to his current job, he was assigned to the

I Marine Expeditionary Force as an advisor on counterinsurgency.

He deployed with I MEF to Iraq from February to May 2003,

February 2004 to February 2005, and February 2006 to August

2006.

The Anbar Awakening

by Austin G. Long

Survival, April-May 2008

J

n late 2006, after several failed attempts and

false starts, a tribal grouping in Iraq's restive

province of Anbar allied with the United States

and the central government of Iraq to fight 'alQaeda in Mesopotamia." The U.S. alliance with this

group, known, as the Anbar Salvation Council

(ASC), was widely hailed as a breakthrough both

by members of the press and some officials in the

U.S. and Iraqi governments.' Certainly the ASC's

cooperation made Anbar's capital Ramadi, previously one of the most violent cities in Iraq, much

safer. Cooperation with the tribes of Anbar was not

unprecedented for Washington and Baghdad, but

the alliance with the ASC was both more public

and more dramatic than previous, cooperation and

saw significant linking of certain tribes and tribal

leaders with the formal government structure of the

province. In 2007, the U.S. military began seeking

to forge similar alliances across Iraq, making Anbar

the model for the provision of internal security.

Relying on tribes to provide security is not a

new phenomenon for Iraq. The British did so in

the 1920s; later Saddam Hussein became a master

of using them to ensure the continuity of his rule,

particularly once the formal Iraqi state and the

Ba'ath Party withered in the 1980s and 1990s.

While the current attempt in Anbar is analogous, it

is not identical, and the differences suggest that it

is likely to be less successful in the long run than

Saddam's effort. Moreover, the current attempt

highlights tension between the means and ends of

Iraq strategy. The tribal strategy is a means to

achieve one strategic end, fighting al-Qaeda in

Mesopotarnia, but is antithetical to another, the creation of a stable, unified and democratic Iraq.

The Tribe and the State

The nature of tribes can be quite confusing to

those unfamiliar with them. In general, a tribe con179

sists of various smaller clans, in turn composed of

extended families. Members of a tribe claim kinship, which is often based on association and assertion of a 'myth of common ancestry' rather than

actual consanguinity.2 This asserted relationship is

sometimes called "fictive kinship." Fictive or not,

this kinship helps regulate conflict and provides

benefits such as jobs and social welfare in environments where the modern state does not exist or is

too weak to function.3 In Iraq, both the basic structure of tribes and the terms used to refer to them

have changed over time. In present-day Anbar, the

basic unit is the tribe (rashira), which is composed

of clans (aflthacO. These clans are made up of lineages or households (hamoulas>, which are in turn

made up of houses (bayts) that contain individual

families ('alias). In some cases, the term qabila is

used to refer to a large tribe or confederation of

tribes.4 Saddam Hussein's tribal position at the time

of the second Ba'ath coup of 1968 provides a good

example of this system. His tribe was the Albu

Nasir, one of three main groupings in the town of

Tikrit. The Albu Nasir had six clans; Saddam was

from the Beijat, the dominant clan. Within the Beijat

clan were 10 lineages; Saddam was from the Albu

Ghafur lineage. Within the Albu Ghafur were two

main houses; Saddam's was the Albu Majid. His

family was that of Hussein, though Hussein himseif—Saddam's father—died before Saddam was

born.5

It is important to note that kinship ties, while

important, are not sacrosanct, particularly at the

more abstract level of tribe and clan. Once again,

Saddam Hussein's life provides an example.

Saddam at the time of the 1968 coup was deputy to

his kinsman Ahrnad Hassan al-Bakr. Al-Bakr was

also from the Beijat clan. However, as his name

indicates, al-Bakr was from a different lineage, the

Albu Bakr. Despite these affiliations, Saddam eventually maneuvered al-Bakr out of power and made

his own lineage, Albu Ghafur, supreme.6 AJ-Bakr's

subsequent death under mysterious circumstances

is often attributed to those loyal to Saddam.
Saddam's closer kinsmen provided a more loyal

power base. After the death of Saddam's father, his

mother's remarriage to a member of the Albu

Khattab lineage of the Beijat clan gave him three

half-brothers from another lineage. He also drew

upon his close cousins from the Aibu Majid house

of the Albu Ghafur lineage to fill his top security

ranks. In general, close kinships like this have far

greater strength than the more abstract links of tribe

and clan.7

The impact of tribes on state formation in the

Middle East has varied from state to state.8 In Iraq

in the 1920s, the tribe was a rural organization that

stood in opposition to all things urban and modern.

Following a revolt against the new Hashemite

monarchy, the British and their allies in the royal

family sought to appease and manipulate the tribes.

In exchange for their support, areas outside cities

were in many ways made a law unto themselves.9

The overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in

1958 initiated a decline in tribal power, as the new

military regime eliminated laws that gave sheikhs

legal authority and control of agricultural land. This

led to an exodus from rural areas to the cities and

the first encounters of peasant tribesman with an

alien urban environment. Many used affiliation to

anchor themselves in this often hostile setting and

tribalism came to coexist with urban modernity as

ever more Iraqis migrated to towns and cities.

However, though some Iraqis clung to traditional names and affiliations, tribalism's power waned

through the 1960s. Iraq :was slowly but surely

becoming a modern nation-state with a functioning

security apparatus, judiciary and bureaucracy. By

the late 1960s, tribalism was at its nadir, with many

Iraqis ceasing to define themselves in the traditional way (though more than a few existed in a sort of

dual state, with membership in both a tribe and a

modern organization such as a trade union).10

In theory, the return of the Ba'ath Party to power

in 1968 (it had briefly held power in 1963 but was

ousted by the military) should have heralded the

death knell of the tribe. Ba'ath ideology is relentlessly secular and modernist. As Amatzia Baram

notes, the first Ba'ath communique in July 1968

declared: 'We are against religious sectarianism,

racism, and tribalism', the latter being one of 'the

remnants of colonialism'.11

180

However, the Ba'ath Party was highly insecure in

its control of Iraq. In order to prevent another coup,

the party both massively expanded membership

and sought to place loyal elements in the military

and security services. Many of these loyalists were

members of the same tribe as the senior leaders of

the party.12 Thus, from its inception, the Ba'ath

regime had an inconsistent policy and attitude

which ensured that tribal power, though teniporarily diminished, would endure.

Tribal-State Security Relations

The Ba'ath government's use of tribes to control Iraq's state-security apparatus is far from

unique. Modern nation-states have in many

instances turned to tribes to help provide internal security, generally because the state is either

too weak to provide security itself or because it

is too expensive to do so. In general, the weaker the state, the more autonomy is given to tribes

to provide what the state cannot.

There are three basic patterns the relationship

can take. These are not necessarily mutually

exclusive, so that different patterns can be seen

in the same state. The first is most likely in relatively stronger states and occurs when one group

seeks to dominate the state's security apparatus

by commingling tribal networks with the formal

state structure. This 'state tribalism' is common in

states that have not fully institutionalized the

mechanism for providing internal security.13 In

the Middle East, Iraq, Syria, and many of the Gulf

States have practiced various forms of state tribalism.14 Other countries, such as Jordan, use

electoral arrangements favoring tribes to ensure

control of ostensibly democratic legislatures,

partly to ensure internal security.15

Outside the Middle East, this pattern is commonly seen in postcolonial Africa. Kenya, for

example, was dominated in the early postcolonial period by the Kikuyu tribe. The government

of Jomo Kenyatta intentionally filled the army

with Kikuyu tribesmen in the late 1960s to neutralise the Kamba and Kalenjin tribes that had

dominated the country under the British. The

government also used a paramilitary organization

called the General Service Unit as a Kikuyu
Praetorian guard and 'Kikuyuised' the police and

other intelligence services.16 Following the death

of Kenyatta in 1978, Vice President Daniel arap

Moi, a member of the Kalenjin tribe, assumed the

presidency and began to seed the security services with his own kinsmen, allowing him to

thwart an attempted coup in 1982:17 This pattern

of state tribalism in the security services has continued and affiliation remains important to

Kenyan politics and the preservation of internal

security.18

The second pattern is common in weaker

states and involves quasi-autonomous militias

based on tribe (or more broadly on ethnicity).

These militias are effectively "deputized" to provide internal security in certain regions in

exchange for some form of payment from the

central state. This pattern can be termed "auxiliary tribalism." Afghanistan in the late 1980s and

early 1990s provides one of the best examples of

the successful application of this pattern as well

as a Caution about its possible consequences.

The communist government of Afghanistan faced

a tenacious multiparty insurgency beginning in

the late 1970s that even major Soviet intervention

was unable to quell. The Afghan government

began to. arm and pay various tribal and ethnic

militias to fight the insurgency, . or to at least

remain neutral. This process accelerated after

Mohammed Najibullah replaced Babrak Karmal

as president in 1986, and enabled Najibullah's

regime to survive the Soviei withdrawal in

1989.19 Perhaps the most famous of these militias was that of General Abdul Rashid Dostum,

an ethnic Uzbek from northwestern Afghanistan.

Dostum's militia grew from a small force intended to protect gas fields to over 20,000 men

armed with heavy equipment and artillery by the

late 1980s. Dostum was so effedtive he became a

de facto mobile reserve for the Afghan government. However, when the collapsing Soviet

Union cut funding to Afghanistan and the ability

of the Afghan government to pay declined,

Dostum quickly switched sides to the insurgents.

This defection precipitated the rapid collapse of

the Afghan government in early 1992.20

The final pattern of relations is the cession of

all but the most desultory control over a territory

181

to a tribe. Only the weakest or poorest of. states

would normally accept this type of relationship.

Tribal leaders become, in effect, palatine vassals

of the central state, and are often as restive as

their medieval counterparts. This pattern can be

termed "baronial tribalism." It is fairly rare, as

such feudal relations are anathema to modern

nation-states, but can be seen in Pakistan in the

region along the border with Afghanistan. Either

dejure or de facto tribal autonomy characterizes

much of Baluchistan, the Federally Administered

.Tribal Areas (which includes North and South

Waziristan) and the NorthWest Frontier

Province. The federal governinent's presence is

felt lightly, if at all (apart from the occasional

punitive expedition), a situation echoing the

British imperial experience in these rugged border regions.21 Yemen offers another example:

clashes between a very weak central state and

well-armed tribes are frequent and violent.22

However, in most rural regions tribal .law is far

more powerful than the laws of the government,

so despite these clashes the government also

uses tribes to provide a degree of internal security.23

A final variation on these three patterns occurs

when an external power becomes involved in

the provision of internal security to a state. This

presents the possibility, of a three-way relationship among tribe, state and external power that

can produce many complications. The external

power might choose to ally itself with groups

that are hostile to the state or vice versa, potentially creating serious problems. Further, the existence of multiple tribes can 'mean that the external power must also balance relations with

groups that compete among themselves.

The United States' involvement in Viet:nam is

a good example. In the early 1960s, the CIA and

U.S. Army Special Forces began arming and

training Montagnard tribesmen in the mountainous west of South Vietnam to fight Communist

insurgents supported. by North Vietnam (a form

of auxiliary tribalism). The Montagnard recruits

were enthusiastic in fighting the insurgents, yet

were only slightly less hostile to the government

of South Vietnam, which had never treated the

Montagnard minority particularly well. The gov-
Iraqi Freedom. Tribal forces were to be integrated

with other military and paramilitary formations to

prevent an uprising like that of 1991 and, if needed, to fight invading Coalition forces. To ensure

that he could continue to buy tribal loyalty,

Saddarn removed over a billion dollars from the

Iraqi Central Bank right before the war.39

Unfortunately for him, once the attack began the

loyalty of the tribes proved ephemeral and many

chose not to fight. A senior military adviser to the

Ba'ath Party near the city of Samawa recalled after

the war: "They called the tribal chiefs in AsSamawa to try and get more men, but the tribes

said, 'We have no weapons, so how can we fight?'

I sensed we were losing control of the situation—

and the American forces had not yet arrived, there

were only air attacks."40

The U.S.-Iraqi Tribal Strategy

Following the rapid success of U.S. conventional forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, there

was a need to provide internal security across

the heterogeneous Iraqi nation, including in

Anbar, the former bastion of the Ba'athist tribal

strategy. Even in concert with Iraq's interim government, this proved challenging and 2003-04

saw the birth of an insurgency in Anbar and

major anti-Coalition violence. Participants in the

insurgency came from a mixture of groups and

included former senior Ba'athists, tribesmen and

foreign fighters. Though their motives differed,

these groups made common cause against the

Coalition.41

In this period, the U.S-Iraqi tribal strategy

was rudimentary in Anbar. However, by early

2004, U.s. and Iraqi officials began engaging in

dialogue with tribes, and in limited cases cooperated with them. Still, the tribes overall saw littie reason to support the new order and often

sided with the newly declared al-Qaeda in

Mesopotamia or other insurgent groups.

Attitudes began to shift in early 2005, following the massive Coalition assault on Fallujah in

November 2004 and the Iraqi national elections

in January 2005. Many tribal leaders began to

conclude that the political process might hold

more benefit than continued fighting. Further, al184

Qaeda in Mesopotamia's transnational and fundamentalist goals were at odds with the local or

national goals of the tribes. Finally, and perhaps

most importantly, al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia was

competing for control of revenue sources—such

as banditry and smuggling—that had long been

the province of the tribes.42

Under this interpretation, the tribes did not

change sides in response to violence towards

civilians or their Anbar kinsmen, as press'

accounts have suggested. While this violence

was not irrelevant, it does not appear to have

been the central motive for the shift. For example, some began fighting al-Qaeda in

Mesopotamia at least as early as the beginning

of 2005, well before most of the violence

towards civilians and tribesmen in Anbar

occurred. The primary motive was not moral; it

was self-interested.

In fact, it can be argued that much (though far

from all) of al-Qaeda's violence against Sunnis in

Anbar was intended to coerce the tribes back

into alignment with the insurgents. Certainly this

was the intent of attacks on selected tribal leaders. In other words, al-Qaeda's violence was

principally an effect of shifts in allegiance rather

than a cause. Though it often appears senseless

and brutal to outsiders, the coercive use of

extreme violence in insurgency and civil war is

both fairly common and sometimes quite effective.43

This shift in the strategic calculus of the tribes

made a successful U.S. Iraqi tribal strategy possible, but the opportunity was not fully exploited. For example, the United States did not take

full advantage of a shift among members of the

powerful Dulaimi confederation in western

Anbar. The Albu Mahal tribe around the city of

Qaim resented the influx of al-Qaeda in

Mesopotamia to their border town and the

group's competition with Albu Mahai's lucrative

smuggling operations. With the support of members of the Albu Nimr, the Albu Mahal formed

the Hamza Forces (also called the Hamza

Battalion) to fight the newcomers. AI-Qaeda

proved to be a tough opponent and in May of

2005 the tribes decided to turn to Coalition

forces for help in battling them. Fasal al-Gaoud,
a former governor of Anhar and sheikh of the

Albu Nimr, contacted U.S. Marines for support.44

The Marines had already been planning an

offensive around Qaim, so this could have been

an ideal moment to cement an alliance. Instead,

the Marine offensive, known as Operation

Matador, was uncoordinated with the tribes

(some Marines appear to have not been

informed about the requested alliance) and

made use of intensive firepower, which alienated many tribesmen by destroying portions of

Qaim. Furthermore, the Iraqi government was

hostile to the Hamza Forces, declaring that such

vigilantes had no place in Iraq.45

After Operation Matador, there were no further attempts by the Hamza Forces to coordinate

with the Coalition for several months. Without

Coalition support, the Hamza Forces were overwhelmed by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia by

September of 2005.46 Fortunately, Coalition

forces in Anbar learned from their earlier mistake and may have begun supporting the Albu

Mahal with air strikes in late August 2005. This

was insufficient, however, to defeat the powerful al-Qaeda forces around Qaim and in

November 2005 Coalition forces launched

Operation Steel Curtain. This operation was

marked by far better coordination with the Albu

Mahal, and cooperation improved still further

after the operation, when Marines and Iraqi

Army personnel stayed behind to support the

Albu Mahal in providing security.48

The eventual success of U.S-Iraqi coordination with the Albu Mahal in 2005 was not widely emulated, though some tribes did continue to

fight al-Qaeda. For example, members of the

Dulaimi confederation fought the group around

Ramadi in August 2005. However, many in

the Coalition remained reluctant to fully

embrace a tribal strategy. More importantly, tribal leaders were targeted by al-Qaeda in a coercive campaign of murder and intimidation which

sapped many tribes of the will to fight.50 The

success of the terrorists in this campaign was

due in part to the nature of tribal loyalty. AlQaeda was able to turn clans and families from

the same tribe against one another with a combination of carrots (money and other patronage)

185

and sticks (threats of assassination).

This pattern of failed efforts to oppose alQaeda in Anbar continued into 2006. Elements of

the Albu Fahd tribe, for example, began distancing themselves from al-Qaeda in Ramadi in late

2005 and early 2006. Al-Qaeda quickly targeted

Sheikh Nasr al-Fahdawi and other prominent

tribesmen for assassination, which was (;arried

out in early 2006 (with the support of some of alFahdawi's pro-al-Qaeda fellow tribesmen).51 A

captured al-Qaeda document from this period

reveals this strategy. Noting that tribal leaders

had begun to cooperate with Americans, the

authors write: 'we found that the best solutions

[sic] to stop thousands of people from renouncing their religion, is to cut the heads of the Sheiks

of infidelity."52 They accuse Sheikh Nasr alFahdawi of using his money, power, and reputation in Ramadi to "violate" the authors' 'brothers," continuing: "so the brothers raided his

house in the middle of the night wearing the

national guards uniform and driving similar cars,

they took him and killed him, thank God."53

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia's campaign of murder and intimidation had the desired effect, as

the document notes:

Then there was a complete change of

events than is was [sici before thank god,

cousins of Sheik Nasr came to the

Mujahidin begging, announcing their

repentance and innocence, saying we're

with you, we'll do whatever you want. The

turmoil is over, our brothers now are roaming the streets of AlbuFahd without any

checkpoints.54

The document goes on to list others who were

killed or intimidated, indicating that the terrorists'

coercive violence was successful.55

Coalition cooperation with the tribes

remained limited through early 2006.56 There

were some exceptional success stories, as with

the Albu Mahal and U.S. Army Special Forces

relationship with the Albu Nimr around the city

of Hit. Even in these limited cases, al-Qaeda

recognised the threat and sought to target these

tribes. In captured documents, the group noted
the need to attack the Albu Nimr and regretted

not crushing the Albu Mahal when it had the

chance.57

Starting in mid-to-late 2006, however, the

cooperation started to become more serious. In

Ramadi, Sheikh Sattar al-Rishawi of the Dulaimi

confederation's Albu Risha tribe formally

launched a concerted campaign against al-Qaeda

in September 2006. Along with other leaders

such as the Albu Nimr's Fasal al-Gaoud, Sattar

founded a tribal alliance known as the Anbar

Salvation Council (ASC).

Sattar himself was a smuggler and highway

robber, and a fairly minor sheikh. However, he

was bold and charismatic and had shrewd advisers such as his brother Ahmed; when opportunities presented themselves he was well positioned

to take advantage. Sattar had previously been

willing to work with al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,

but began to clash with the group as it muscled

in on his illegal revenue. In 2005, Sattar turned to

other Iraqis to help him battle his unwelcome

competitors, but this alliance was ineffective and

short lived. He subsequently seems to have

realised that the best way to defeat al-Qaeda and

gain power was to side with the United States.58

Sattar and his new alliance were soon supported by the Coalition. The U.S. military helped

to protect Sattar, and the government of Iraq

embraced him, albeit reluctantly, as well. Sattar

was eventually made the counterinsurgency

coordinator for the province, his tribesmen

joined the Iraqi police around Ramadi in droves,

and his militias were formally deputized as

"Emergency Response Units." A blind eye was

turned to Sattar's extralegal revenue generation.59

With the Albu Mahal and the Albu Risha, the

Coalition was clearly employing both state-tribalism and auxiliary-tribalism strategies to provide

internal security. The Albu Mahal were allowed

to effectively take over the Iraqi Army brigade in

their region, while the Albu Risha came to dominate the Ramadi police.60 The Iraqi government

delegated significant authority to both tribes,

along with the Albu Nimr around Hit.

The effect of this strategy in 2007 was dramatic. By the late spring and early summer, parts of

186

Anbar (such as Ramadi) that had previously been

horrifically violent were relatively peaceful. Sattar

was hailed as a hero by many Iraqis and

Americans.

The success was striking enough that the

Coalition attempted to duplicate the model

across Iraq, giving rise to the euphemism 'concerned local citizens' or 'CLCs' (presumably to

make the use of tribesmen and other former

insurgents sound more palatable). These fighters

have been recruited to help the Coalition in

Baghdad and in parts of Salah ad Din and Diyala

provinces.61 There are also efforts to expand the

strategy to the Shi'a south of Iraq.62 By mid 2007,

Saddam's tribal strategy had in effect become the

Coalition's.

Comparing Strategies

Despite the similarities between Saddam's relatively successful strategy and the Coalition's present-day efforts, there is no guarantee that the

Coalition will prevail. The two have very different

contexts.

The first and most obvious difference is the

role of the United States as a third party. This creates the possibility for tension between Baghdad

and Washington regarding the means• and ends of

any tribal strategy. Presently, the government of

Prime Minister Nun al-Maliki is supporting the

strategy, albeit with reservations. His government

has been unable to establish security and has little authority in Anbar, so some formal deputization of tribes there does not represent a tangible

loss of government power. However, some

Shi'ites may cease to support what they regard as

a generous approach to the Sunni; the political

Coalition that supports al-Maliki is already fraying

and might not survive.

This would confront the United States with a

dilemma similar to. that it faced in Vietnam's highlands in the 1960s. Supporting the tribes would

increase the likelihood of success against 'the

insurgents, but would alienate the government

and possibly precipitate government-tribe conflict

or even the collapse of the frail Iraqi state.

Supporting the government would make the survival of a unified Iraq more likely, but could drive
the tribes back to the insurgency. This situation

would actually be worse than Vietnam; the Sunni

tribes of Anbar are not a small rural minority like

the Montagnard, which makes it harder for the

Coalition to exert leverage over them.

These tensions highlight a second and related

difference between Saddam's and the Coalition's

tribal strategies. Saddam's strategy was relatively

simple in that it had only one goal: keeping

Saddam in power. The United States has at least

two goals: achieving a stable, democratic Iraq and

defeating al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. If the Iraqi

government ceases to support the tribal strategy,

these two goals would become mutually exclusive, at least in the short run. Already, the

strengthening of unelected sheikhs in Anbar

means an end to democracy in that province, at

least for the present.

Further, the tribes themselves are no more unified now than they were under Saddam. The

potential for both inter- and intra-tribal conflict

remains. Some reports suggest that friction within

the ASC is already high. Even if this is overstated

it illustrates the potential for conflict in the future.

Other tribes are reported to feel neglected or

excluded from government and security-force

positions.63

Intra-tribal relations can be equally challenging. As an example, in the powerful Albu Nimr,

Sheikh Fasal al-Gaoud was relatively weak

despite (or perhaps because of) being the former

governor of Anbar. The real power in the Albu

Nimr belongs to other members of his lineage,

such as Sheikhs Jubair and Hatem al-Gaoud.

Hatem and Jubair in turn have some rivalry

despite being not only from the same lineage but

the same house (Hatem is Jubair's nephew).64

While Hatem and Juhair have a good relationship with U.S. special operations forces, other

members of the al-Gaoud family had close links to

Saddam Hussein. Sattarn al-Gaoud was the director of the largest network: of Iraqi front companies involved in smuggling for the regime. The

network, Al-Eman, had numerous al-Gaoud family members in key positions. Sattam and many of

his relatives were also associated with the Iraqi

Intelligence Service.6 While they have taken to

spending much of their time in Jordan since the

187

fall of Saddam, these al-Gaouds retain both wealth

and connections inside Iraq, including to insurgent groups.66

This tangled family Situation represents the

intricacies of just one prominent family in one

prominent tribe. As it expands its tribal strategy in

Iraq, the United States will have to manage

dozens or even hundreds of these relationships,

leading one intelligence officer in Anbar to compare Iraqi tribal relations to Latin American telenovelas in drama and complexity.6 Because

Washington lacks the detailed knowledge of Iraqi

clans possessed by Saddam, its approach is more

like the British approach of the 1920s. Rather than

managing the tribes, it is simply ceding Anbar to

them, and potentially other territories as well. This

cession undermines the past five decades of

attempts to build a modern state in Iraq.

The third difference between the two strategies

is the relative strength of the Iraqi state. Under

Saddam, the state was battered by two decades of

war and sanctions, yet it nonetheless retained significant coercive capability. This was due in no

small part to Saddam's ruthless willingness to

cause civilian casualties and suffering, and the

state's large numbers of military and security-service personnel backed by totalitarian intelligence

services. On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom,

for example, Saddam is estimated to have had

about 400,000 military personnel supplemented

by perhaps as many police and security-service

members. In contrast, the current Iraqi government has an authorized military end strength of

175,000, supplemented by a Ministry of Interior

which has over 320,000 personnel on its payroll.

Taking these numbers at face value, Saddam had

a 50 percent advantage in total personnel, and

more than double the number of military personnel. Yet the modern Iraqi military and security

services are in reality nowhere near their authorized strength; indeed the Ministry of Interior is

unable to determine which if any of its 320,000

employees is actually working. Further, the Iraqi

military lacks much of the heavy equipment that

enabled Saddam to punish tribal uprisings such as

the Albu Nimr's 1995 revolt.68

Admittedly, the government of Iraq does possess one significant tool of coercion: the U.S. mil-
itary. Yet the United States lacks the ruthlessness

of Saddam, and its forces are better suited to conventional battle than internal security. Also, the

United States will clearly not maintain major force

levels in Iraq indefinitely, so this coercive tool is

a temporary asset for the government of Iraq.

Whereas Saddam was able to restrict the power of

the tribes to some degree, the present government

of Iraq could soon face a situation in which baronial tribalism reigns throughout Anhar.

The fourth difference is the nature of the

enemy that the respective tribal strategies are

intended to defeat. Saddam's strategy was primarily aimed at other Sunni tribes and the restive

Shi'a. Neither of these enemies had either motive

or opportunity to outbid Saddam for the loyalty of

tribes; the combination of carrots and sticks he

could wield was too compelling.

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, on the other hand,

possesses a real capacity to outbid the Coalition

as it attempts to build alliances. Moreover, it is still

capable of murder and intimidation against tribal

leaders. For example, al-Qaeda is believed to be

behind the bombing of the Mansour Hotel in June

2007 that killed Fasal al-Gaoud, the Albu Nimr

sheikh who had long sought to arrange Coalition

cooperation with the tribes. The bombing also

killed two other leaders of the Albu Nimr and a

sheikh of the Albu Fahd, who had once again

switched sides to join the ASC.6 Other killings of

ASC members take place frequently despite U.S.

support and protection.70 Sunnis who have joined

with the Coalition in Baghdad and elsewhere also

face fierce reprisals.71

Most notably, Sheikh Sattar was killed on 13

September 2007 by an improvised explosive

device emplaced near his farm outside Ramadi.

Unlike many previous assassinations of tribal

leaders, this attack did not demolish the will to

fight of the Albu Risha or the ASC.72 Sattar's

brother Ahmed quickly stepped into his place,

and while lacking some of Sattar's charisma, he is

a capable leader. He has begun negotiations with

Shi'a leaders and, realizing that his tribal power

base is limited, has attempted to build a political

base beyond his tribe.73 However, the fact that

Sattar was killed in essentially his own backyard

despite significant ASC and Coalition protection

188

suggests that al-Qaeda (who may have bribed one

or more of Sattar's guards) retains the ability to

use coercive violence against even well-guarded

senior figures, let alone rank-and-file tribesmen.74

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia still has substantial

revenue from activities in Iraq as well as donations from abroad (according to some reports it

has sufficient excess revenue to fund al-Qaeda in

Pakistan in addition to its own efforts).75 AlQaeda thus has significant carrots and sticks with

which to motivate the tribes, or portions thereof,

to switch sides.

Moreover, whereas Saddam, like the members

of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was a Sunni, the current government of Iraq is principally Shi'a. Many

Sunni believe it is little more than a tool of Iran.

Shi'a death squads have carried out ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and have infiltrated parts of the

Iraqi government. In November 2007 senior leaders in Anhar complained that the government was

not providing them sufficient resources, which

they attributed to the government's sectarian bias.

Leaders south of Baghdad have made similar

complaints.6 This perception of bias could make

the tribes more inclined to listen to al-Qaeda,

which can portray itself as seeking to protect the

Sunni and limit the influence of Iran. This will be

particularly true if sectarian violence rises again.

Looking to the Future

With these key differences in mind, two scenarios can be envisioned for the next two to

three years. In the first, current trends continue

unchanged. The government of Iraq continues to

embrace the current tribal strategy, and there

remains sufficient U.S. combat power to support

and protect the tribes in Anhar and elsewhere.

Patronage from both the government of Iraq and

the United States continues to flow and the

tribes' extra-legal income remains lucrative,

while sectarian violence does not worsen.

This scenario looks favorable for the United

States, as it would mean that al-Qaeda in

Mesopotamia would be substantially weakened

(though probably not eliminated). The trade-off

for allowing continued state and auxiliary tribalism would be the possibility of putting democra-
tization on hold: elections in Anbar would likely

be postponed or the formal structure of governance marginalized. Though unfortunate, this

would not necessarily be permanent and would

probably be accepted in the short term by many

residents of Anbar as the price of security. It is

possible that the ASC could jointly assume governing authority with provincial officials as part

of a state-of-emergency government. And if

Sheikh Ahmed succeeds in creating a non-tribal

party, local democracy might even be preserved.

For the government of Iraq, this scenario

means accepting a short- to medium-term continuation of Saddam's tribal strategy with all the

hazards that entails. The loyalty of the tribes

would have to be continually paid for and relationships both with and among the tribes would

have to be managed. Anbar would enjoy at least

as much autonomy as it enjoyed under Saddam,

when it was governed by a system approaching

baronial tribalism. Indeed, the government of

Iraq would have little more control over Anbar

than the government of Pakistan does over its

western provinces. Further, by allowing the

tribes a virtual monopoly on military and security forces in Anbar, the strategy would make

future coups or civil war possible. The power of

tribes in other regions would be expanded as

well. For the Shi'a majority of Iraq, this might be

acceptable but would remain worrisome.

As problematic as the above outcome would

be, a much worse outcome is easily imagined

simply by factoring in likely medium-term

events, among them a withdrawal of U.S. forces

that is not precipitous but nonetheless substantially reduces combat power in Anbar and other

provinces. This would mean less ability to protect and support the ASC and other tribes. It

would also make the supply of material support

and patronage by the United States more difficult

(though not impossible).

At the same time, the al-Maliki government as

currently constituted is likely to change. It could

shift towards a more hard-line Shi'a position or

he supplanted entirely. Regardless, its support

for the tribes will probably decrease if not end

altogether. The combination of a U.S. drawdown

and a shift in the position of the Iraqi govern189

ment could exacerbate sectarian violence.

Even as Coalition support to the tribes wanes,

al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia is likely to retain much

of its ability to employ both carrots and sticks.

The tribes may therefore be made "an offer they

can't refuse." Like Rashid Dostum in Afghanistan,

they could readily conclude that switching sides

was in their best interest. This would be a particularly had outcome for the Coalition as it would

have helped train, equip and sustain forces that

would then begin to work against it. For the

United States, this would mean Anbar and other

regions would become havens for al-Qaeda as it

worked to destabilize the region and possibly

support attacks further afield. For the government of Iraq, it would mean de facto partition,

civil war, or both.

Finally, it is not clear that the present internalsecurity model can be expanded to the Shi'a

south. The power of the tribes dwindled more in

the face of modernization among the Shi'a than

it did among the Sunni. The tribe was replaced

or at least modified by the power of political

Islam, so that in Shi'a areas political-religious

parties or groups tend to dOminate.77 The largest

at present are Muqtada al-Sadr's Office of the

Martyr Sadr and affiliated militia Jaiysh al-Mahdi;

and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim's Supreme Iraqi Islamic

Council and affiliated militia, the Badr organization. However, there are numerous other groups

with affiliated militias including the Fadhila Party

and several smaller organizations. While tribal

groups are not wholly absent, they lack the

power and organization of these religious-political groups. In Basra, for example, armed tribesmen play a role in the fighting hut the major factions are party militias.78 So even if the United

States' tribal strategy succeeds in the Sunni center and west of Iraq, the Shi'a south would likely remain problematic.

Fully embracing a tribal strategy for internal

security in Anbar has been successful to date and

expansion of this strategy over the rest of Iraq

could provide real short-term security gains in at

least some areas. There is little guarantee that

these gains will persist, however, and there is

some chance that the strategy will backfire in the

medium term. Even Saddam Hussein had diffi-
culty managing Iraq's tribes despite his totalitarian state and lavish patronage. As the United

States prepares to reduce its commitment to Iraq,

it should be clear on both the tension in its

strategic goals and the potential for the tribes to

once again switch sides.

Beyond Iraq, there has been discussion of a

U.S. alliance with tribes in Pakistan to fight alQaeda and the Taliban in the border region with

Afghanistan. This alliance would face a welter of

problems, including the lack of U.S. combat

forces in Pakistan and the fact that the Taliban

and al-Qaeda in Pakistan have had years to integrate with and even dominate the area's tribes.79

Beyond these daunting issues, the central challenge would remain the same as in Iraq: managing a three-cornered relationship between the

tribes, the state, and an external power as well as

inter- and intra-tribal relations.

The tribe and the modern bureaucratic state

are inherently in tension. Max Weber identified

this difficulty nearly a century ago: tribes derive

legitimacy from what he termed "the authority of

the eternal yesterday" while the modern state

derives legitimacy from the rational application

of the rule of law.8° Attempting to use the former to secure the latter is at best a stop-gap

measure. At worst, it sows the seeds of future

state failure.

Notes

Survival, April-May 2008, 67-93. Reprinted by

permission of the Taylor and Francis Group.

1. "Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia" and "Anbar Salvation

Council" (ASC) are the terms used throughout this paper,

though both groups are known by other names. AlQaeda in Mesopotamia is more officially "The

Organization of al-Qaeda (the Base) in the Land of Two

Rivers" and has overlapping and often interchangeable

membership with the Mujahedin Shura Council, the

Islamic State of Iraq, and Jamaat al-Tahwid Wa al-Jihad

(Group for Monotheism and Holy War). The Anbar

Salvation Council is also referred to as the 'Sahawa alAnbar' (Anbar Awakening) or more recently "Sahawa alIraq" (Iraq Awakening), often abbreviated SAA and SAL.

2. See Albert Hourani, "Conclusion: Tribes and States in

190

Islamic History," in Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner,

eds., Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 304-

6.

3. Abbas Kelidar provides a concise summary of the historical weakness of the Iraqi state in "States without

Foundation: The Political Evolution of State and Society

in the Arab East," Journal of Contemporary History, vol.

28, no. 2 April 1993, pp. 315-39.

4. See Hosham Dawood, "The 'Stateization' of the Tribe

and the Tribalization," in Jahar and Hosham Dawood,

eds., Tribes and Power: Nationalism and Ethnicity in the

Middle East (London: Saqi Books, 2003), pp. 315-16.

5. This summary is drawn from Faleh Jahar, "Sheikhs and

Ideologues: Deconstruction and Reconstruction of Tribes

Under Patrimonial Totalitarianism in Iraq, 1968-1998," in

Jabar and Dawood, pp. 103-5.

6. See Ibid., pp. 85-8.

7. Ibid., p. 87.

8. See Khoury and Kostiner, Tribes and State Formation

in the Middle East.

9. See Khoury and Kostiner, Tribes and State Formation

in the Middle East. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp.

75-8; and Amal Vinogradov, "The 1920 Revolt in Iraq

Reconsidered: The Role of Tribes in National Polities,"

JnternationalJournai of Middle East Studies, vol. 3, no. 2,

April 1972, pp.123-39.

10. See Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp. 75-9. For a

much more detailed account, see Hanna Batatu, The Old

Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq:

A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes

and of its Communists, Ba'athists, and Free Qffzcers

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978).

11. Amatzia Baram, "Neo-tribalism in Iraq: Saddam

Hussein's Tribal Policies, 1991-1996," International

Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 29, no. 1, February

1997, p. 1.

12. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp.80-3.

13. Jabar refers to this as "etatist tribalism," Ibid., pp. 69

and 79-80.

14. See James Quinlivan, "Coup-Proofing: Its I'ractice and

Consequences in the Middle East," International Security,

vol. 24, no. 2, Autumn 1999, pp. 131-65.

15. See "Islamists' Electoral Disaster," Economist Intelligence Unit 22 November 2007, http://www.economist.

corn /daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10178007.

16. Mordechai Tamarkin, "The Roots of Political Stability in

Kenya," African Affairs, vol. 77, no. 308, July 1978, pp. 300-1.
17. Samuel Decalo, "Modalities of Civil-Military Stability in

Africa," Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 27, no. 4,

December 1989, p. 557.

18. See "Going Up or Down?" The Economist, 7 June

2007, http://www.economist.com/wor1d/africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9304146, for comments on the

continued importance of tribe in Kenyan politics.

19. Mark Fineman, "Militias Reflect Tribal Splits," Los

Angeles Times, October 1989; and Charles Dunbar,

"Afghanistan in 1986: The Balance Endures," Asian

Survey, vol. 27, no. 2, February 1987, pp. 128 and 134-5.

20. Mark Fineman, "Powerful Militia Unit in Open Revolt

Against Kabul Regime," Los Angeles Times, 15 March

1992; Mark Fineman, "Afghan Leader Forced Out by

Army, Rebels," Los Angeles Times, 17 April 1992; and Shah

Tarzi, "Afghanistan in 1992: A Hobbesian State of Nature,"

Asian Survey, vol. 33, no. 2, February 1993, pp. 165-6.

21. See Asaf Hussain, "Ethnicity, National Identity and

Praetorianism: The Case of Pakistan," Asian Survey, vol.

16, no. 10, October 1976, pp. 925-30; "Turning a Fight

into a War," The Economist, 29 June 2006,

http://www.economist.corn/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?

story_id=7121811; and "The Frontier Spirit," The

Economist, 13 December 2006, http://www.economist

.corn/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8413130.

22. For example, see Mohammed Bin Sallam, "Sa'ada War

Due to Break Out as Mediation Committee Ceased Work,"

Yemen Times, 11 November 2007, http://www.yementirnes.com/article.shtml?i=1 10 2&p=local&a=1; and "Calm

Returns to Shabwa Following Clash between Government

and Bilharith Tribe," Yemen Times, 9 November 2007,

http://www.yementimes.com/article.shtml?i= 1 102&p=loc

al&a=4.

23. Michael Slackman and Mohammed Al-Asadi, "German

Family is Kidnapped by Yemeni Tribe," New York Times,

29 December 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12

/29/international/middleeast/29yemen.html.

24. On CIDG, see Francis Kelly, U.S. Army Special Forces

1961 -1971 (Washington DC: Center for Military History,

1973), chapters 3, 5, and 6; and Thomas Ahern, CIA and

Rural Pacflcation in South Vietnam (Washington DC:

Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2001), chapters 3, 5,

and pp. 179-82.

25. Baram, "Neo-tribalism," p. 5.

26. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp. 81-3.

27. Baram, "Neo-tribalism," pp. 3-4.

28. Baram, "Neo-tribalism," p. 5.

29. Keiko Sakai, "Tribalization as a Tool of State Control

191

in Iraq: Observations on the Army, the Cabinets, and the

National Assembly," inJabar and Dawood, p. 152; Baram,

"Neo-tribalisrn," p. 7; and Jabar, "Sheikhs and

Ideologues," p. 90.

30. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp. 88-89.

31. Baram, "Neo-tribalism," p. 7; Jabar, "Sheikhs and

Ideologues," pp. 92-3; and David Wurmser, "Coping with

Crumbling States: A Western and Israeli Balance of Power

Strategy for the Levant," Institute for Advanced Strategic

and Political Studies Research Paper, December 1996, pp.

9-10. For more on the regime's efforts to provide internal

security, see Kevin Woods et al., Iraqi Perspectives

Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from

Saddam 's Senior Leadership (Norfolk, VA: Joint Center for

Operational Analysis, 2005), p. 48.

32. Baram, "Neo-tribalism," pp. 12-13.

33. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp. 95-6.

34. Woods et a!., p. 52.

35. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp.97-9.

36. Baram, "Neo-tribalisrn," pp. 5-6.

37. Jabar, "Sheikhs and Ideologues," pp. 99-100; Bararn,

"Neo-tribalisrn," p. 6; and Wurrnser, pp. 10-11.

38. Baram, "Neo-tribalism," p. 6; and Jahar, "Sheikhs and

Ideologues," p. 100.

39. Woods et a!., pp. 113-14.

40. Woods et al., p. 102.

41. Much of the following discussion is informed by the

author's observations in Iraq from August to December

2007; conversations with U.S. military and intelligencecommunity personnel who have served in Anbar; and

discussions with Carter Malkasian of the Center for Naval

Analyses, who was an adviser to the Marine

Expeditionary Force in Anbar.

42. On the importance of smuggling to many of the

tribes, see Nir Rosen, "Fa!lujah: Inside the Iraqi

Resistance," Asia Times, 15 July 2004, http://www

.atimes.cornlatimes/others/Fallujah.html; and Leila Fadel,

"Iraqi Tribal, U.S. Relations Could Spell Success or

Disaster," McClatchy Newspapers, 13 June 2007,

http : //www. mccl a tchydc .corn/st a ff/l e i la_fade!

/story/16890.html. On disputes over revenues between

tribes and al-Qaeda in Mesopotarnia, see Carter

Malkasian, "A Thin Blue Line in the Sand," Democracy,

no. 5, Summer 2007, p. 55.

43. On the strategic use of violence in insurgency, see

Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New

York: Cambridge iJniversity Press, 2006); and Stathis

Kalyvas, "Wanton and Senseless?: The Logic of Massacres
in Algeria," Rationality and Society, vol. 11, no. 3, 1999.

44. See Malkasian, "Thin Blue Line," p. 55; and Hannah

Allarn and Mohammed al-Dulaimy, "Marine-led

Campaign Killed Friends and Foes, Iraqi Leaders Say,"

McClatchy Newspapers, 16 May 2005, http://www.

mcclatchydc.com/staff/hannah_allam /story/1 1656.html.

45. See Allam and al-Dulaimy, "Marine-led Campaign";

and Ellen Nickmeyer, "Looking for Battle, Marines Find

That Foes Have Fled; Hunt for Foreign Insurgents Proves

Frustrating but Deadly," Washington Post, 16 May 2005,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/15/AR2005051500785_pf html.

46. Ellen Nickmeyer and Jonathan Finer, "Insurgents

Assert Control Over Town Near Syrian Border,"

Washington Post, 6 September 2005, http: //www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09

/05/AR2005090500313.html.

47. Ellen Nickmeyer and Omar Fekeiki, "U.S. Warplanes

Target Alleged Rebel Havens Along Iraq-Syria Border,"

Washington Post, 31 August 2005.

48. See Carter Malkasian, "Did the Coalition Need More

Forces in Iraq?" Joint Force Quarterly, no. 46, Summer

2007, p. 124; and John Ward Anderson, "U.S. Widens

Offensive in Far Western Iraq," Washington Post, 15

November 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/1 1/14 /AR20051 1 1400979.html.

49. Ellen Knickmeyer and Jonathan Finer, "Iraqi Sunnis

Battle To Defend Shiites," Washington Post, 14 August

2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content

/article/2005/08/13/AR2005081301209.html.

50. Jonathan Finer and Ellen Nickmeyer, "Sunni Leaders

Attacked in Iraq," Washington Post, 19 August 2005,

http ://www.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/18/AR2005081800330.html.

51. Hala Jaber, "Sunni Leader Killed for Joining Ceasefire Talks," London Times, 5 February 2006,

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article727041 .ece.

52. Declassified, translated internal al-Qaeda in

Mesopotamia document; available from West Point's

combating Terrorism Center at http://ctc.usma.edu/aq

/pdf/IZ-060316-01-Trans.pdf.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid. For example, the document mentions Mazhar al-

'Alawani, "a candidate for the elections": "His pictures

were all over Ramadi, where the entire Albu'Alwan tribe

was supporting him, proud of him, one day before the

192

elections, the brothers killed him while he was visiting

Ramadi, no one from his tribe opened his mouth, instead

they got more scared and weaker."

56. On Special Forces and Albu Nimr, see Ann Scott

Tyson, "In a Volatile Region of Iraq, U.S. Military Takes

Two Paths," Washington Post, 15 September 2006,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401900.html.

57. See the document cited in note 52 and another

declassified, translated internal al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia

document, available from West Point's Combating

Terrorism Center at http://ctc.usma.edu /aq/pdf/1Z060316-02-Trans.pdf.

58. See Greg Jaffe, "Tribal Connections: How Courting

Sheiks Slowed Violence in Iraq," Wall Street Journal, 8

August 2007, http://on1ine.ws.com/article/SB1186535

46614491198.html; and Mark Kukis, 'Turning Iraq's Tribes

Against Al-Qaeda', Timed 26 December 2006,

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/08599,

1 572796,00.html.

59. See Malkasian, "Thin Blue Line," p. 55; Steve

Schippert, "This is Counterterrorism, Senator," National

Review Online, 25 April 2007, http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NGI4ODY3ZGZmOGM1NGMwMWM3Mjg

wZDYxMWU5OTQ5ZTI=.

60. Malkasian, "Thin Blue Line," pp. 55-6.

61. Nancy Youssef and Leila Fadel, "Critics: Arming Sunni

Militias Undercuts Iraqi Government," McClatchy

Newspapers, 17 June 2007, http://www.mcclatchydc

.com/world/story/16989.htrnl; Alexandra Zavis, "U.S.

Courts Sheikhs in Hussein Terrain," Los Angeles Times, 14

November 2007; and David Mays,"Concerned Local

Citizens Vastly Improve Security in Iraq's Diyala

Province," American Forces Press Service, 12 October

2007, http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle

.aspx?id=47783.

62. Kim Gamel, "Sheikhs Ponder Expanding Anbar

Model," Oakland Tribune, 16 September 2007.

63. Joshua Partlow and John Ward Anderson, "Tribal

Coalition in Anbar Said to Be Crumbling," Washington

Post, 10 June 2007, http://www.washingtonpost

.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR200

7061001453.html.

64. See Tyson, "In a Volatile Region of Iraq, U.S. Military

Takes Two Paths."

65. See Comprehensive Report of the SpecialAdvisor to the

DCI on Iraq's WMD (The Duelfer Report), vol. 1, "Front

Company Conglomerates: Al-Eman and Al-Handal,"
https ://www. cia .gov/!ibrary/reports/general-reports1/iraq_wmd_2004/index.htrnl.

66. See Kirk Semple, "Iraqi Says He Plans to Convene

Parliament," New York Times, 12 April 2006,

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/world/13iraq.html;

and Suleiman al-Khalidi, "Interview: Iraqi Rebels Reject

Anti-Qaeda Pact-Tribal Leader," Reuters, 23 March 2007,

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL23

556078.

67. Private communication, Iraq, November 2007.

68. See Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and

Security in Iraq, June 2007, pp. 30-7, http://www

.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/9010-Final-20070608.pdf;

Woods et al., pp. 48-55 and 60-5; and The Militaiy

Balance (London: International Institute for Strategic

Studies, 2002), pp. 105-6.

69. Sam Dagher, "Sunni Muslim Sheikhs Join U.S. in

Fighting Al-Qaeda," Christian Science Monitor, 3 May

2007, http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0503/p01s04-

wome.html; and "Baghdad Hotel Bombing Kills AntiQaeda Sunni Sheikhs," International Herald Tribune, 24

June 2007.

70. Malkasian, "Thin Blue Line," p. 56; and Todd Pitman,

"Iraq's Sunni Sheikhs Join Americans to Fight

Insurgency," Associated Press, 25 March 2007.

71. Lauren Prayer, "Former Insurgents Face Al-Qaida

Wrath," Washington Post, 14 August 2007, http://www

.washingtonpost. com/wp-dyri/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081400767.html.

72. Alissa Rubin, "Sheik's Allies Vow Revenge for His

Killing," New York Times, 15 September 2007,

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/1 5/world/middleeast/lsiraq.html.

73. Tina Sussman, "Slain Sheik a Stark Contrast to His

Brother," Los Angeles Times, 13 October 2007; and Hamza

Hendawi, "Reconciliation in Iraq Goes Local,"

Washington Post, 17 October 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17

/AR2007101701681 .html?tid=informbox.

193

74. James Janega, "From Killing to Reconciliation Bid,"

Chicago Tribune, 12 October 2007.

75. Greg Miller, "Influx of Al Qaeda, Money into Pakistan

is Seen," LosAngeles Times, 20 May 2007; and

Alexandra Zavis, "Iraq Militants Seen As Taking

Kickbacks," Los Angeles Times, 26 October 2007.

76. Michael Gordon, "Sunnis Say Baghdad Hampers

Anbar Gains," New York Times, 3 November 2007,

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/1 1/03/world/middleeast/O3anbar.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss; and Yochi

Dreazen and Gina Chon, "Will the Security Improvements

in Iraq Endur&," Wall Street Journal, 3 December 2007,

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1 19664380500411225

html.

77. See Faleh Jabar, The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq

(London: Saqi Books, 2003), especially pp.63-7.

78. See Babak Rahimi, "Basra Tears Itself Apart," Asia

Times, 10 July 2007, http://www.atimes.com/atimesI

Middle_East/IG10Ak01 html; and Gethin Chamberlin,

"Message from Basra: 'Get Us Out, of Here," Daily

Telegraph, 29 October 2007, http://www.telegraph.co

.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/28/nrbasra128.xml.

79. Eric Schmitt, Mark Mazzetti and Carlotta Gall, "U.S.

Hopes to Arm Pakistani Tribes Against Al Qaeda," New

York Times, 19 November 2007, http://www.nytimes.com

/2007/1 1/19/washington/l9policy.html.

80. Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (Philadelphia, PA:

Fortress, 1965; originally published 1919).

About the Author

Austin Long is an assistant professor at Columbia University's

School of International and Public Affairs, where he teaches security policy He previously worked as an associate political scientist

for the RAND Corporation and served as an advisor for Multi

National Force-Iraq. He is the author of Deterrence—From Cold

War to Long War: Lessons from S Decades of RAND Research

and On "Other War". Lessons from Five Decades of RAND

Counterinsurgency Research.

Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point

by Major Niel Smith, USA, and Colonel Sean B.

MacFarland, USA

Mi1itay Review, March-April 2008

T

he stunning security improvements in alAnbar Province during 2007 fundamentally

changed the military and political landscape

of Iraq. Many, both in and outside the military (and

as late as November 2006), had assessed the situation in Anbar as a lost cause. The "Anbar

Awakening" of Sunni tribal leaders and their supporters that began in September 2006 near Ramadi

seemed to come out of nowhere. But the change

that led to the defeat of al-Qaeda in Ramadi—what

some have called the "Gettysburg of Iraq—was not

a random event.' It was the result of a concerted

plan executed by U.S. forces in Ramadi. Tactical

victory became a strategic turning point when farsighted senior leaders, both Iraqi and American,

replicated the Ramadi model throughout Anbar

Province, in Baghdad, and other parts of the country, dramatically changing the Iraq security situation

in the process.

The "Ready First Combat Team"

The 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the

"Ready First Combat Team," was at the center of the

Anhar Awakening. When we arrived in Ramadi in

June 2006, few of us thought our campaign would

change the entire complexion of the war and push

al-Qaeda to the brink of defeat in Iraq. The soldiers,

Marines, sailors, and airmen who served in or with

our brigade combat team (BCTU enabled the Anbar

Awakening through a deliberate, often difficult

campaign that combined traditional counterinsurgency (COIN) principles with precise, lethal operations. The skilled application of the same principles

and exploitation of success by other great units in

Anbar and other parts of Iraq spread the success in

Ramadi far beyond our area of operations (AO) at

a pace no one could have predicted.

195

The Ready First enabled the Anbar

Awakening by:

• Employing carefully focused lethal operations.

• Securing the populace through forward

presence.

• Co-opting local leaders.

• Developing competent host-nation security forces.

• Creating a public belief in rising success.

• Developing human and physical infrastructure.

The execution of this approach enabled the

brigade to set conditions, recognize opportunity,

and exploit success when it came, to create a

remarkable turnaround.

Ramadi on the Brink

In the summer of 2006, Ramadi by any measure

was among the most dangerous cities in Iraq.2 The

area of operations averaged over three times more

attacks per capita than any other area in the country. With the exception of the embattled government center and nearby buildings held by a company of Marines, al-Qaeda-related insurgent:s had

almost complete freedom of movement throughout

the city. They dominated nearly all of the city's key

structures, including the city hospital, the largest in

Anbar Province. Their freedom of movement

allowed them to emplace complex subsurface lED

belts, which rendered much of the city no-go terrain for U.S. and Iraqi Army (IA) forces.

The situation in Ramadi at this point was

markedly different from that in Tal Afar, where the

Ready First began its tour of duty. Although Ramadi

was free of the sectarian divisions that bedeviled

Tal Afar, it was the provincial capital, it was at least

four times more populous, and it occupied a choke

point along the key transit rutes west of Baghdad.

Perhaps recognizing these same factors, al-Qaeda
had declared Ramadi the future capital of its

"caliphate" in Iraq. Local Iraqi security was essentially nonexistent. Less than a hundred Iraqi police

reported for duty in June, and they remained in

their stations, too intimidated to patrol. Additionally, the fledgling IA brigade nearest Ramadi had little operational experience.

In late 2005, the Sunni tribes around Ramadi

attempted to expel al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQIZ) after

growing weary of the terrorist group's heavy-handed, indiscriminate murder and intimidation campaign.3 A group calling itself the al-Anbar People's

Council formed from a Coalition of local Sunni

sheiks and Sunni nationalist groups. The council

intended to conduct an organized resistance against

1)0th Coalition forces and al-Qaeda elements, hut,

undermanned and hamstrung by tribal vendettas, it

lacked strength and cohesion. A series of tribal

leader assassinations ultimately brought down the

group, which ceased to exist by February 2006.

This collapse set the conditions that the brigade

found when it arrived in late May. The assassinations had created a leadership vacuum in Ramadi

and, by cutting tribal ties to outside tribal centers,

had isolated the city. For their part, the tribes had

adopted a passive posture, not wishing to antagonize a powerful al-Qaeda presence in and around

Ramadi. In short, as the Ready First prepared to

move from Tal Afar, their new AO was essentially

in enemy hands.

Actions in Summer and Autumn,

2006

The situation in Ramadi clearly required a change in Coalitioh tactics. We had to introduce

Iraqi security forces (1SF) into the city and the rural

areas controlled by the enemy. But, even with a

total of five Marine and Army maneuver battalion

task forces, the Ready First did not have enough

combat power to secure such a large city by itself.

The Iraqi Army and at some point, the Iraqi police

(IP), had to be brought into play. They would help,

but we understood that without the support of the

local leaders and populace, any security gains

achieved solely through lethal operations would he

temporary at best. In particular, we had to overcome the fallout from the unsuccessful tribal upris196

ing of 2005. We had to convince tribal leaders to

rejoin the fight against al-Qaeda.

Developing the plan. We reckoned the brigade

had to isolate the insurgents, deny them sanctuary,

and build Iraqi security forces, especially police

forces, to succeed. The staff developed a plan that

centered on attacking al-Qaeda's safe havens and

establishing a lasting presence there to directly

challenge the insurgents' dominance of the city,

disrupting their operations, attriting their numbers,

and gaining the confidence of the people. We

intended to take the city and its environs back one

neighborhood at a time by establishing combat

outposts and developing a police force in the

secured neighborhoods. The plan called for simultaneously engaging local leaders in an attempt to

find those who had influence, or wasta, and to get

their support. We recognized this as a critical part

of the plan, because without their help, we would

not he able to recruit enough police to take back

the entire city.

We also realized that in the plan's initial stages,

our efforts at fostering local cooperation were

highly vulnerable. A concerted AQIZ attack on the

supportive sheiks could quickly derail the process,

as it had in 2005-2006. We therefore took some

extraordinary measures to ensure the survival of

tribal leaders who "flipped" to our side. We established neighborhood watches that involved deputizing screened members of internal tribal militias

as "Provincial Auxiliary Iraqi Police," authorizing

them to wear uniforms, carry weapons, and provide security within the defined tribal area. In the

more important tribal areas, combat outposts

manned by U.S. or IA forces would protect major

routes and markets. In a few cases, we also

planned to provide direct security to key leaders'

residences, to include placing armored vehicles at

checkpoints along the major access roads to their

neighborhoods.

We designed our information operations (JO)

efforts to alienate the people from the insurgents

while increasing the prestige of supportive tribal

leaders. We also made friendly sheiks the conduits

for humanitarian aid efforts, such as free fuel disbursements. Wherever we established improved

security, we established civil-military operations

centers (CMOCs) and began the process of restor-
ing services to the area. After securing Rarnadi

General Hospital, we began an extensive effort to

improve its services and to advertise it throughout

the city. Prior to our operation there in early July

2006, the hospital's primary function had been

treating wounded insurgents, with most citizens

afraid to enter the facility. We also took a different

10 tack with the sheiks. Instead of telling them that

we would leave soon and they must assume

responsibility for their own security, we told them

that we would stay as long as necessary to defeat

the terrorists. That was the message they had been

waiting to hear. As long as they perceived us as

mere interlopers, they dared not throw in their lot

with ours. When they began to think of us as reliable partners, their attitudes began to change. Still,

we had to prove that we meant what we were saying.

Experience in Ta! Afar taught us that competent

local police forces were vital for long-term success.

An AQIZ intimidation campaign had all but eliminated the previous police force, and a suicide

bomber killed dozens of potential recruits during a

recruiting drive in January 2006, an event that

caused recruitment to shut down for six months. In

June 2006, the Ramadi IP force claimed approximately 420 police officers out of 3,386 authorized,

and only about 140 of these officers ever showed

up to work, with less than 100 present for duty on

any given day. We realized that new recruiting was

the key to building an effective police force.

Recruiting local security forces. Our desire to

recruit local Iraqis into the IP was the catalyst for

the Awakening movement's birth in September

2006. The way we went about it helped to prove

that we were reliable partners, that we could deliver security to the sheiks in a way that broke the

cycle of al-Qaeda murder and intimidation. In the

bargain, the government of Iraq would assume the

burden of paying their tribesmen to provide their

security. The situation was a winner any way you

looked at it. The tribes soon saw that instead of

being the hunted, they could become the hunters,

with well trained, paid, and equipped security

forces backed up by locally positioned Coalition

forces.

We began the process by shifting our recruiting

center to a more secure location, at one of our for197

ward operating bases (FOBs) located closer to the

tribes that had indicated a willingness to join the

1SF. This shift helped to deter attacks and other

forms of intimidation that had undermined previous recruiting drives. We maintained secrecy by

communicating information about the recruiting

drive only to sympathetic sheiks who wanted to

protect tribesmen sent to join the IP. This technique

resulted in a steadily growing influx of new

recruits. Over the six-month period from June to

December 2006, nearly 4,000 police joined without

incident.

This influx taxed the brigade security forces cell,

composed of the deputy commander and a small

staff of highly capable officers and NCOs. The

majority of the population in al-Anhar had either

forged ID papers or none at all, so the recruiters

had to determine the true identify and reliability of

the potential recruits. Insurgent infiltration of the

police force was (and still is) a problem in Iraq,

and is inevitable; however, the Ready First made

use of several methods and technologies to mitigate this risk.

Biometric automated tool sets (BATS) proved

extremely useful in screening recruits and preventing previously caught insurgents from joining. Convincing supportive sheiks to vouch for their tribal

members was a second filter in the screening

process. From June to December, more than 90

percent of police recruits came from tribes supporting the Awakening, and the sheiks knew whom to

trust.

Our 1SF cell understood the importance of paying the new police to prove that they were respected and their service was valued. As a collateral

benefit, the growing IP force also created a small

engine for economic development by providing

jobs in addition to security for the local community. Each recruit received a bonus if accepted for

training. Officers also received a bonus if they

served as active police members for 90 days. These

boosts injected more vitality into the economy.

New Iraqi Army recruits also received incentives

to join. One obstacle to recruitment was that locals

were hesitant to join the IA because of the possibility of receiving an assignment far from home. To

mitigate this, IA Division G-ls assigned the junch

(junior soldiers) to an Iraqi battalion close to their
homes. This "station of choice" option helped eliminate a major constraint of recruitment possibilities

for the IA.

Both Iraqi police and IA jundi assigned to

Ramadi were required to attend a one-week urban

combat training course run by the Ready First's field

artillery unit to ensure that they could fight and survive once they joined their units. This focused training improved their confidence and discipline in

urban combat, and significantly enhanced 1SF effectiveness in small-unit actions. In time, the local IA

brigade took responsibility for conducting the IA

and IP courses with a cadre of drill sergeants, which

helped forge closer bonds between the two services and instilled an increased sense of confidence in

the Iraqi security forces.

The Ready First made every effort to help

unqualified Iraqi recruits become police officers or

soldiers. The most frequent disqualifier of recruits

was the literacy requirement. The brigade commenced adult literacy classes, on a trial basis, for

the illiterate recruits. These classes also had a positive, albeit unintended, collateral benefit. As security improved, hundreds of women enrolled in the

classes—about five times more than we expected.

The fact that women eventually felt safe enough to

seek education reinforced the impression of

improved security while directly attacking alQaeda's ability to influence the population.

As the benefits of cooperation with our recruiting efforts became obvious to the various local

sheiks, more and more of them expressed an interest in cooperating with us. This interest eventually

resulted in an al-Qaeda reprisal that, although tragic, was instrumental in bringing the sheiks together

in the Awakening movement.

Securing the populace. Past Coalition operations

in Ramadi had originated from large FOBs on the

outskirts of town, with most forces conducting

"drive-by COIN" (or combat)—they exited the FOB,

drove to an objective or patrolled, were attacked,

exchanged fire, and returned to base. Because the

physical geography and road network in Ramadi

enabled the enemy to observe and predict Coalition

movements, nearly every movement into the center

of the city was attacked multiple times by improvised explosive devices, RPGs, or small arms, often

with deadly results. Moreover, the patrols played

198

into the insurgents' information operations campaign: al-Qaeda exploited any collateral damage by

depicting Coalition soldiers as aloof occupiers and

random dispensers of violence against the populace.

It was clear that to win over the sheiks and their

people, our BCT would have to move into the city

and its contested areas. Thus, we decided to

employ a tactic we had borrowed from the 3d

Armored Cavalry Regiment and used successfully in

Tal Afar: the combat outpost, or COP. Our COPs

normally consisted of a tank or infantry company

team based in a defensible local structure in a disputed area. Eventually, the COPs included an Iraqi

Army company wherever possible as they became

emboldened by our presence. Later, we began to

establish Iraqi police substations at or near the

COPs as well. At this early stage, the outposts provided 'lily pads" for mechanized quick-reaction

forces, safe houses for special operations units, and

security for civil-military operations centers. In rural

areas, the COPs sometimes doubled as firebases

with mortars and counterfire radars.

Because we now maintained a constant presence in disputed neighborhoods, the insurgents

could no longer accurately trace and predict our

actions. Frequent and random patrols out of the

COPs prevented AQIZ from effectively moving and

operating within the local populace. At the same

time, the COPs enhanced our ability to conduct

civil-military operations; intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR); and 10.

These outposts also acted as "fly bait," especially in the period immediately after a new COP was

established. Experience in Tal Afar taught us that

insurgents would attack a newly established outpost using all systems at their disposal, including

suicide car bombs. These attacks usually did not

end well for the insurgents, who often suffered

heavy casualties. During the establishment of the

first outpost, in July 2006, the enemy mounted multiple-platoon assaults. The frenzy of attacks on the

new outposts culminated in a citywide battle on 24

July 2006 in which AQIZ forces were severely beaten and sustained heavy casualties. By October,

attacks were far less fierce, with elements consisting of a handful of men conducting hit-and-run

type operations. These noticeable decreases in
enemy strength indicated our plan to decimate their

ranks was clearly working. Constant Coalition presence, insurgent attrition, and loss of insurgent

mobility freed the people from intimidation and

sapped any support for AQIZ.

The COPs also allowed us to control the infrastructure in Ramadi and use it to once again support the populace. This was the case with the

Ramadi General Hospital. We established a COP

just outside the hospital's walls while an IA unit

secured the premises. Within days, the hospital was

providing quality medical attention for the first time

in a year, and the IA was detaining wounded insurgents who had come seeking treatment.

We continued to build new outposts in the city

and surrounding areas until our redeployment transition began in February 2007. The strategy was not

unlike the island-hopping campaign in the Pacific

during World War II. With new outposts established

in an ever-tightening circle around the inner city,

we wrested control of areas away from the insurgents. As areas became manageable, we handed

them over to newly trained Iraqi police forces

(whom we kept a watchful eye on), and used the

relieved forces elsewhere to continue tightening the

noose. All these developments in securing the populace required an accompanying development of

key alliances with tribal leaders, the history of

which is inseparable from the operational story of

the Anbar Awakening.

Courting local leaders. Convincing the local

sheiks to join us and undertake another uprising

was an immense challenge, but obtaining their support was the lynchpin of the second part of our

strategy. We knew it would be pivotal when we

arrived in Ramadi in June. The sheiks' memory of

their first, failed attempt at establishing the al-Anbar

People's Council (late 2005-early 2006) was the

main obstacle to our plan in this regard. The Sunni

tribal alliance was fragmented and weak compared

to the growing al-Qaeda forces that controlled

Ramadi in those days.

At the same time, area tribal sheiks had no great

love for U.S. forces or the Iraqi Army. Early in the

insurgency, they had directly and indirectly supported former-regime nationalist insurgents against

U.S. forces, and as a result they had temporarily

established an alliance of convenience with AQIZ.

199

Many tribal members were killed or captured combating Coalition forces, which diminished the

sheiks' ability to provide income for their tribes.

These conditions in turn enabled AQIZ to recruit

from those families in need of money. Another

aggravating factor was that IA forces initially stationed in Anbar consisted largely of southern Iraqi

Shi'ites. Ramadi area inhabitants regarded them as

agents of the Sadr militia or Badr Corps, with a

covert agenda to kill off Sunni tribes and enable a

Shi'ite takeover of Anbar.

Nevertheless, the tribal leaders were still fed up

with Al Qaeda's violence and frustrated by their

own loss of prestige and influence in their traditional heartlands. The brigade staff believed that by

offering convincing incentives, we could create a

tribal alliance that could produce lasting security in

Ramadi. To persuade the tribes to cooperate, we

first needed to understand the human terrain in our

AO, and that task fell to an outstanding and talented junior officer, Captain Travis Patriquin.

An Arabic-speaking former special forces soldier

and an infantry officer assigned as the Ready First's

S-9/engagements officer, Patriqu in coordinated

brigade-level local meetings and discussions. He

quickly gained the sheiks' confidence through his

language and interpersonal skills and developed

strong personal bonds with their families. He

strengthened these bonds during meetings between

the brigade commander or deputy commanding

officer and the sheiks. Battalion and company commanders also worked on improving relations with

the townspeople on a daily basis. Thus, the sheiks'

growing trust of the brigade's officers led them to

support our efforts to reinvigorate police recruiting.

The combined effects of the engagement efforts

were eventually hugely successful. However, some

staff officers outside the brigade became concerned

that we were arming a tribal militia that would fight

against Iraqi security forces in the future. To allay

those concerns and to pass on the "best practices"

we had developed in Ramadi, Captain Patriquin

created his now-famous PowerPoint stick-figure

presentation "How to Win in al-Anbar."4 This slideshow perfectly captured the Ready First's concept

for winning the tribes over to our side.

We deliberately placed our first IP stations

manned with newly recruited Sunni tribesmen
where they could protect the tribes that were supplying us with additional recruits. This tactic gave

the IPs added incentive to stand and fight and

effectively ended al-Qaeda's murder and intimidation campaign against the men serving in the 1SF. In

a significant change of circumstance, the newly

minted IPs quickly became the hunters, arresting a

number of insurgents and uncovering tremendous

weapons caches. By the end of July 2006, AQIZ

was definitely feeling the pinch.

In reacting to the pressure, al-Qaeda inadvertently aided our efforts by overplaying its hand. The

group launched a series of attacks against the new

IP stations. On 21 August, the insurgents attacked a

newly established IP station in a tribal stronghold

with an immense suicide vehicle-borne improvised

explosive device (S\TBIED). The IPs, however,

refused to he scared away. Despite offers of safe

haven at a nearby Coalition base, the survivors

remained at their posts, ran their tattered flag back

up the flagpole, and even began to conduct patrols

again that same day.

Hours later, al-Qaeda attempted to intimidate

future recruits by murdering and desecrating the

body of a leading local sheik who had been instrumental in our early push at recruiting tribe members into the 1SF. The attack inflamed tribal sentiment against AQIZ and drove several fence-sitting

tribes to support our police recruitment.

A significant leader for the burgeoning movement emerged in Sittar albu-Risha, a younger sheik

who resided on the west side of town and who was

reputed to have smuggling and business connections throughout Anbar. In addition to having questions about Sittar's true motives, some were concerned that we would he placing too much stock in

a relatively junior sheik and undercutting ongoing

negotiations with Anhar tribal leaders who had fled

to Jordan. However, with each successful negotiation and demonstration of trustworthiness by Sittar,

we were able to whittle away at these reservations.

The Tipping Point

Sheik Sittar was a dynamic figure willing to stand

up to al-Qaeda. Other, more cautious, sheiks were

happy to let him walk point for the anti-AQIZ tribes

in the early days, when victory was far from certain

200

and memories of earlier failed attempts were still

fresh. In The Tipping Poin! Malcolm Gladwell

writes that three types of individuals are necessary

for a radical change, or a "tipping point," to occur:

mavens, salespersons, and connectors. In brief,

mavens have the goods, salespersons spread the

word, and connectors distribute the goods far and

wide.5 In Ramadi, the soldiers of the Ready First

were the mavens who had the goods—in this case,

the ability to form, train, and equip 1SF and new

leaders. The brigade and battalion commanders

acted as salesmen. We identified Sittar as a connector who could get the people to buy into the

Awakening. All the elements were in place for

transformation; we only had to decide if we trusted

Sittar. When our salesmen decided to take a risk

with this connector, the effect was amazing in its

speed and reach.

On 9 September 2006 Sittar organized a tribal

council, attended by over 50 sheiks and the brigade

commander, at which he declared the "Anbar

Awakening" officially underway. The Awakening

Council that emerged from the meeting agreed to

first drive AQIZ from Ramadi, and then reestal)lish

rule of law and a local government to support the

people. The creation of the Awakening Council,

combined with the ongoing recruitment of local

security forces, began a snowball effect that resulted in a growing number of tribes either openly supporting the Awakening or withdrawing their support from AQIZ.

Although recruiting and establishing the neighborhood watch units was an important and necessary step to securing Ramadi, it was not sufficient to

remove AQIZ influence in the city completely. We

needed more police officers who would join us

inside the city, which our soldiers called "the heart

of darkness." A critical agreement emerging from

the council resulted in commitments to provide

more recruits from local tribes to fill out requirements for police forces.

Soon after the council ended, tribes began an

independent campaign of eradication and retaliation against AQIZ members living among them. AlQaeda's influence in the city began to wane quickly. U.S. and Iraqi units operating from COPs killed

or captured AQIZ's most effective elements while

resurgent IP and tribal forces raided their caches
and safe houses. By late October, nearly every tribe

in the northern and western outskirts of Rarnadi

had publically declared support for the Awakening,

and tribes in the dangerous eastern outskirts of the

city were sending out feelers about doing the same.

The stage was set for a major change in Ramadi.

The Battle of Sufla

AQIZ did not sit idly as it slowly lost its dominance of both the terrain and the populace. Attacks

remained high through October 2006 (Ramadan)

inside the city limits while SVBIED attacks against

and harassment of new COPs and IP stations located outside the city occurred regularly. These attacks

often inflicted casualties on the nascent security

forces. Casualties were not enough to slow the

Awakening, however, and support continued to

expand for the movement.

AQIZ long counted on a secure support base on

the east outskirts of town in the Sufia and Julaybah

areas. These rural tribal areas were some of the

most dangerous in the Ramadi AO, and intelligence

indicated they harbored a large support network for

the insurgents operating inside the city. AQIZ

learned that one of the major sheiks of the Sufia

area was considering supporting the Awakening and

that he had erected checkpoints to keep out insurgents. Facing a threat to its vital support areas outside of town, AQIZ acted quickly to maintain its grip

there.

On 25 November, 30 to 40 gunmen in cars drove

into the Albu Soda tribal area and began murdering

members of the tribe. AQIZ forces took the tribal

militiamen attempting to defend their homes by surprise, killing many while looting and burning their

homes. A group of civilians fled in boats across the

Euphrates River and reached an Iraqi Army outpost

where they breathlessly described what was happening. The IA battalion relayed the information to

our brigade TOC [Tactical Operations Centerl,

where the operations staff reallocated ISR platforms

and immediately called for Captain Patriquin to provide an Iraqi account of the situation.

Within an hour, Patriquin had gained an understanding of the situation through phone calls to the

local sheiks. The brigade headquarters quickly

made a crucial decision—we would support the

201

Albu Soda tribe in defending itself. The BCT commanders and staff cancelled a planned battalionsized combined operation in east Ramadi that was

just hours from execution. The battalion commander who was responsible for that area, Lieutenant

Colonel Charles Ferry of 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry

(Manchus), quickly diverted his force away from the

planned operations to assist the Soda tribe in

defending its homes. The decision was immediate

and the response rapid, underscoring the brigade's

flexibility in recognizing and adapting quickly to

take advantage of opportunities, rather than following plans in lockstep.

U.S. Marine Corps aircraft arrived overhead to

perform "show of force" sorties designed to intimidate the insurgents and convince them that air

attack was imminent. Next, a ground reaction force

from Task Force 1-9 Infantry began preparations to

move to the area and establish defenses for the Albu

Soda tribe. Because we were viewing the area using

aerial sensors, our vision of the fight was indistinct,

and we were unable to separate insurgents from the

friendly tribesmen. We did not want to attack the

friendly tribe by mistake, so we undertook actions

to intimidate the insurgents by firing "terrain denial"

missions. Explosions in empty nearby fields raised

the possibility of suppressive artillery fire in the

minds of the enemy. Complemented by the roar of

fighter jets, the startled AQIZ forces became convinced that massive firepower was bearing down on

them. They started to withdraw, separating themselves from their victims.

As AQIZ gunmen began fleeing the area, they

loaded into several cars, three of which our sensors

identified. Our UAV observed a body dragging

behind one of the cars, evidently an Albu Soda

tribesman. The insurgents obviously meant to terrorize and insult the tribe through this act of mutilation,

but they also triggered a boomerang reaction by

clearly identifying themselves. The Ready First TOC

coordinated F-18 attacks that overtook and

destroyed the fleeing vehicles in a blazing fury as

M1A1 tanks maneuvered to engage. Armed Predator

UAVs and M1A1 tanks in ambush positions finished

off others attempting to escape. In the end, the Al

Qaeda forces suffered far more casualties than the

Albu Soda tribe. By nightfall, several companies of

infantry and some M1A1 tanks had reinforced tribal
defenders, further demonstrating Coalition commitment.

Once again, AQIZ's intimidation attempt spectacularly backfired: tribes joined the Awakening movement at a rate that proved difficult to keep up with,

even expanding into the neighboring Fallujah and

Hit AOs. Within two months, every tribe in Sufia

and Julaybah had declared support for the

Awakening, and four new combat outposts had

been constructed to secure the populations. An area

previously deemed high threat and used as a staging ground for AQIZ mortar attacks became almost

completely secure. Tribal members inside Ramadi

began supporting the Awakening as well, and security rapidly improved. Once a tribal area joined the

Awakening, enemy contact in those areas typically

dropped to near zero, as IP, IA, and U.S. forces provided security. Bases once under daily mortar and

small arms attacks became secure areas and transitioned to IP control, freeing U.S. forces to pursue

AQIZ elsewhere.

Overall, by February 2007, contacts with insurgents dropped almost 70 percent compared to the

numbers in June 2006, and they had dramatically

decreased in complexity and effect. The combination of tribal engagement and combat outposts had

proved toxic to AQIZ's efforts to dominate Ramadi.

Rebuilding

Clearing and holding are the bloody but relatively straightforward part of any counterinsurgency

effort; building the infrastructure to sustain military

success is the complicated part. In Ramadi, it was

essential to begin building at the beginning of a

clearing operation, so there would not be a gap

between establishing security and implementing

projects.

While civil affairs projects are obviously vital to

the success of a clear, hold, build campaign, building human infrastructure, which includes installing

government officials and agency directors, is just as

vital. One of the keys to success in Tal Afar was the

establishment of a credible local government with a

mayor respected by the populace. In Ramadi, there

was no local governance when we arrived. We prevailed upon the provincial council to appoint a

mayor—one acceptable to the tribes—to coordinate

202

development for the city. This appointment was

important because it relieved the governor of

municipal level duties and allowed him to focus on

issues elsewhere in the province. We then worked

with the mayor to ensure that schools, hospitals,

sewers, power stations, and other infrastructure all

returned to pre-war normalcy as soon as possible.

In fact, the western part of Ramadi was undergoing

redevelopment even while combat operations in

east Ramadi continued during autumn. This rebuilding effort demonstrated that normal services could

function again and helped convince the people of

Ramadi that local security improvements were permanent.

We wanted to encourage people living in stillembattled neighborhoods that joining the Awakening was both possible and in their best interest. To

that end, we held the first "Ramadi Reconstruction

Conference" in January 2007 at Sheik Sittar's home.

Sheik Sittar invited all of the local sheiks, any government officials we could find, and local contractors. Following a brief on all ongoing projects, we

explained the different ways Coalition forces could

be of assistance in reconstruction. The participants

broke down into geographically based small

groups, led by our five maneuver task force commanders and their local partners, to design and

refine plans for reconstruction. The commanders

discussed local needs and, just as importantly, local

reconstruction capabilities. Everyone was asked to

return in March to brief plans. Accordingly, we were

able to begin reconstruction in cleared parts of

Ramadi before the fighting was over elsewhere.

Maintaining the initiative in this way was the single

most important thing we did throughout the campaign.

Why We Succeeded

Clearly, a combination of factors, some of which

we may not yet fully understand, contributed to this

pivotal success. As mentioned before, the enemy

overplayed its hand and the people were tired of alQaeda. A series of assassinations had elevated

younger, more aggressive tribal leaders to positions

of influence. A growing concern that the U.S. would

leave Iraq and leave the Sunnis defenseless against

al-Qaeda and Iranian-supported militias made these
younger leaders open to our overtures. Our willingness to adapt our plans based on the advice of the

sheiks, our staunch and timely support for them in

times of danger and need, and our ability to deliver

on our promises convinced them that they could do

business with us. Our forward presence kept them

reassured. We operated aggressively across all lines

of operation, kinetic and non-kinetic, to bring every

weapon and asset at our disposal to bear against the

enemy. We conducted detailed intelligence fusion

and targeting meetings and operated seamlessly

with special operations forces, aviation, close air

support, and riverine units. We have now seen this

model followed by other BCTs in other parts of Iraq,

and it has proved effective. Indeed, the level of

sophistication has only improved since the Ready

First departed in February 2007. Although, perhaps

groundbreaking at the time, most of our tactics,

techniques, and procedures are now familiar to any

unit operating in Iraq today.

The most enduring lessons of Ramadi are ones

that are most easily lost in technical and tactical discussions, the least tangible ones. The most important lessons we learned were:

• Accept risk in order to achieve results.

Once you gain the initiative, never give the

enemy respite or refuge.

• Never stop looking for another way to

attack the enemy.

• The tribes represent the people of Iraq,

and the populace represents the "key terrain"

of the conflict. The force that supports the

population by taking the moral high ground

has as sure an advantage in COIN as a maneuver commander who occupies dominant terrain in a conventional battle.

• No matter how imperfect the tribal system appeared to us, it was capable of providing social order and control through culturally

appropriate means where governmental control was weak.

Conclusion

The men assigned and attached to the Ready First

203

paid a terrible price for securing Ramadi. In nine

months, 85 of our soldiers, sailors, and Marines

were killed, and over 500 wounded in some of the

toughest fighting of the war. Only the remarkable

results they achieved, and the liberated citizens of

Ramadi who can now walk the streets without fear,

temper the grief caused by their sacrifice. It is gratifying to see our model adapted and used elsewhere

in the war on terror. It proves once again that

America's Army is truly a learning organization. In

the end, probably the most important lesson we

learned in Ramadi was that, as General Petraeus

said, "Hard is not hopeless."

Notes

Military Review, March-April 2008, 41-52.:

Reprinted by permission.

1. Frederick W. Kagan, "The Gettysburg of This War,"

National Review, 3 September 2007.

2. Megan K. Stack and Louise Roug, "Fear of Big

Battle Panics Iraqi City," Los Angeles Times, 11 June

2006.

3. For the purposes of this essay, the multiple insurgent groups are broken into two main categories:

former regime elements (FRE), consisting of former

Ba'athists and other nationalists, and al-Qaeda in Iraq

(AQIZ), consisting of Islamic fundamentalist insurgent groups.

4. The "How to Win in al-Anbar" presentation

became famous quickly, even gaining mention on

several news talk shows. It can be downloaded at

<http://abcnews.go.com/images/us/how_to_win_in

_anbar_v4 .pdf>.

5. Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little

Things Can Make a Big Difference (Boston: Little,

Brown, 2000).

About the Authors

Major Niel Smith, USA, is operations officer at the U.S. Army and

Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, a part of the U.S. Army's

Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He served as

the operations officer for the 1st Brigade Combat Team during

Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Colonel Sean B. MacFarland, USA, has been promoted to

brigadier general since publication of this article and is now commander of Joint Task Force North. From 2005 to 2006, he was

commander of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored

Division.

Ramadi: From the Caliphate to Capitalism

by Andrew Lubin

U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 2008

B

y the summer of 2006 the Bush administration

and many of the generals fighting the war in

Iraq considered the city of Ramadi a lost cause.

The terrorist organization al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had

announced that Ramadi was now the capital of their

new caliphate, an Islamic state in which a single ruler

exercises both civil and religious power; the Marines

stationed in the government center, in the middle of

the city, were under fire day and night; the Army

stayed in bases on the outskirts of the city. In August,

the Marines' in-country intelligence chief, Colonel Pete

Devlin, delivered a bleak-and highly classified-assessment of the city and surrounding al-Anbar Province

that shocked the administration, Congress, and the

American public when it was leaked to the

Washington Post's Thomas E. Ricks.

Devlin, Ricks wrote, had recently filed "an unusual

secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western al-Anbar Province are dim

and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can

do to improve the political and social situation there."

Americans had grown to know Ramadi from stories

of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) ripping

through unarmored humvees, or Marine patrols being

attacked only a few dozen yards outside outposts with

names like Snake Pit. In August 2006, the month that

Colonel Devlin completed his report, 33 Marines and

soldiers were killed in action in and around Ramadi.

The successes and euphoria enjoyed by the politicians

and the American people in the afterglow of the quick

and successful March 2003 invasion had long since

been replaced by the growing killed in-action reports

from the daily fighting in Ramadi, Fallujah, and other

cities in al-Anbar Province.

As the casualty count mounted, the situation grew

worse, and in November the Post followed up with

another article, by Ricks and Dafna Linzer, which said

the Devlin report had been updated to say:

"The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a

205

bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter alQaeda's rising popularity there." The story went on to

quote a senior U.S. intelligence official as saying that,

as of mid-November, "the problems in troubled Anhar

Province have not improved."

But unknown to few outside of al-Anbar, the situation on the ground was already changing. Aithough

the improvements would not become apparent until

April-May 2007, by early September 2007, only 10

months after the Post's despairing report, the Ramadi

City Council sponsored a 5K race that attracted some

120 competitors and live television coverage from

Baghdad. Currently, salaries have increased almost 40

percent due to the recent construction boom; Ramadi's

mayor, Latif Obaid, with a full year in office, has sponsored three well-attended business development councils; and in January 2008 the Marines approved

patrolling without wearing flak jackets and Kevlar helmets.

This is a turnaround of historic proportions.

Soldier, Marine, Sbeikb

The peace and prosperity enjoyed in Ramadi

today was earned primarily by the leadership and

initiative shown in the 2006-2007 time period by

three men: Colonel Sean MacFarland of the Army's

1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 1st Armored

Division, known as "The Ready First," Lieutenant

Colonel William Jurney of the 1st Battalion, 6th

Marines (1/6), and Sheikh Sattar Abdul Abu Risha

and his Sons of Anbar, the first organized group of

Iraqis to turn on AQI.

In 2006, the Army was fighting to control the Shia

areas in Iraq, and the Marine Corps was given

responsibility for al-Anhar Province. Major General

(now Lieutenant General) Richard Zilmer arrived in

June to take command of the 1st Marine

Expeditionary Force (MEF) (Fwd) and began to

develop the strategy to secure Ramadi.

"Ramadi was the missing key to Anbar Province,"

Zilmer said in a January 2008 interview with
Proceedings, "but we needed to stabilize the security situation first."

But Ramadi needed more than security if it were

to again be thought of as viable city. There were no

basic services. Two years of constant TED blasts, 70-

ton Ml Abrams tanks barreling through the streets,

and Marine counterattacks had left the city devastated. Raw sewage ran down the streets from shattered

pipes. There was little to no city-supplied electrical

power. Shops and other businesses had long ceased

to open, and the school system had collapsed. Those

citizens who had not fled the city huddled in their

homes as Marines and insurgents fought through the

streets day and night.

With General Zilmer responsible for all of a!-

Anbar Province, responsibility for gaining control of

Ramadi fell to Colonel MacFarland of the "Ready

First" as it assumed area responsibility in early June

2006.

The situation was grim; the Army had control of

the outskirts of the city through its "bookend" camps

to the west and east (Camp Ramadi and Camp

Corregidor). A tank company operated in the southern part of Ramadi, and the 3d Battalion, 8th Marines

(3/8) under Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Neary were

based at Camp Hurricane Point, in the far western

end of the city. Neary had established three tenuous

outposts within the city limits; one at the

Government Center, another in the Iraqi veterans

affairs building known as OP VA, and the third, OP

Hawk, close to the Government Center.

"2006 needed to be the Year of the Iraqi police

(IP)," Zilmer said. "We needed to build up their army

and police so that governance could follow." But for

this to occur, the local Iraqis had to be convinced

that the Americans would stay and fight—just as the

Americans needed to be convinced that the Iraqis

would stand and fight with them.

Enter Sheikh Sattar Abdul Abu Risha.

Sattar Delivers

Shortly after the "Ready First" arrived in June 2006,

Lieutenant Colonel Tony Deane, commander of Task

Force 1-35 Armor, approached Sattar to recruit his

tribesmen to the police force.

To accomplish this, Colonel MacFarland's deputy,

Lieutenant Colonel Jim Lechner, and his police imple206

mentation officer, Marine Major Teddy Gates, decided

to change the location for IP recruiting. They wanted

a more secure location close to Sattar's house, as this

would enable them to build a police station north of

the Euphrates River in an area where many potential

recruits lived.

Having already had his father and three brothers

killed by AQI, Sattar liked the idea, and the Iraqi

response was overwhelming at the next week's

recruiting drive. Sattar promised even more recruits for

August, and with AQI's help, he delivered.

In August, the new Jazeera police station north of

the river, manned mostly by Abu Ali Jassim tribe members, was attacked and the sheikh of the tribe killed.

AQI then hid the sheikh's body so it was not found for

several days, a gross violation of Islam's strict burial

rules that call for interment within 24 hours.

The attack on the station killed several Iraqi police

and also caused a number of burn casualties.

MacFarland offered the police evacuation to Camp

Blue Diamond, an American Army camp outside of

Ramadi, while they repaired the station, but the Iraqis

refused to abandon their post. Instead, in a scene reminiscent of Iwo Jima, they put their flag back up, and

began patrolling again that same day.

With the locals outraged by AQI's disregard of

Islamic funeral laws, the charismatic Sheikh Sattar

stepped forward to continue the push toward working

with the Americans. He began as the spokesman for

what is now known as the Anbar Awakening movement, and soon became the leader. McFarland attended the meeting when the sheikhs officially began the

Awakening, and the next week he and they agreed to

a list of principles and requirements.

McFarland later said, "I told them that I now knew

what it was like to be in Independence Hall on 4 July

1776 when the Declaration of Independence was

signed."

Keeping Pressure on AQI

Three weeks later, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines (1/6)

relieved 3/8. Its mission: "Provide security and stability for Ramadi, working with and through the Iraqi

Army (TA)."

The battalion moved into the camp on the western

end of Ramadi known as Hurricane Point and immediately began to plan its advance into the city. "We
were told to expand our permanent presence with the

Iraqi security forces" (1SF), said Lieutenant Colonel

Jurney, the CO, "and so we began conducting some

pretty serious offensive ops within the first 30 days."

Initially Jurney and 1/6 were on their own in West

Ramadi, although they had theoretical support from an

Iraqi Army battalion that in reality was not able to

fight. Jurney saw the need to fight aggressively, and he

pushed his companies out into the city quickly.

"I tried to give my battalion commanders a clear

intent for their role in the Brigade's fight, provide them

with the resources they need to execute, and let them

fight their fight as they see it," explained MacFarland.

Jurney quickly dispatched his companies into the

city. Alpha Company under Captain Stephen Sloan

took over OP VA. Captain Jason Arthaud, Bravo

Company, pushed out to the Government Center, and

Charlie Company, Captain Jody White, ran OP Hawk.

Captain Todd Mahar's Weapons Company escorted

convoys around the city, conducted mobile patrols,

and provided the heavy quick reaction force presence.

Additionally, MacFarland provided Navy SEALS and

Seabees, Army scouts, civil affairs, and PSYOPS teams,

UAVs, engineers, artillery, and attack helicopters as

needed. He also stationed a tank platoon at Hurricane

Point to support the Marines. Based on reports from

his field commanders, the colonel adjusted his forces

to maintain maximum pressure on the enemy at all

times.

"We pushed our Marines into the most heavily contested areas," said Jurney, the 1/6 battalion commander, "where AQI ruled primarily by murder and intimidation."

Jurney ordered regular patrolling, enhancing security street by street. His Marines also supplied generators, other equipment, medical assistance, and a variety of services that elevated living conditions for

Ramadi's citizens.

Night Calls

Knocking unbidden on the doors of residents after

midnight, a practice known as "night calls," resulted in

intelligence about the workings of the neighborhood

that had the collateral benefit of helping the Marines

distinguish between friend and foe. Captain Sloan's

troops would depart OP VA through the twisted wires,

trash, and lED craters to knock on doors at 0100 or

207

later. If not fighting, Second Lieutenant Micah

Steinpfad would drink chai with the head of the

household as he inquired about family, schooling,

employment (or lack of), and other demographic

questions so Marines could build a database of local

knowledge for each street.

Simultaneously, the company corpsman, Chris

"Doc" Anderson, would be treating children who

needed basic medical aid. Returning to base at about

0400, the teams would often hear gunfire and TED

blasts from other sections of the city where Marine

patrols were engaged in nocturnal firefights.

Lieutenant Colonel Jurney took the concept of

"clear-hold-build" and refined it: he believed all three

activities needed to be conducted concurrently. There

were kinetic and non-kinetic operations done simultaneously, but in different parts of the city, and to different degrees.

Part of the non-kinetic operations was Voice of

Ramadi, a radio broadcast to the citizens via huge

loudspeakers from the top of the Government Center,

and other newly established strong points. The brainchild of Major Tiley Nunnick, the Information Officer,

the goal was to communicate news and events to the

local population.

"Your brave Iraqi police stopped a suicide bomber

this morning" the citizens were told, or "750 more of

your loyal Sons of Anbar have signed up as Iraqi

police in order to protect their homes and families."

Voice of Ramadi broadcast at set times each day,

like the prayers chanted from the mosques. :Led by

Majors Nunnick and Daniel Zappa, Lieutenant Colonel

Jurney's executive officer, 1/6 formed a working group

that developed these culturally effective messages. In

an unusual move, Jurney and Zappa installed their

lead interpreter as a special adviser, his knowledge

and familiarity with the local culture and religion playing a big part in the communications operation.

In addition, the district police chiefs, Mayor Latif,

and Anbar's governor, Ma-moun Sami Rashid al

Alwani, all took part in bringing public service messages and updates to the people. Their messages had

to do with security and improving critical services as

redevelopment projects got underway.

Working Together

As the Marines struggled to win the battle in the
streets, Jurney and MacFarland fought to prevail on a

governmental and tribal level. Governor Ma-moun

shuttled between his office at the Government Center

and the Ministry of the Interior in Baghdad pleading

for funds to pay the police and other city workers. His

knowledge of the local political scene proved invaluable to the Marines of 1/6; one day he brought Jurney

a list of 120 names of Sunnis volunteering to join the

police force—all of whom withstood a security check.

Jurney and MacFarland also worked with Sheikh

Sattar in planning each new outpost. They would

build one in a day, then assign both Marines and Iraqi

troops to operate from it. After the surrounding area

was secured, they would construct another one several hundred yards away.

While the Marines of 3/8 had labored mightily to

train the Iraqi Army battalion prior to the arrival of 1/6,

it finally achieved acceptable combat readiness when

Jurney and McFarland started co-locating Marines and

Iraqi units. Previously, the IA rotated companies in

and out of the fight for leave, but this was changed to

platoon rotations so that companies could permanently partner with the Marines and own the same battlespace.

Captain Patriquin

MacFarland and his civil affairs officer, Captain

Travis Patriquin, met regularly with Sheikh Sattar, and

the relationship developed into an essential ingredient

in successfully engaging the locals.

Patriquin was a former Special Forces officer who

spoke passable Arabic. Smart and highly personable,

he accompanied McFarland to his meetings with

Sattar. He became personally close to the sheikh and

his family, who soon "adopted" him, and gave him the

honorary tribal name Hisham Abu Resha (Patrick of

Abu Resha). When Patriquin learned of medical problems or other local needs, he told MacFarland's staff,

which quickly responded, further improving relations.

MacFarland, Pâtriquin, and Sheikh Sattar huddled

regularly to discuss ways to persuade tribesmen to join

the Iraqi security forces, to induce more tribes into the

Awakening movement, to bring a functional government back to Ramadi, and to rebuild the city. "It was

a partnership built on mutual respect" said MacFarland

"and neither of us (he or Patriquin) ever made a commitment that we did not honor"

208

"Patriquin was one more very good reason for the

sheikhs to trust us," McFarland explained.

The captain's death from an TED blast in December

2006 was a huge blow to the sheikhs, who turned Out

in force for his memorial service and often became

teary eyed when speaking of him afterward. They

named a police station in his honor.

But at this point Jurney's Marines were still going

door-to-door, providing the muscle that gave Sattar the

"face" he needed when talking with the other sheiks.

The fighting inside the city remained ferocious; on this

author's first night at Hurricane Point, in October 2006,

four Marines at OP Hawk were killed when their

humvee was IED'd, and a month later Doc Anderson

and Captain Patriquin were lost. The Marine KIA

[Killed in Action] and WIA (Wounded in Action] toll

continued to mount.

Seizing the Security Station

The first major Marine offensive was seizing the

17th Street Security Station, which they did in midOctober. Taking control of this three-story building

signaled both the locals and AQI that the Marines were

serious about reclaiming the city. Sloan's Alpha

Company Marines were moved from OP VA into the

security station, and it became the first joint MarineIraqi outpost in the city.

Meanwhile, AQI's campaign of terror had not abated. Beheadings of adults and teens continued.

Smokers had their fingers cut off.

Now, though, Marines, Iraqi Army troops, and

police were patrolling together three times a day. They

went Street by street, knocking on doors, meeting the

residents, opening two schools, fighting if necessary.

The continuous on-the-ground presence of the

Marines gave the locals the courage to stand up to

AQI.

The break came when the Abu Alwani tribe

"flipped," meaning they switched their loyalties and

began working with the Marines. The tribe lived in

West Ramadi, where Jurney's Marines first began

patrolling, and were convinced by Governor Mamoun,

a fellow Aiwani tribesman, to build a police Station in

their section of the city.

The station was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel

Salaam al-Dalaimi, a dynamic Iraqi officer who aggressively began clearing AQI out of the area. But AQI
went after him equally aggressively, murdering him in

his home using a vehicle-borne improvised explosive

device (VBID). His deputy, however, quickly stepped

up and followed Salaam's lead. The West Ramadi

police station became even more active in working

with the Marines to rid their part of the city of AQI.

Salaam became a police hero, a martyr, and his picture

still adorns every police building in the city today.

The Marine-Army-Tribal alliance was successful:

The Abu Alwanis flipped because the governor and

Sattar convinced them to do so—and was himself convinced by MacFarland, Patriquin, and the courage of

Jurney's Marines.

City Coming Back to Life

In January 2007, Governor Mamoun appointed a

mayor, Latif Obaid. Protected by Jurney's Marines,

Mayor Latif vigorously and visibly promoted stability,

and began appointing fellow businessmen to an

increasingly active city council. Working with civil

affairs Marine Major Scott Kish and Gunnery Sergeant

Matthew Knight, the mayor also pressed for the repair

of sewage pipes, the resumption of trash collection,

the removal of burned-out cars from the streets, and

other basic services—and he did it by hiring the locals

and paying them in cash. These were the first jobs

available in Ramadi since 2004, and were much

sought-after.

The improved security situation enabled Latif and

the Americans to rebuild and improve other municipal

services; electricity reached more parts of the city for

more hours each day, houses and neighborhoods had

clean water, and the oddly named Route Michigan, the

main road through the city, had the concrete blast barriers removed as traffic volume increased to pre-war

levels.

While Jurney's Marines were extended for three

months, MacFarland and the "Ready First" returned to

Germany. Colonel John Charlton and the Army's 1st

Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division, replaced

them in February 2007. Charlton continued

MacFarland and Jurney's tactics. With Jurney's Marines

continuing to clear street-by-street, Chariton's troops

assisted by manning the newly opened joint security

stations where Americans and Iraqis lived and worked

side by side.

209

As the violence of winter 2007 eased, and spring

and summer arrived, the combined concept of security = jobs = more security = more jobs took hold and

the locals joined the Iraqi police by the thousands to

continue to drive out AQI. Gunny Knight's initial

clean-up program grew as the locals, with Marine and

Army managerial assistance, rebuilt the streets, the

buildings, and reopened the hundreds of small businesses and markets that are the hallmarks of a prosperous city.

Even the September 13 assassination of Sheikh

Sattar did not break the momentum towards stability

and peace. Shortly after Sattar was photographed at al

Asad air base with President George W. Bush, AQI suicide bombers attacked him at his home during the

opening days of Ramadan, killing him and his guards.

But his brother, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, promptly

took charge of the Anbar Awakening Movement.

Unusual in the Middle East, where loyalty normally

goes to the man and not the institution, Sheikh Ahmed

was successful in maintaining Ramadi's charge toward

reconstruction and governance.

As of 15 February 2008, with police intelligence

becoming more effective daily, Ramadi has not: had a

gun fired in anger in 262 days, and the few TED incidents that occur do so outside the city.

The city of Ramadi today is a work in progress in a

country undergoing a transition from a governmentmanaged petroleum dictatorship to a free-market

democracy. Thanks to Jurney, MacFarland, and the late

Sheikh Sattar, Ramadi's citizens, 99 percent of them

Sunni, finally understand that their survival depends

on banding together against AQI and their historic Shia

enemies. These three men built the base that enabled

Charlton and Latif to continue reconstruction efforts—

all of which gave the citizens of Ramadi the courage,

and the opportunity—to stand up for themselves.

Notes

U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 2008, 54-61.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright © 2008 by U.S.

Naval Institute (www.usni.org).

About the Author

Andrew Lubin is a journalist and a member of the USMC Combat

Correspondents Association. Between 2006 and 2008, he has been

imbedded with Marine and Army units in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Daily Diary of an

al-Qaeda Sector

Leader

by Abu-Tariq

Diary captured and transcribed by United

States Forces-Iraq

In the Name of Allah the Most Merciful and

Most Compassionate.

Date:Third of Shawaal of 1428 Hijri (H)

[Gregorian: 15 October 2007]

This is My Will:

J

am Abu-Tariq, emir [leader] of al-Layin

and al-Mashahdah Sector. There were

almost 600 fighters in our sector before

the tribes changed course 360 degrees under

the influence of the so-called Islamic Army

(Deserter of Jihad) and other believer groups.

211
Many of our fighters quit and some of them

joined the deserters, and later on I will mention the names of fighters who stood by us

(faithful fighters), but things started getting

worse ever since, and as a result of that the

number of fighters dropped down to 20 or

less which led us to move some of our vehicles to another location (al-Muthanna establishment area) for security reasons where our

brother [NAME REDACTED] is stationed at (I

will also mention the type vehicles at the

end.)

There are many details known by brothers

[NAMES REDACTED] and [NAME REDACTED]

regarding the spoils, buying and selling vehicles such as:

1-Lorry (6-wheeled) in Mosul sold later and

we received some of the money for it.

2-[NAME REDACTED] still owes us

[$10,000] which is the remainder of the

money that is still with them after they sold

two Lorries for us at the car dealerships in the

al-Saqlawiyah area which we have not

received yet. We gave him our business and

received [$10,000] from him as a down-payment hut he still owes us another [$10,000],

and later we gave him [$28,000] to get the

Lorry back, but he did not return it yet. (The

actual owner of the dealership is [NAME

REDACTED].)

3-The value of another Lorry is [$25,000] is

still in the possession of a person in Tikrit

known by brother [NAME REDACTEDI

4-We bought a pickup model 2000 from a

person called [NAME REDACTED] (his phone

number is [NUMBER REDACTEDI) of which

he did not pay its value yet, and the deal was

to trade in this vehicle with a truck or pay its

value in al-Shirqat at al-Nahar dealership

close to the house of brother [NAME

REDACTED] (killed) and the price of the pickup is [$7,500].

Date: 9-10 of Shawaal of 1428 H

[Gregorian: 2 1-22 October 20071

A BKC [7.62mm machine gun], ammunition

and other light weapons are still in the pos212

session of [NAME REDACTED] and his brother [NAME REDACTED] which belong to us

and brother [NAME REDACTED] knows about

that, and the weapons that are in the possession of [NAME REDACTED] are 2,000 C5

Rockets plus an RPG-9 but he refuses to give

us any of it lately and we do not know what

is his intention is in that regard, therefore, we

have to keep trying with him to get our

weapons and ammunition back due to the

present condition and especially since the alSahwah [Awakening] groups started opposing

us.

Weapons and ammunition such as 30 containers of bullets and four BKCs in the possession of brother [NAME REDACTED] also

belong to us.

Brothers, I want you to know that I will

only mention the names of fighters who were

faithful to our cause and stood by us when

we needed them, and later I will mention the

names of the traitors so that they may he punished when time comes.

Date: 12 of Shawaal of 1428 H

[Gregorian: 24 October 20071

There are very few tribe members who

stood by us and supported us, such as members of [NAME REDACTED] tribe that were

surrounded by al-Sahwah [Awakening] fighters and even though they did not quit plus

members of [NAME REDACTEDI and [NAME

REDACTED] sub-tribe members. After the

raid that we did against the houses and safe

heavens of the deserters, which led to killing

and injuring a lot of them, burning some of

their vehicles, and spoiling some of their

vehicles and weapons, which affected their

morale and resources tremendously, knowing

that the number of fighters who did the raid

and not 150 fighters as they claimed after that.

Date: 16 of Shawaal of 1428 H

[Gregorian: 28 Oct 2007]

My request to you is not to be negligent

with the deserters/traitors at all, because
those kinds of people look like the cancer

that grew up in the body of al-Jihad movement, therefore, we should have no mercy on

them even if they joined the Iraqi government

security forces and do not let them have any

sense of relief despite the fact that some of

them ran away from our strong hand to

unknown locations with their families. Even

though our Jihadi movement goals at the

early stages were to recruit as many as possible of the government employees in order to

have access, sources and supporters among

them in order to gain more information about

the government security forces and the infidel's military and tactical movements in order

to ease our movements and missions against

them despite the fact that I was against such

goals for security reasons. Dear brothers, I

would like you to know that even though the

Islamic State of Iraq (151) achieved a lot of

projects for the benefit of the people of Iraq

such as bringing water, electricity and agricultural help to a lot of areas such as [NAME

REDACTED] we were mistreated, cheated,

and betrayed by some of our brothers who

used to be part of the Jihadi Movement, therefore we must not have mercy on those traitors

until they come back to the right side—The

1ST side—or get eliminated completely in

order to achieve victory at the end. And I

would like to mention here the name of one

of [the] families [sub-tribe] who betrayed us

and lost our trust is the [NAME REDACTED]

family who were very good, faithful Jihadi

fighters, but later on we found out that these

people were nothing but hypocrites, liars, and

traitors and were waiting for the right

moment to switch sides with whoever pays

them most and at the end they fought against

us and they tried to prevent us from attacking

the al-Sahwah [Awakening] groups blocking

our entrance to that area.

Information about the old battalion of

fighters in my sector:

1-Battalion of Laylat al-Qadr Martyrs [Laylat

al-Qadr is the 27th Night of Ramadan]: Its

group emir called [NAME REDACTED]

(detained), and the number of fighters in this

213

battalion were 200. AJ1 of them were very

well equipped with weapons and 37 vehicles,

and they did a lot of good activities against

the invaders and its followers, but in the

meantime, there are few fighters left who are

actually fighting, and some were killed and

some arrested, but the majority betrayed us

and joined al-Sahwah [Awakening]. This battalion was one of the first battalions whose

numbers of fighters was tarnished after AbuHaydar al-Ansari Battalion, and the number of

fighters is now only 10.

2-Battalion of Abu-Haydar al-Ansari: The

emir of this battalion [NAME REDACTED] was

the first renegade in this group. He ran away

one month before the al-Sahwah [Awakening]

movement started in our sector, and we still

do not know where he is hiding. It is no wonder that most of the information we got from

him was deception and lies. There were 300

fighters in the battalion equipped with good

weapons and 17 vehicles, and since [the Emir]

deserted us, the number of fighters dropped

down to 16 and then to two; one of whom

was arrested [NAME REDACTED], and the

second one was injured [NAME REDACTED],

and the rest joined the al-Sahwah

[Awakening] groups.

3-Battalion of Hudhayfah Ibm al-Yaman:

The Emir of this battalion is [NAME REDACTED], and the number of fighters are almost 60.

They are very well equipped with weapons

and other supplies. All of them are true and

good believers, plus their activities against the

invaders and their followers were very good,

but for the present time, their activities are

frozen due to their present conditions plus

their families' conditions.

4-Battalion of al-Ahwal: Most of its members are scoundrels, sectarians, non-believers,

and the worst one of them was [NAME

REDACTED], and he was the first one to

desert his battalion and ran away to Syria,

then later on came back from Syria and joined

the traitors, while the rest of the battalion was

gone except for [NAME REDACTED] arid his

sons, and the military person who was in

charge of the battalion, his name is [NAME
Air Defense:

214

the sniper/now he is

REDACTED] (bad not good), and he still has

in his possession three BKCs and two sniper

rifles, and he claims that one of those rifles

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

was given back to its original owner [NAME

REDACTED]. (I will try to take back the rest

of the weapons from him soon, and I will

mention that later.)

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

5-Battalion of Muhammed Bin Muslimah: [NAME REDACTEDI

The leader of this battalion was the martyr

[NAME REDACTEDI who was killed by the

traitors of the Islamic Army with help of the

invaders' helicopters, which also led to the

destruction of some of our vehicles and

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

injured

[NAME REDACTEDI

weapons. Some of the fighters of this battalion deserted, and especially the ones who

came from [NAME REDACTEDI tribe like the

[NAME REDACTEDI/detained

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]/left us a week ago

traitor [NAME REDACTED], who became an

officer with the al-Sahwah [Awakening]

group, plus others who ran away with their

weapons to Diyala and then disappeared, like

[NAME REDACTEDI who has in his possession a sniper rifle, and his brothers, except for

one [NAME REDACTED] who was injured

with [NAME REDACTEDI who possesses a

BKC.

[NAME REDACTED] and his sons/ENAME

REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTEDI

Technical Department: [NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTED]/there are so many

Members of this department are [NAME

REDACTEDI and his sons, who are still working with us, plus [NAME REDACTED], who

was injured recently.

negative remarks against him

[NAME REDACTEDI/We have not seen him

for more than 20 days so far.

[NAME REDACTED]/We have not seen him

for more than 10 days so far.

[NAME REDACTED] showed up with their

. One person left in this department who is group emir [NAME REDACTED] and they are:

[NAME REDACTEDI still working with us [NAME REDACTEDI,

who is willing to work with us to the end, [NAME REDACTED]/left three days ago

[NAME REDACTED}/came back to work

and he has in his possession three operative

batteries (one inoperative), plus eight C5

launchers and one 23mm gun.

Names of people who are still working

with us recently after his wounds healed up.

And that is the number of fighters left in

my sector.

Remarks: [NAME REDACTEDI and their

with al-Qaeda:

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTED] and his brothers

[NAME REDACTED] and his brothers

[NAME REDACTED]

[NAME REDACTEDI

[NAME REDACTED]

fighters are good and faithful, and they lost

one of their fighters (his name martyr [NAME

REDACTEDI) fighting against al-Sahwah

[Awakening] fighters, and in addition to that

tribe area is surrounded with al-Sahwah fighters who are preventing them from leaving
their area. So far and we have no further (http://www.usf-iraq.com/?option=com_coninformation about the situation over there. tent&task=view&id = 16935&Itemid = 128).

Notes About the Author

Abu-Tariq was an emir (leader) of al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters in the

Reprinted from an unclassified translation al-Layin and al-Mashahdah sector at the time his diary was capposted by Multi National Force-Iraq (now tured in the fall of 2007.

United States Force-Iraq) on 10 February 2008

215

Part V: Stability,

Progress, and the

Future

A

s U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker told

journalist Thomas E. Ricks for a piece

published in February 2009, "What the

world ultimately thinks about us and what we

think about ourselves is going to be determined

much more by what happens from now on than

what's happened up to now."1 As of this writing, Iraq is a much more stable and secure country than it was in 2004. However, sectarian tensions remain, and there is doubt about whether

or not Iraq can remain stable without the presence of substantial U.S. forces The following

selections present an overview of the questions

and problems that Iraq will face in the future, as

well as the concerns many observers feel about

the consequences of the surge and al-Anbar

Awakening. Timothy Williams's piece from The

New York Times considers the sense of optimism

that pervaded much of western Iraq as Marines

withdrew from Camp Fallujah in the fall of 2008.

Steve Simon's article presents a warning against

too much optimism, however, noting that the

Awakening strategy may have been successful

for the short term, but that it has strengthened

forces that could undermine the cohesion of the

Iraqi state in the long term. In response, Cohn

H. Kahi and William E. Odom argue that Simon's

assessment is too pessimistic and that the

Awakening presents a foundation from which

more can be done to strengthen the Iraqi state.

1. Quoted by Ricks in "The war in Iraq isn't over. The

main events may not even have happened yet,"

Washington Post, 15 February 2009.

217

American Exit

Increases Optimism

in Falluja

by Timothy Williams

New York Times, 30 December 2008

F

alluja, Iraq—In Falluja, a town that rises

abruptly out of the vast Syrian Desert an

hour west of Baghdad, nearly every building left standing has some sort of hole in it.

Mosques are without their minarets. Apartment

walls have been peeled away by artillery shells. A

family's kitchen is full of tiny holes made by a

fragmentary grenade.

Of all the places fighting has raged since the

American invasion nearly six years ago, Falluja—

the site of two major battles and the town where

American security contractors were killed and

their bodies hung from a local bridge—stands out

as one of the bloodiest and most intractable.

This month, as the last American Marines prepare to leave Camp Falluja, the sprawling base a

few miles outside of town where many of the

American troops who fought the two battles were

stationed, Falluja has come to represent something unexpected: the hope that an Iraqi town

once at the heart of the insurgency can become a

model for peace without the United States military.

As part of the reduction of United States troops

from Iraq, by Thursday there will be few Marines

left in or around this mostly Sunni city of about

300,000 people. The closing of Camp Falluja is

one of the most prominent symbols yet that

America's presence in the country, which at times

had seemed all encompassing, is diminishing.

As recently as a year ago, the base closing was

cause for alarm. The calm that seemed to have

taken hold here was fragile enough that both

Iraqi and American officials feared the potential

consequences of the Marines' departure.

Today they look forward to it.

"That will make our job easier," said Colonel

219
Dowad Muhammad Suliyman, commander of the

Falluja Police Department. "The existence of the

American forces is an excuse for the insurgents to

attack. They consider us spies for the Americans."

To be sure, the threat of violence has not vanished. But the police said they were proud that a

place that suffered a major attack a week just a

few years ago had had only two in the last six

months.

The view, that the town is better off taking care

of itself was echoed by residents, even in the

neighborhood hit by the most recent big attack, in

early December, when suicide truck bombers

linked to al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia killed 19 people, wounded dozens of others and leveled nine

houses and two police stations.

"Our sons will take care of the security issue,"

said Khalil Abrahim, 50, a resident of the neighborhood, as he walked over the rubble of his

house, wondering aloud how he could afford to

rebuild. "They can do a better job."

Camp Falluja will be handed over to the Iraqi

Army, with most of its Marines relocated to Al

Asad Air Base, about 90 miles to the west. A

smaller contingent will remain at nearby Camp

Baharia.

The move reflects the confidence of the

American command that major violence will not

return here.

"It won't happen again because the Iraqis don't

want it to happen again," said Colonel George H.

Bristol, the bald, heavily muscled commanding

officer of the I Marine Expeditionary Force

Headquarters Group at Camp Falluja.

"We've certainly turned a page," he said. "The

conditions are now there where we can close it

and turn it over to the people who fought beside

us. It's a great thing. If you look at the city, it has

really come to life."

The city, which had been emptied of much of

its population before the second Battle of Falluja

in November 2004, now hustles with people, its

streets filled with honking cars inching their way

to the Old Bridge that spans the placid, green

Euphrates River.

In a small building at the foot of the bridge,

freshly painted green, not far from where the bodies of two Blackwater security guards were hung,

220

Falluja has established an Office of Citizen

Complaints.

At the elementary school where in 2003 members of the 82d Airborne Division fired on protesters—some of whom may have been armed—

killing 17 people, dozens of girls were at play during recess. A sign Out front said the school was a

voter registration center for the coming provincial

elections.

Not far away, a restaurant named KFC—not

affiliated with the American fast-food chain but

adorned with unlicensed pictures of Colonel

Sanders—sells a fried chicken lunch for about

$3.50.

All around the city, people are rebuilding

houses and clearing away rubble.

If a rocket-propelled grenade launcher symbolized Falluja during the height of the insurgency,

its new symbol may well be the broom. They are

sold in bunches at roadside markets and are in

almost constant use by workers in bright orange

jumpsuits trying to keep the town's narrow roads

free of desert sand.

At Camp Falluja, Major James R. Gladden and

Master Gunnery Sergeant Ray SiFuentes are overseeing the dismantling of a base that had once

been home to 14,000 Marines and contractors.

The 2,000-acre post had its own fire department, water treatment plant, scrap yard, voter registration booth, ice-making factory, weather station, prison (for insurgents), beauty shop, power

plant, Internet cafe, Turkish bazaar, and dog

catcher.

Its chapel could fit 800 Marines for religious

services, a Toby Keith concert, or a performance

by the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders, all of

which were held there.

"We had basically everything a small town

had," said Major Gladden, 34, who is known by

other Marines as the mayor of Camp Falluja.

"Everything except fast-food outlets," he said,

which were deemed too unhealthy.

There are only 200 Marines left now, and about

170 truckloads a day leave the base, most headed

for other United States military installations.

Even the gaggle of geese from the camp's artificial pond, which some Marines had adopted as

pets, has been taken away. One by one, they
were trapped and set loose at a larger pond at

Camp Baharia.

A good deal of packing up involves making

sure nothing is left behind that later could be used

against American forces. Obsolete armor for

trucks, ballistic glass plates for Humvees and concertina wire are cut to pieces. Thousands of mammoth concrete barriers are being trucked to other

military bases.

Back in town, where residents have been

required to be fingerprinted and to submit to iris

scans, Hashim Harmoud, 69, a caretaker at a

mosque that had been said to be a center for

insurgent activity, said he was thankful for the

city's newfound peace.

But as testament to the town's dual nature, he

221

was hesitant to discuss an insurgency that could

rise up again at a moment's notice. "Al-Qaeda?" he

asked, a bit cagily. "I don't know anything about

them. I go from the mosque to my house, and

that's all."

Notes

New York Times, 30 December 2008. Reprinted

by permission. Tareq Maher and an Iraqi employee of the New York Times contributed to the

reporting.

About the Author

Timothy Wiffiams is a correspondent for The New York Times.

The Price of the Surge: How U.S. Strategy Is

Hastening Iraq's Demise

by Steven N Simon

Foreign Affairs, May-June 2008

I

n January 2007, President George W. Bush

announced a new approach to the war in Iraq.

At the time, sectarian and insurgent violence

appeared to be spiraling out of control, and

Democrats in Washington—newly in control of

both houses of Congress—were demanding that the

administration start winding down the war. Bush

knew he needed to chadge course, but he refused

to, as he put it, "give up the goal of winning." So

rather than acquiesce to calls for withdrawal, he

decided to ramp up U.S. efforts. With a "surge" in

troops, a new emphasis on counterinsurgency strategy, and new commanders overseeing that strategy,

Bush declared, the deteriorating situation could be

turned around.

More than a year on, a growing conventional

wisdom holds that the surge has paid off handsomely. U.S. casualties are down significantly from

their peak in mid-2007, the level of violence in Iraq

is lower than at any point since 2005, and Baghdad

seems the safest it has been since the fall of Saddam

Hussein's regime five years ago. Some backers of

the surge even argue that the Iraqi civil war is over

and that victory on Washington's terms is in sight—

so long as the United States has the will to see its

current efforts through to their conclusion.

Unfortunately, such claims misconstrue the causes of the recent fall in violence and, more important, ignore a fatal flaw in the strategy. The surge

has changed the situation not by itself but only in

conjunction with several other developments: the

grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals

between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute

a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The

problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is

not linked to any sustainable plan for building a

viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an

outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fan223

tasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against

the central government and against one another. In

other words, the recent short-term gains have come

at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable,

unitary Iraq.

Despite the current lull in violence, Washington

needs to shift from a unilateral bottom-up surge

strategy to a policy that promotes, rather than

undermines, Iraq's cohesion. That means establishing an effective multilateral process to spur topdown political reconciliation among the major Iraqi

factions. And that, in turn, means stating firmly and

clearly that most U.S. forces will be 'withdrawn from

Iraq within two or three years. Otherwise, a strategy adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated

administration will only increase the likelihood of

long-term debacle.

The Surge's False Start

After the February 2006 bombing of the Askariya

shrine in Samarra, the White House started to

become increasingly concerned that there were too

few U.S. troops in Iraq. A network of retired army

officers led by Jack Keane, a former vice chief of

staff of the U.S. Army, had been pushing from the

outside for an increase in forces, and Senators John

McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) kept

up a drumbeat of criticism of what they saw as a

lackluster military effort. The November 2006 congressional elections, which handed the House and

the Senate to the Democrats, added to the sense

that a new strategy was needed. In a December

2006 memo, Bush's national security adviser,

Stephen Hadley, somewhat gingerly noted that the

United States might "need to fill the current fourbrigade gap in Baghdad with Coalition forces if reliable Iraqi forces are not identified."

On December 13, 2006, Bush met with the Joint

Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon to persuade them to

allocate more troops to Iraq. It was not an easy sell.

U.S. ground forces are not configured to fight such
a long war, and the repeated deployment of the

same active-duty and Reserve units had taken a toll.

The reenlistment rate of young captains, for example, had fallen to an unprecedented low; about half

of the West Point classes of 2000 and 2001 had

decided against an Army career. The pace of unit

rotations and the tempo of operations had also

taken their toll on equipment, which was wearing

Out at nine times the normal rate, faster than it

could be replaced. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff made clear his concern about the army

being stretched too thin. A shortfall of 10,000 company-grade officers meant that the Reserve units

would have to rob both people and materiel from

other units. Meanwhile, the mounting expense of

the war was crowding out the procurement of new

combat systems for the Navy and the Air Force, and

there was a growing risk that the military might find

itself without the capacity to meet other strategic

challenges, whether from Afghanistan, Iran, or elsewhere.

Bush tried to allay these worries, pledging to,

among other things, increase the size of the U.S.

Army and the Marine Corps and boost defense

spending. But the Joint Chiefs also conditioned

their reluctant support of the surge on a promise

from the president to hold Iraqi Prime Minister

Noun al-Maliki's feet to the fire on political reconciliation. So when Bush unveiled .his surge strategy

in January 2007 (the deployment of an additional

21,500 troops, through September, with the initial

military objective of restoring order to Baghdad),

the stated purpose was to ensure that "the [Iraqil

government will have the breathing space it needs

to make progress in other critical areas. Most of

Iraq's Sunni and Shi'a want to live together in

peace—and reducing the violence in Baghdad will

help make reconciliation possible." Bush quoted

Maliki's promise that the Baghdad security plan

would 'not provide a safe haven for any outlaws,

regardless of their sectarian or political affiliation."

Even then, however, the administration was

already tarting to doubt Ivlaliki's competence and

willingness to pursue reconciliation, the principal

determinant of long-term stability in Iraq. Two

months earlier, Hadley had visited Iraq to assess the

prospects for a cross-sectarian political rapprochement and come away unsure of Maliki's stance. "Do

224

we and Prime Minister Maliki," Hadley had wondered in his December 2006 memo, "share the

same vision for Iraq? If so, is he able to curb those

who seek Shi'a hegemony or the reassertion of

Sunni power? The answers to these questions are

key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq." Hadley proposed several ways to test

Maliki's intentions and bolster his resolve, including

initiatives to rejigger parliamentary support to free

Maliki from his Shiite base linked to Muqtada alSadr and enable him to take conciliatory steps

toward the Sunnis. The United States, however,

lacked the influence necessary to put this approach

into practice. Before long, events in Iraq revealed

the answers to Hadley's questions: in both cases, a

resounding no.

The deployment of the five new brigades proceeded more or less as planned, but from the start

there was little headway made toward the broader

goals of the surge, particularly reconciliation, as

measured by the Iraqi government's inability to

meet key benchmarks. The Constitutional Review

Committee, which was charged with redressing

Sunni grievances, made little progress, and there

was no progress on de-Baathification reform,

amnesty, provincial elections, or the implementation of oil legislation. The Sunni Iraqi Accordance

Front had walked away from Maliki's cabinet, and

Bush's reportedly regular calls to Maliki urging him

to mobilize his government were ineffective. The

Iraqi committees created to support the Baghdad

security plan were left unfilled, and the three Iraqi

brigades needed to help implement it arrived late

and understrength. Diplomatic efforts to get Iraq's

neighbors involved fizzled.

From Top Down To Bottom U

The president's hopes for the top-down political

efforts that were supposed to accompany the surge

quickly faded. As a substitute, however, a new bottom-up strategy was embraced. Bush had observed

in his January surge speech that the Sunnis were

challenging al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq, and a

February 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on

Iraq recommended "deputizing, resourcing, and

working more directly with neighborhood watch

groups and establishing grievance cOmmittees—to
help mend frayed relationships between tribal and

religious groups, which have been mobilized into

communal warfare over the past three years." A few

months later, the president signaled a formal shift in

strategy in a speech at the Naval War College: "To

evaluate how life is improving for the Iraqis, we

cannot look at the country only from the top down.

We need to go beyond the Green Zone and look at

Iraq from bottom up. This is where political reconciliation matters the most, because it is where ordinary Iraqis are deciding whether to support new

Iraq or to sit on the fence, uncertain about the

country's future." What the president was proposing was a shift in the U.S. approach to counterinsurgency. Now, the United States would work to

exploit a grass-roots anti-al-Qaeda movement

already under way by taking the pressure off the

insurgents who had begun to point their weapons

at the jihadists and funneling money to tribal leaders. In theory, this would help dismantle the jihadist

infrastructure and create islands of stability that

would eventually join up like "oil spots."

After the U.S. invasion, the Sunni groups that

would go on to make up the insurgency arrived at

a marriage of convenience with the foreign and

local jihadists who made up al-Qaeda in Iraq. The

two shared a common goal: to reverse the triumph

of the Shiites and restore the Sunnis to their lost

position of power. For the Sunni insurgents, the

presence of foreign jihadists also helped divert the

attention of U.S. forces. Up to a point, therefore, a!-

Qaeda's excesses—such as its attempt to impose

strict Wahhabi-style rule by banning music and

satellite dishes and compelling women to cover

themselves entirely—were to be tolerated.

But for al-Qaeda, the link with the insurgents

was supposed to serve two additional purposes that

went well beyond the shared goal of chipping away

at Shiite predominance—and ultimately went

against the interests of the Iraqi Sunnis themselves.

The first was to establish an al-Qaeda-dominated

ministate as a base for carrying out jihad against

enemies outside of Iraq. (The November 2005

attack against three Western tourist hotels in

Amman, Jordan, allegedly ordered by Abu Musab

al-Zarqawi, then the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was

a harbinger of this wider strategy.) The second was

to seize a leading position within the insurgency

225

and thereby block a power-sharing arrangement

between Baghdad and the Sunni nationalists, an

arrangement that would entail the selling out of a!-

Qaeda by the Sunnis.

The Iraqi Sunnis' enthusiasm for the alliance

waned as al-Qaeda increasingly attempted to assert

its leadership. In October 2006, al-Qaeda declared

the formation of an Islamic state in Iraq, demanding that Sunni insurgent leaders pledge allegiance

to the new (and many believed fictional) jihadist

commander Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, whose name

was supposed to signify an authentically Iraqi origin. To the nationalist insurgents, accepting the declaration of a separate state and ceding leadership to

al-Qaeda made little sense. Doing so would have

fueled the process of decentralization, emboldened

those Kurds and Shiites who sought their own fiefdoms, and, crucially, further distanced the Sunnis

from eventual access to Iraq's potentially massive

oil revenues. Moreover, despite the spectacular successes that had been attributed to aI-Qaeda, it was

the nationalist Sunnis who provided the backbone

of the insurgency and had done most of the killing

and dying.

Some tribes had also grown increasingly resentful of al-Qaeda's efforts to seize control of

resources. The Albu Risha tribe, for example, had

lost control over portions of the road from Baghdad

to Amman, undermining its ability to raise revenue

by taxing or extorting traders and travelers. When

the Albu Rishas' leaders protested, the chieftain,

Sheik Bazi al-Rishawi, was killed along with one of

his sons, and two more of his sons were abducted.

In response, Rishawi's fourth son, Sheik Abdul

Sattar, assembled a small group of tribal figures

(with the help of funds from the local U.S. military

commander) under the banner of the Anbar

Salvation Council to roll back al-Qaeda's influence.

The bodies of al-Qaeda personnel soon began turning up in alleyways.

This strategic schism might have been papered

over had the jihadists not overreacted to the opposition of other insurgent groups. In 2007, there was

a wave of sensational killings of Sunni leaders by

al-Qaeda, including Abdul Sattar (who had met

with President Bush two weeks before his death).

The assassinations of Sunni leaders warranted retaliation under the prevailing tribal code, opening the
door to more systematic cooperation between the

tribes and U.S. forces. In the wake of Abdul Sattar's

death, a Sunni leader complained that al-Qaeda's

assassinations had "left resistance groups with two

options: either to fight al-Qaeda and negotiate with

the Americans or fight the Americans and join the

Islamic State of Iraq, which divides Iraq. Both

options are bitter." After their defeat in the battle of

Baghdad—thanks to the entrenched power of

Sadr's Shiite Mahdi Army and the arrival of additional U.S. troops—the Iraqi Sunnis went decisively

with the first option, marking the start of the Sunni

Awakening groups.

The United States, for its part, had its own incentive to cooperate with the insurgents: June 2007,

with 126 troop deaths, was the second-worst month

for the U.S. military in Iraq, and General David

Petraeus, the U.S. ground commander, was facing

pressure to reduce casualties quickly. The most efficient way to do so was to strike deals with the

newly pliable insurgents.

The deals \vere mediated by tribal leaders and

consisted of payments of $360 per month per combatant in exchange for allegiance and cooperation.

Initially referred to by the United States as "concerned local citizens," the former insurgents are

now known as the Sons of Iraq The total number

across Iraq is estimated at over 90,000. Although the

insurgents turned allies generally come well armed,

at least one unit leader, Abu al-Abd, commander of

the Islamic Army in Iraq, who controls Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, has said that he receives

weapons as well as logistical support from U.S.

units. His arrangement is probably typical. In

November 2007, he agreed to a three-month pact,

open to extension.

This strategy has combined with other developments—especially the fact that so much ethnic

cleansing has already occurred and that violence in

civil wars tends to ebb and flow, as the contending

sides work to consolidate gains and replenish losses—to bring about the current drop in violence.

The Sunni sheiks, meanwhile, are getting rich from

the surge. The United States has budgeted $150 million to pay Sunni tribal groups this year, and the

sheiks take as much as 20 percent of every payment

to a former insurgent—which means that commanding 200 fighters can be worth well over a hun226

dred thousand dollars a year for a tribal chief.

Although Washington hopes that Baghdad will

eventually integrate most former insurgents into the

Iraqi state security services, there .are reasons to

worry that the Sunni chiefs will not willingly give

up what has become an extremely lucrative

arrangement.

Tribal Realities

The surge may have brought transitory successes—although if the spate of attacks in February is

any indication, the decrease in violence may

already be over—but it has done so by stoking the

three forces that have traditionally threatened the

stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism. States that have failed to

control these forces have ultimately become

ungovernable, and this is the fate for which the

surge is preparing Iraq. A strategy intended to

reduce casualties in the short term will ineluctably

weaken the prospects for Iraq's cohesion over the

long run.

Since the mid-l9th century, ruling powers in the

Middle East have slowly and haltingly labored to

bring tribal populations into the fold, with mixed

success. Where tribes and tribalism have remained

powerful, the state has remained weak. The

Ottomans attempted forced sedentarization of the

tribes, weakening tribal authorities by disrupting

settlement patterns and replacing tribal sheiks with

smaller cadres of favored leaders who became conduits for patronage. The colonial powers after

World War I faced a different problem: the threat of

nationalist urban elites opposed to foreign rule. In

an effort to counter defiant urban leaders, they

empowered rural tribes on the periphery. In Iraq,

the British armed the tribes so that the sheiks could

maintain order in the countryside and balance the

capabilities of the nominal local governments operating under League of Nations mandates. Thus, the

tribal system that Ottoman rule sought to dismantle

was revitalized by British imperial policy, and the

power of the nominal Iraqi government was systematically vitiated. In 1933, Iraq's King Faisal

lamented, "In this kingdom, there are more than

100,000 rifles, whereas the government has only

15,000."
The tribes lost some power over the subsequent

decades. This was in part a result of increasing

direct British involvement in activities such as law

enforcement, land tenure, and water distribution

and in part a result of urbanization: as Iraqis moved

from the country to the city, their affiliations shifted

from the tribe to urban institutions—principally the

trade union and the mosque—even as they held on

to tribal symbols. When the Baathists took power in

1968, they explicitly rejected "religious sectarianism, racism, and tribalism . . . the remnants of colonialism." The tribes, in their minds, were inevitable

rivals of a centralizing state. But after taking control

in a coup in 1979, Saddam leaned on his own Sunni

tribal networks to staff his security services, army

leadership, and bureaucracy, while suppressing

other tribal life. He tried to rein in tribes by dispersing Baathist apparatchiks throughout the hinterland, but he nonetheless came to rely on the tribal

system as a whole to make up for the shortcomings

of the state as times became harder.

During the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam used Shiite

tribes to defend regions near the Iranian border,

and elsewhere tribal leaders regained some of their

traditional authority as the war forced the redeployment of Baathist officials to the front. Amid the

hardships created by the conflict, the flow of

resources from the center shrank, leading to greater

self-reliance in tribal areas and the renewed importance of tribal leaders. The Gulf War, and the grinding international sanctions that followed, accelerated these trends. In 1996, a high council of tribal

chiefs was established and was granted political

privilege, weapons, and land. Selected tribal leaders were allowed to enrich themselves by any

means, fair or foul, and in return they were expected to defend the regime. Saddam, in effect, fostered

a process of retribalization in Iraq.

Iraq's Arab neighbors, particularly Jordan and

Saudi Arabia, provide a counterexample. They won

enduring stability by corralling the tribes through a

combination of reward and punishment. In

Transjordan, King Abdullah I and the British—

helped by famine and the effects of the Great

Depression—confronted recalcitrant tribes militarily

and then secured their allegiance with a steady flow

of resources from the emerging state. More recently, Jordan's Hashemite monarchy has preserved the

227

tribes' loyalty by guaranteeing them prestigious

positions in the government and the military and by

playing them off against the Palestinians. In Saudi

Arabia, the al Saud dynasty consolidated its state by

subduing the tribal challenge of rebellious Ikhwan

and then endowing them with status and a military

role. Strategic marriages between the al Saud family and the tribes cemented these ties. Although

such efforts occasionally faltered, the thrust of the

policy was always clear: to subordinate the tribes to

the state.

Now, U.S. strategy is violating this principle by

fostering the retribalization of Iraq all over again. In

other countries in the region, such as Yemen, the

result of allowing tribes to contest state authority is

clear: a dysfunctional country prone to bouts of

serious internecine violence. Such violence can also

cross borders, especially if neighboring states are

willing to use the tribes as their own agents.

Pakistan provides a particularly ominous example

of this dysfunctionality: its failure to absorb its

Pashtun population has threatened the viability of

the Pakistani state. The continued nurturing of tribalism in Iraq, in a way that sustains tribes in opposition to the central government rather than folding

them into it, will bring about an Iraqi state that suffers from the same instability and violence as

Yemen and Pakistan.

U.S. officials in Iraq have taken note of how the

current U.S. approach has exacerbated the dangers

of tribalism. Last month, a senior U.S. military adviser conceded, "We're not thinking through the

impact of abetting further corruption and perpetuating tribal power." In December, a U.S. diplomat

warned, "The absence of government in a lot of

areas has allowed others to move in, whether militias or others." The net effect has been a splintering

of the country rather than the creation of a unified

nationalist Sunni front that, having regained its confidence, would be prepared to deal constructively

with Baghdad.

The Crumbling Center

The growth of warlordism is another consequence of the surge. By empowering the tribes and

other networks without regulating their relationship

to the state, the United States has enabled them to
compete with one another for local control and

what is mostly criminal revenue. It is worth noting

that warlordism is not just a creeping Sunni phenomenon. Kurdish and Shiite criminals have been

equally adept at exploiting the current security situation to their advantage. Indeed, warlordism appears

even to be altering the sectarian divide. In Najaf,

where gang warfare has erupted on more than one

occasion, supporters of Sadr's Mahdi Army are

engaged in street battles with members of the Badr

Organization, even though both are Shiite groups.

Last December, a committee of British MPs

charged with examining the security situation in

Basra as British forces began to draw down concluded that warlords and criminal gangs had all but

taken over the city. "Although the reduction in

attacks on UK forces can only he welcome," the

committee's report noted, "this alone cannot be a

measure of success. The initial goal of UK forces in

South Eastern Iraq was to establish the security necessary for the, development of representative political institutions and for economic reconstruction.

This goal remains unfulfilled."

The United States' bottom-up strategy is also

worsening sectarianism. For many Sunnis, reconciliation means restoration—not inclusion in powersharing arrangements but regaining control of the

state. Instead of discouraging this mindset, the evolution of the surge into a bottom-up operation has

validated it, fostering the impression that

Washington has at last recognized that its strategic

interests lie with the Sunnis. As the Sunnis see it, the

current U.S. strategy is a policy of organizing, arming, and training them to challenge Shiite supremacy.

The Shiites and the Kurds naturally have sharply

different notions of what reconciliation means. For

the Kurds, reconciliation means respect for their

claims to autonomy as well as for their potential territorial gains. The Shiites have tended to emphasize

the need for justice before reconciliation, which, as

they see it, requires that they be compensated for

their suffering under previous regimes (not only

Saddam's). This, in their mind, necessitates the subordination of Iraq's Sunni population to the Shiite

community. Some Shiite leaders have defied such

thinking—Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani most prominently—but Sadr has made clear that he will use violence

228

to secure Shiite hegemony, and Maliki's government

has, shown no willingness to he pried away from

Sadr and like-minded Shiites. Indeed, in postconflict

situations, reconciliation often founders on the

unwillingness of victims to surrender their claims to

justice.

Some Sunnis have started to recognize that the

United States has no intention of restoring their

supremacy. The realization that civilian jobs and

vocational training is all that is in store for the 80

percent of the former insurgents who are blocked

from membership in the Iraqi Army (Shiite leaders

want to dominate the army in order to use it as their

own instrument of control) has eroded Sunni cooperation with U.S. forces. As one volunteer told a

reporter, "The Sunnis were always the leaders of the

country. Is it reasonable that they are turned into

service workers and garbage collectors? . . . We had

not anticipated this from the American forces. Of

course we will not accept that." One response has

been to head back to al-Qaeda. An Awakening commander in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqubah,

which has never been fully pacified, said in

February, "Now there is no cooperation with the

Americans. . . . We have stopped fighting al-Qaeda."

This was doubtless an exaggeration, but one that

pointed to the hard truth that for many Sunnis, Shiite

rule remains unacceptable. When former Sunni

insurgents no longer believe that Washington will

restore them to dominance, their current U.S. paymasters will once again be their targets.

Given the current trajectory, significant Sunni segments of the postsurge Iraqi state will continue to he

funded by the United States, but they will remain

beyond the control of either Baghdad or

Washington. They will also be in a position to establish ties with neighboriig countries. All of this may

well accelerate the centrifugal forces unleashed by

the bottom-up strategy. When it withdraws from

Iraq, the United States will be leaving a country

more divided than the one it invaded—thanks to a

strategy that has systematically nourished domestic

rivalries in order to maintain an illusory short-term

stability.

This could mean that Iraq will remain essentially

unreconstructed. The authority of the state would

plummet, and the United States' ability to influence

events, already limited, would become even weak-
er. Iraq would become a running sore, and successive crises within the country and on its borders

would distract Washington from other priorities and

sap its ability to normalize relations with Iran. For

the Iraqis, safety, security, and economic advancement would remain uncertain. Those who could

leave would. Stability would become an ever-receding prospect.

One plausible consequence of this turmoil

would be the emergence of a U.S.-trained and U.S.-

equipped Iraqi Army, increasingly open to former

officers of Saddam's military, as a powerful force in

Iraqi politics. The professionalism and esprit de

corps of the army is already on the rise. Officers

who see themselves as having to navigate a maelstrom of unregulated militias, weak and irresponsible government officials, tribes emboldened and

then embittered by their U.S. connections, and

overbearing but uneven U.S. assertions of control

could turn inward, as they did under the British and

under Saddam. They might adopt a posture of

superiority to politicians, impatience with upstart

tribal leaders, and passive-aggressiveness toward

their U.S. patrons and then sideline the civilian government and take control of the state. This result

might be less disastrous than complete long-term

breakdown: to the degree that Iraq needs a mediating military presence to sustain a fragile peace, this

role might ultimately be better served by a military

with its own corporate identity rather than by U.S.

troops. But still, the United States would be confronted by a strong, centralized state ruled by a military junta that would resemble the Baathist regime

Washington overthrew in 2003. Rather than an anarchic situation, the United States would face potentially aggressive nationalism and a regime unsympathetic to U.S. regional priorities.

Responsible Retreat

At this stage, the United States has no good

option in Iraq. But the drawbacks and dangers of

the current bottom-up approach demand a change

of course. The only alternative is a return to a topdown strategy. To be more effective this time

around, Washington must return to the kind of

diplomacy that the Bush administration has largely

neglected. Even with 160,000 troops in Iraq,

Washington lacks the leverage on its own to push

the Maliki government to take meaningful steps to

accommodate Sunni concerns and thereby empower Sunni moderates. (The legislative package and

the de-Baathification reform law passed earlier this

year were seriously flawed and did more to spur the

Sunnis' anxieties than redress their grievances.)

What the United States could not do unilaterally, it

must try to do with others, including neighboring

countries, European allies, and the United Nations

(UN).

In order to attain that kind of cooperation,

Washington must make a public commitment to a

phased withdrawal. Cooperation from surrounding

countries and European partners is unlikely to be

forthcoming without a corresponding U.S. readiness

to cede a degree of the dubious control it now has

over events in Iraq. Currently, the dominant U.S.

presence in Iraq allows the rest of the world to

avoid responsibility for stability in and around Iraq

even as everyone realizes the stakes involved. A

plan to draw down U.S. forces would therefore contribute to the success of a larger diplomatic strategy,

prompting Middle Eastern states, European governments, and the UN to be more constructive and

proactive in working to salvage stability in the

Persian Gulf.

The point, therefore, is not to focus on the pre229

cise speed and choreography of a troop withdrawal. Rather, what is necessary is to make clear that the

United States intends to withdraw. Should the Bush

administration suspend the currently programmed

withdrawals of the surge force, it would send precisely the opposite message. President Bush,

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and General

Petraeus have all signaled their interest in halting

any further drawdowns after the last surge brigade

has come home this summer. Petraeus, who has

already begun to lay Out his case in interviews,

argues that "the key is to hang on to what you've

got." The president has suggested that he is unwilling to withdraw additional troops until after the

Iraqi provincial elections—which, although originally scheduled for October, could very well be

delayed. It is therefore possible that the next U.S.

president will have to decide what to do with

approximately 140,000 troops, a considerably larger

number than most observers assumed would still be
on the ground in Iraq at the end of 2008. (Some 

consideration will also have to be given to the problem of removing 56,000 COntractors and facilita ting 

the depanure of a segment of the 3O,OOO-SO,OOO 

Iraqi and foreign workers supporting the U.S. presence.) 

Given that the laws of physics are as relevant to 

troop redeployments as are the laws of strategy and 

politiCS, the higher baseline bequeathed by Bush 

would mean a longer timeline for withdrawal. As of 

lasl summer, there were 1,900 tanks and other 

armored vehicles, 43,000 trucks, and 700 aircraft in 

Iraq. Equipment is scattered over 70 bases throughout the cou ntry, along with 38 major supply depotS, 

18 fuel-storage centers, and 10 ammunition dumps. 

According to the conservative rule of thumb used by 

military logisticians, the U.S. Army and the Marine 

Corps could move a brigade per month from the 

Iraqi lheater. Moving the IS brigades likely 10 be in 

Iraq in January 2009 would require up [0 10,000 

truck trips through potentially hostile zones within 

Iraq. 

Although fIXating on an exaCt timetable for withdrawal might be unhelpful al this juncture, a new 

administration should begin to draw down deliberately and in phases as ~n as its internal deliberations are complete and the process has been coordinated with Baghdad. These steps could take 

months, as the new team conducts its policy-review 

process; military planners plot safe and efficient 

withdrawal routes; congreSSional consultations are 

carried out; conclusions are reached about where 

the forces being drawn down should be redeployed; 

planners determine the size, roles, and missiOnS of 

the residual force; and the numerous dependencies 

created by the occupation and the surge are gradually shed. Once under way, however, a drawdown 

of most of me troops now in Iraq could be completed within two years. The redeployment might proceed more quickly if U.S. public suppon for the war 

collapsed, the Iraqi government demanded a swifter 

withdrawal, or the politIcal situation in lroq seuled 

down; alternatively, the process might take more 

time if U.S. forces were under anack, an atrocity 

claiming the lives of many Americans occurred, or a 

responsihle, rec:oncili:Hion-minded Iraqi government and a concerned international communi[y 

sought a slower drawdown. 

230 

Reconciliation From Above 

Announcing a withdrawal will enta il certain 

risks. Aware that U.S. forces will finally be departing, Iraqi fa ctions might begin to prepare for a new 

round of fighting. The Sunnis, awa re of their vul· 

nerabilities to attack by militant Shiite forces without me United Statf'_<; 10 pmfect them, might resus· 

citate lheir alliance with al-Qaeda. The government 

in Baghdad might be concerned about its own 

exposure to attack in me absence of a U.s. shield 

and proceed to forge tighter links with Tehran or 

encourage greater activism by the Mahdi Army. It is 

all me more vilal, therefore, that the drawdown 

take place as part of a comprehensive diplomatic 

strategy designed 10 limit lhese risks. The interval 

between a decision to wimdraw and me removal of 

the bulk of U.s. forces should provide the space in 

which the UN can convene a multilateral organization to foster a reconciliation process in Iraq. 

There is much mat can be done to revitalize a 

top-down approach to reconciliatton if it is under 

UN auspices and led by a credible special envoy. 

First, the international community should be ener· 

gized to help Iraq move forward on provincial elections, which would test the popularity of the new 

Sunni leaders who have emerged during the surge 

and lash them up to Baghdad. This would have the 

added benefit of isolating the radical federalists 

from the majority of Shiites, who would prefer to 

live in a united Iraq. A UN envoy wou ld have a better chance of brokering a deal on the distribution of 

provincial and federal powers, the issue that led to 

the veto of the provincial election law, than would 

Washington. In a multilateral setling that is not conspicuously stage-managed by me United States, 

regional states, including Iran and Saudi Arabia , 

could playa pivotal role in this process. Although 

Tehran's cooperation is inevitably hostage 10 its 

broader relations with Washington, UN sponsorship 

of this effort might provide the leaders of iran with 

the cover they need to act in their own interest. The 

Saudis, for their part, would like to see the UN 

involved and are prepared to use their influence 

and money to impel the parties in Iraq toward reconciliation. 

Second, an institutionalized multilateral group of 

concerned states should mobilize the broader inter-
national community to assist with the care, feeding,

and permanent housing of the millions of refugees

and internally displaced Iraqis who have not been

able to get to the United States or Europe. This is

essential, since refugee camps and squatter settlements are incubators of radicalism and radiate violence. The longer these populations remain

unmoored and cut off from education, employment, and access to adequate social services and

health care, the harder it will be to resettle them

permanently, whether in Iraq or elsewhere.

Third, before a new and more intense phase of

the civil war begins, there should be a multilateral

process put in place to prod Saudi Arabia and other

Persian Gulf states to finance investment projects

that provide real employment in Iraq. Furthermore,

Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, should be pressing

the Iraqi government to bring far more Sunni

Awakening volunteers into the regular Iraqi Army

and, crucially, into the provincial police forces

funded by the central government. The latter step

would reinforce the positive effects of the provincial elections and the emergence of politically legitimate local leaders. The current commitment to

enlist 20 percent of the Awakening's members is far

too small to have an impact.

Finally, the tribes feeding off the surge must be

weaned from U.S. assistance and linked firmly to

Baghdad as their source of support. Intertwining

the tribes with Baghdad in this way, as the Iraq specialist Charles Tripp has noted, would yield something very much like the imperial protectorates in

the Middle East of the first half of the 20th century.

The "club of patrons" in the capital would dole out

goods to tribes .through favored conduits. At this

juncture, the U.S. military is performing the role of

the patrons—creating an unhealthy dependency

and driving a dangerous wedge between the tribes

and the state. Through coordinated action by the

UN sponsors of the multilateral process, the government in Baghdad, and U.S. commanders on the

ground, payment responsibilities will have to be

transferred from the U.S. military to Iraqi government representatives.

There is no guarantee that the old way of giving

231

tribes a taste of the lash followed by a dollop of

state largess—the model that successfully integrated

tribes in Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the 20th century—can be successfully applied to a divided Iraq

today. Iraq is heterogeneous, unlike Jordan or

Saudi Arabia, where the state and the tribes shared

a religious heritage. Furthermore, overestimating

Iranian or Saudi influence on Iraqi politics and the

willingness of the UN Security Council to plunge

into the existing morass is all too easy. In any

event, it will be a slow and hazardous undertaking.

Many things have to happen more or less simultaneously in a carefully coordinated chain of actions.

Washington has to announce that it will begin withdrawing the bulk of its forces. The UN secretarygeneral, with the backing of the Security Council,

must select a special envoy. A contact group of key

states must be formed under UN sponsorship.

Priorities and milestones will need to be set for the

distribution of resources within Iraq, the recruitment of Sunnis to the army, provincial elections,

foreign investment, dealing with refugees, and

development assistance. Crucially, the phasing of

the troop drawdown will have to mesh with this

diplomatic, process but not hinge on its ultimate

success. This course is risky and possibly futile. Yet

it is still a better bet than a fashionable, short-term

fix divorced from any larger political vision for Iraq

and the Middle East.

Notes

Foreign Affairs, May-June 2008, 57-76.

Reprinted by permission of the Council on Foreign

Relations, Inc. (www.ForeignAffairs.com), © 2008.

About the Author

Steven N. Simon is an adjunct senior fellow for Middle East

Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. His publications

include After the Surge: The Case for US. Military

Disengagement from Iraq (2007), The Next Attack: The Failure

of the War on Terror and the Strategy for Getting It Right (2005),

and The Age of Sacred Terror (2002). He was also director for

global issues and senior director for'transnational threats at the

National Security Council from 1994 to 1997.

When to Leave Iraq: Today, Tomorrow, or

Yesterday?

by Cohn H Kahl and William E. Odom

Foreign Affairs, July-August 2008

Walk Before Running

by Cohn H. Kahl

J

n "The Price of the Surge" (May-June 2008),

Steven Simon correctly observes that the Sunni

turn against al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), known as

the Sunni Awakening, has been a key factor in

security progress during the period of "the surge."

Simon is also on point when he notes that the

Awakening, which began before the surge, was not

a direct consequence of additional U.S. troops. But

although Simon gets much of the past right, he ultimately draws the wrong lessons for U.S. policy

moving forward.

Rather than unilaterally and unconditionally

withdrawing from Iraq and hoping that the international community will fill the void and push the

Iraqis toward accommodation-a very unlikely scenario—the United States must embrace a policy of

"conditional engagement." This approach would

couple a phased redeployment of combat forces

with a commitment to providing residual support

for the Iraqi government if and only if it moves

toward genuine reconciliation. Conditional engagement—rather than Simon's policy of unconditional

disengagement—would incorporate the real lesson

from the Sunni Awakening.

The Awakening began in Anhar Province more

than a year before the surge and took off in the

summer and fall of 2006 in Ramadi and elsewhere,

long before extra U.S. forces started flowing into

Iraq in February and March of 2007. Throughout

the war, enemy-of-my-enemy logic has driven

Sunni decision making. The Sunnis have seen three

"occupiers" as threats: the United States, the Shiites

(and their presumed Iranian patrons), and the foreigners and extremists in AQI. Crucial to the

Awakening was the reordering of these threats.

233

When U.S. forces first arrived in Anbar, upending the Sunni-dominated social order, they were

viewed as the principal threat. Because AQI fought

the United States, it was seen by the tribes as a convenient short-term ally, despite deep distrust. This

ordering of threats changed in 2005 and 2006. For

one thing, U.S. forces became more effective and

discriminating in their counterinsurgency activities.

AQI, meanwhile, became more brutal and indiscriminate, forcing the tribes to start defending themselves. In the fall of 2006, it also declared the establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq, asserting political and economic hegemony over Anbar and other

provinces with significant Sunni Arab populations.

It started demanding brides, enforcing harsh fundamentalist social norms, and cutting into the tribes'

smuggling revenues.

At the same time, U.S. forces had to convince the

Sunnis that they were not occupiers—that is, that

they did not intend to stay forever. Here, growing

opposition to the war in the United States and the

Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress in

the November 2006 elections were critical. Major

General John Allen, the Marine Corps officer

responsible for tribal engagement in Anbar in 2007,

recently told me that among Sunni leaders, the

Democratic victory and the rising pro-withdrawal

sentiment "did not go unnoticed They talked

about it all the time." According to Allen, the

Marines, from top to bottom, reinforced the message sent by the Democratic takeover by saying,

"We are leaving We don't know when we are

leaving, but we don't have much time, so you [the

Anbarisi better get after this." As a result, U.S. forces

came to be seen as less of a threat than either AQI

or the Shiite militias—and the risk that U.S. forces

would leave pushed the Sunnis to cut a deal to protect their interests while they still could. As Major

Niel Smith, the operations officer at the U.S. Army

and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, and

Colonel Sean MacFarland, the commander of U.S.

forces in Ramadi during the pivotal period of the
Awakening, wrote recently in Military Review, "A

growing concern that the U.S. would leave Iraq and

leave the Sunnis defenseless against Al-Qaeda and

Iranian-supported militias made these younger [tribal] leaders [who led the Awakening] open to our

overtures." In short, contrary to the Bush administration's claims, the Awakening began before the

surge and was driven in part by Democratic pressure to withdraw.

It was also critical, however, that U.S. forces did

not leave immediately. According to Allen, the continued U.S. presence allowed U.S. commanders to

argue that their troops would be the Sunnis' "shock

absorbers" during the transition. In other words, the

surge and the threat of withdrawal interacted synergistically: the threat of withdrawal made clear that

the U.S. commitment was not open-ended, and the

surge made clear that U.S. forces would he around

for a while. Together they provided a strong incentive for the Anbaris to cooperate with the United

States and turn on AQI.

This revised history of the Sunni Awakening has

significant implications moving forward. Now, the

principal impediment to long-term stability in Iraq

is the reluctance of Prime Minister Noun al-Maliki's

central government to engage in genuine political

accommodation. That will require a hydrocarbon

law designed to equitably share oil revenues, better

budget execution and service provision, steps to

resettle and compensate victims of sectarian violence, resolution of the disputed status of Kirkuk,

and efforts to demobilize and co-opt the Shiite militias (principally Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army). It

will also require that the Shiite government integrate or otherwise employ the 90,000 "Sons of

Iraq," mostly Sunni tribal militia members and former insurgents. After considerable cajoling, Maliki

has agreed to integrate about 20 percent of the

Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi Army and police and provide the remainder with nonsecurity jobs. But his

government has been very slow in carrying out this

pledge, and the 20 percent figure is unlikely to be

sufficient. Brigadier General Shija al-Adhami, the

head of the Awakening force in Baghdad's

Ghazaliya neighborhood, recently told the

Washington Post, "This is a big failure-either they

take us all in or this is not going to work."

Convincing the Iraqi government to make the

234

tough decisions needed for accommodation

requires following the same logic that drove the

Awakening: using the risk of abandonment to generate a sense of urgency while committing to protecting groups that make tough choices. The Bush

administration has thus far failed to generate the

leverage such a strategy would produce because it

has effectively given the Iraqi government a blank

check. To the degree that minimal political progress

has occurred, it can be attributed at least as much

to the prospect that the Democrats in Congress

might force a withdrawal as to overt threats from

the Bush administration, secretary of Defense

Robert Gates admitted as much last April: "The

debate in Congress. . . has been helpful in demonstrating to the Iraqis that American patience is limited. The strong feelings expressed in the Congress

about the timetable probably has had a positive

impact . . . in terms of communicating to the Iraqis

that this is not an open-ended commitment."

As the United States moves forward in Iraq,

more leverage is required, but the positions now

being advanced by many Republicans and

Democrats fail to offer the right mix of incentives to

get the Iraqis to act. President George W. Bush has

signaled his intent to "pause" the planned troop

withdrawals when the surge ends, and Senator John

McCain (R-Ariz.) speaks of staying in Iraq for a hundred years, no strings attached. This policy of

unconditional engagement will not work, because

there are no consequences for Iraq's leaders if they

fail to accommodate one another. Some Democrats,

on the other hand, side with Simon and are calling

for a unilateral timetable for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. forces, regardless of the conditions on the ground. This policy of unconditional

disengagement also gives up too much leverage,

because it provides no ability to the Iraqi government to affect the pace of redeployment or the

nature of U.S. support in exchange for making

tough choices. Unconditional engagement is all carrots, no sticks; unconditional disengagement, all

sticks, no carrots.

A new policy of conditional engagement would

take advantage of the ongoing talks aimed at shaping a long-term U.S-Iraqi security framework to

push the Iraqis toward political accommodation.

U.S. negotiators should exploit the continuing dis-
content among Democrats in Congress and the

impending presidential election to signal that a

long-term U.S. commitment to Iraq is not politically sustainable unless there is tangible evidence of

recOnciliation. Because the Iraqi government has an

interest in a long-term security relationship with the

United States, especially continued U.S. support for

the Iraqi security forces, this tactic could prove very

effective.

The presidential candidates from both parties

should reinforce this strategy by publicly endorsing

the conditions the Iraqi government must meet in

order to influence the pace of future U.S. withdrawals and gain their future administrations' support for the Iraqi security forces in the years ahead.

This will require the Democratic nominee to clarify

his or her stance on the disposition of residual

forces in Iraq after a withdrawal of most of the

combat troops (only Senator Barack Obama ED-Ill.]

has proposed explicit conditions to be placed on

continued support for the Iraqi security forces), and

it will require McCain to abandon his unconditional pledge to stay in Iraq.

When the new administration takes office in

January 2009, it must follow up on this approach by

initiating a down payment on redeployment.

Starting from the roughly 15 combat brigades (a

total of 130,000-140,000 troops) it is likely to inherit, the new administration should signal its intention

to transition to a "support," or "overwatch," role by

announcing the near-term reduction of U.S. forces

to perhaps 12 brigades. The new administration

should also immediately sign a formal pledge with

the Iraqi government stating unequivocally that it

will not seek, accept, or under any conditions establish permanent or "enduring" military bases in Iraq.

Taken together, these actions would signal to the

Iraqi government that the U.S. commitment is no

longer open-ended while still maintaining enough

forces in the near term to prevent a major reversal

of progress on security. These steps would also signal to groups inside the Iraqi parliament that strongly oppose the occupation (especially the Sadrists),

as well as to the organizations representing the

nationalist wing of the Sunni insurgency, that the

United States does not intend to stay forever. This

might open up additional avenues for bringing

those Sunnis into formal and informal negotiations.

235

Simultaneous with these decisions, the United

States should start negotiations to establish a broad

time horizon for the transition of the remaining U.S.

forces to an overwatch role and the conditions for

continued U.S. support for the Iraqi government.

Once U.S. forces have reached a sustainable overwatch level, the primary mission of the U.S. military

in Iraq will switch to counterterrorism, training and

advising of the Iraqi security forces, and force protection for U.S. civilians and advisers. U.S. negotiators should make clear, however, that continued

economic and diplomatic support, as well as continued support for the Iraqi security forces (something the Iraqi government deeply desires and

needs), will hinge on continued progress toward

political accommodation. U.S. negotiators should

emphasize that over the long run, the United States

intends to normalize its relationship with the Iraqi

government and redeploy all of its remaining forces

as conditions permit. This policy of conditional

engagement should be nested within a wider

regional diplomatic initiative that seeks to leverage

the U.S. drawdown in Iraq and the common interest among Iraq's neighbors in avoiding a failed Iraqi

state.

In the end, this approach may not work. If the

Iraqis prove unwilling to move toward accommodation, then no number of U.S. forces will he able to

produce sustainable stability, and the strategic costs

of maintaining a significant presence will outweigh

the benefits. If so, the new administration should

shift to Simon's unconditional disengagement as

Plan B.

Rush to the Exit

by William E. Odom

Simon provides a brilliant analysis of Iraq's

political realities, past and present, exposing the

effects of the U.S. occupation. Sadly, neither the

administration nor all but a few outside analysts

foresaw them. More recently, most media reporting has wholly ignored the political dynamics of

the new "surge" tactic. And peripatetic experts in

Washington regularly return from their brief visits to Iraq to assure the public that it is lowering

violence but fail to explain why. They presume

that progress toward political consolidation has
also been occurring, or soon will be. Instead, as

Simon explains, political regression has resulted,

a "retribalization" of the same nature as that

which both the British colonial rulers and the

Ba'athist Party tried to overcome in order to create a modern state in Iraq.

This should hardly come as a surprise. The

history of tribalism in Iraq is well known. When

the United States replaced the British in the

Middle East after World War II, it set "stability"

above all other interests there, maintaining it

through a regional balance of power. President

Bush's invasion of Iraq broke radically with this

half-century-old strategy. The prospects of success, as Simon shows, were worse than poor.

Until recently, the wisdom of this new strategy has not been challenged. Instead, just as happened with regard to the war in Vietnam, the

mainstream discussion has focused on tactics,

"nation building" through elections, and diplomacy aimed at reconciling irreconcilable Iraqi

elites. As a result, the domestic dialogue has not

been serious, not even in this magazine, until the

appearance of Simon's analysis.

Serious discussion today must be about how

to deal with the repercussions of the tragic error

of the invasion. The key to thinking clearly about

it is to give regional stability higher priority than

some fantasy victory in Iraq. The first step toward

restoring that stability is the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Only then will promising next steps be possible. Simon moves in the

direction of such an approach, although not far

enough. He shows unambiguously why the

United States must withdraw from Iraq, but his

hesitant formula for withdrawal risks sustaining

the paralysis U.S. strategy now suffers from and

could make regional stability far more difficult to

restore.

Fear of the chaos that a U.S. withdrawal

would catalyze is the psychological block that

prevents most observers from assessing the realities clearly. As such observers rightly claim, the

United States will be blamed for this chaos, but

they overlook the reality that the U.S. military

presence now causes much of the chaos and has

been doing so since 2003. The United States cannot prevent more chaos by remaining longer.

236

Preventing it is simply not an option. The United

States can, however, remove the cause of disorder by withdrawing its forces sooner rather than

later. That is the only responsible option.

I was convinced that Simon understood this

until he began speaking of "a top-down

approach to reconciliation" to be implemented

"under UN auspices and led by a credible special

envoy." Why should a UN special envoy move

into the U.S-guarded Green Zone as long as

insurgents and militias occasionally fire mortar

rounds and rockets into it? Some sort of UN-led

effort may eventually become possible, but it is

not likely as long as U.S. forces remain. And

even a UN envoy could not "reconcile" Iraq's

warring factions "from the top down."

Simon does understand that the United States'

departure will force other countries, especially in

Europe, to reconsider their hands-off policies

toward Iraq. It will also lead Iraq's neighbors to

rethink their hands-on policies. They all want

stability there, but some are meddling in ways

that exacerbate instability. Once U.S. forces

leave, instability may be even less in their interests. Thus, the faster U.S. forces depart, the

greater the shifts in other countries' policies will

be. A two-year schedule for removing U.S.

forces, as Simon proposes, would fail to achieve

most of this shock effect.

After recognizing the breakout potential of

withdrawal, Simon effectively reembraces strategic paralysis. Otherwise, he would not insist that

Iraq's tribal fragmentation must be overcome by

means other than civil war and violence. He recognizes that U.S. legitimacy for sponsoring such

an effort has been lost—if it ever existed—and so

he wants to try a multilateral substitute involving

the UN. Its prospects for success, however, are

dubious in the extreme. If it consists only of

Western countries, it will never be seen as legitimate, only as a crusade in another form. If it

includes countries from the region, they are

unlikely to agree on fundamental issues about

the kind of Iraq they will permit. Moreover, a UN

entity's military component would prove far less

effective in dealing with insurgents, militias, and

the Ministry of Interior's death squads. Its weakness would invite violence, not reduce it. And
neighboring countries would support militant

resistance for their own interests.

Tribalism will not, be subdued in a couple of

years, or even a couple of decades. Two wellknown British officials in the 1920s, fluent in

Arabic and deeply knowledgeable about the

Arabs, T. E. Lawrence and Gertrude Bell, slowly

relinquished their hopes for such an outcome in

Iraq. And the fragmentation there today is not

just along tribal lines. The larger Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide, although often overemphasized,

has been made far more serious as a result of the

U.S. occupation and the holding of democratic

elections before a political consolidation was

achieved. Kurdish separatism is probably as

strong as it has ever been. These divides are

unlikely to be bridged by any means other than

a civil war fought to a decisive conclusion. This

reality indicates that Iraq's eventual rulers are not

now in the Green Zone, and when they one day

occupy the capital, all foreign elements will be

gone. Association with U.S. forces contaminates

any would-be Iraqi regime. A UN entity would

not overcome that handicap; at best, it could

only sustain political instability and abet conflict.

Simon also argues that logistical imperatives

require at least two years for the withdrawal of

U.S. forces. That is probably true if all U.S.

weapons and materiel are to be removed, but

much of it is not worth the costs of hauling it

back to the United States. Vast numbers of trucks

and other equipment withdrawn from Kuwait in

1991 have never been used again and have been

left in costly storage to rust. At least a thousand

five-ton trucks can be found stored in Italy today,

unused yet costing money to retain. If the highest' priority is given to the withdrawal of personnel, not materiel, the required time can be dramatically shortened.

Other factors favor speed. Retrograde movements in war are risky affairs. They must be

made when one has lost the initiative or when

one's own forces are poorly deployed, which

means the opponent has the advantage. More

time favors the opponent even more. More

speed reduces his opportunities. Speed would

also improve diplomacy abroad and boost public morale at home. In the very best circumstances, uncertainties abound during strategic

withdrawals.

Most critical in the long run is recognizing that

the primary U.S. strategic interest in this part of

the world was and still is regional stability. That

means subordinating the outcome in Iraq to the

larger aim. Getting out of the paralysis in Iraq,

chaotic or not, is the sine qua non of any sensible strategy for restoring regional stability.

Finally, some kind of rapprochement with

Iran is essential. Regional stability from the 1950s

to the fall of the shah in 1979 rested on three pillars: cooperative relations with Iran, moderate

Arab states, and Israel. That arrangement served

the strategic interests, if not always the tactical

interests, of all parties. When the United States

lost its footing in Iran, U.S. military requirements

for maintaining the balance rose dramatically.

That explains the rapid buildup and eventual

creation of the Central Command during the

Carter administration. The only way to reduce

U.S. military requirements in the region is to

restore the United States' diplomatic straddle

between the region's two major conflicts—the

Arab-Israeli conflict and the Persian-Arab conflict. The invasion of Iraq not only destroyed the

balance but is now imposing additional military

requirements on the United States that cannot be

sustained indefinitely.

Notes

Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008, 151-57.

Reprinted by permission of the Council on Foreign

Relations, Inc. (www.ForeignAffairs.com), © 2008.

About the Authors

Colin H. Kah,l is assistant professor in the security studies program

in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown

University. His publications include States, Scarcity, and Civil

Str[e in the Developing World (2006).

William E. Odom was director of the National Security Agency

from 1985 to 1988. A retired three-star general in the U.S. Army, he

was a professor at Yale University and a senior adviser at the Center

for Strategic and International Studies at the time this article was

published.

237
238
Appendix A1

Command List

I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward)/Multi National Force West

March 2004-February 2005

Commanding General: LtGen James T. Conway (until September 2004)

LtGen John F. Sattler

Deputy: MajGen Keith J. Stalder (until May 2004)

BGen Dennis J. Hejlik

Chief of Staff: Col John C. Coleman

G-1: Col William J. Hartig (until May 2004)

Col Eric D. Bartch

G-2: Col James R. Howcroft (until June 2004)

Col Ronald S. Makuta

G-3: Col Larry K. Brown (until June 2004)

Col Michael R. Regner

G-4: Col Bruce E. Bissett (until June, 2004)

Col Andrew Reynosa III

G-5: Col Anthony L. Jackson (until June 2004)

Col Richard 0. Bartch

G-6: Col Marshall I. Considine III (until June 2004)

LtCol Martin E. Lapierre Jr.

I MEF Headquarters Group:

Commanding Officer: Col John C. Cunnings (until June 2004)

Col Joseph A. Bruder IV

11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC)

Commanding Officer: Col Anthony M. Haslam

24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC):

Commanding Officer: Col Robert J. Johnson

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Walter L. Miller Jr.

3d Civil Affairs Group

Commanding Officer: Col Michael M. Walker

4th Civil Affairs Group

Commanding Officer: Col John R. Ballard

Marine Ground Combat Element

1st Marine Division (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding General: MajGen James N. Mattis (until August 2004)

MajGen Richard F. Natonski

239
Assistant Division Commander: BGen John F. Kelly (until July 2004)

BGen Joseph F. Dunford Jr.

Chief of Staff: Col Joseph F. Dunford Jr. (until July 2004)

Col RobertJ. Knapp

1st Marine Regiment (-) (Reinforced) (Regimental Combat Team 1)

Commanding Officer: Col John A. Toolan (until September 2004)

Col Lawrence D. Nicholson (14 September, 2004)

Col Michael A. Shupp

7th Marine Regiment (-) (Reinforced) (Regimental Combat Team 7)

Commanding Officer: Col Craig A. Tucker

1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division (U.S. Army)

Commanding Officer: Col Arthur W. Connor Jr., USA

2d Brigade, (-) (Reinforced), 1st Cavalry Division "Black Jack" (U.S. Army)

Commanding Officer: Col Michael D. Formica, USA

2d Brigade (-) (Reinforced), 2d Infantry Division, "Strike Force Brigade" (U.S. Army)

Commanding Officer: Col Gary S. Patton, USA

Marine Aviation Combat Element

3d Marine Aircraft Wing (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: MajGen James F. Amos (until May 2004)

MajGen Keith J. Stalder

Assistant Wing Commander: Col Roy A. Arnold

Chief of Staff: Col Gerald A. Yingling Jr. (until July 2004)

Col Rex C. McMillian (until October 2004)

Col Rick W. Schmidt

Marine Aircraft Group 16 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Stuart L. Knoll (until April 2004)

Col Guy M. Close

Marine Air Control Group 38 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Ronnell R. McFarland (until June 2004)

Col Jonathan G. Miclot

Marine Wing Support Group 37 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Juan G. Ayala

Marine Combat Service Support Element

1st Force Service Support Group (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: BGen Richard S. Kramlich

Deputy Commander: Col John L. Sweeney Jr.

Chief of Staff: Col Tracy L. Mork

240
Combat Service Support Group 11 (-)

Commanding Officer: Col David B. Reist

Combat Service Support Group 15 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Michael E. Kampsen

I Marine Expeditionary Force Engineer Group

Commanding Officer: RAdm Charles R. Kubic

RAdm Raymond K. Alexander

II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward)/Multi National Force-West

March 2005-February 2006

Commanding General: MajGen Stephen T. Johnson (until January 2006)

MajGen Richard A. Huck

Deputy: BGen Charles S. Patton

Chief of Staff: Col John L. Ledoux

G-1: LtCol John R. Armour (until September 2005)

Maj Blair 5. Miles

G-2: Col John T. Cunnings

G-3: Col Glenn T. Starnes (until October 2005)

Col Thomas L. Canker

G-4: Col John J. Fitzgerald Jr. (until July 2005)

Col. Donald C. Hales

G-5: Col Kenneth D. Bonner

G-6: Col Sean T. Mulcahy

II MEF Headquarters Group: (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Daniel D. Leshchyshyn

13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (-)

Commanding Officer: Col James K. LaVine

15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (SOC)

Commanding Officer: Col Thomas C. Greenwood

22d Marine Expeditionary Unit

Commanding Officer: Col Kenneth F. McKenzie

5th Civil Affairs Group (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Steven E. McKinley

6th Civil Affairs Group

Commanding Officer: Col Paul W. Brier

155th Brigade Combat Team (Reinforced) (Army National Guard)

Commanding Officer: Col Augustus L. Collins, USA (until April 2005)

Marine Ground Combat Element

2d Marine Division (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding General: MajGen Richard A. Huck (until January 2006)

241
Assistant Division Commander: BGen Joseph J. McMenamin

Chief of Staff: Col Robert G. Sokoloski

2d Marine Regiment (-) (Reinforced) (Regimental Combat Team 2)

Commanding Officer: Cot Stephen W. Davis

8th Marine Regiment (-) (Reinforced) (Regimental Combat Team 8)

Commanding Officer: Cot Charles M. Gurganus (until August 2005)

Cot David H. Berger

2d Brigade, 2d Infantry Division (Reinforced) (U.S. Army)

Commanding Officer: Cot Gary S. Patton, USA

2d Brigade, 28th Infantry Division (Reinforced) (Army National Guard)

Commanding Officer: Cot John L. Gronski, USA

Marine Aviation Combat Element

2d Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward)

Commanding General: BGen Robert E. Milstead

Chief of Staff Col John T. Rahm (until August, 2005)

Col Thomas M. Murray

Marine Aircraft Group 26 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Thomas M. Murray (until February 2006)

Cot David J. Mollahan

Marine Air Control Group 38

Commanding Officer: Col Jonathan G. Miclot

Marine Air Control Group 28 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Cot Mark R. Cyr

Marine Wing Support Group 27 (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Scott M. Anderson

Marine Combat Service Support Element

2d Force Service Support Group (Forward)

Commanding General: BGen Ronald S. Coleman (until June 2005)

BGen John E. Wissler

Chief of Staff: Cot James E. McCown III

Combat Logistics Regiment 25

Commanding Officer: Col Robert W. Destafney (until September 2005

Cot Dennis W. Ray

I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward)/Multi National Force-West

March 2006-February 2007

Commanding General: MajGen Richard C. Zilmer

Deputy Commanding General for Operations: BGen Robert B. Neller

242
Deputy Commanding General for Support: BGen David G. Reist

Chief of Staff: Col George F. Milburn

G-1: Col Eric D. Bartch

G-2: Col Peter H. Devlin

G-3: Col Michael P. Marletto

G-4: Col Scott A. Dalke

G-5: Col Chad W. Hocking

G-6: Col Kirk E. Bruno

I MEF Headquarters Group:

Commanding Officer: LtCol Thomas Ward

15th Marine Expeditionary Unit:

Commanding Officer: Col Thomas C. Greenwood (Until August 2006)

Col Brian D. Beaudreault

Marine Ground Combat Element

1st Marine Division (Forward)

Commanding General: MajGen Richard F. Natonski (until August 2006)

MajGen John M. Paxton

Assistant Division Commander: Col Kevin A. Vietti

Chief of Staff: Col Kevin A. Vietti

5th Marine Regiment (-) (Reinforced) (Regimental Combat Team 5)

Commanding Officer: Col Lawrence D. Nicholson

7th Marine Regiment (-) (Reinforced) (Regimental Combat Team 7)

Commanding Officer: Col William B. Crowe

1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division (U.S. Army)

Commanding Officer: Col Sean B. MacFarland, USA

Marine Aviation Combat Element

3d Marine Aircraft Wing

Commanding General: MajGen Samuel T. Helland

Assistant Wing Commander: Col Jonathan G. Miclot (until June 2006)

Col Howard F. Baker

Chief of Staff: Col Rick W. Schmidt (until September 2006)

Col Guy M. Close

Marine Aircraft Group 16

Commanding Officer: Col Guy M. Close (until May 2006)

Col John C. Kennedy

Marine Aircraft Group 31

Commanding Officer: Col Robert Walsh (until May 2006)

Marine Air Control Group 38 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Jonathan G. Miclot (until June 2006)

Col Mark G. Cianciolo

243
Marine Combat Service Support Element

1st Marine Logistics Group (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding General: BGen David G. Reist2

Col David M. Richtsmeier (CO Fwd)3

Deputy Commander: Col Elvis E. Blumenstock4

Chief of Staff: Col Michael D. Malone (until January 2007)

Col Juan G. Ayala

Combat Logistics Regiment 17

Commanding Officer: LtCol Todd A. Holmquist (until July 2006)

LtCol James C. Caley (July-August 2006)

LtCol Kirk C. Wille

Combat Logistics Regiment 15 (-) (Reinforced)

Commanding Officer: Col Charles L. Hudson (until June 2006)

Col Brian J. Vincent III

Notes

1. To present a comprehensive order of battle for the entire period covered by this anthology (2004-2008) would

require a volume unto itself. The goal of this appendix is to give as comprehensive a list as possible within the

space provided. Consequently, not all Marine Corps units deployed to Iraq between 2004 and 2008 are listed.

The majority of Marines deployed to Iraq during this time period were under the command of Multi National

Force-West (MNF-West), which was coterniinious with either I MEF (2004-2005), II MEF (2005-2006) or I MEF

(2006-2007). The appendix is divided by MEF deployment, and lists commanders down to the regimental level

and units down to the battalion level that were at one time under the command of MNF-West during each MEF

deployment.

The information is drawn from the following sources: I Marine Expeditionary Force Presidential Unit Citation

Recommendation (2005), II Marine Expeditionary Force Presidential Unit Citation Recommendation (2006), I Marine Expeditionary Force Presidential Unit Citation Recàmmendation (2007), LtCol Kenneth W. Estes, "U.S.

Marine Corps Operations in Iraq, 2003-2006" (Quantico, VA: History Division: United States Marine Corps, 2009),

USMC History Division Reference Branch, "Chronology of U.S. Marines and Global War on Terror," at

http://www.tecom .usmc.mil/HD/Chronologies/Campaign/GWOT_2001-2005.htm (accessed 3 June, 2009), and

Institute for the Study of War, "Order of Battle, Coalition Combat Forces" at http://www.understandingwar.org

/IraqOrderofBattle (accessed 3 June, 2009).

2. BGen Reist served as 1st MLG commanding general and as Deputy Commanding General for Supply. See 1st

Marine Logistics Group (MLG), Command Chronology (CC), July-December 2006, p.2.

3. Cot David M. Richtsmeier was Commanding Officer, 1st MLG (Fwd). See Cpl Daniel J. Redding, "Combat zone

ingenuity protects Marines," Operation Iraqi Freedom—Official Website of Multi National Force-Iraq, 10 August,

2006, at http://drl 5.ahp.drl .us.army.mil/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2005&Itemid22S.

accessed 25 August, 2009.

4. Col Blumenstock served as Acting Commander, 1st MLG, while BGen Reist was deployed to Iraq as Deputy

Commanding General for Supply, I MEF (FWD). See 1st MLG Command Chronology, July-January, 2006, p.3.

244
Appendix B:

Unit List

U.S. Marines in Operation Iraqi Freedom

March 2004-February 2007

I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) [I MEF]/Multi National Force-West [MNF-W]

March 2004-February 2005

Command Element

11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) [11th MEU (SOC)]

Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines [BLT 1/41

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 166 (Reinforced) [HMM-166]

Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 11 [MSSG-11l

Task Force, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry (U.S. Army) [TF 1st Bn, 5th CavRegl

1st Battalion, 227th Aviation (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 227th AvRegl

153d Engineer Battalion (U.S. Army) [153d EngrBnl

1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (U.S. Army) [1st Bn 5th SFGI

24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) [24th MEU (SOC)]

Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2d Marines [BLT 1/21

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 263 (Reinforced) [HMM-2631

Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 24 [MSSG-241

Task Force 2d Battalion, 24th Marines [TF 2d Bn 24th Marl

Task Force "Blackwatch" (United Kingdom) [TF "Blackwatch"l

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (-) (Reinforced) [31st MEU]

1st Battalion, 23d Marines (Reinforced) [1st Bn 23d Marl

Task Force Naha [TF Naha]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265 (Reinforced) [HMM-2651

1st Battalion, 7th Marines (Reinforced) [1st Bn 7th Mar]

Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 3d Marines [BLT 1/31

3d Battalion, 5th Marines [3d Bn 5th Marl

Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 31 [MSSG-311

2d Force Reconnaissance Company (-) [2d ForReconCol

2d Battalion, 11th Marines (-) (Reinforced) (Provisional MP Battalion) [2d Bn 11th Marl

I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group [I MEF HqGru]

2d Intelligence Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [2d IntelBnl

2d Radio Battalion (-) [2d RadBnl

9th Communications Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [9th CommBn]

Battery E, 2d Battalion, 10th Marines [Btry E, 2d Bn, 10th Marl

Battery C, 1st Battalion, 10th Marines [Btry C, 1st Bn, 10th Marl

Detachment, 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company [Det, 1st ANGLICO]

245
3d Civil Affairs Group [3d GAG]

4th Civil Affairs Group [4th GAG]

Marine Ground Combat Element

1st Marine Division (-) (Reinforced) [1St MarDivl

Headquarters Battalion (Reinforced) [HqBn]

Small Graft Go (-) [Small Crft Go]

2d Battalion (-) 11th Marines (Reinforced) [2d Bn, 11th Mar]

3d Battalion, 24th Marines [2d Bn, 24th Mar]

3d Battalion (-) 11th Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 11th Mar]

2d Battalion, 4th Marines [2d Bn, 4th Mar]

1st Marines (-) (Reinforced)/Regimental Combat Team 1 [1st Mar/RGT-1]

2d Platoon (-), 1st Force Reconnaissance Company [2d Pit, 1st ForReconGo]

Fire Control Team, 1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Gompany [FGT, 1st ANGLIGO]

2d Battalion, 1st Marines [2d Bn, 1st Mar]

3d Battalion, 1st Marines [3d Bn, 1st Mar]

2d Battalion, 2d Marines [2d Bn, 2d Mar]

3d Battalion 4th Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 4th Mar]

1st Battalion, 5th Marines [1st Bn, 5th Mar]

3d Battalion, 5th Marines [3d Bn, 5th Mar]

3d Battalion, 8th Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 8th Mar]

Task Force 2d Battalion 7th Gavalry (U.S. Army) [TF 2d Bn, 7th Cay]

Task Force Light Armored Reconnaissance [TF LARIJ

1st Reconnaissance Battalion [1st ReconBn]

2d Reconnaissance Battalion [2d ReconBn]

Company B, 1st Battalion 4th Marines (-) (Reinforced), [Go B, 1st Bn, 4th Mar]

Gompany D, 2d Assault Amphibian Battalion (Reinforced) [2d AABn]

Gompany C, 2d Tank Battalion (Reinforced) [2d GmbtEngBnl

Gompany B, 2d Gombat Engineer Battalion, (-) (Reinforced) [2d GEB]

Battery M, 4th Battalion, 14th Marines (Reinforced) [Btry M, 4th Bn, 14th Mar]

7th Marines (-) (Reinforced)/Regimental Combat Team 7 [7th Mar/RCT-7]

1st Battalion, 7th Marines [1st Bn, 7th Mar]

2d Battalion, 7th Marines [2d Bn, 7th Mar]

3d Battalion, 7th Marines [3d Bn, 7th Mar]

1st Battalion, 8th Marines (Reinforced) [1st Bn, 8th Mar]

1st Battalion, 23d Marines [1st Bn, 23d Mar]

Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 3d Marines (Reinforced) [BLT 1/3]

1st Force Reconnaissance Company [1st ForReconGo]

2d Force Reconnaissance Company [2d ForReconGol

3d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion [3d LAR Bn]

Task Force 2d Battalion, 2d Infantry (-),(U.S. Army) [TF 2d Bn, 2d Infi

Company C, 3d Battalion, 82d Field Artillery (U.S Army) [Go G, 3d Bn, 82d FldArty]

Gompany A, 2d Tank Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [Go A, 2d Tank Bn]

Detachment, Gompany C (-), 2d Combat Engineer Battalion [Det, Go C, 2d

GmbtEngrBn]

246
Detachment, Company A (-), 3d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion

[Det, Co A, 3d LAR]

Marine Expeditionary Force Service Support Group 31 [MSSG-31l

2d Brigade (-) (Reinforced), 1st Cavalry Division "Black Jack" (U.S. Army) [2d Bde, 1st CavDiv]

15th Forward Support Battalion (U.S. Army) [15 FwdSptBnl

Task Force 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry "Stryker" (U.S. Army) [TF "Stiyker"l

Task Force 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry (U.S. Army) [TF 1st Bn, 5th Cay]

Battery A, 3d Battalion, 82d Field Artillery (U.S. Army) [A Btry, 82d FldArtyl

Attack Helicopter (U.S. Army) [Atk Helol

Company B, 312th Military Intelligence Battalion (U.S. Army) [B Co, 312th MillntelBnl

Company B (-), 13th Signal Battalion (U.S. Army) [B Co, 13th SigBnl

759th Composite MP Battalion (U.S. Army) [759th Comp MPBnI

2d Reconnaissance Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [2d ReconBnl

Company A (Reinforced), 2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion,

[Co A, 2d LAR Bn]

Detachment, Explosive Ordinance Disposal Platoon (-), 63d Ordnance Battalion

[Det, EOD Plt, 63d OrdBn]

1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division (U.S. Army) [1st Bde, 1st InfDivl

2d Battalion, 4th Marines [2d Bn, 4th Marl

2d Brigade (-) (Reinforced), 2d Infantry Division "Strike Force Brigade". (U.S. Army)

[2d Bde, 2d Intl

2d Battalion, 2d Force Support Battalion (Reinforced) (U.S. Army),

[2d Bn, 2dForSuppBn]

Task Force 1st Battalion, 503d Infantry (-), (U.S. Army) [TF 1st Bn, 503d WI

Task Force 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry (-) (U.S. Army) [TF 1st Bn, 506th Intl

Task Force 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry (U.S. Army) [TF 1st Bn, 9th Intl

Task Force 2d Battalion, 17th Field Artillery (U.S. Army) [TF 2d Bn, 17th FldArtyl

44th Engineering Battalion (-) (U.S. Army) [44th EngrBnl

Company A, 102d Military Intelligence Battalion (U.S. Army) [Co A, 102d Millntel Bnl

Company B(-), 122d Signal Battalion (U.S. Army) [Co B, 122d SigBn]

Company B, 5th Battalion, 5th Air Defense Artillery (U.S. Army) [Co B, 5th Bn,

5th AirDefArtyl

2d Battalion 5th Marines (Reinforced) [2d Bn, 5th Marl

Marine Aviation Combat Element

3d Marine Aircraft Wing (-) (Reinforced) [3d MAWI

Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 3 (-) (Reinforced) [MWHS-31

Marine Aircraft Group 16 (-) (Reinforced) [MAG-161

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367, MAG-39 [HMLA-3671

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 169 (-), MAG-39 [HMLA-169]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268, MAG-39 [HMM-2681

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 365, MAG-29, 2d MAW [HMM-3651

247
Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 774, MAG-42, 4th MAW [HMM-774]

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squaclron [HMH-3611

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (All-Weather) 242, MAG-li [VMFA(AW)-2421

Marine Attack Squadron 542 [VMA-5421

Marine Attack Squadron 311 [VMA-3111

Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 16 (-) (Reinforced) [MALS-161

Marine Air Control Group 38(-) (Reinforced) [MACG-381

Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron (-) (Reinforced) [MTACS-38]

Marine Ai Support Squadron 3 (-) (Reinforced) [MASS-3]

Marine Wing Communications Squadron 38 (-) (Reinforced) [MWCS-38]

Marine Air Control Squadron 1 (-) (Reinforced) [MACS-li

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 [VMU-1]

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2 [VMU-2]

Marine Wing Support Group 37 (-) (Reinforced) [MWSG-37]

Marine Wing Support Squadron 373 [MWSS-3731

4th Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion (Reinforced), 4th MAW (Prov Sec

Battalion, Al Asad) [4th LAAD Bnl

Battery F, 2d Battalion, 10th Marines (Tactical Control from 1st FSSG) [Btry F,

2d Bn, 10th Mar]

Battery K, 4th Battalion, 14th Marines [Btry K, 4th Bn, 14th Marl

Battery P 5th Battalion, 14th Marines [Btry P, 5th Bn, 14th Marl

Detachment, Marine Air Control Squadron 1 [Det, MACS-il

Marine Wing Support Squadron 472 [MWSS-4721

Detachment, 9th Communication Battalion [Det, 9th CommBnl

326th Area Support Group (U.S. Army) [326th AreaSptGrul

1439th Engineer Team (U.S. Army) (1439th EngrTml

767th Engineer Team (U.S. Army) [767th EngrTm}

Marine Combat Service Support Element

1st Force Service Support Group (-) (Reinforced) [1st FSSGI

Headquarters and Service Battalion [HqSBnI

2c1 Battalion, 10th Marines (-) (Reinforced) [2d Bn, 10th Marl

Combat Service Support Group 11 (-) [CSSG-11l

Combat Service Support Battalion 1 [CSSB-1l

Combat Service Support Battalion 7 [CSSB-71

Combat Service Support Group 15 (-) (Reinforced) [CSSG-151

I Marine Expeditionary Force Engineer Group [I MEFEngrGru]

Task Force Charlie [TF Charliel

Task Force Echo [TF Echol

Task Force Sierra [TF Sierral

248
Task Force Tango [TF Tango]

With Participating Members From

1st Naval Construction Battalion [1st NCB]

7th Naval Construction Regiment [7th NCR]

22d Naval Construction Regiment [22 NCR]

20th Seabee Readiness Group [20th CRGI

31st Seabee Readiness Group [21s CRGI

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 [NMCB 3]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 [NMCB 4]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 7 [NMCB 7]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 [NMCB 14]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 15 [NMCB 15]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 17 [NMCB 17]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 23 [NMCB 23]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74 [NMCB 74]

Naval Mobile. Construction Battalion 133 [NMCB 133]

120th Engineer Battalion (Combat Heavy) (U.S. Army) [120th EngrBnl

II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward)/Multi National Force-West [II MEF (FWD)/MNF-W]

March 2005-February 2006

Command Element

13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (-) [13th MEU]

Command Element

Battalion Landing Team 2d Battalion, 1st Marines [BLT 2/1]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163 [HMM-163]

Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 13 [MSSG-13]

22d Marine Expeditionary Unit (-) [22d MEU]

Command Element

Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 2d Marines [BLT 1st Bn, 2d MarDiv]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 261 [HMM-261]

Marine Expeditionary Unit Service Support Group 22 [MSSG-22]

II MEF Headquarters Group (-) (Reinforced) [II MEF HqGru]

Headquarters and Service Company [HqSC0I

Headquarters and Service Company, 4th Tank Battalion, 4th Marine Division

(Provisional MP) (Reinforced) [HqSC0 4th Tank Bn, 4th MarDiv]

Company A, 4th Tank Battalion [A Co, 4th Tank Bn]

Company B, 4th Tank Battalion [B Co, 4th Tank Bn]

Battery C, 1st Battalion, 14th Marines [Boy C, 1st Bn, 14th Mar]

Battery D, 2d Battalion, 14th Marines [Buy D, 2d Bn, 14th Mar]

Headquarters Battery, 5th Battalion, 14th Marines [HqBtry, 5th Bn 14th Mar]

Battery N, 5th Battalion, 14th Marines [Btry N, 5th Bn, 14th Mar]

Battery 0, 5th Battalion, 14th Marines [Btiy 0, 5th Bn, 14th Mar]

Company E, 2d Battalion, 25th Marines [Co E, 2d Bn, 25th Mar]

249
Battery D, 2d Battalion, 14th Marines [Btry D, 2d Bn, 14th Mar]

Battery C, 1st Battalion, 14th Marines [Btry C, 1st Bn, 14th Mar]

Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 23d Marines [Wpns Co, 1st Bn, 23d Mar]

1st Platoon, 2d Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team Company Fist Plt, 2d FAST]

Antiterrorism Battalion, Combined Antiarmor Team [AT Bn, CAAT 3]

1st Intelligence Battalion (-) (Reinforced), I MEF [1st IntelBn]

2d Radio Battalion (-) [2d RadBnl

8th Communications Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [8th CommBn]

5th Civil Affairs Group

6th Civil Affairs Group

155th Brigade Combat Team, Army National Guard (Reinforced) [155th MissANG]

Task Force 2d Battalion, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (U.S. Army) [TF 2d Bn, 11th

ArmCavRegl

Marine Air Support Squadron 1 [MASS-i]

Marine Aircraft Group 14 [MAG-14]

Marine Air Control Squadron 2 [MACS-2]

Marine Wing Support Squadron 271 [MWSS-2711

Marine Wing Communications Squadron 38 [MWCS-381

30th Naval Construction Brigade (U.S. Navy) [30th NCBdeI

Task Force 2d Battalion, 198th Armor Regiment [TF 2d Bn, 198th AR]

Task Force 1st Battalion, 198th Armor Regiment [TF 1st Bn, 198th AR]

Task Force 1st Battalion, 155th Infantry Regiment [TF 1st Reg, 155th BCT]

106th Service Battalion [106th ServBn]

150th Engineer Battalion (-) [150th EngrBn]

Task Force, 2d Battalion, 114th Field Artillery Regiment [TF 2Bn, 114th FldArtyReg]

5th Battalion, 14th Marines [5th Bn, 14th Mar]

Marine Ground Combat Element

2d Marine Division (-) (Reinforced) [2d MarDivi

Headquarters Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [HqBn]

2d Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (-) (Reinforced) [2d ANGLICO]

1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (-) (Reinforced) [1st ANGLICOI

Detachment, 3d Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (-) [Det, 3d ANGLICO]

1st Force Reconnaissance Company (-) (Reinforced), I MEF [1st ForReconCo]

2d Force Reconnaissance Company (-) (Reinforced) [2d ForReconCo]

74th Multi-Role Bridge Company, 130th Engineering Brigade (U.S. Army) [74th

MRB Co, 130th EngrBde]

1st Battalion, 5th Marines [1st Bn, 5th Mar]

3d Battalion, 7th Marines [3d Bn, 7th Marl

2d Marines/Regimental Combat Team 2 (-) (Reinforced) [2d Mar, RCT-2]

3d Battalion, 1st Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 1st Mar]

3d Battalion, 2d Marines (-) (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 2d Mar]

3d Battalion, 6th Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 6th Mar]

3d Battalion, 25th Marines [3d Bn, 25th Mar]

3d Battalion, 504th Infantry [3d Bn, 504th Intl

250
1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [1st LAR Bnl

2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [2d LAR Bnl

Detachment, 2d Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company [Det 2d ANGLICOI

4th Battalion, 14th Cavalry Regiment, (U.S. Army) [4th Bn, 14th CavRegl

Fleet Antit-Terrorism Security Team, 172d Brigade Support Battalion [FAST,

172d BSBI

Battery A, 2d Battalion, 20th Field Artillery Regiment (U.S. Army) [A Btry, 2d

Bn, 20th FldArtyRegl

Battery A, 1st Battalion, 11th Marines [A Btry, 1st Bn, 11th Marl

Battery K (Reinforced), 3d Battalion, 10th Marines [Btry K, 3d Bn, 10th Marl

Company A (Reinforced), 1st Tank Battalion [Co A, 1st TkBnl

Company A (Reinforced), 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion [Co A, 4th

AABnI

Information Company, Azerbaijani [InfCo, Azjl

8th Marines (-) (Reinforced)/Regimental Combat Team 8 [8th Mar, RCT-81

Company B (Reinforced), 2d Tank Battalion [Co B, 2d TBn]

Company B (Reinforced), 2d Assault Amphibian Battalion [Co B, 2d AABnI

Battery A (Reinforced), 1st Battalion, 10th Marines [Btry A, 1st Bn, 10th Mar]

3d Reconnaissance Battalion (-) (Reinforced), 3d Marine Division [3d ReconBnl

3d Battalion 1st Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 1st Mar]

2d Battalion, 2d Marines (Reinforced) [2d Bn, 2d Marl

1st Battalion, 4th Marines (Reinforced) [1st Bn, 4th Marl

3d Battalion, 4th Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 4th Mar]

1st Battalion, 6th Marines [1st Bn, 6th Marl

2d Battalion, 6th Marines (Reinforced) [2d Bn, 6th Marl

3d Battalion, 6th Marines [3d Bn, 6th Marl

2d Battalion, 7th Marines (Reinforced) [2d Bn, 7th Marl

3d Battalion, 8th Marines [3d Bn, 8th Marl

1st Reconnaissance Battalion (Reinforced) [1st ReconBnl

Company D (Reinforced), 2d Tank Battalion [Co D, 2d TkBnl

Company A (Reinforced), 2d Assault Amphibian Battalion [Co A, 2d AABnI

2d Brigade (Reinforced), 2d Infantry Division) (U.S. Army) [2d BCT 2d Intl

1st Battalion, 503d Infantry (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 503d Intl

1st Battalion, 506th Infantry (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 506th Intl

Air Defense Artillery, Battery B, 5th Battalion, 5th Field Artillery (-) [ADA, Btry B, 5th

Bn, 5th FidArty]

1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 9th InfReg]

2d Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment (U.S. Army) [2d Bn, 17th FldArtyl

44th Engineer Battalion (U.S. Army) [44th EngrBnl

3d Battalion, 82d CSE (U.S. Army)

Battery B, 1st Battalion, 4th Artillery, 2d Forward Support Battalion (U.S. Army) [Btry

B, 1st Bn, 4th Arty, 2d ForSptBnl

1st Battalion (Reinforced), 5th Marines [1st Bn, 5th Marl

2d Brigade, 28th Infantry Division (Reinforced) (Army National Guard) [2d Bde, 28th InfDivl

228th Forward Support Battalion (U.S. Army) [228th FwdSptBnl

251
1st Battalion, 506th Infantry (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 506th Inf]

1st Battalion, 110th Infantry (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 110th Inf]

1st Battalion, •172d Artillery (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 172d Arty]

2d Battalion, 222d Field Artillery (U.S. Army) [2d Bn, 222d FldArty]

2d Battalion, 116th Field Artillery Regiment (U.S. Army) [2d Bn, 116th FldArty]

3d Battalion, 7th Marines (Reinforced) [3d Bn, 7th Mar]

224th Engineer Battalion (C) (M) (Reinforced) [224th EngrBnl

Company C, 4th Tank Battalion [Co C, 4th TkBn]

54th Engineer Battalion (U.S. Army) [5th EngrBn]

Battery E, 2d Battalion, 11th Marines (Provisional MP) [Btry E, 2d Bn, 11th Marl

Marine Aviation Combat Element

2d Marine Aircraft Wing (Fwd) [2d MAW]

Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 2 (-) [MWHS-21

Marine Aircraft Group 26 (-) [MAG-26]

Marine Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron 26 [MHHS-26]

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224 [VMFA-224]

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 332 [VMFA-332]

Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 142 [VMFA(AW)-142]

Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242 [VMFA(AW)-242]

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 224, MAG-31 [VMFA(AW)-224]

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 142, MAG 42 4th MAW [VMFA-142]

Marine Attack Squadron 223 [VMA-223]

Marine Attack Squadron 311 (-) MAG- 13, 3d MAW [VMA)-311]

Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 1 [VMAQ-1]

Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 2 [VMAQ-21

Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 4 [VMAQ-41

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 167 [HMLA-167]

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 (-), MAG-26 [HMLA-269]

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369 [HMLA-369]

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 775, MAG-46, 4th MAW [HMLA-775]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 161 [HMM-1611

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 264, MAG-26 [HMM-2641

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 266 [HMM-266]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364, MAG-16, 3d MAW [HMMI-364

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 764, MAG-46, 4th MAW [HMM-764]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 774 [HMM-774]

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 465 (-) (Reinforced), MAG-16, 3d MAW [HMM-465]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 466 [HMM-466]

Marine Transport Squadron 1 [VMR-1]

Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 26 [MALS-261

Marine Air Control Group 28 (-) (Reinforced) [MACG-281

252
Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 28 (-) (Reinforced) [MTACS-281

Marine Air Control Group Headquarters [MACG-28 Hqi

Marine Air Control Squadron 2 (-) (Reinforced), MACG-28 [MACS-21

Marine Wing Communications Squadron 28 (-) (Reinforced) [MWCS-281

Marine Air Support Squadron 1 (-) (Reinforced), MACG-28, [MASS-li

Marine Air Control Group 38 Headquarters [MACG-38 Hqi

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 [VMU-li

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2 [VMU-2i

Marine Air Control Squadron 1 [MACS-lI

Marine Wing Support Group 27 (-) (Reinforced) [MWSG-271

Marine Wing Support Squadron 271 [MWSS)-271]

Marine Wing Support Squadron 371 [MWSS)-371]

2d Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion [2d LAAD Bn]

Marine Wing Support Squadron 272 [MWSS-2721

Marine Wing Support Squadron 372 [MWSS-3721

Marine Combat Service Support Element

2d Force Service Support Group/2d Marine Logistics Group (Forward) [2d FSSGI

Headquarters Service Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [HqSBnI

Communications Company (Reinforced) [CommCol

8th Engineer Support Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [8th EngrSBni

Combat Logistics Battalion 2 [ComLogBn 21

Combat Logistics Battalion 8 [ComLogBn 81

Combat Logistics Regiment 25 [ComLogReg 251

Headquarter Service Company (-), 2d Transportation Support Battalion [HqSCo,

2d TransSptBni

30th Naval Construction Regiment (-) (Reinforced), 1st Naval Construction Division (U.S.

Navy) [30th NCR, 1st NCDI

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 24 [NMCB-241

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 1 [NMCB-li

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 3 [NMCB-31

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 5 [NMCB-51

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 22 [NMCB-221

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 23 [(NMCB-231

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 24 [NMCB-241

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (-) 133 [NMCB-1331

983d Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy), (U.S.. Army) [983d EngrCbtBni

46th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy), (U.S. Army) [46th EngrCbtBnl

I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward)/Multi National Force-West [I MEF (FWD)/MNF-W]

March 2006-February 2007

Command Element

253
15th Marine Expeditionary Unit [15th MEU]

Battalion Landing Team 2/4 [BLT 2/41

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 165 [HMM-1651

Combat Logistics Battalion 15 [CLB-15]

I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group (-)(Reinforced) [I MEF Hq Gru]

1st Intelligence Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [1st IntelBnl

2d Intelligence Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [2d IntelBn]

1st Radio Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [1st RadBnI

2d Radio Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [2d RadBnl

9th Communication Battalion (-) (Reinforced) [9th CornmBn]

1st Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (-) (Reinforced) [1st ANGLICO]

1st Force Reconnaissance Co (-) (Reinforced) [1st ForRecon Co]

3d Civil Affairs Group [3d GAG]

4th Civil Affairs Group [4th GAG]

6th Civil Affairs Group [6th GAG]

Marine Ground Combat Element

1st Marine Division (Forward) [1St MarDiv]

Headquarters Battalion [HqBn]

1st Battalion, 14th Marines [1st Bn, 14th Mar]

3d Battalion, 14th Marines [3d Bn, 14th Mar]

5th Battalion, 14th Marines [5th Bn, 14th Mar]

5th Marines/Regimental Combat Team 5 (-) (Reinforced) [5th Mar/RGT-51

1st Battalion, 1st Marines [1st Bn, 1st Marl

2d Battalion, 2d Marines [2d Bn, 2d Mar]

3d Battalion, 2d Marines [3d Bn, 2d Marl

3d Battalion, 5th Marines [3d Bn, 5th Marl

2d Battalion, 6th Marines [2d Bn, 6th Mar]

2d Battalion, 8th Marines [2d Bn, 8th Mar]

1st Battalion, 24th Marines [1st Bn, 24th Mar]

1st Battalion, 25th Marines [1st Bn, 25th Mar]

1st Reconnaissance Battalion [1st ReconBn]

2d Reconnaissance Battalion [2d ReconBn]

3d Reconnaissance Battalion [3d ReconBn]

7th Marines/Regimental Combat Team 7 (-) (Reinforced) [7th Mar/RGT-7]

1st Force Reconnaissance Company (-) (Reinforced) [1st ForReconGo]

4th Force Reconnaissance Company (-) (Reinforced) [4th ForReconGol

2d Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment (U.S. Army) [2d Bn, 37th AR]

1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (-) [1st LAR Bnl

2d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (-) [2d LAR Bnl

3d Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion (-) [3d LAR Bn]

1st Battalion, 7th Marines [1st Bn, 7th Mar]

3d Battalion, 1st Marines [3d Bn, 1st Marl

254
3d Battalion, 3d Marines [3d Bn, 3d Marl

3d Battalion, 6th Marines [3d Bn, 6th Marl

3d Battalion, 4th Marines [3d Bn, 4th Marl

3d Battalion, 7th Marines [3d Bn, 7th Marl

3d Battalion, 8th Marines [3d Bn, 8th Marl

1st Battalion, 6th Marines [1st Bn, 6th Marl

1st Battalion, 36th Infantry Regiment (Mechanized) (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 36th InfI

4th Battalion, 14th Stiyker Cavalry Regiment (U.S. Army) [4th Bn, 14th Stryker CavRegl

1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division "Ready First" (U.S. Army)

[1st BCT, 1st ArmDivl

1st Battalion, 6th Marines [1st Bn, 6th Marl

3d Battalion, 8th Marines [3d Bn, 8th Marl

1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 506th InfRegl

1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 9th InfRegl

1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 37th ArmRegI

2d Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment (U.S. Army) [2d Bn, 37th ArmRegl

1st Battalion, 77th Armor Regiment (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 77th ArmReg]

1st Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment (U.S. Army) [1st Bn, 35th ArmReg]

Marine Aviation Combat Element

3d Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward) (Reinforced) [3d MAW]

Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron 1 (-) [MWHS 11 Marine Aircraft Group 16 [MAG-161

Marine Aircraft Logistics Squadron 16 (-)(Reinforced) [MALS-i6l

Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 533 [VMFA(AW)-5331

Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242 [VMFA(AW)-242]

Marine Attack Squadron 223 (-) [VMA-2231

Marine Attack Squadron 513 (-) [VMA-5131

Marine Attack Squadron 211 (-) [VMA-2111

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 369 [HMLA-369]

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 169 [HMLA-1691

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 [HMLA-2691

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367 [HMLA-367]

Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 167 (-) [HMLA-1671

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 268 [HMM-268]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364 [HMM-364]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 774 [HMM-774]

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 266 [HMM-266]

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463 [HMH-4631

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 363 [HMH-3631

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466 [HMH-4661

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361 [HMH-3611

Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 465 [HMH-4651

Det, Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 252 [VMGR-2521

Det, Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 352 [VMGR-3521

255
Marine Aircraft Group 31 [MAG-31]

Marine Air Control Group 38 (-) (Reinforced) [MACG 381

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 1 [VMU-11

Marine Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Squadron 2 [VMU-21

Marine Tactical Air Command Squadron 38 [MTACS-381

Marine Air Support Squadron 3 [MASS-3]

Marine Wing Communications Squadron 38 [MWCS-381

Marine Air Control Squadron 1 [MACS-lI

Marine Wing Support Squadron 37 (-) (Reinforced) [MWSG-37]

Marine Wing Support Squadron 273 [MWSS-2731

Marine Wing Support Squadron 373 [MWSS-3731

Marine Wing Support Squadron 274 [MWSS-2741

Marine Wing Support Squadron 374 [MWSS-3741

3d Low Altitude Air Defense Battalion [3d LAADBn]

Marine Combat Service Support Element

1st Marine Logistics Group (Forward) (-) (Reinforced) [1st MLG]

Combat Logistics Regiment 17 [CLR-171

Headquarters Company (-) (Reinforced), 7th Engineer Support Battalion

[HqCo, 7th ESBI

Combat Logistics Battalion 5 [CLB-51

Headquarters and Service Co, Combat Logistics Battalion 7 [H&SCo, CLB-71

Combat Logistics Battalion 1 [CLB-1I

Combat Logistics Regiment 15 (-) (Reinforced) [CLR-151

9th Engineer Support Battalion [9th EngrSptBnl

30th Naval Construction Regiment (-) (Reinforced) [30th NCR]

46th Engineer Battalion (U.S. Army) [46th EngrBnl

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 [NMCB-133]

84th Engineer Construction Battalion (U.S. Army) [84th EngrConBn]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 22 [NMCB-22]

3d Naval Construction Regiment (-) (Reinforced) [3d NCR]

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 18 [NMCB-181

Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74 [NMCB-74]

256
Appendix C

Selected Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations

AIF—Anti-Iraqi Forces

ACR—Armored Reconnaissance Regiment

AFDD—Air Force Doctrine Document

AQI/AQIZ—al-Qaeda in Iraq/al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia

AOR—Area of Responsibility

ASC—Anbar Salvation Council

BATS—Biometric Automated Tool Set

BBC—British Broadcasting Company

BCT—Brigade Combat Team

BIAP—Baghdad International Airport

BLT—Battalion Landing Team

BPC—Building Partnership Capacity

CAP—Combined Action Program

CAV—Cavalry

CEB—Combat Engineering Battalion

CERP—Commander's Emergency Reconstruction Program

CENTCOM—U.S. Central Command

CF—Coalition Forces

CG—Commanding General

CGS—Common Ground Station

CIA—Central Intelligence Agency

CJTF—Combined Joint Task Force

CLB—Combat Logistics Battalion

CLR—Combat Logistics Regiment

CMO—Civil-Military Operations

CMOC—Civil-Military Operations Center

CP—Command Post

CPA/CPA—Coalition Provisional Authority

CSS—Combat Service Support

CSSB—Combat Service Support Battalion

DIA—Defense Intelligence Agency

DOD—Department of Defense

ECP—Entry Control Points

EFDC—Expeditionary Force Development Center

EFIC—East Fallujah Iraqi Camp

EKMS—Electronic Key Management System

257
EOD—Explosive Ordnance Disposal

FLT—Fallujah Liaison Team

FOB—Forward Operating Base

FSS—Fast Sealift Ships

FSSG—Force Service Support Group

GIG—Gulf Investment Company

GCE—Ground Combat Element

HIDACZ—High Density Airspace Control Zone

HQMC—Headquarters Marine Corps

IA—Iraqi Army

IDF—Israeli Defense Force

IECI—Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq

lED—Improvised Explosive Device

lED WG—Improvised Explosive Device Working Group

hF—Iraqi Intervention Force

JIG—Interim Iraqi Government

IMO—Information Management Officer

ING—Iraqi National Guard

JO—Information Operations

IPT—Integrated Process Team

IPSA—Intermediate Pumping Stations

IRMO—Iraq Reconstruction Management Office

1SF—Iraqi Security Forces

ISR—Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance

1W—Irregular Warfare

JCC—Joint Coordination Center

JDAM—Joint Direct Attack Munition

JIDI—Joint lED Defeat IPT

KIA—Killed in Action

LAR—Light Armored Reconnaissance

MA—Mortuary Affairs

MACCS—Marine Air Command and Control Squadron

MAG—Marine Air Group

MAGTF—Marine Air-Ground Task Force

MARCORSYSCOM—Marine Corps Systems Command

MarDiv—Marine Division

MAW—Marine Aircraft Wing

MCCDC—Marine Corps Combat Development Command

MCIA—Marine Corps Intelligence Activity

MCWL—Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory

MCWP—Marine Corps Warfighting Publication

MEB—Marine Expeditionary Brigade

258
MEF—Marine Expeditionary Force

MEG—MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force) Engineer Group

MEU—Marine Expeditionary Unity

MHG—Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) Headquarters Group

MLG—Marine Logistics Group

MNC-I—Multi National Corps-Iraq

MNF-I—Multi National Force-Iraq

MNF-W—Multi National Force-West

MNSTC-I—Multi National Security Transition Command-Iraq

MNSTC-I--Multi National Support and Training Command-Iraq

MOD—Ministry of Defense (Iraq)

MOI—Ministry of the Interior (Iraq)

MSR—Main Supply Route

MWSG—Marine Wing Support Group

MWSS—Marine Wing Support Squadron

NCO—Noncommissioned Officer

NCR—Naval Construction Regiment

NGO—Nongovernment Organization

OEF—Operation Enduring Freedom

OIF—Operation Iraqi Freedom

OIF Il—Operation Iraqi Freedom II

PA—Public Affairs

PL—Phase Line

POE—Points of Entry

POW—Prisoner of War

PRDC—Provincial Reconstruction Development Committee

PRT—Provincial Reconstruction Teams

PSYOP—Psychological Operations

RCT—Regimental Combat Team

RLT—Reconstruction Liaison Team

RPG—Rocket-Propelled Grenade

RROC—Regional Reconstruction Operations Center

SAM—Surface-to-Air-Missile

SVBIED—Suicide Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device

SERT—Seabee Engineer Reconnaissance Teams

SOF—Special Operations Forces

TACON—Tactical Control

TAL—Transition Administrative Law

TF—Task Force

TOC—Tactical Operations Center

TTP—Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

UAV—Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

259
USAF—United States Air Force

USA—United States Army

USMC—United States Marine Corps

USN—United States Navy

VBID/VIED—Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device

VCP—Vehicle Checkpoints

WIA—Wounded in Action

260
Appendix D

Chronology of Events, 2004-2008

2004

March 20 The 82d Airborne Division transfers command of Multi National

Force-West to I Marine Expeditionary Force takes responsibility for

al-Anbar Province.

March 31 Four civilian Blackwater USA contractors are ambushed and their

bodies mutilated by insurgents in Fallujah.

April 5 Units from I Marine Expeditionary Force launch Operation Vigilant

Resolve in Fallujah.

April 9 Gen John P. Abizaid, USA, Commanding General of U.S. Forces

Central Command, orders Marines to suspend offensive operations

against the insurgency in Fallujah.

April 9-April 30 Units from I Marine Expeditionary Force engage in skirmishes and

firefights throughout Fallujah.

May 1 I Marine Expeditionary Force withdraws from Fallujah and hands

authority over to the Fallujah Brigade.

June 28 The official transfer of sovereignty to Iraq, dissolution of the Coalition

Provisional Authority, and transfer of power to the Iraqi Interim

Government. Two days later, Marines raise the American flag over

the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

July 16 First units of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit arrive in an-Najaf.

July 23 Six Marines from 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division,

complete the first combat, high-altitude parachutedrop in the history

of the Marine Corps.

July 31 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit assumes operational control of anNajaf and al-Qadisiyah Provinces.

August 2 Marines from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Force begin battling

units of the Mahdi Militia insurgency in Najaf and Kufa.

August 9 Multi-National Force-West assumes tactical control of 11th Marine

Expeditionary Force with the arrival of I Marine Expeditionary Force

(Forward) Command Element.

261
August 11 11th Marine Expeditionary Force forces engage insurgents southwest,

northwest, and northeast of Najaf.

August 21 1st Battalion, 4th Marines raid Kufa.

August 26 In Najaf, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, surround the Imam Au Mosque.

Shrine. Multi National Corps-Iraq orders Marines to cease offensive

activities and allow Iraqi officials to peaceably resolve the removal of

Mahdi Militia forces.

August 27 Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani negotiates a truce in Najaf. Iraq government declares that hostilities will officially end at 1000.

September 10 The Fallujah Brigade disbands, having failed in its efforts to secure

the city.

September 12 LtGen John F. Sattler becomes commanding general, I Marine

Expeditionary Force, relieving LtGen James T. Conway.

September 26 Two suicide car bombers try to drive into a base used by U.S.

Marines and Iraqi National Guardsmen in Karma, near Fallujah.

When challenged, they detonate the cars. No injuries are reported.

October 5 More than 3,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops, including the 24th Marine

Expeditionary Force, launch an offensive operation in the southern

approaches to Baghdad and take control of a bridge across the

Euphrates River.

October 14 Marines launch air and ground attacks against an insurgent stronghold in Fallujab after peace talks are suspended. The peace talks fizzle over the demand that the insurgent mastermind Abu Musab alZarqawi and other foreign fighters be handed over to the authorities.

November 7 Marines from I Marine Expeditionary Force conduct operations in

preparation for a second battle to clear Fallujah of insurgents. These

include securing key bridges, surgical air strikes, and seizing insurgent nodes outside the city.

November 2 George W. Bush reelected as U.S. President.

November 8 I Marine Expeditionary Force launches Operation Phantom Fury

(Operation al-Fajr) against insurgents in Fallujah. The second battle

of Fallujah begins.

November 11 Northern area of Fallujah falls to U.S. Marine forces.

November 13 The initial attack on Fallujah is completed. Search and attack operations commence.

262
November 14 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, takes the Jolan district in Fallujah. Marines

successfully occupy the city.

November 23-27 Elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force, along with U.S.

Army soldiers and Iraqi forces, launch Operation Plymouth Rock

against insurgents in North Babil Province.

December 21 The 11th Marine Expeditionary Force assumes operational control of

Karbala Province from the Polish-led Multi National Division CentralSouth.

December 23 Operation Phantom Fury concludes. Fallujah secured and cleared of

insurgents. Repopulation of the city commences.

2005

January 14 All districts of Fallujah are opened for resettlement.

January 26 CH-53 helicopter crashes in western Iraq, claiming the lives of 30

Marines and one sailor. Currently the single deadliest event for U.S.

forces during the war.

January 30 Iraqi national elections held for a Transitional National Assembly.

Sunnis largely boycott the vote.

February 20-March 5 Marines and Iraqi security forces launch Operation River Blitz

throughout al-Anbar Province. The operation targets insurgents in

cities along the Euphrates River including Hit, Ramadi, and Baghdadi.

March 10-25 Regimental Combat Team 7 and its telieving unit, Regimental Combat

Team 2, conduct Operation River Bridge.

March 27 II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) relieves I Marine Expeditionary Force as Multi National Force-West.

March II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) builds 1,700-man police

department in the city of Fallujah.

April 1-May 4 Marines from the 2d Marine Division conduct Operation Outer Banks

and Operation Patriot Shield to clear the Haditha-Hit corridor of

insurgent operations.

April 11 Insurgents attack Camp Gannon at Husaybah. Three Marines are

wounded.

March-June II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) disbands the 60th Iraqi

National Guard and integrates 2,000 former ING soldiers into the regular Iraqi Army.

263
May 2 Two FA-18 Hornet fighters from Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323

collide over Iraq, killing both pilots.

May 7-14 Regional Combat Team 2 conducts Operation Matador against insurgents operating along the Syrian border.

May 25-29 Marines conduct Operation New Market in Haditha to battle

entrenched insurgents.

June 6-July 31 Operation Guardian Sword: 2d Marine Division conducts operations

against insurgents to support Iraqi Constitutional Referendum.

June 17-22 Operation Spear: Marines focus on the rebel stronghold of Karabilah

near the Syrian border.

June 18 Regional Combat Team 8 launches Operation Dagger against insurgent networks in al-Anbar Province.

June 23 Iraqi insurgents carry out the deadliest attack involving U.S. female

service members to date when a suicide car bomber rams a convoy

in Fallujah. Five Marines and one female sailor (three males and three

females) are killed in the attack and 13 others are wounded, 11

female.

June 28-July 6 Regional Combat Team 2 conducts Operation Sword in Hit and

Haditha.

July Marine, Army, and Iraqi Army units conduct Operation Sayaid

(Hunter) to continue efforts to secure Anbar Province.

July 7 Operation Scimitar begins with raids in the village of Zaidan, approximately 20 miles southeast of Fallujah, and at least 22 suspected

insurgents are detained.

August 3 Fourteen Marine reservists and a civilian interpreter are killed in

Haditha when the amphibious assault vehicle they are traveling in is

struck by a roadside bomb. Two days earlier, six other Marines are

killed near the same city by enemy gunfire.

August 3-10 Marines participate in Operation Quick Strike, an offensive operation

aimed at disrupting insurgent activities in Haditha, Haqliniyah, and

Barwanah. Marines net nine car bombs, 28 other explosive devices,

and capture 36 suspected Insurgents.

October 1 Marines from Regional Combat Team 2 conduct Operation Iron Fist

to disrupt insurgents filtering into the country from Syria.

October 4-October 19 Marines conduct Operation River Gate in Haditha, Haqlaniyah, and

Barwanah to disrupt insurgent activities and secure the triad region.

264
October 15 The referendum on Iraqi Constitution, and the first phase of

Operation Liberty Express.

October 18 The deputy governor of Anbar Province, Talib al-Dulaimi, is assassinated in Ramadi.

November 5-November 17 Regional Combat Team 2 participates in Operation Steel Curtain

against insurgents in al-Qa'im along the Iraq-Syria border.

November 19 Haditha Incident: Marines from the 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, are

attacked by an insurgent land mine. In the aftermath, several civilians

are killed or wounded over questionable circumstances.

November 19 Roughly 150 Iraqi Army soldiers and 300 U.S. Marines and soldiers

launch Operation Dhibbah (Bruins) in Ramadi.

November 26 Approximately 400 U.S. Marines and 150 Iraqi Army troops launch a

new offensive in the Ma-Laab district of eastern Ramadi, Operation

Tigers (Nimur).

November 30 Operation Iron Hammer conducted by Marine and Iraqi armed forces

to rid the Hai al-Becker region of insurgents traveling from Syria into

Iraq.

December 2 Three hundred Marines from the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, and 200

Iraqi Army soldiers from the 1st Brigade, 7th Division, conduct

Operation Harba (Shank) in Ramadi to secure the Anbari capital for

elections on 15 December.

December 15 The election for the Iraqi National Assembly. Operation Liberty

Express provides security for polling.

December 17 Iraqi soldiers begin Operation Moonlight to disrupt insurgent activity

along the Euphrates River near the border with Syria.

2006

January 15-27 Marines with Battalion Landing Team 1/2, and Iraqi Army soldiers

conduct Operation Koa Canyon along the western Euphrates River

Valley.

February 22 The bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra sparks an outbreak

of sectarian violence.

February 28 I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) assumes control of the Multi

National Force-West area of operations from II Marine Expeditionary

Force (Forward).

265
March 9 U.S. Army LtGen Peter W. Chiarelli, commander of Multi National

Corps-Iraq, directs further investigation into events surrounding the

19 November 2005 attack in Haditha.

April 7 The battalion commander of 3d Battalion, 1st Marines, as well as two

company commanders, are relieved of command amid the investigation into the Haditha shootings.

April 17 Marines repel an attack by Sunni Arab insurgents in Rarnadi, when

the insurgents launch a coordinated assault against the city's main

government building and two U.S. observation posts. No U.S. casualties result from the 90-minute attack.

May 26 Gen Michael W. Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps,

announces Marines will face criminal charges for the November 2005

shootings in Haditha.

June 7 Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Masab al- Zarqawi killed in an air strike.

June 14-July 20 Operation Together Forward: U.S. and Iraqi Security Forces establish

curfews, security checkpoints, and more patrols in cities across Iraq.

June 17 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division launches operations to prevent Ramadi from become a center of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

August 8-October 24 Operation Together Forward II: 15,000 U.S. soldiers clear disputed

areas and cede security responsibilities to Iraqi soldiers. Iraqi troops

ultimately fail to secure the cleared cities.

Sunrnier-Fall U.S. Army LtCol Sean B. MacFarland of the 1st Brigade Combat Team

begins forging anti-al-Qaeda alliances with Iraqi tribal Awakening

Councils.

September Sheikh Sattar al-Rishawi of the Dulaimi confederation's Albu Risha

tribe launches a campaign against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

October Marines from 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, commanded by LtCol

William M. Jurney fight to secure Ramadi in support of Awakening

operations.

November 6 Saddam Hussein found guilty by Iraqi tribunal for the 1982 murder

of 148 Shiites in Dujail and sentenced to death.

November 7 U.S. midterm elections end Republican control of both houses of

Congress.

November 8 Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld resigns. His successor,

Robert M. Gates, is confirmed by the Senate on 8 December 2006.

266
December 21 Eight Marines are charged for the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians in

Haditha in November 2005. Four of the Marines, all enlisted, are

charged with unpremeditated murder while four officers are accused

of dereliction of duty for failures in investigating and reporting the

deaths.

December 30 Saddam Hussein executed.

2007

January 10 President Bush announces implementation of "the surge" and

appoints Gen David H. Petreaus, USA, commander of Multi National

Force-Iraq.

January 15 The Marines of 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, complete an 18-day battalion-level operation in al-Anbar Province in an effort to disrupt insurgent activity along the Euphrates River Valley.

February 7 Five Marines and two sailors are killed when their Marine CH-46 helicopter is shot down by insurgents about 20 miles northwest of

Baghdad. It is the fifth U.S. helicopter to be shot down in a threeweek period.

February 9 I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) is relieved as Multi National

Force-West by II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward).

May 8 Article 32 hearing for the first of four officers facing charges for failing to properly investigate the 19 November 2005 killings of Iraqi citizens in Haditha.

June 12 The second bombing of the Gold Dome Mosque in Samarra.

July 5-8 Marines with Battalion Landing Team 3/1 conduct Operation China

Shop II in al-Anbar Province. The Marines conduct census surveys

and carry out weapon sweeps.

July 11 Col Christopher C. Conlin, who presided over a preliminary hearing

for LtCol Jeffrey R. Chessani, recommends that the former battalion

commander be court-martialed on charges of dereliction of duty and

violating general orders for failing to investigate allegations against

his men that they killed Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

July 14 Regimental Combat Team 2 begins Operation Mawtini in towns along

the Euphrates River long used as insurgent sanctuaries. The operation involves more than 9,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops and is aimed at

establishing control in remote areas of western al-Anbar Province.

August 9 LtGen James N. Mattis dismisses all charges against LCp1 Justin L.

267
Sharratt, one of four enlisted Marines who originally faced murder

and other charges in the deaths of Iraqi citizens in Haditha. Charges

are also dismissed against military lawyer Capt Randy W. Stone.

September 5 The Marine Corps announces that three officers received administrative sanctions in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians in

Haditha because their actions in the aftermath of the incident did not

meet the high standards expected of senior leadership. MajGen

Richard A. Huck, former commanding general of 2d Marine Division;

Col Stephen W. Davis, former commanding officer of Regimental

Combat Team 2; and Col Robert G. Sokoloski, former chief of staff

of 2d Marine Division, receive letters of censure from the Secretary

of the Navy that are filed in their official military records.

September 10 Gen David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker issue report

to Congress on progress in Iraq.

lstLt Andrew A. Grayson, one of four officers to face charges for failing to properly investigate the Haditha incident, rejects a plea deal

that would dismiss the charges in exchange for an admission that he

covered up the killings of Iraqi civilians. Two days later, another of

the four officers, Capt Lucas M. McConnell, is fully exonerated.

September 13 Al-Qaeda in Iraq assassins murder Sheikh Sattar al-Rishawi.

October 19 LtGen James N. Mattis dismisses murder and negligent homicide

charges against LCpl Stephen B. Tatum but orders him to general

court-martial on lesser charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless

endangerment, and aggravated assault stemming from the Haditha

incident. LtGen Mattis also orders criminal charges to proceed against

the former battalion commander of 3d Battalion, 4th Marines, LtCol

Jeffrey R. Chessani, for failing to accurately report and investigate the

same incident.

2008

February 9 J Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward) relieves II Marine

Expeditionary Force (Forward) as Multi National Force-West.

September 1 U.S. officially transfers authority for al-Anbar Province to the Iraqis.

November 4 Barak H. Obama elected as U.S. President.

December Last Marines withdraw from Camp Fallujah.

268
Appendix E

Annotated Bibliography

(Selections in bold type appear in this anthology.)

Primary Material

Abu-Tariq. "Daily Diary of al-Qaeda Sector Leader Called Abu-Tariq." Translation by Multi National Force-Iraq, posted on 10 February 2008 (http://www.usf-iraq.com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=16935&Itemid=128).

Diary of a member of al-Qaeda in Iraq, detailing the reversals suffered by AQI as a

consequence of the alliance between the al-Anbar tribes and U.S. military forces.

Al-AnbarAwakening, vol. 1, American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004-

2009. Edited by CWO-4 Timothy S. McWilliams and LtCol Kurtis P. Wheeler. Quantico, Va.: Marine

Corps University Press, 2009.

Al-Anbar Awakening, vol. 2, Iraqi Perspectives: US. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004-

2009. Edited by Col Gary W. Montgomery and CWO-4 Timothy S. McWilliams. Quantico, Va.: Marine

Corps University Press, 2009.

A two-volume collection of interviews with both Americans (mostly Marine Corps cornmanders, but also Army as well as State Department and USAID representatives) and

local Iraqi leaders that traces the rise of the insurgency and the origins and development of the al-Anbar Awakening.

Baker, James A., III, and Lee H. Hamilton. The Iraq Study Group Report. New York: Vintage Books, 2006.

The report presents the results of a study assessing conditions in Iraq and offering proposals for bringing stability to the country. The authors focus on two courses: an external approach that calls for engagement with Syria and Iran, and an internal approach

that focuses on strengthening Iraq's security apparatus and places the onus for maintain stability on the Iraqis themselves.

Bremer, L. Paul, III, with Malcolm McConnell. My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006.

Memoirs of Coalition Provisional Authority leader L. Paul Bremer III. Provides information on the inner-workings of the CPA during the critical year following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Campbell, Donovan. Joker One. A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage Leadership, and Brotherhood.

New York: Random House, 2009.

Memoir of Donovan Campbell, commander of a Marine Corps platoon in the 2d

Battalion, 4th Marines, in 2004. Recounts his experience as a platoon leader and provides details on fighting the insurgency in Iraq and the battle for Ramadi in 2004.

269
I Marine Expeditionary Force Summary of Action, 2 August 2004-1 February 2005 (Unit Award

Recommendation).

I Marine Expeditionary Force Summary of Action, February 2006-February 2007 (Unit Award

Recommendation).

II Marine Expeditionary Force Summary of Action, 1 March 2005-28 February 2006 (Unit Award

Recommendation).

Unit award recommendations. Provide detailed information and chronologies of operations of I MEF and II MEF during their deployments to Iraq between 2004 and 2007.

Sanchez, LtGen Ricardo S., with Donald T. Philips. Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story. New York:

HarperCollins, 2008.

Memoirs of the chief U.S. commander in Iraq, 2003-2004. Provides information on the

emerging insurgency, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the first battle of Fallujah, and

the Abu Ghraib scandal.

U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps. Counterinsurgency. Army Field Manual 3-24; Marine Corps

Warfighting Publication 3-33.5. washington, D.C.: Department of the Army and Marine Corps Combat

Development Command, 2006.

A comprehensive analysis and doctrine for conducting modern counterinsurgency

operations developed by the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps.

Secondary Material

Alford, LtCol Julian D., and Edwin 0. Rueda. "Winning in Iraq." Marine Cops Gazette, June 2006, 29-

30.

Discusses the need for Marine Corps units to transform themselves into sizeable forces

capable of maintaining order and security in the civil sphere at the termination of

kinetic warfare. According to the authors, the Corps must also take great care in the

recruitment and deployment of military advisers.

Anderson, Col Gary W. "Fallujah and the Future of Urban Operations." Marine Coips Gazette, Noventher

2004, 52-58.

Examines the first battle of Fallujah and notes that the battle confirmed what Marines

had predicted about the nature of modern urban warfare. The author argues that the

Corps must focus on selecting and training the best urban fighters and squad leaders.

Angell, Maj Aaron A. "The Marine Wing Support Squadron." Marine Corps Gazette, April 2008, 29-34.

Overview of the functions and responsibilities of the Marine wing support squadron.

Describes .how the MWSS both supports of the air combat element of a Marine airground task force and provides logistical support to other elements of the MAGTF.

270
Armstrong, LtCol Charles L. "Fresh Counterinsurgency Doctrine." Marine Corps Gazette, March 2007, 49-

50.

Examination of the new Army and Marine counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-24, discussing its merits and contributions while also considering some of its drawbacks.

Axe, David. "Wild West: Marine Corps Aviators Support the Ground Troops in Iraq's Explosive Al Anbar

Province." Leatherneck, August 2006, 20-24.

Discusses the use of close air support in al-Anbar Province, focusing on the pilots of

Marine Fighter Attack All-Weather Squadron 332.

Ayers, Cynthia E. "Iraqi Resistance to Freedom: A Frommian Perspective." Parameters, March 2003, 68-

70.

Using the psychological and sociological theories of German philosopher Erich

Fromm, who argued that societies progress from a sense of insecurity to security as

they develop, the author explores the causes of instability in Iraq.

Barno, LtGen David W. "Challenges in Fighting a Global Insurgency." Parameters, February 2006, 15-

29.

Examines the nature of counterinsurgency and argues that the U.S. military has yet to

adequately grasp the nature and character of irregular warfare. Asserts that the U.S.

needs to improve its understanding of intelligence and perception in• counterinsurgency warfare.

Belanger, Capt Tyson. "The Cooperative Will of War." Marine Corps Gazette, January 2006, 62-64.

Chronicles the development and training of the Iraqi security forces, touching on the

challenges of training soldiers in an environment where potential enlistees and their

families are under the threat of intimidation and terror from insurgents.

Benhoff, LtCol David A. "Among the People: 5th Civil Affairs Group in Iraq." Leatherneck, July 2008,

36-40.

Documents the operations of the Team 3, Detachment 2, 5th Civil Affairs Group (CAG),

as it helps to rebuild the civil infrastructure in al-Anhar Province.

Bergman, LtGen John W. "Marine Forces Reserve in Transition." Joint Force Quarterly, 4th Quarter 2006,

26-28.

Provides a broad overview of the activities of Marine Corps Reserve, focusing on civil

and combat operations in Iraq and humanitarian relief operations in South Asia and

New Orleans.

Biddle, Stephen, Michael E. O'Hanlon, and Kenneth M. Pollack. "How to Leave a Stable Iraq: Building

on Progress." Foreign Affairs, September-October 2008, 40-57.

271
Considers the successes of the surge and argues that the stability created by the U.S.

change in strategy has paved the way for drawing down troops in the near future. The

authors believe that stability and security can still be maintained while reducing troop

numbers in the country, citing events in al-Anhar Province as an example.

Biddle, Stephen. "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon." Foreign Affairs, March-April 2006, 2-14.

Contends that comparing Vietnam to Iraq is the incorrect approach. Argues that while

the war in Vietnam was a Maoistpeoples' war, the conflict in Iraq is a communal civil

war. Consequently, efforts at Iraqization are only strengthening ethnic divides and fanning the flames of civil conflict.

Bilas, Maj John F. "Developing the Iraqi Army: The Long Fight in the Long War." In Applications in

Operational Culture: Perspectives from the Field, edited by Paula Holmes-Eber, Patrice M. Scanlon, and

Andrea L. Hamlen, 49-78. Quantico, Va.: Marine Corps University Press, 2009.

Detailed case study of the development of an Iraqi Army brigade across 2006 and 2007.

Analyzes the metrics used to measure progress.

Bingham, Col Raymond L. "Bridging the Religious Divide." Parameters, March 2006, 50-66.

Asserts that the war on terror can only be won if American planners have an understanding of Islam and Islamic culture. Appreciating what the Quran and Islam mean to

Muslims and non-Muslims alike will help to strengthen U.S. understanding of the social

factors influencing developments in the Middle East.

Birtle, Andrew. "Persuasion and Coercion in Counterinsurgency Warfare." Military Review, July-August

2008, 45-53.

Examines three major U.S. counterinsurgencies: the Civil War, Philippine Insurrection,

and the Vietnam War. Argues that success in these conflicts was achieved by balancing

coercive military operations with political operations that embraced moderation and reconciliation. While the U.S. achieved this balance in the Civil War and Philippine

Insurrection, it failed to do so in Vietnam.

Bray, Sgt Jerry E. "A Letter to My Replacement." Marine Corps Gazette, March 2007, 31-33.

The author, a former adviser in Iraq, provides a comprehensive view of how his successor should approach his mission and treat his Iraqi colleagues. He stresses cultural

understanding as well as being prepared to engage in unanticipated operations.

Broekhuizen, Capt Mark J. "Snipers." Marine Corps Gazette, September 2007, 41-45.

Highlights the .dangers of snipers in Iraq and provides analysis and proposals for how Marine

units should respond to sniper threats.

Byman, Daniel. "Friends Like These: Counterinsurgency and the War on Terrorism." International

Security 31 (Fall 2006): 79-115.

272
Examines the role allies play in counterinsurgency operations. Outlines the challenges

and problems caused by the fact that the U.S. has often had to rely on weak, corrupt,

and often inept allies in its counterinsurgency operations.

Calvin, lstLt Carin. "The Assaultman in an Urban Environment." Marine Corps Gazette, July 2005, 30-

31.

Discusses the nature of the fighting during the second battle of Fallujah and presents

a series of lessons learned from the battle. Argues that "assaultmen" proved decisive.

Recommendations include increasing the number and effectiveness of shoulder

launched multipurpose assault weapons (SMAW) and issuing the M4A1 close quarter

battle weapon.

Cancian, Cal Mark F. "Capitalizing on al Qaeda's Mistakes." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 2008,

43-48.

Examines the origins of the Anbar Awakening, noting that al-Qaeda's drive to create

a unitary caliphate led it to target the Iraqi tribal system and its leading Sheikhs. In

response to these attacks, sheikhs such as Abdul Sattar Abu Risha formed a coalition

of tribes to confront al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"A Counterinsurgency Dilemma in Al Anhar." Marine Corps. Gazette, October. 2007, 71-75.

Provides a general overview of the challenges and dilemmas, faced by U.S. forces in

Iraq. Although Marines have a history of developing counterinsurgency doctrine, they

nevertheless continue to utilize heavy firepower. This impacts the Iraqi population,

and many Iraqis fear American troops more than and the insurgency.

Carroll, Maj Patrick J. "Stealth Victory." Marine Corps Gazette, August 2004, 41-43.

A former adviser to L. Paul Bremer III lays out a number of proposals for creating stability and security in Iraq. They include building effective, indigenous security forces,

recognizing that the U.S. and its allies will never have complete clarity on who it is

fighting, and acknowledging that the Iraqis need to take the lead in rebuilding the

country.

Cavagnol, Richard M., LtCol Richard L. Hayes, and Maj Daniel C. Turner. "From Vietnam to Iraq,"

Marine Corps Gazette, January 2008, 10-16.

Presents.recommendations for U.S. Marines going to Iraq to act as military advisers to

Iraqi forces. The authors draw on the experience in Vietnam as a means of providing

a point of comparison and as an example.

Chiarelli, MajGen Peter W., and Maj Eatrick R. Michaelis. "The Requirement for Full Spectrum

Operations." Military Review, July-August 2005, 4-17.

Synthesizes' lessons learned by MajGen Chiarelli during his tour as commander of

the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad. He advocates for a full spectrum approach to

273
operations in Iraq, in which military, civil affairs, information, and reconstruction

operations are concurrently deployed. Anticipates many of the principles that would

shape later counterinsurgency doctrine.

Claessen, Maj Erik A. "S.W.E.T. and Blood: Essential Services in the Battle Between Insurgents and

Counterinsurgents." Military Review, November-December 2007, 91-98.

Belgian officer examines the use of economic support to combat insurgency. Notes

that many Middle Eastern insurgency movements, such as Sadr's militia and

Hezbollah, also use economic support measures to strengthen their movements.

Consequently, counterinsurgent operations cannot assume they are acting unopposed

in this arena.

Cloud, David, and Greg Jaffe. The Fourth Star. Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of

the United States Army. New York: Crown, 2009.

Comparative biography of Generals David H. Petraeus, George W. Casey Jr., John P.

Abizaid, and Peter W. Chiarelli. Examines their careers and explores how their training in the Army during the 1980s influenced the decisions they made as commanders

during the Iraq War.

Cobb, Adam. "Iraq: A False Choice." Small Wars Journal, 5 November 2007 (http://smallwarsjournal.

com/blog/2007/1 1/iraq-a-false-choice,').

Written as Gen David H. Petraeus delivered his first progress report to Congress in

2007, the article argues that focus on incremental progress in Iraq has masked the reality that a decades-long commitment is needed if the situation in Iraq is to be stabilized.

Coffey, Maj Ross. "Revisiting CORDS: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory in Iraq." Military

Review, March-April 2006, 24-34.

Looks at the use of the civil operations and revolutionary development support system, which combined civil and military operations in South Vietnam. Considers the

applicability of a similar model in counterinsurgency operations in Iraq.

Cohen, Eliot, LtCol Conrad Crane, LtCol Jan Horvath, and LtCol John A. Nagl. "Principles, Imperatives,

and Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency." Military Review, March-April 2006, 49-53.

Broad overview of basic principles and apparent contradictions of modern insurgency

warfare. Authors argue that the U.S. military's extraordinary conventional capabilities

mean that its opponents will more frequently adopt irregular tactics in the future.

Connable, Maj Alfred B."Ben."The Massacre That Wasn't." In Ideas as Weapons: Influence and Perception in

Modern Warfare, edited by G. J. David and T R. McKeldin, 341-50. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2009.

AA-1 analysis of how the story that U.S. Marines destroyed a mosque during the first

battle of Fallujah emerged and eventually spread across the world's media outlets.

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The destruction of the mosque ultimately convinced Coalition authorities to suspend

Marine activities in Fallujah. The author examines how the story developed and how

many elements of it ultimately proved to be false.

Connally, Col Thomas J. "Leaving the Tubes at Home." Marine Corps Gazette, October 2005, 31-34.

Account of the transition of the 3d Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment from being an

artillery unit to becoming a security unit in al-Anbar Province.

Cooper, Capt David E. "An Organizational Model for Marines Fighting an Insurgency." Marine Corps

Gazette, October 2007, 49-52.

Argues that the current Marine expeditionary force is not adequately equipped for

counterinsurgency operations. Recommends greater emphasis on acquiring local intelligence, civil engagement, and waging more effective information and media campaigns.

Cordesman, Anthony H., with Emma R. Davies. Iraq's Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict. 2 vols.

Westport, Conn.: Praeger Security International, 2008.

A close examination of the insurgency in Iraq, focusing on its emergence in 2003 and

its general development from 2003 through 2007. Provides detailed information about

the specific insurgent groups, their goals, and their tactics.

Covert, LtCol Craig H. "Marines on the Borders of Iraq." Leatherneck, October 2006, 22-25.

Account of the operations of the border transition team and its work training the Iraqi

Department of Border Transition. Discusses U.S. Marine efforts to stem the flow of

insurgents across the Iraqi-Syrian border.

"Navy Chaplains at War: A Test of Faith." Leatherneck, August 2007, 28-31.

Story about Navy chaplains serving in Iraq with Marine Regimental Combat Team 8.

Provides an insightful, personal account of their duties and experiences in the field.

Cronin, Audrey Kurth. "How al-Qaida Ends: The Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups."

International Security 31 (Summer 2006): 7-48.

Considers al-Qaida's relationship to the broader Islamist terrorist movement, stressing

that the U.S. needs to see the organization as a part of the broader terrorist threat.

Argues against seeing jihadism as an unprecedented threat, warning that doing so

only romanticizes jihadism and makes it all the more attractive.

Cuomo, Capt Scott A. "Embedded Training Teams." Marine Corps Gazette, June 2006, 62-67.

Presents an account of his experience as a captain of an embedded training team

(Err). Notes some successes but also criticizes the deployment of inexperienced E'TTs

and their lack of engagement with the local population in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Daily, Col Michael N. "Media Analysis in the Expeditionary Environment." Marine Corps Gazette,

September 2004, 54-60.

Recommends that commanders use media analysis to ensure that they can anticipate

negative reporting, emphasize positive accomplishments, and anticipate the impact of

Marine Corps actions on populations.

Daizell, LtCol Stephen. "Where the Streets Have No Names: Looking Past Operation Iraqi Freedom to

Future Urban Operations." Joint Force Quarterly, 4th Quarter 2006, 40-42.

Considers the evolution of urban warfare in Iraq and anticipates how the U.S. experience and lessons learned will impact future urban operations.

David, Maj John G., and Capt E. Lawson Quinn. 'A Tactical Staff Structure for an Ideological War."

Marine Corps Gazette, February 2006, 30-32.

Recommends creating a staff section tasked with conducting information warfare and

gauging and managing public affairs.

DeAtkine, Norvell. "It's An Information War." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2004, 64.

Argues that U.S. forces cannot win the Iraq War with massive sweeps of the enemy,

but need to better grasp the psychological and civil elements of the struggle.

"Reconciliation in Iraq: Don't Hold Your Breath." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2008,

44-47.

Examines the historical and customary obstacles to reconciliation in Iraq among its

Kurdish, Sunni, and Shi'a groups. Compares the situation in Iraq to Reconstruction in

the American South. In light of the Shi'a's complete lack of political experience, cautions observers against being too critical.

DeCarvalho, LtCol Frank B. "Reaching Out: Partnering with Iraqi Media." Military Review, July-August

2008, 87-95.

An examination of U.S. efforts to develop Iraqi media organs. The article sees this

effort as part of the broader process of building security and civil relations in Iraq.

Desch, Michael C. "Bush and the Generals." Foreign Affairs, May-June 2007, 97-108.

Considers the relationship between George W. Bush's administration and senior U.S.

commanders. Examines the history of civil-military relations since the Vietnam War

and investigates why tensions existed between the senior military leadership a.nd

Bush administration.

Diamond, Larry. "What Went Wrong in Iraq." Foreign Affairs, September-October 2004, 34-56.

Former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority considers the miscalculations and

missteps of the Bush administration during the early months of the Iraq occupation.

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Dillow, Gordon. "Building Karmah: Fighting Terrorism with Handshakes and Smiles." Leatherneck,

August 2004, 14-17.

Account of how Marines have changed tactics from the U.S. Army and begun patrolling

openly, on foot, among the Iraqi population as a means of building a closer relationship between the U.S. forces and local Iraqis.

Dobbins, James. 'Who Lost Iraq? Lessons from the Debacle." Foreign Affairs, September-October 2007,

61-74.

Examines the sources of failure in Iraq, arguing that reversals and setbacks were the

consequence of individual and institutional failures. Contends that future leaders need

to surround themselves with competent, experiences advisers, encourage disciplined

dissent, and redefine the nature and character of the war on terror to prevent repeating the mistakes of the past.

Dunlap, MajGen Charles J., Jr. "Making Revolutionary Change: Airpower in COIN Today." Parameters,

February 2008, 52-66.

Discusses the impact of FM3-24 on air power and its implications for the Air Force.

The author believes that both FM3-24 and the Air Force's AFDD2-3 still do not adequately confront the challenges of modern counterinsurgency warfare.

Dunne, Maj Jonathan P. "Twenty-Seven Articles of Lawrence of Arabia." Marine Coips Gazette, January

2007, 10-13.

Adapts T. E. Lawrence's central articles for the current situation in Iraq, tailored specifically for Marine Corps readers.

Dunn, Scott. "Corporal Becomes First Marine Awarded Medal of Honor in the War on Terror."

Leatherneck, December 2006, 16-19.

Story about Cpl Jason L. Dunham, the first Marine to earn the Medal of Honor in the

war on terror for sacrificing his life to save two fellow Marines from an insurgent bomb.

Edeistein, David M. "Occupational Hazards Why Military Occupations Succeed or Fail."International

Security 29 (Summer 2004): 49-91.

Surveys a range of military occupations throughout history and discerns a number of•

common factors and challenges that contributed to their success or failure. Observes

that successful occupations were often characterized by the presence of an external

threat that made the local population amenable to the presence of a foreign military

power.

Eisenstadt, LtCol MichaeL "Iraq: Tribal Engagement Lessons Learned." Military Review, SeptemberOctober 2007, 16-31.

Provides a summary of Iraq's tribes, describing different tribal groups and characteristics and giving readers an overview of the tribal system in Iraq. Argues that civilian

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and tribal engagement represent the best and most effective means of providing stability to Iraq.

and Jeffrey White. "Assessing Iraq's Sunni Arab Insurgency." Militaiy Review, May-June 2006,

33-5 1.

An examination of the Sunni insurgency. The authors focus on the amorphous character of the insurgency, consider motivations, and provide a warning against encouraging non-Sunni groups from joining the ranks of the insurgency.

Ellah, Elaine. "Winning Over the Al Anbar Province." Marine Corps Gazette, February 2007, 31-32.

Short account of U.S. military, State Department, and USAID projects for rebuilding

and securing al-Anbar Province. Tactics used by U.S. forces include construction projects, aid programs, and forging tribal alliances.

Emery, LtCol Norman. "Irregular Warfare Information Operations: Understanding the Role of People,

Capabilities, and Effects." Military Review, November-December 2008, 27-38.

Examines the utility of information operations. While the author stresses its importance in counterinsurgency operations, he also cautions planners from seeing information operations as a silver bullet capable of completely overturning enemy propaganda.

Fearon,James D. "Iraq's Civil War." Foreign Affairs, March-April 2007, 2-16.

Examines the nature and character of the civil war in Iraq. Compares the conflict with

other civil wars since World War II, especially to Turkey's civil war (1977-80) and the

Lebanese civil war (1975-90).

Felicetti, Capt Gary. "The Limits of Training in Iraqi Force Development." Parameters, Winter 2006-

2007, 71-83.

Argues that an overwhelming focus on training local Iraqis is an inadequate means

for building an efficient and reliable security force. Intensive training fails to build the

experience and loyalty needed for a dependable force.

Filkins, Dexter. The Forever War. New York: Vintage Books, 2009.

Journalist's account of the war on terror, beginning with the rise of the Talihan to

power in Afghanistan, the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the U.S. wars in

Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fore, Henriette Holsman. "Aligning 'Soft' with 'Hard' Power." Parameters, SumnTler 2008, 14-24.

Drawing on Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates's own contention that military success alone will not bring victory, this article argues that the Department of Defense

must combine its efforts with those of the U.S. Agency for International Development

to help rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Gelpi, Christopher, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler. "Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the

War in Iraq." International Security 30 (Winter 2005-2006): 7-46.

Authors examine the role that casualty reports have on public support for American

military operations in Iraq. They conclude that, under the right circumstances, mounting casualties will not deter or hinder public support for war.

Gibson, LtCol Chris. "Battlefield Victories and Strategic Success: The Path." Military Review, SeptemberOctober 2006, 47-59.

Account by the commander of 2d Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 82d

Airborne Division describing the success of counterinsurgency operations in northern

Iraq during his tour of duty.

Goodale, lstLt Jason R., and lstLt Jonathan F Webre. "The Combined Action Platoon in Iraq." Marine

Corps Gazette, April 2005, 40-42.

Discusses the development and experience of the first newly implemented combined

action platoon since 1971 in South Vietnam, the 3d Platoon, Company G, Task Force

2d Battalion, 7th Marines. Considers the history of the CAP and its effectiveness as a

means of building local security forces in Iraq.

Gray, Cohn S. "Stability Operations in Strategic Perspective: A Skeptical View." Parameters, Summer

2006, 4-14.

Argues that the United States is inherently an ideological power and that it pursues

war in a distinctly "American" way. The author contends that this so-called: "American

Way of War" is hindering its efforts against terrorism and toward building civil societies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gray, Wesley. Embedded: A Marine Coips Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute

Press, 2009.

Author recounts his experience as a Marine adviser in the Iraqi Army operating in alAnbar Province in 2006. Includes valuable details on the advising program and the

process of training and building a new Iraqi Army.

Grayson, Capt Bryan K. "Holding the Cordon." Marine Co'ps Gazette, December 2005, 39-40.

Detailed analysis and description of cordon and search tactics for urban combat and

counterinsurgency operations.

Grice, Maj Michael D. "The Command Elements for the Long War." Marine Co1ps Gazette, August 2007,

21-24.

Examines the impact of needing to ready and deploy a Marine expeditionary force

command element every year. The author criticizes the process, noting thatthe annual tasking creates a constant cycle of preparation, deployment, and recovery that

weakens the in-theater fighting capabilities of the MEFs.

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"Going After Gunshot 66." Marine Corps Gazette, january 2008, 23-29. 

Descri ption of the loss of Gu nshot 66, a Cobra atlack helicopter, and the problems 

and challenges that ensued during attempts to rescue it. 

Groen, L1Coi Michael S. "The Tactical Fusion Center." Marine Corps Gazelle, April 2005, 59-63. 

Account and description of the tactica l fusion center, a means of acquiring intelligence 

at the tactical level specifically in service for the ground element of the MAGTF task 

force. 

Gunter, Col Frank R. Ma e Reserve Gets the job Done. " u.s. Naval Institute Proceedings, June 2004, 

56-59. 

Discussion of the positive transformation of the Marine Corps Reserve and its better 

integra tion into the regular Marine force. Article discusses both the Marine Corps 

Reserve's positive contribution to Corps operations and new methods designed to better integrate the Reserves. 

Hallora n, Richard. "Strategic Commu nication." Parameters, Autumn 2007, 4·14. 

A critical assessment of communications warfare. The author examines how information and actions can both be deployed to send strategic messages. Ultimately, the 

author is critical of U.S. communications efforts and calls for a renewed emphaSis o n 

U.s. information o perations. 

Hamel, james. "Operation Iraqi Freedom Moves Forward with Herculean Effon. from 

VMGR-252." Leatherneck, May 2006, 44-46. 

Story about a Marine aeria l refueler and tra nsport squadron, VMG R-252. The account 

describes the un it's daY-lo-day operations and its efforts to supply Marines in the field 

and thus red uce the need for convoys vulnerable to land-mine attacks in Iraq. 

Hammes, Col Thomas X. "Countering Evolved Insurgency Networks. " Marine Corps Gazelle, October 

2007, 86-93. 

Examines the nature and development of insurgencies. Notes that insurgenCies all 

share a political character, a remarkable endurance, and a link to the will and resolve 

of the cou nterinsurgent's home population. The author argues that a common mistake 

of counterinsurgencies is to use the same tactics as the insurgents. 

~-. ''The Message is the Insllrgency.H Mani7e CO/ps Gazelle, November 2007, 18·30. 

Contends that the current insurgency is primarily a strategic communicatio ns campa ign supported by a military element rather than a military operation with strategic 

communications support. Notes that insurgents have drawn upon the lessons of past 

insurgencies and realize that they won by defeating the political will of their opponents. 

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Hashim, Ahmed S. Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,

2006.

Analyzes the origins and nature of the Iraqi insurgency. Focuses on the U.S.-backed

marginalization of Iraq's Sunni population as a critical factor breeding insurgent networks and bringing together religious and secular resistance groups against the U.S.

occupation.

"Iraq's Civil War." Current History 106 (January 2007): 3-10.

Outlines the eruption of civil war in Iraq between Sunnis and Shi'a in 2005. The

author criticizes individuals who use terms such as "sectarian violence" and argues

that such terms merely cover up the true nature of the conflict.

Hassner, Ron E. "Islamic Just War Theory and the Challenge of Sacred Space in Iraq." Journal of

International Affairs 61 (Fall/Winter 2007): 131-52.

Discussion of Islamic rules concerning using mosques and other sacred sites in warfare. Author argues that when planning to search mosques for insurgents and

weapons, American soldiers need to be respectful of local values and ensure the complete cooperation of local religious authorities.

Hayden, LtCol H. Thomas. "Counterinsurgency in Iraq Started with Fallujah." Marine Corps Gazette,

October 2007, 82-84.

Article criticizes the U.S. decision to cease operations in Fallujah in April 2004, claiming that the action helped encourage the insurgency. Author lays Out a number of proposals and ideas for waging effective counterinsurgency operations against the Iraq

insurgency.

"Measuring Success in Counterinsurgency." Marine Corps Gazette, November 2005, 50-51.

Discusses the history of how U.S. policy makers and military planners developed

means for assessing the effectiveness of counterinsurgency operations. Considers the

U.S. experience in Vietnam and Iraq and the British experience in Malaya.

Higgens, LtCol James B. "Culture Shock: Overhauling the Mentality of the Military." Marine Corps

Gazette, February 2006, 48-51.

Argues that soldiers and Marines need to better understand Iraqi culture when planning and implementing operations. This needs to go beyond just expressing cultural

sensitivity, and instead understanding how cultural norms and ideas inform Iraqi perceptions and actions.

Hilgartner, Col Peter L., Maj R. James Caswell, and Capt Richard Zell. "Leading From the Front?" Marine

Corps Gazette, February 2006, 38-40.

Authors criticize Marine junior officers for putting themselves in unnecessary danger

to prove their valor and leadership abilities. They argue that this approach only

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exposes officers to needless risk and that many Marine officers can lead more pmdently and not "from the front."

Hoffman, Frank G. "Neo-Classical Counterinsurgency?" Parameters, Summer 2007, 71-87.

Assesses the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 and general counterinsurgency practices and argues that U.S. planners must go beyond drawing lessons from

the past, treat all insurgencies as unique, and avoid only looking at similarities and

patterns among insurgent movements.

Holt, 2dLt Tyler J. "Shoot, Move, and Communicate." Marine Corps Gazette, July 2006, 16-17.

Author recounts his experience leading a platoon in Rarnadi. He notes the various tactics employed by Marines in Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, describing the nature of urban combat in al-Anbar Province.

Houlgate, Maj Kelly P. "Urban Warfare Transforms the Corps." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings,

November 2004, 34-37.

Argues that the U.S. Marines must transform themselves into a combat force capable

of waging urban warfare and counterinsurgency operations. The author further argues

that less emphasis must be placed on the Marine Corps experience in World War II

and more attention paid to operations in the Caribbean and Vietnam.

Housenick, Christopher E. "Winning Battles but Losing Wars: Three Ways Success in Combat Promote

Failures in Peace." Military Review, September-October 2008, 91-98.

Considers the link between phase III and phase IV war planning, noting that often

the success achieved during phase III planning can lay the seeds for difficulty during

phase IV operations.

Hutson, CWO-3 William E. "Small Unit Action: In the City of Al Turbah." Leatherneck, June 2007, 30-

35.

Account of the urban warfare experience of 1st Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion,

23d Marine Regiment, in the city of al-Turbah in al-Anbar Province.

leva, Maj Christopher S. "Significance in Semantics." Marine Corps Gazette, October 2007, 28-33.

The author argues that successful counterinsurgencies in areas such as Malaya lead U.S. military planners to assume that combating the insurgency in Iraq could be done in the same

way. He contends that the uprising in Iraq must be seen by planners as something more

than an insurgency and argues against a single doctrine solution for counterinsurgency.

Kahl, Cohn H. "How We Fight." Foreign Affairs, November-December 2006, 83-101.

Examination of U.S. rules of engagement and adherence to the principle of noncombatant immunity in Iraq. Author argues that protecting civilians is not only necessary

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based on ethical and moral grounds, but also a critical part of building trust with the

Iraqi population and defeating the insurgency.

"In the Crossfire or the Crosshairs? Norms, Civilian Casualties, and .U.S. Conduct in Iraq."

International Security 32 (Summer 2007): 7-46.

Analyzes the question of whether or not U.S. military actions excessively harm civilians. Argues that the U.S. adherence to noncombatant immunity is actually greater

than critics contend.

and William E. Odom. "When to Leave Iraq: Today, Tomorrow, or Yesterday?" Foreign Affairs, JulyAugust 2008, 151-57.

Response to "The Price of the Surge," written by Steven N. Simon, that focuses on the

benefits, accomplishments, and drawbacks of the surge and Anbar Awakening.

Karcher, Mary D. "Female Marines Put Training to the Test." Leatherneck, February 2005, 44-47.

Story marking the 62d anniversary of the Women's Marine Reserve, discussing the various missions and services provided by women Marines in Iraq.

Keiler, Jonathan F "Make the Military Justice System Fairer." U.S. Na val Institute Proceedings, November

2007, 80-81.

Considering events such as the shootings at Haditha, the author contends that the

unfairness of the military justice system encourages many officers to avoid reporting

potential war crimes committed in the field for fear of an unjust response on the part

of the system.

"Who Won the Battle of Fallujah?" lLS. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2005, 57-61.

Examines the consequences of the battle of Fallujah and argues that it was a costly

victory that U.S. forces can ill afford to repeat. Despite ultimate victory over the insurgency in December 2004, the withdrawal of April 2004 and the high casualty cost

means that the insurgency was able to claim a partial victory.

Kilcullen, David. The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2009.

Examination of the nature and character of 21st-century insurgencies. Author analyzes

modern small wars in relation to the wars of decolonization and the Cold War and

considers new means and approaches to defeating the insurgent threat today.

"Twenty-Eight Articles." Marine Corps Gazette, October 2007, 53-60.

Brief summary of Australian officer and counterinsurgency adviser's 28 articles for

waging effective anti-insurgent operations. Examples of these include knowing the

territory, focusing on platoon and squads as opposed to larger units, avoiding kneejerk reactions, and keeping the initiative.

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Kimmage, Daniel. The 'Al-Qaeda Media Nexus. The Virtual Network Behind the Global Message.

Washington, D.C.: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2008.

A comprehensive and detailed analysis of how the al-Qaeda and jihadist media networks operate. Among its conclusions are that Osama bin Laden's media operations

account for only a fraction of jihadist media operations, that text products are the

dominant form of media, and that jihadist media outlets are using established forms

to gain legitimacy.

and Kathleen Ridolfo. Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas: How Sunni

Insurgents in Iraq and their Supporters Worldwide Are Using the Media. Washington, D.C.: Radio Free

Europe/Radio Liberty, 2007.

Radio Free Europe/Liberty report examines the media techniques of the Iraqi Sunni

insurgency, analyzing text, audio visual products, and the internet. Provides specific

case studies from April 2007 of insurgent media activities.

Kozlowski, Francis X. US. Marines in Battle: An-Najaf Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps History

Division, 2009.

Battle study of the battle of an-Najaf in August 2004, during which the Marines of the

11th MEU fought the militia of Muqtada al-Sadr.

Laird, Melvin R. "Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam." Foreign Affairs, November-December 2005,

22-43.

Nixon administration Secretary of Defense considers the relevance of his experience

as Pentagon chief and his Vietnamization strategy to how the Bush administration

conducts the war in Iraq.

Langewiesche,Wilhiam. "Rules of Engagement." Vanity Faii November 2006, 312-28, 350-55.

Account of the Haditha incident, in which Marines killed Iraqi civilians following an

insurgent attack. The author examines the event from the perspective of both the

Marines and Iraqis.

Litaker, Col Eric T "Efforts to Counter the lED Threat." Marine Corps Gazette,January 2005, 29-31.

Story about the operations of improvised explosive device working groups, initially

assembled to confront the challenge of IEDs to I MEF during Operation Iraqi

Freedom. Discusses the contributions of TED WGs to OIF and Operation Enduring

Freedom.

Long, Austin G. Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence: The US. Military and Counterinsurgency Doctrine

1960-1970 and 2003-2006. Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND National Defense Research Institute, 2008.

In the wake of the publication of FM 3-24, considers the influence of written counterinsurgency doctrine on U.S. military planning. Argues that doctrine alone does not

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define U.S. tactics and strategy. Instead, U.S. forces need to be adaptive and responsive to changing situations.

"The Anbar Awakening." Survival,April-May 2008,67-93.

Scholarly account of the al-Anbar Awakening in western Iraq. The author considers

the history of tribes in Iraq and their relationship to the Iraqi state under the monarchy, Saddam Hussein, and the United States.

Lubin,Andrew. "Ramadi: From the Caliphate to Capitalism." US. Naval Institute Proceedings,April 2008,

54-61.

Recounts the dramatic and sudden development of the Anbar Awakening Councils.

Focuses primarily efforts on the efforts of U.S. Army Col Sean B. MacFarland of the

1st Brigade Combat Team, Lieutenant Colonel William M. Jurney of the 1st Battalion,

6th Marines, and Sheikh Sattar Abdul Abu Risha to build a broad coalition arrayed

against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Malkasian, Carter A. "Counterinsurgency in Iraq: May 2003-January 2007." In Counterinsurgency in

Modern Warfare, edited by Daniel Marston and CarterA. Malkasian, 241-59. NewYork: Osprey Publishing,

2007.

Overview of the Iraqi insurgency from its origins following the overthrow of Saddam

Hussein, through the eruption of civil war in 2005, to the appointment of Gen David

H. Petraeus as commander of Multi National Force-Iraq in 2007.

"The Role of Perceptions and Political Reform in Counterinsurgency: The Case of Western Iraq,

2004-2005." Small Wars and Insurgencies 17 (September 2006): 367-94.

Argues that the perception that the United States would withdraw from Iraq and that

the insurgency would achieve victory helped fuel the Sunni insurgency.. The author

believes that inadequate attention has been paid to the role perception plays in insurgencies and the inclination of moderates to engage in the political process.

"Did the Coalition Need More Forces in Iraq? Evidence from Al Anhar." Joint Force Quarterly,

3d Quarter 2007, 120-26.

Examines the question of troop levels and their relationship to violence in Iraq. In

looking at the case of I MEF in Fallujah, he concludes that deficient troops levels

weakened the ability of Coalition forces to provide adequate security and helped to

increase the strength and virulence of the insurgency.

"Signaling Resolve, Democratization, and the First Battle of Fallujah." JournalofStrategic Studies

29 (June 2006): 423-52.

Analyzes how the decision to cease military operations against insurgents in Fallujah

indicates a lack of decisive resolve on the part of the U.S. military that helped fuel the

insurgency and severely weakened counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq. However, the

author notes . the refusal of the Iraqi Governing Council to support the U.S. effort

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demonstrates that military force alone is an inadequate means for signaling resolve in

a counterinsurgency.

"A Thin Blue Line in the Sand." Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Summer 2007, 48-58.

Describes the challenges of Iraqization. Recommends that, despite the threat it poses

to weakening the centralized character of the Iraqi state, U.S. authorities entrust security operations to local Sunni groups rather than the Iraqi army. Focuses on U.S. operations in al-Anbar Province.

"Will Iraqization Work?" Working paper, Center for Naval Analyses,Alexandria,Va., February 2007.

Paper examines the challenges of building a national army in Iraq, arguing that it will

always be seen by Sunnis as an instrument for establishing Shi'a hegemony. The

author posits that more efforts should be made to build local police forces based

around communities to confront the security problems in Iraq.

Mann, Maj Morgan. "Steps to Winning." Marine Corps Gazette, March 2006, 43-45.

Brief summary of the experiences of Company F, 2d Battalion, 24th Marines, and its

operations in Iraq's North Babil Province. Provides detailed descriptions of counterinsurgency operations.

"The Power Equation: Using Tribal Politics in Counterinsurgency." Military Review, May-June

2007, 104-8.

Discusses the importance of cultivating relationships with local tribes to provide security and stability. Focuses on the experiences of the 2d Battalion, 24th Marines.

Marshall, Maj David H. "Training Iraqi Forces." Marine Corps Gazette, April 2006, 58-60.

Provides a case study for training local Iraqi forces, focusing on the efforts of the 1st

Force Reconnaissance Company to train members of the 504th Iraqi National Guard.

Marston, Daniel, and Carter A. Malkasian. Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare. New York: Osprey

Publishing, 2007.

Anthology of essays describing the changing nature and character of insurgencies and

counterinsurgency style warfare. Includes chapters on the Philippines, Malaya, and

Iraq.

Martin, Capt Zachary D. "By Other Means." Marine Corps Gazette, September 2005, 68-71.

Argues that Marines must alter their approach from fighting large-scale formations to

focusing on counterinsurgencies. Makes a case for resurrecting the Vietnam-era combined action platoon as a means of forging closer relations between Marines and Iraqi

security forces.

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McCary, John. A. "The Anbar Awakening: An Alliance of Incentives." Washington Quarterly 32 (January

2009): 43-59.

Provides a good analysis of the Anbar Awakening, exploring the motivations behind

the tribal leaders and the pragmatic rationale for building relationships with tribal

leaders.

McFate, Montgomery. "The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture." Joint Force Quarterly,

3d Quarter 2005, 42-48.

Examines the renewed emphasis on the part of the U.S. military to understand the

local customs and culture of Iraq. The author argues that this is a critical component

for successfully combating the insurgency in Iraq and bringing about stability and

security.

Millen, LtCol Raymond. "The Hobbesian Notion of Self-Preservation Concerning Human Behavior during an Insurgency." Parameters, Winter 2006-2007, 4-13.

Uses Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan to explain the role populations play in accepting

either an insurgent or counterinsurgent's regime. The author contends that a population's desire for security means that the people will gravitate toward the force best

able to provide it, rather than return to a Hobbesian state of nature.

Morris, LtCol Michael F. "Al Qaeda as Insurgency." Joint Force Quarterly, 4th Quarter 2005, 40-50.

Considers whether al-Qaeda is a terrorist group or an insurgency. Argues that it is a

global, fascist, ideologically driven insurgency. Consequently, U.S. strategy needs to

focus on the practices of counterinsurgency.

Moyar, Mark A. A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq. New Haven,

Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009.

Book explores the role that individual leadership has played in the success or failure

of counterinsurgency campaigns. Beginning with the American Civil War, the study

examines leadership and insurrections in the Philippines, Malaya, Vietnam,

Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Muckian, LtCdr Martin J. "Stmctural Vulnerabilities of Networked Insurgencies: Adapting to the New

Adversary." Parameters, Winter 2006-2007, 14-25.

Notes how planners are looking to past insurgencies as a means of determining the best

strategies to use against the current insurgency in Iraq. However, the author believes that the

older Maoist/Marxist insurgencies are not necessarily the best models and recommends that

planners better grasp the current insurgency in Iraq before drawing on lessons from the past.

Mulrine, Anna "Emphasizing Ethics Even as Bullets Fly; The Haditha Case•. Undermines U.S.

Credibility," U.S. News and World Report, 19 June 2006.

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Examines the Haditha shootings and notes that the event and the subsequent U.S.

reaction have harmed U.S. counterinsurgency efforts and efforts to win the support of

the population.

Murphy, Col Dennis M., and LtCol James F. White. 'Propaganda: Can a Word Decide a War?"

Parameters, Autumn 2007, 15-27.

Since the center of gravity in the war on terror is extremist ideology, the authors argue

that the U.S. must use all means necessary to wage information war. The article also

provides a detailed account of the history of U.S. wartime communications strategies

and operations since World War I.

Nagl, John A. How to East Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and. Vietnam.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Analysis of counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaya and Vietnam. Author explores

and compares the British and American approaches to warfare and considers the

influence of both on how they battle insurgencies and fight irregular wars. Author

subsequently was on the writing team that produced the FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5

Counterinsurgency manual.

Nasr, Vali. "The Shia Revival." Military Review, May-June 2007, 9-13.

Examines the emergence of Shi'a Islam and its revival in Iraq. The author sees it as

part of a broader phenomenon impacting the Middle East. The article also provides

contextual information on the history and character of Shi'a Islam.

"When the Shiites Rise." Foreign Affairs, July-August 2006, 58-74.

Analyzes how the empowerment of Iraq's Shiites has sparked a Shiite revival and

altered the religious and political face of the Middle East. The article considers the

implications of the Shiite revival and the possibility of sectarian strife throughout the

region.

Nieland, Capt Matthew A., and Capt Michael A. Dubrule. "Counterintelligence/Human Intelligence."

Marine Corps Gazette, December 2005, 18-20.

Story about Human Intelligence Exploitation Teams and their acquisition of intelligence in the battlefield to help Marine Expeditionary Force operations.

Odierno, LtGen Raymond T., LtCol Nichoel E. Brooks, and LtCol Francesco P. Mastracchio. "ISR

Evolution in the Iraqi Theater." Joint Force Quarterly, 3d Quarter 2008, 51-55.

Examines the importance of intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance in helping

to build the conditions in which the Iraq surge could succeed.

O'Hara, SSgt Roiy D. "ASCOPE." Marine Corps Gazette, January 2007, 46-47.

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Recommends• that Marines waging counterinsurgency operations use area, structures,

capabilities, organizations, people, and events (ASCOPE) as a means for assessing the

effectiveness of COIN activities.

Ortiz, Col Paul R. 'Unit Operations Center Getting High Marks in Iraq." Marine Corps Gazette, January

2005, 34-40.

Examines the development of the united operations center, a mobile command and

control center designed for Marine forces.

Packer, George. The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005.

Account of the rise of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent rise of the

Iraq insurgency in 2003, written by a New Yorker staff writer.

Palazzo, Maj Louis J. "To Build a Nation's Army." Marine Corps Gazette, December 2005, 35-36.

Story about the development of the Iraqi security forces, an umbrella term that

encompasses the Iraqi National Guard, the Iraq border patrol, Iraqi police, Iraqi regular army, and facility protection service. Describes U.S. Marine efforts to. build up the

force.

Patriquin, Capt Travis. "Using Occam's Razor to Connect the Dots: The Ba'ath Party

and the Insurgency in Ta! Afar." Military Review, January-February 2007, 16-25.

Argues that the U.S. needs to reassess its policy in Iraq by acknowledging that a sizeable

portion of Iraq's population does not desire democracy. The author believes that the simplest and most effective means of bringing stability to Iraq is to engage the tribes and

clans of that country, rather than attempt to bring about a fully functional democracy.

Payne, Kenneth ."The Media as an Instrument of War." Parameters, Spring 2005, 81-92.

Contends that the media stands as a critical element of warfare. However, the author

also argues that international agreements designed to govern the use of media on the

battlefield need to be reassessed and updated to come to terms with the Internet and

24-hour news networks.

Petraeus, LtGen David H. "Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq." Military

Review,January-February 2006, 2-12.

Author presents an overview of lessons and observations learned during his tour of

duty in Iraq, stressing the benefits and needs for adaptability and initiative taking on

the part of commanders.

Reider, Col Bruce J. "Strategic Realignment: Ends, Ways, and Means in Iraq." Parameters, Winter 2007-

2008, 46-57.

Argues that the U.S. must rethink its approach to the Iraq War and see that it has

developed from an insurgency into a mixture of civil war, insurgency, and terrorism.

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Recommends that the U.S. focus its efforts on resolving the sectarian divide and reducing civil strife.

Reist, BGen David G. "Twelve Things I Wish I had Known." Marine Corps Gazette, October 2007, 76-

78.

The former deputy commanding general for support with Multi National Force-West

recounts his experience in Iraq, focusing on the interconnectedness between economics and security, the dynamics of the Iraqi tribal system, and the use of strategic communications systems.

Ricks, Thomas E. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

Examination of the U.S. involvement in Iraq in 2003-2004. Focuses on the lead up to

the war and the unpreparedness of U.S. forces for both occupation and counterinsurgency operations.

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and theAmerican MilitaryAdventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.

New York: Penguin Books, 2009.

Account of the surge, Anbar Awakening, and transformation of overall U.S. policy in

Iraq beginning in 2006, with a focus on the contributions of Gen David H. Petraeus,

USA.

Rueda; Edwin. "Tribalism in the Al Anbar Province." Marine Corps Gazette, October 2006, 11-14.

Concise history of the emergence of Iraq's tribal system and its influence on politics

during the Ottoman, British, and Ba'athist regimes.

Sattler, LtGen John F, and LtCol Daniel H.Wilson."OperationAl Fajr:The Battle of Fallujah—Part II."Marine

Corps Gazette,July 2005, 12-24.

Account of the second battle of Fallujah, related by the commander of the I Marine

Expeditionary Force, LtGen John F. Sattler. Article provides a commander's perspective to the operations.

Scales, MajGen Robert H. "Urban Warfare: A Soldier's View." Military Review, January-February 2005,

9-18.

Description of the nature and character of urban warfare operations in Iraq.

Schwarz, Lt AnthonyJ. "Iraq's Militias: The True Threat to Coalition Success in Iraq." Parameters, Spring

2007, 55-71.

Considers the role militias have played in fomenting sectarian and sectional strife in

Iraq. Argues that the U.S. must focus on defeating the militias in order to bring civil

order back to the country.

Searle, LtCol Thomas R. "Tribal Engagement in Anbar Province: The Critical Role of Special Operations

Forces." Joint Force Quarterly, 3d Quarter 2008, 62-66.

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Examines the development of tribal engagement in al-Anbar Province, initiated by

special operations forces and carried out by Marines and soldiers.

Seifert, Maj Robert J. "Iraq and the AC-130: Gunships Unleashed." Joint Force Quarterly, 2d Quarter

2007, 78-83.

Discusses the deployment of AC-130 gunships in Iraq and their use in counterinsurgency combat.

Sepp, Kalev I. "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency." Military Review, May-June 2005, 8-12.

Presents an overview of counterinsurgency tactics throughout history, including a

number of charts and graphics listing and describing important insurgencies.

Simon, Steven N. "The Price of the Surge: How U.S. Strategy Is Hastening Iraq's Demise." Foreign Affairs,

May-June 2008,57-76.

Considers the successes of the surge and acknowledges that it has helped bring order

to Iraq. However, the author argues that the policy is not sustainable and will not lay

the foundations for a long term reconstruction of Iraq.

Simpson, Ross .W. "Fallujah: A Four Letter Word." Leatherneck, February 2005, 16-21; March 2005, 14-

19.

A two-part article describing the experiences of a single platoon of the 1st Battalion,

5th Marines, during the battle of Fallujah. Detailed and comprehensive examination

of the nature and character of the battle.

"In the Crosshairs: USMC Snipers in Iraq." Leatherneck, June 2004, 24-28.

Presents an overview of sniper activities in the Corps during the battle of Fallujah.

Skiles, SgtMaj William. "Urban Combat Casualty Evacuation." Marine Corps Gazette, January 2008, 46-

50.

Details the duties and operations of a casualty evacuation team in Iraq.

Skuta, LtCol Philip C. "Partnering with the Iraqi Security Forces." Marine Corps Gazette, April 2005, 36-

39.

Story about the activities of Task Force 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, in Iraq. The article

discusses how 2/7 has worked to help build Iraqi forces and provides advice and recommendations to commanders for building relations with the local Iraqi soldiers.

Smith, Maj Niel, and Col Sean B. MacFarland. "AnbarAwakens: The Tipping Point ." Military Review, MarchApril 2008,41-52.

The authors, both veterans of stabilization efforts in al-Anbar Province, recount how

members of the "Ready First" Brigade Combat Team engaged the local tribes and

encouraged them to join anti-al-Qaeda awakening councils.

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Snead, Cpl Micah. "Marine Air In Iraq: 2d MAW Concludes Successful OIF Deployment." Leatherneck,

May 2006, 16-20.

Describes 2d Marine Air Wing's tour of duty. Provides a good general overview of

air combat operations in Iraq.

Stubbs, Capt Paul D. "No Man's Water." Marine Corps Gazette, February 2005, 20-21.

Story about Marine riverboat patrols of the small craft company (SCC). Article examines the Marines' activities and stresses their qualifications and capabilities, noting that

the unit is the only one in Iraq equipped for river patrols.

Swabb, lsftt Eric F. "Restrictive Rules of Engagement and Force Protection." Marine Corps Gazette,

October 2006, 36-38.

Examines the rules of engagement and argues that Marines must be educated to see

them as a critical part of effective counterinsurgency operations, not as a restrictive

device that places Marines in danger.

Tomes, Robert R. "Relearning Counterinsurgency Warfare." Parameters, Spring 2004, 16-28..

Review article of major scholarly works on counterinsurgency. Considers works by

Roger Trinquier, David Galula, and Frank Kitson. The author warns U.S. planners not

to look to the U.S. experience in Vietnam as a source for lessons on the current struggle in Iraq.

Vasquez, Capt Michael. "Tribalism Under Fire." Marine Corps Gazette, January 2008, 62-68.

Examines the Anbar Awakening, focusing specifically on how U.S. Marine counterinsurgency doctrine and activities helped to build tribal alliances arrayed against alQaeda in Iraq throughout al-Anbar Province.

Visconage, Col Michael D. "Turning the Tide in the West." Marine Corps Gazette, February 2008, 8-13.

Summary of the emerging Anbar Awakening, focusing on the participation of U.S.

Marines in forging tribal alliances in western Iraq.

Vlahos, Michael.." Fighting Identity: Why We Are Losing Our Wars." Military Review, NovemberDecember 2007, 2-12.

Provides historical background and context to insurgency and counterinsurgency.

Author examines the failure of U.S. troops to learn the lessons of tribal engagement.

Walker, Martin. "The Revenge of the Shia." Wilson Quarterly 30 (Autumn 2006): 16-20.

Speculative article in which the author considers the possibility of a general war

between Sunni and Shi'a groups erupting throughout the Middle East. He considers a

range of possibilities and notes the apprehensions of Sünni Arab leaders such as King

Abdullah of Jordan and Hosni Mubarek of Egypt about the rising power of Shi'a Iran.

292
Wallace, Col David A. "Battling Terrorism under the Law of War." Military Review, September-October

2007, 101-3.

Asserts that U.S. forces must adhere to the laws of war when fighting the war on terror. The author argues that doing so supports the Geneva Convention, encourages

enemies to surrender, promotes unit discipline, and maintains international support of

the U.S. military effort.

West, Maj Owen.• "Catch and Release." Marine Corps Gazette, June 2007, 26-31.

Argues that the U.S. military's obsession with Western-style rule of law comes at the

expense of understanding the necessities of war. By focusing on detention, the U.S.

military has committed itself to a counterinsurgency strategy that lacks funds and facilities.

West, F. J "Bing: "The Fall of FallUjah." Marine Corps Gazette, July 2005, 52-58.

Story about Operation Phantom Fury, the U.S. Marine Corps operation launched in

the winter of 2004 to clear Fallujah of terrorists. Provides firsthand description of the

events.

No True Glory. A Frontline Account of the Battle of Fallujah. New York: Bantam Books, 2005.

Firsthand accounts of the battles of Fallujah. While it focuses on the accomplishments

of Marines in the fights, it also explores reasons for the failures of the first battle of

Fallujah, focusing on political-military tensions and a confused chain of command.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. New York: Random House, 2008.

Explores more recent developments in Iraq, focusing on the new strategy implemented by Gen David H. Petraeus, USA. The author concentrates on the experiences of

the Marines in the al-Anbar Province, continuing his account from where he left off

in No True Glory.

Wheeler, LtCol Kurtis P. "Good News in Al Anbar?" Marine Corps Gazette, April 2007, 36-41.

An overview of I MEF's accomplishments in al-Anbar Province during its deployment

of 2007-2008. Focuses on the Awakening and the role of Marines and local tribes in

building a local Iraqi police force.

Wilhiams,Timothy. 'American Exit Increases Optimism in Falluja," New York Times, 30 December 2008.

Report on the withdrawal of U.S. Marines from Camp Fallujah, commenting on the

symbolic nature of both the withdrawal and the new security and stability that has

come to define the region.

Woodward, Bob. Bush at War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.

293
• Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 2004.

• State of Denial: Bush at Wai Part III. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006.

• The War Within. A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. New York: Simon and Schuster,

2008.

Series of books recounting the Bush administration's prosecution of the war on terror, the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq. Provides inside accounts of the innerworkings of the administration and its decision-making process.

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Back Cover: The device reproduced on the back 

cover is the oldest military insignia in continuous use in 

the United States. It first appeared, as shown here, on 

Marine Corps buttons adopted in 1804. With the stars 

changed to fi ve points, the dev ice has continued on 

Marine Corps buttons to the present day.