2007–2008

The U.S. Army Campaigns in Iraq
CMH Pub 78–1
by

Nicholas J. Schlosser

Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2017

2007–2008

5

More than ten years have passed since the United States invaded Iraq to depose the regime of Saddam Hussein, but the conflict’s origins and consequences remain controversial. The immediate cause of the war emerged in the wake of the 11 September 

2001 terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda, when the Bush administration 

sought to preempt potential threats to the United States and its 

allies. Believing that the Iraqi president was building an arsenal 

of weapons of mass destruction that he might turn over to terrorists, the administration resolved to remove the Ba’athist regime by 

force. In its place, the United States sought to build a democratic 

government at peace with its neighbors that would also be an ally 

in the Global War on Terrorism. 

After the United States and its coalition partners toppled Saddam’s government in the spring of 2003, deep-seated tensions 

between Iraq’s various sects, tribes, and ethnic groups filled the 

vacuum left in the wake of the fallen dictatorship. An anti-American insurgency soon expanded into a broad communal struggle 

for power and influence in the new Iraq. The United States Army, 

which was trained and equipped primarily for conventional combat, had to reorient itself for unconventional operations in a complex, irregular war. 

Initially, U.S. forces and their partners tried to transition responsibility for maintaining safety and public order to the nascent 

Iraqi government and its developing security elements. However, 

these forces were quickly overwhelmed by spiraling levels of violence that threatened to tear the country apart. By 2007, the Bush 

administration concluded that this approach was failing. To turn 

the tide, it deployed additional U.S. troops to protect the Iraqi 

population, cut off insurgent forces from their bases of support 

and supply, and restore stability. During this timeframe, some opposition elements began to see radical jihadists as a greater threat 
6

and began to cooperate with the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. 

Coupled with the surge, the result was a dramatic reduction in violence. The Obama administration transitioned to Operation New 

Dawn, which emphasized building up indigenous Iraqi forces and 

the gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of 2011.

With these commemorative pamphlets, the U.S. Army Center of Military History aims to provide soldiers and civilians with 

an overview of Operations Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn. They 

serve as an account of what the Army did in Iraq and a means 

of commemorating the hundreds of thousands of servicemen and 

women who served and the thousands who were killed or wounded in one of the longest conflicts in American history.

JON T. HOFFMAN

Chief Historian
7

As General George W. Casey Jr. surveyed the situation in Iraq at the end of 2006, he came to a sobering 

conclusion: “We are failing to achieve objectives in the 

Economic Development, Governance, Communicating, 

and Security lines of operation within the planned timeframes. It is extremely unlikely that the End State will 

be achieved by 2009.” The insurgency that had erupted 

in the wake of the 2003 American invasion continued to 

thwart U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq into a self-sufficient, 

democratic state. Cyclical sectarian violence between 

Sunni insurgent groups and Shi’ite militias had crippled the country’s capital city of Baghdad. The Iraqi security forces, upon which so much of the U.S. campaign 

depended, proved unable and often unwilling to stem 

the sectarian fighting or stanch the ethnic cleansing of 

the capital city. The new government, elected only the 

previous year, was fragmented and lacked the ability to 

effectively assert its authority. By the summer of 2006 

nearly 3,000 Iraqis a month were dying from the escalating violence.

In the face of these deteriorating conditions, President George W. Bush concluded that the United States 

needed to fundamentally alter its strategy. Between 

2003 and 2006, the Coalition had focused on quickly 

standing up Iraqi military forces and transferring the 

responsibility for maintaining security from U.S. troops 

to Iraqi troops. Although he agreed conditions were 

dire, General Casey maintained a firm commitment to 

this transition approach and opposed increasing the 

size of the American contingent. The general, along 
8

with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Security Council staffers, and members of the U.S. Congress, believed 

that only Iraqi institutions and security forces could effectively bring an end to the violence. In the face of this 

opposition, however, President Bush believed that deploying more U.S. forces was the last chance to restore 

security and to provide the nascent Iraqi government 

with the breathing space necessary to secure itself. In 

January 2007, the president ordered the deployment 

of five Army brigades to reinforce the coalition forces 

in Iraq and appointed a new commander, U.S. Army 

General David H. Petraeus, to lead the expanded contingent. The deployment marked the beginning of the 

Iraqi surge campaign. 

General Petraeus (second from left), commander of Multi-National Force–

Iraq, walks through the Al Shurja Market in eastern Baghdad on 11 March 

2007, accompanied by an Iraqi division commander, staff, and journalists.

Department of Defense
9

Strategic Setting

Although the region it encompasses has been inhabited since the earliest days of human civilization, 

Iraq itself is a relatively young state. Assembled by the 

British from three provinces of the recently disintegrated Ottoman Empire in 1920, Iraq is a geographically, religiously, and ethnically diverse country dominated by the Tigris River to the east and the Euphrates 

River to the west. The two rivers flow southeast from 

the mountains in southern Turkey and merge about 

twenty-nine kilometers northwest of the Persian Gulf. 

Almost all of Iraq’s major urban centers can be found 

on the banks of one of these two rivers. Baghdad, the 

capital city, sits on the Tigris roughly in the center of 

the state. Iraq’s northeastern regions are mountainous 

and inhabited mostly by ethnic Kurds. The northwest 

is a dry alluvial plane. Among its important cities are 

Mosul and Tall ‘Afar. The western part of the country, 

largely contained within the single province of Al Anbar, is a vast desert. With few exceptions, almost all of 

the major urban centers in the west, such as Ar Ramadi and Al Fallujah, sit along the Euphrates River. The 

southern part of Iraq is a fertile river delta marked 

by rivers, lakes, and marshes. Al Basrah, the region’s 

dominant metropolitan area, is also the country’s second largest city and major port (Map 1). 

Iraq, whose population in 2007 consisted of about 28 

million inhabitants, is a predominantly Arab state with 

a large community of Kurds living in the northeast. Various other ethnic groups––including Turkomans, Yazidis, 

and Assyrians, most of which live in the northern part 

of the country––dot the country’s social landscape. Islam 

is the dominant religion, with 99 percent of the population adhering to one of its major sects; roughly twothirds identify themselves with Shi’ite Islam, the other 

third with Sunni Islam. Iraq’s Sunni population is divided between Arabs and Kurds. A small segment of the 

populace, mostly ethnic Assyrians, are Christian. Before 

the U.S. invasion, Iraq was dominated by Sunni Arabs, 

a legacy of the country’s past as a province of the Otto-
10

man Empire and then, after World War I, as a British 

Mandate. The United States sought to reverse this system of minority rule, and immediately worked to empower the country’s Shi’ite majority following the 2003 invasion. This sudden shift in the distribution of power was 

a significant factor driving the insurgency that erupted 

shortly after the collapse of the Ba’ath regime (Map 2).

By the time of the Iraq War, the country’s population had become increasingly urbanized, with fewer and 

NĪNAWÁ

DAHŪK

ARBĪL

AS SULAYMĀNĪYAH KIRKŪK

ŞALĀḨ AD DĪN

BAGHDĀD

DIYĀLÁ

AL ANBĀR

KARBALĀ’

AL QĀDISĪYAH

BĀBIL WĀSIŢ

AL MUTHANNÁ

AN NAJAF

MAYSĀN

DHĪ QĀR

AL BAŞRAH

Euphrates R

Tigris R

Sinjār 

Tikrīt 

Bayjī 

Ar Ruţbah 

 Al Qā’im

Al Fallūjah

 Al Iskandarīyah

Umm Qaşr

Tall ‘Afar 

Dahūk

Mosul 

Erbil 

As Sulaymānīyah

Kirkuk

Ba‘qūbah

Al Kūt 

Sāmarrā’ 

Ar Ramādī 

Ad Dīwānīyah

An Nāşirīyah

As Samāwah

Al ‘Amārah

Al Başrah 

Karbalā’ 

An Najaf

Al Ḩillah

BAGHDAD

IRAN

TURKEY

SYRIA

J O R D A N

SAUDI

ARABIA

KUWAIT

International Boundary

National Capital

Provincial Boundary

Provincial Capital

Signicant City

IRAQ

2007–2008

0

0 150 Miles

150 Kilometers

Map 1
11

fewer Iraqis engaged in agriculture. With a population of 

about 5 million, Baghdad was among the most densely 

populated cites in the Middle East. Cities were congested 

and the narrow streets easily channeled vehicular traffic, 

creating ample targets for improvised explosive devices 

(IEDs). The relatively low-lying buildings afforded snipers a sufficient range of fire over the major roads, giving 

unconventional, irregular fighters plenty of opportunities 

to strike at U.S. and coalition forces.

Euphrates R

Tigris R

Dahūk

Mosul 

Erbil 

As Sulaymānīyah

Kirkuk

Ba‘qūbah

Al Kūt 

Sāmarrā’ 

Ar Ramādī 

Ad Dīwānīyah

An Nāşirīyah

As Samāwah

Al ‘Amārah

Al Başrah 

Karbalā’ 

An Najaf

Al Ḩillah

BAGHDAD

IRAN

TURKEY

SYRIA

J O R D A N

SAUDI

ARABIA

KUWAIT

0

0 150 Miles

150 Kilometers

2007–2008

IRAQ

ETHNO-RELIGIOUS GROUPS

Kurd

Sunni Arab

Sunni Arab/Kurd Mix

Shi’a Arab

Shi’a/Sunnni Arab Mix

Sunni Turkoman

Sparsely Populated

Map 2
12

Almost immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 

April 2003, the United States and its coalition allies found 

themselves locked in a struggle with a variety of insurgent 

forces that sought to end the American occupation and destroy the Iraqi government erected to replace the Ba’ath 

regime. Although the Bush administration had hoped the 

occupation would be brief, it quickly became clear that a 

long, multiyear effort would be required to restore order in 

the country. By the summer of 2004, the Coalition, led by 

General Casey, faced a number of complex threats, including Sunni Arab nationalist insurgents, foreign fighters affiliated with fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda, and 

pro-Shi’ite militias, many of which were aligned with Iran. 

Perhaps the most brutal of these insurgent forces was the 

movement led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. 

Calling itself al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers, or 

al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), its ranks included Iraqis as well 

as fighters from across the globe who had flocked to the 

Islamist organization’s banner to wage jihad against the 

Americans and their allies. Its primary objective was to 

spark a civil war between the country’s Sunni and Shi’ites, 

tear down the Iraqi state, and erect a new caliphate to take 

its place. 

Before 2007, the Bush administration’s strategy in 

Iraq focused on helping the Iraqi government provide 

its own security while working to reduce American involvement. “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down” 

President Bush declared in a 2005 speech. To implement 

this strategy, Casey focused on expelling radical insurgent forces; bringing about reconciliation between Sunnis, Kurds, and Shi’ites; and making sure Iraqi forces 

took the lead in providing security to their people. The 

key component was making sure that a steady state of 

transition occurred as American forces handed off more 

and more of the security mission to Iraqi forces. As more 

Iraqi forces took the lead, more U.S. combat forces could 

withdraw from the country.

By the beginning of 2006, it seemed as if Casey’s 

transition approach was bearing fruit. “There are clear 

grounds for optimism,” declared a campaign review produced in December 2005. The escalation of violence that 
13

had defined much of 2003 and 2004 seemed to be on an 

uneven but general decline throughout 2005. Coalition 

headquarters was making steady progress in its mission 

to recruit, train, and field Iraqi security forces, and was 

even predicting that 75 percent of Iraq’s brigades and 80 

percent of its divisions would be ready to take the lead 

in the security mission by the end of the year. Especially promising was the participation of large numbers of 

Sunnis in the December 2005 parliamentary elections, 

a sign that a government representing all Iraqis could 

take control of the country.

Yet these upward trends masked internal problems 

that had plagued Iraq since the invasion. In particular, 

the deep divisions between the country’s Sunnis, Shi’ite, 

and Kurds hindered the creation of a truly national identity. Sunni participation in the elections did not necessarily demonstrate a commitment to the Iraqi state and 

the country’s Shi’ite leaders were hardly about to surrender their newly won authority to the Sunni minority 

that had dominated the country from its birth until the 

fall of Saddam. These underlying tensions, which had 

flared up into intermittent sectarian violence throughout the U.S. occupation, exploded into veritable civil war 

following the bombing of the Al-Askari Mosque on 22 

February 2006. The mosque, the resting place for the 

tenth and eleventh Imams, was one of the most revered 

holy sites for Shi’ite Muslims. Its destruction, likely at 

the hands of al-Qaeda in Iraq, sparked a protracted and 

violent period of sectarian strife as Shi’ite militants exacted revenge on Iraqi Sunnis, irrespective of their affiliation with Zarqawi’s movement.

Casey’s forces were unable to stem Iraq’s collapse 

into civil war. Initially, General Casey hoped that the 

Iraqi people would rally together against Zarqawi’s organization. Following the bombing, Casey informed his 

commanders that “the resolution of this crisis should 

advance our campaign objective of keeping Iraq on the 

path to self-reliance. Treat this as an opportunity to 

advance the situation.” Instead, sectarian strife threatened to tear the country apart. Rather than substantially revise his approach, however, Casey believed that 
14

the answer to this new threat lay in continuing the efforts to transition the security mission from American 

troops to Iraqi national forces and maintain support for 

the Iraqi parliamentary system. 

However, in many ways these national organizations were at the root of the problem. Dominated by 

Iraqi Shi’ites, the army and police often targeted Sunni 

neighborhoods, protected Shi’a militias, and helped to 

exacerbate sectarian tensions. Sunnis in turn rejected 

them and looked to radical forces such as AQI for security against Shi’ite militants. Casey’s entire strategy was 

predicated on the assumption that the Iraqi government 

would be a willing and capable partner in the effort to 

create a nonsectarian Iraq. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who only came to power in May 

2006, was dedicated to different, potentially incompatible objectives. A former opponent of Saddam’s regime 

and member of the Shi’ite Islamic Dawa Party, Maliki 

appeared to tacitly condone the ethnic violence as long 

as it benefited Iraq’s Shi’ite community and weakened 

its Sunnis. As a result, Casey often had to pressure Maliki to take action against the Shi’ite militias. 

By the summer, an open battle between Sunni and 

Shi’ite paramilitary forces for control of Baghdad had begun in earnest. Al-Qaeda in Iraq cells increased their attacks against Shi’ite communities, prompting retaliatory 

responses from Shi’ite paramilitary forces such as the 

Jaysh al-Mahdi militia, usually in the form of extrajudicial killings or other forms of assassination. In response, 

Sunni nationalist insurgent groups such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades would strike at Jaysh al-Mahdi or Iraqi 

government facilities; the two were one and the same as 

far as many Sunni militants were concerned. As Lt. Col. 

Nichoel E. Brooks, an intelligence officer with Multi-National Corps–Iraq (MNC-I) recalled, “And then it almost 

became self-sustaining, as all it would take is one [vehicle-borne improvised explosive device] from [Al-Qaeda in 

Iraq] and [Jaysh al-Mahdi] would just attack.” 

The coalition command launched a series of joint 

Iraqi-American operations to quell the violence and secure Baghdad. Designated Operations Together For-
15

ward I and Together Forward II, the efforts aimed 

to buttress the authority 

of the new Iraqi government and serve as a test 

case for Casey’s transition 

approach. Unfortunately, 

lack of adequate American 

forces and weaknesses in 

the Iraqi Army and police 

meant that neither operation was able to stem the 

growing violence.

By the end of 2006, 

thousands of Iraqis were 

dying per month as a result of the sectarian fighting. In August, retired 

Army Vice Chief of Staff, 

General John M. Keane, 

began an intensive effort to force a change in approach in Washington, D.C. 

Working as an unofficial adviser to the Bush administration, Keane contended that the president faced a 

narrowing window. If he did not act soon to turn things 

around in Iraq, the American war effort would be lost. 

Keane proposed that Bush abandon the transition 

strategy and increase the number of American troops 

in Iraq. One of the critical problems facing the coalition forces was the lack of manpower needed to hold 

urban areas once they had cleared them of insurgents. 

This deficiency allowed insurgents to simply return to 

their old safe houses once U.S. and Iraqi forces withdrew to attack another enemy position. U.S. personnel 

disparaged the approach as a “whack-a-mole” strategy. 

President Bush informs the 

American people of his decision to 

send five more brigades to Iraq in 

a televised speech delivered on 10 

January 2007.

White House
16

A surge of troops could potentially allow the Coalition to 

maintain continuous pressure on the insurgent groups.

The U.S. midterm elections held on 7 November 2006, 

in which the Republicans lost control of both houses of 

Congress, only increased the pressure on President Bush 

to effect some kind of change. The vote was understood 

by the public, press, and president as a rebuke of his approach to the Iraq War. The day after the election, Bush 

accepted Donald H. Rumsfeld’s resignation as secretary 

of Defense and subsequently replaced him with Robert 

M. Gates. The change in leadership was among the first 

signals that the United States was going to adopt a new 

course in Iraq. 

Largely because of retired General Keane, President Bush began to pay serious attention to a proposal 

developed by Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar 

at the American Enterprise Institute, to increase the 

U.S. commitment. Kagan’s plan called for a surge of 

seven brigade-sized forces (five Army brigades and two 

Marine Corps regiments) into Iraq to expand the size 

of the American expeditionary force already there. According to Kagan, security needed to be the priority, 

and protecting the population, especially in Baghdad, 

was a necessary prerequisite for ending the insurgency 

and sectarian strife. That security needed to come from 

American troops, as the country would likely collapse 

before the Coalition could fully train an adequate number of Iraqi soldiers. Kagan cautioned against a quick 

withdrawal of American forces, stating that such a 

move would plunge the region into chaos and empower 

Iran and Syria. 

Kagan’s plan would differ somewhat from the surge 

strategy ultimately implemented by Bush later that 

year. While the proposal called for a surge of seven 

brigade-sized formations, the United States could ultimately only send five. Kagan’s plan also did not take 

into account the gradual fracturing of the Sunni insurgency that had been taking place in Al Anbar Province since 2005. Nevertheless, the basic thrust of the 

proposal, namely the need to increase the size of the 

American combat force in Iraq to strengthen security, 
17

remained the guiding principle behind the new surge 

strategy. Both Bush’s field commander and the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff were wary. General Casey did not believe a sharp increase in American forces would make a 

significant difference, and that a surge could potentially aggravate the threat situation even more. For their 

part, the Joint Chiefs were concerned about the strain 

that sustaining the lengthy deployments of so many 

forces was incurring on the Army and Marine Corps. 

Nevertheless, some of Casey’s subordinates pushed 

for an increase in the U.S. forces. Most notable among 

them was Multi-National Corps–Iraq Commander Lt. 

Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who pressed for a larger contingent of forces to better secure Baghdad and arrest 

the growing violence there.

The Bush administration concluded that a surge was 

necessary, and agreed to deploy five more brigades to 

Iraq: the 2d Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne Division; 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division; 3d 

Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division; 4th Brigade 

Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division, a Stryker unit; and 

2d Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division. The administration also ordered the deployment of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a Marine air-ground task force. 

The president then extended the tours of the majority of 

the units already in Iraq from twelve months to fifteen 

months. Finally, President Bush decided to replace General Casey as the commander in Iraq. On Keane’s recommendation, he selected the commander of the U.S. Army 

Combined Arms Center in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 

then Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus. 

Command Structure and the U.S. Forces in Iraq

Responsibility for fighting the Iraq War fell to two 

headquarters echelons: the Multi-National Force–Iraq 

(MNF-I) and the Multi-National Corps–Iraq. MNF-I, created in 2004, was responsible for setting strategy and 

coordinating that strategy with the U.S. ambassador to 

Iraq, the Iraqi civilian government, and the large inter-
18

national coalition that contributed troops to stabilizing 

Iraq. Although coalition strength had diminished since 

its peak, it still included forces from the United Kingdom, Poland, Georgia, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, 

South Korea, and numerous other states. Responsibility 

for translating MNF-I’s strategic directives into military 

operations fell to a subordinate headquarters, MNC-I. 

While MNF-I was an ad hoc headquarters manned by 

individuals deployed on one-year tours, rotating Army 

corps headquarters performed duties as MNC-I. At the 

start of the surge, MNC-I’s duties were the responsibility 

of General Odierno’s III Corps. 

Although outside the chain of command, the U.S. 

ambassador to Iraq also served an important function 

in the war effort, serving, along with the commander 

Secretary of Defense Gates conducts a press conference at Camp Fallujah 

on 19 April 2007. From left: General Petraeus, commander MNF-I; Secretary Gates; Maj. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin, USMC, commander MNF-W; Admiral William J. Fallon, commander CENTCOM; General Odierno, commander 

MNC-I; General Peter Pace, USMC, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Department of Defense
19

of MNF-I, as the corepresentative of the United States 

to the Iraqi government. In March 2007, shortly after 

General Petraeus arrived to take command, Ryan C. 

Crocker became the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq. A seasoned diplomat who had represented the United States 

in Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, and Pakistan before his appointment in Iraq, Crocker had a firm command of Arabic and substantial experience working with Arab and 

Muslim leaders. He would build an effective and fruitful 

working relationship with General Petraeus and Iraqi 

Prime Minister Maliki throughout the surge campaign.

Although General Petraeus reported to United 

States Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander 

Admiral William J. Fallon, the growing importance of 

the Iraq War had elevated the influence of the MNFI headquarters within the chain of command. While 

Admiral Fallon was the overall theater commander, 

General Petraeus usually reported directly to President Bush and Secretary Gates, providing each with 

detailed weekly briefings on the state of the war. This 

complex command relationship caused some tensions 

throughout the first year of the surge, as Fallon was 

often skeptical of Petraeus’ approach to the war. However, because of General Petraeus’ direct line to the 

president, the MNF-I commander enjoyed full support 

from the commander in chief throughout the surge 

campaign.

Multi-National Force–Iraq divided the country into 

different areas of operations, with each area under 

the responsibility of a division- or brigade-sized headquarters. Operations in Bagdad were commanded by 

the Multi-National Division–Baghdad (MND-B). At the 

start of the surge, this was Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr.’s 

1st Cavalry Division. In terms of geographic size, the 

city and its surrounding area was the smallest of Iraq’s 

eighteen provinces. However, it accounted for about 

one-quarter of the country’s population. Although most 

of Baghdad’s residents were Shi’ite, the city also included a number of Sunni neighborhoods. Multi-National 

Division–North (MND-N) was responsible for the dry 

alluvial plane of northwest Mesopotamia, including 
20

the important cities of Mosul and Tikrit. In early 2007 

the headquarters overseeing the area was the 25th Infantry Division commanded by Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. 

Mixon. Iraq’s western Al Anbar Province, the center of 

the country’s Sunni population, was the responsibility 

of Multi-National Force–West (MNF-W), a U.S. Marine Corps-led contingent. As the surge began, MNFW was assigned to the II Marine Expeditionary Force 

(Forward), a division-sized air-ground task force commanded by Maj. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin. The Marine 

contingent in Al Anbar was usually reinforced with an 

Army brigade (Map 3). 

The U.S. coalition partners’ areas of responsibility 

were in southern Iraq. Multi-National Division–Center 

South (MND-CS), which occupied the region south of 

Baghdad, was commanded by Polish Maj. Gen. Pawel 

Lamla. Lamla’s command included troops from Poland, 

Armenia, Bosnia, Denmark, Georgia, Kazakhstan, 

Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Romania, El Salvadore, 

Slovakia, and the Ukraine. Finally, the Multi-National 

Division–South East (MND-SE) was a British command, centered near Al Basrah. 

The surge was one of the Army’s first major campaigns in which its new modular force was put to the 

test on a large scale. The Army of 2003 largely resembled 

the late Cold War–era force built to carry out large-scale 

engagements against the Warsaw Pact. The division 

had been the main operational element, with most divisions containing three brigades. Those brigades were 

designed to fight on the line of battle, and although brigades usually fought with attached artillery and combat 

service support elements, these belonged to the division 

and were utilized to achieve battlefield objectives set by 

the division commander. 

Following the Cold War, the Army set about restructuring itself to better adapt to a world in which 

the United States no longer confronted a major superpower but nevertheless still had to contend with multiple contingencies and potential threats across the 

globe. Along with placing a greater emphasis on computer networks and other technological innovations, 
21

the Army also began to restructure its line brigades 

into autonomous brigade combat teams—modular, combined arms formations of about 3,900 personnel with 

organic combat support elements. By taking the supporting units previously attached to the corps and divisions and making them a permanent part of a brigade’s 

organization, the Army created a new formation that 

was more robust and easier to deploy. It also enhanced 

the brigade’s ability to function in an irregular warfare 

MNF-W

MND-C

MND-B

MND-NE

MND-CS

MND-SE

MND-N

Dahūk

Mosul 

Erbil 

As Sulaymānīyah

Kirkuk

Ba‘qūbah

Al Kūt 

Sāmarrā’ 

Ar Ramādī 

Ad Dīwānīyah

An Nāşirīyah

As Samāwah

Al ‘Amārah

Al Başrah 

Karbalā’ 

An Najaf

Al Ḩillah

BAGHDAD

IRAN

TURKEY

SYRIA

J O R D A N

SAUDI

ARABIA

KUWAIT

0

0 150 Miles

150 Kilometers

Military Boundary

MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE–IRAQ

 July 2007

Military boundaries are approximate

Map 3
22

environment, where lower echelon units were required 

to operate as relatively autonomous formations. 

However, the overall goal of transforming fortyeight line brigades into seventy modular brigade combat 

teams inevitably forced compromises in terms of combat 

power. Whereas line brigades had been formed around 

three maneuver battalions, the new modular brigade 

was built around only two. The 2d Brigade Combat 

Team, 3d Infantry Division, one of the surge brigades, 

was typical of this new organization: it consisted of two 

maneuver battalions (the 1st Battalion, 64th Armored 

Regiment, and 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment), 

a reconnaissance squadron (3d Squadron, 7th Cavalry 

Regiment), a support battalion (the 26th Support Battalion), an artillery battalion (1st Battalion, 9th Field 

Artillery Regiment), and a special troops contingent (2d 

Brigade Special Troops Battalion).

This reorganization dramatically altered the role of the 

division in combat. Modular brigades were interchangeable, 

meaning that infantry division headquarters in Iraq could 

command from three to six light or heavy brigades, many of 

which would come from other divisions. For example, Maj. 

Gen. Rick Lynch’s 3d Infantry Division, designated Task 

Force Marne during the surge campaign, commanded the 

division’s 2d and 3d Brigades, as well as the 4th Brigade 

Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, and the 

2d Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division.

With the demarcation between peacetime and wartime 

now largely fluid due to the persistent threats of international terrorism and the need to maintain expeditionary forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army also transformed how it trained and deployed its units into combat. 

This new approach, known as the Army Force Generation 

(ARFORGEN) process, established a system by which all 

Army units, including reserves, would be placed into one of 

three sequential, cyclical readiness pools. Units in the first 

group, the Reset/Train Force pool, would reconstitute their 

strength, reequip, and train for future deployments. Once 

a unit had completed its training, the force entered the 

Ready Force pool, where it underwent further training for 

specific missions and possible future missions. The third 
23

group was the Available Force pool—those units available 

for deployment worldwide. By applying this system to the 

active component, reserve component, and Army National 

Guard, the Army was able to ensure that units were either ready to deploy or preparing to deploy. The adoption 

of ARFORGEN marked another significant break with the 

Army’s Cold War past, as reserve units shifted from serving as a strategic reserve into operational forces capable of 

carrying out sustained, rotational deployments alongside 

their active component counterparts. 

The two commanders charged with implementing the 

surge had already acquired considerable experience leading 

American forces in Iraq. General Odierno had commanded 

the 4th Infantry Division in 2003 and 2004. Following his 

deployment to Iraq, Odierno was posted to the Joint Staff. 

During this period he served as an adviser to Secretary of 

State Colin L. Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, 

and accompanied Secretary Rice on trips investigating the 

situation in Iraq. In the spring of 2006 he took command of 

the III Corps, which deployed to Iraq in December of that 

year to assume responsibilities as MNC-I. 

General Petraeus also had considerable experience 

in Iraq. In 2003, he commanded the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), which had been responsible for the 

occupation of Mosul during the critical months following the fall of Saddam Hussein. His efforts to engage 

the local population, hold elections, open the university, and work to rebuild a sense of normalcy in the city 

were widely praised by observers as a potential model 

for American occupation efforts throughout Iraq. The 

next year he became the first commander of the MultiNational Security Transition Command–Iraq (MNSTCI) and worked to build a new Iraqi security force that 

could replace the army abolished by U.S. authorities in 

2003. In 2005 Petraeus returned to the United States 

to command the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Ordered by Army Chief of Staff General Peter J. Schoomaker to “[go] out there and shake 

up the Army,” Petraeus supervised a rigorous effort to 

update the Army’s educational and training programs 

so that they focused more attention on counterinsur-
24

gency and other forms of irregular warfare. The various modifications he initiated included transforming 

the exercises held at the National Training Center to 

emphasize urban, counterinsurgency operations. He 

also worked to alter the curricula at the Command and 

General Staff College to focus more on full-spectrum 

operations, and he created, updated, or initiated reviews of several doctrinal publications, including the 

new Field Manual 3–24, Counterinsurgency, as well as 

Field Manual 6–22, Army Leadership, and Field Manual 3–0, Full Spectrum Operations.

The new counterinsurgency field manual was a 

controversial document. To create it, General Petraeus 

went outside the Army and consulted a range of social 

scientists and military analysts, hosting conferences at 

Fort Leavenworth to solicit their insight into the topic of 

irregular warfare. The final product drew considerably 

from the writings of David Galula, a veteran of France’s 

war to retain Algeria (1954–1962). Among the principles 

enshrined in the manual was the concept that counterinsurgents needed to focus on building legitimacy for 

the host nation government. To do this, they would need 

to provide security to the populace and to separate them 

from the insurgents. The manual stipulated, “Political 

power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept 

its government or authority as legitimate.” This objective, easy to define but difficult to achieve, guided Petraeus’ and Odierno’s planning efforts throughout the 

surge campaign.

Enemy Forces

By 2007 what Americans called the “Iraq War” was 

actually a series of interconnected, overlapping conflicts 

that included an anticoalition insurgency, a sectarian civil war between Sunnis and Shi’ites, and fighting 

within the Sunni and Shi’ite communities. The myriad 

of enemy forces and internal conflicts presented a complex and highly unpredictable environment for the U.S. 

forces in the country. Untangling the different threats 
25

was a critical first step toward devising a means of 

bringing security to the country.

Initially dismissed as “pockets of dead-enders” trying to restore the old Ba’ath regime, the anti-American, 

Sunni-led insurgency was in fact a persistent threat to 

the future of the new Iraq. As the United States worked 

to empower the country’s Shi’ite majority, Iraq’s Sunnis feared disenfranchisement and marginalization in 

the country they had dominated since its creation nearly a century earlier. The dissolution of the army and 

expulsion of Ba’athists from government positions in 

May 2003 exacerbated this fear, and many Sunnis had 

aligned themselves with the germinating anti-American insurgency. At first, the insurgents were largely nationalist organizations such as the General Command 

of the Armed Forces and Resistance and Liberation in 

Iraq, and Iraqi Sunni militants such as the Al Anbar 

Armed Brigades. 

Soon, the organizations became more radicalized and 

fundamentalist in character. They also saw an increase 

in foreign fighters in their ranks. By 2004 the most charismatic and influential Sunni militant was Zarqawi, the 

leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi’s movement proved 

itself to be a remarkably tenacious enemy, surviving 

the massive coalition drive to clear Al Fallujah in 2004 

as well as a series of American campaigns conducted 

throughout the western Euphrates Valley in 2005. Even 

Zarqawi’s death following a Special Forces–directed air 

strike in June 2006 did not stem AQI’s terrorist operations in Al Anbar Province and Baghdad. 

Al-Qaeda in Iraq was hardly the only radical Sunni 

insurgent group. Organizations such as Jaish al-Ta-ifa 

al-Mansurah and the 1920 Revolution Brigades also 

carried out terrorist attacks against coalition forces 

and Iraqi civilians. By 2006, many of these groups were 

working to increase coordination and cooperation, and 

in January 2006 six of them created the Mujahideen 

Shura Council. In October of that year the umbrella 

group was rechristened the Islamic State of Iraq. By 

2007, the Coalition looked on al-Qaeda in Iraq and the 

Islamic State as the same force, because AQI was the 
26

best-known member of the organization and ultimately 

came to dominate it.

Because the insurgency was not a unitary, formally 

organized movement, it was difficult for the Coalition 

to determine just how many individuals comprised it. 

Over the course of the Iraq War, estimates ranged from 

as few as 3,000 fighters in January 2004 to 70,000 in 

March 2007. The latter figure was even more remarkable because it was an estimate of just Sunni insurgents. 

At least 1,000 AQI fighters were thought to be operating 

across the country. The number of non-Iraqis fighting the 

Coalition was also in doubt, with assessments ranging 

from 700 to 2,000 between 2004 and late 2006.

However, the size of the insurgency was less important than its ability to operate unimpeded across Iraq, 

disrupt daily life, and terrorize its citizens and government in an effort to render the state incapable of carrying out basic functions. Lt. Col. William M. Jurney, whose 

Marine battalion served in Ar Ramadi in the fall of 2006, 

remarked that: “If I were the bad guy, every other day, if 

I can go down with only two insurgents, empty a magazine and shoot at the government center, then I get great 

press out of that. And the press is, ‘Al-Anbar Province is 

defunct, the government center is under siege, there is 

no progress, there is no stability.’ What an economy of 

force for an insurgency.” The insurgent forces in Iraq 

were capable of achieving major strategic results with 

limited forces and means. Consequently, coalition commanders had long realized that operations that focused 

on diminishing the insurgency’s manpower, but failed to 

also disrupt the insurgents’ lines of communications and 

freedom of maneuver, were counterproductive. 

As many Iraqi Sunnis took up arms, many Shi’ites also 

turned to militant activity. Among the most influential 

Shi’ite militants was the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. 

A member of a prominent Iraqi family, Sadr was a Shi’ite 

nationalist dedicated to expelling the United States from 

Iraq. The source of his power was the Jaysh al-Mahdi militia, also called the Mahdi Army, and the organization 

had fought coalition forces during revolts in An Najaf, Al 

Kut, and Baghdad. By 2006, the Mahdi Army had largely 
27

consolidated control over Baghdad’s Sadr City and its political clout in parliament was substantial enough that 

Prime Minister Maliki had placed significant restrictions 

on what kinds of operations the Coalition could carry out 

in the northeastern district.

Sadr’s movement was relatively new, in contrast to 

the Badr Corps, or Badr Organization. The military 

arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq—also known as the Supreme Islamic Iraqi 

Council beginning in May 2007 and the largest coalition of Shi’ite parties in the country—the Badr Organization had origins dating back to the 1980s and 

the Shi’ite struggle against Saddam’s Ba’ath regime. 

Whereas Sadr’s movement embraced the banner of 

Iraqi nationalism, the Badr Organization was much 

more heavily influenced by Iran, a factor that led to 

tensions between the two organizations. The Qods 

Force, the international arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, took the lead in training, equipping, 

and advising the Shi’ite militia. Prime Minister Maliki 

relied on both the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization for political support, and often the distinction 

between the militias and official state security organs 

was blurry at best. For example, the Badr Organization transformed its Wolf Brigade into a formation of 

the Iraqi National Police in 2005, allowing the brigade 

to carry out terrorist actions against Iraqi Sunnis with 

little threat of reprisal from the Iraqi government. It 

was another example of why many Sunnis were unwilling to embrace the Iraqi security forces and looked 

to radical organizations such as al-Qaeda in Iraq for 

protection.

It is important to recognize that the insurgent 

groups and militias were not as well organized as many 

of their leaders would have liked to claim. Even as charismatic a leader as Sadr, whose Mahdi Army seemed to 

be driven by the sheer will of his personality, was unable 

to control his movement, with splinter factions breaking off to carry out their own campaigns or to abandon 

the revolutionary fight in favor of criminal activities. As 

Sadr began to lose his grip on Jaysh al-Mahdi, factions 
28

of the militia known as the Special Groups of the Jaysh 

al-Mahdi quickly became an arm of the Qods Force. Iranian influence brought with it greater threats to U.S. 

combat forces, notably lethal munitions such as explosively formed penetrators that could pierce the armor of 

an Abrams Main Battle Tank. 

Iran was not the only Iraqi neighbor playing a role in 

the insurgency. Elements within the Syrian government 

were actively involved in training and equipping insurgent groups. Supporters within the Gulf States also provided assistance to organizations such as al-Qaeda in 

Iraq in the hope of counterbalancing Iranian influence 

in the country. The presence of militant Kurdish groups 

in northern Iraq was also a matter of concern for Turkey, meaning that the United States needed to monitor 

the activities of Iraq’s neighbors at the same time it was 

trying to restore order inside the country. 

The insurgents deployed an array of tactics and 

weapons against the coalition forces. The most common and lethal were IEDs. These rudimentary bombs, 

equipped with triggers ranging from pressure plates to 

detonators that could be activated by cellular devices, 

accounted for well over one-third of all coalition servicemen and women killed in action during the Iraq War. 

Insurgents and militia forces placed IEDs on roadsides 

to strike coalition convoys, sometimes using cars rigged 

with the weapons. Suicide attackers also wore deadly, 

shrapnel-laden vests or drove cars armed with explosives into coalition positions and civilian targets. 

The IED threat was so ubiquitous that coalition forces 

had begun devoting considerable resources to confronting it in the months leading up to the surge. In the summer of 2006 the Coalition activated Task Force ODIN 

(Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize), an Army aviation unit that utilized airborne sensors to better locate 

bomb sites. A variety of airframes carried these sensors, 

including Apache helicopters, C–12 fixed-winged patrol 

planes, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Integrating the 

detection systems with command and control systems, 

Task Force ODIN afforded field commanders better collection and analysis of data and reduced the time need-
29

ed to respond to potential IED threats. During the surge 

campaign, MNC-I also created a Counter-Improvised 

Explosive Device Operation Integration Center (COIC, 

or Counter-IED Integration Center), commanded by Col. 

James B. Hickey. Consisting of seventy personnel, the 

unit was designed to give coalition units better intelligence not only on IED positions, but also on insurgent 

and militia networks.

While the IED was certainly the best-known and 

most deadly insurgent weapon, enemy forces also used 

small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar 

rounds to strike coalition units. Whatever the weapon, 

the insurgents’ primary purpose was to inflict as many 

casualties as possible, both against coalition troops 

and Iraqi civilians, while avoiding a head-on confrontation with superior coalition forces. Irregular fighters 

were often able to blend into the populace and monitor coalition patrolling schedules and routes, and they 

were able to use threat and intimidation to acquire inA Baghdad neighborhood in 2005 depicting the terrain and structures typical of the surge campaign’s urban battlefields.

Department of Defense
30

telligence and establish safe houses inside Iraq’s major 

urban areas. They were resourceful and adaptable opponents.

Operations

Assessing the situation in early 2007, both Generals Petraeus and Odierno determined that a gulf had 

emerged between the Iraqi government and the general 

population. Nonstate actors such as the Shi’ite militias 

and al-Qaeda in Iraq were rapidly filling this gap. Petraeus and Odierno concluded that they needed to close 

this power vacuum by reducing violence, controlling the 

Iraqi population, and bolstering the effectiveness and 

legitimacy of the Iraqi government. General Odierno’s 

guidance to the III Corps summarized the basic objective as:

MNC-I conducts combat, stability, and support operations in coordination with the Iraqi Security Forces 

to secure the population, defeat terrorists and irreconcilable extremists, neutralize insurgent and militia 

groups, and transition responsibilities to the ISF in 

order to reduce violence, gain the support of the people, stabilize Iraq, and enable [Government of Iraq] 

security self reliance.

It was a daunting task, requiring close coordination across 

a variety of lines of operations.

The first and most pressing undertaking was reducing the sectarian violence that had plagued Iraq since 

the destruction of the Al-Askari Mosque a year earlier. Achieving this goal required a significant revision 

in the U.S. approach to security. Up to that point U.S. 

commanders such as General Casey, convinced that the 

presence of American soldiers in major population centers was sparking insurgent activity, had withdrawn 

most battalions to forward operating bases outside the 

major urban areas. U.S. forces continued to provide security, but they did so from positions outside the cities, 
31

usually with mounted patrols, transferring as much local security responsibilities as possible to Iraqi security forces. 

General Odierno, who had assumed command of 

MNC-I in December, had already embarked on a concerted effort to change this approach. Rather than 

continue the transitioning strategy, MNC-I would intensify its efforts to provide security in Iraq’s major 

population centers, with a focus on Baghdad. The civil strife centered on the capital, where Iraq’s Sunnis 

and Shi’ites intermingled and where sectarian militias 

carried out campaigns of violence and terror to clear 

neighborhoods of their religious rivals, a grim reminder of the Iraqi government’s ineffectiveness. Thus, by 

2007, Baghdad had become the center of gravity in the 

Iraq War. If the government could not secure its own 

capital, how could it be expected to effectively govern 

the rest of the country? 

On 2 January 2007, Odierno issued Fragmentary Order 

179 to MNC-I’s Operations Order 06–03, directing coalition 

forces to carry out an aggressive effort to “secure the Iraqi 

people.” The plan, which focused American military efforts 

on Baghdad, called for “24/7 [coalition forces] coverage” to 

clear municipal areas of insurgents, militia forces, and other 

extremist groups, in order to maintain security. Supporting 

operations outside Baghdad would stem the flow of insurgents and supplies across Iraq’s borders, interdict and disrupt extremist networks, and continue efforts to strengthen 

the effectiveness of Iraqi security forces. Rather than journey from forward operating bases and conduct mounted 

patrols through the city, U.S. forces would actually operate 

inside the city from joint security stations and small combat 

outposts in the midst of the Iraqi population. Importantly, 

Odierno’s headquarters recognized that threats to security 

emanated not only from Sunni rejectionists and al-Qaeda in 

Iraq, but also from the Shi’ite militias, many of which had 

the backing of the Iraqi government. Petraeus embraced 

Odierno’s Baghdad security plan, and on 14 February, just 

three days after replacing General Casey, he gave the order 

to commence Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (roughly translated from Arabic as “Enforcing the Law”) in order to pro-
32

vide security for Baghdad. The operation was led by the 1st 

Cavalry Division. 

The approach was not new, although the Coalition 

had never implemented it on such a wide scale. In 2005, 

Col. Herbert R. McMaster’s 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment had cleared and secured the northern city of Tall 

‘Afar by stationing his soldiers inside the populated 

areas, allowing his troops to operate among town residents. That same year, in Al Anbar Province, Marine Lt. 

Col. Julian D. Alford had conducted a similar operation 

in the border city of Al Qa’im with his 3d Battalion, 6th 

Marines. Operating in such close proximity to local residents accomplished a number of tasks. Building relations with local Iraqis granted American forces valuable 

intelligence, allowing them to target insurgents, locate 

improvised explosives, and uncover safe houses and 

arms caches. The tactics also isolated insurgents from 

General Fil, commander of MND-B (1st Cavalry Division) (second from 

right), accompanied by Lt. Col. James W. Phillips (right) commander of the 

3d Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, tours the barriers erected throughout 

the Rusafa District in eastern Baghdad on 19 June.

Department of Defense
33

locals, disrupting their freedom of maneuver and ability 

to operate.

Another important operational shift made by General Odierno was to focus as much effort on clearing the 

so-called Baghdad belts as on securing the capital itself. 

Extending about forty kilometers outside the capital, the 

belts were bands of rural, suburban, and light industrial 

areas that enveloped the city. A number of U.S. and Iraqi 

intelligence officials had contended that the reason insurgents and militias were able to continue staging attacks 

in Baghdad despite constant clearing efforts was that the 

extremist forces, when threatened, simply withdrew to 

bases outside Baghdad to regroup and rearm. A sketch 

of Baghdad and its surroundings recovered by U.S. forces 

in 2006 from an insurgent safe house confirmed this suspicion. Madhi Army forces passed through Husseiniyah 

on their way to Sadr City, the heavily Shi’ite district in 

northeastern Baghdad. Al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters approached from the north through towns such as At Taji, 

At Tarmiyah, and Ba’qubah. Other important positions 

included Al Yusufiyah and Al Latifiyah in the southwest 

and Salman Pak to the southeast. Here, insurgents could 

build improvised explosive devices, rally new recruits, 

plan future operations, and advance largely uninhibited 

into Baghdad itself. Thus, Baghdad would always be vulnerable unless the Coalition controlled the major roads 

and towns inside the belts (Map 4). 

Consequently, the coalition commanders decided to 

distribute the incoming surge brigades across the capital 

and the surrounding area. Two of the surge brigades (2d 

Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, and 4th Brigade Combat 

Team, 1st Infantry Division) were attached to General Fil’s 

1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad. The remaining three deployed to the belts (the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division, in the north and the 2d Brigade Combat 

Team, 3d Infantry Division, and 3d Brigade Combat Team, 

3d Infantry Division, in the south). To control this expanded 

force, General Odierno created a new command designated 

Multi-National Division–Center (MND-C). Occupying territory to the south of Baghdad and initially in the area of responsibility of MND-B, the new MND-C also encompassed 
Euphrates R

T igris R

D yi ā al R

Tigris R

BAGHDĀD

DIYĀLÁ

KARBALĀ’

BĀBIL

WĀSIŢ

AL ANBĀR

ŞALĀḨ AD DĪN

Madīnat

 al Ḩabbānīyah Al Fallūjah

Al Maḩmūdīyah 

Khāliş 

Balad 

 Al Iskandarīyah

 Aş Şuwayrah Al ‘Azīzīyah

 Salmān Pāk 

At Tājī 

Al Musayyib 

Karbalā’ 

Al Laţīfīyah

Al Yūsufīyah 

Aţ Ţārmīyah

Ba‘qūbah

Ar Ramādī 

BAGHDAD

0

20 0 Miles

20 Kilometers

2007–2008

Inner CordonBaghdad Belts

BAGHDAD BELTS

Map 4
35

territory initially under the supervision of the MND-CS 

along the Iranian border. The responsibility for this new 

headquarters fell to the incoming 3d Infantry Division, commanded by General Lynch.

Prelude in the West: The Al Anbar Awakening

A central element of General Petraeus’ plans for Iraq 

was the need to partner and coordinate with Iraqi forces. 

However, a major question emerging by the end of 2006 

was which Iraqi forces? Many Sunnis felt the national 

security forces, such as the army and police, were illegitimate and pawns of the country’s Shi’ite militias. Most 

were unwilling to cooperate with them and consequently 

often looked to insurgent organizations for protection. 

A possible alternative approach emerged as coalition 

forces struggled to tame the volatile Al Anbar Province. The 

vast governorate, encompassing most of western Iraq, was a 

stronghold for Iraq’s Sunnis and a center of the Sunni insurgency. The riverside towns that dotted the Euphrates, such 

as Hit, Hadithah, Ar Ramadi, and Al Fallujah, served as 

way stations and strongholds for insurgent fighters moving 

from Syria to Baghdad. Coalition forces had waged a multiyear campaign to clear the province of insurgent forces, 

fighting major battles in Al Fallujah in 2004 and Al Qa’im 

in 2005. However, despite constant security operations, the 

province appeared to be falling from coalition control. A 

2006 intelligence report from MNF-W declared that “nearly 

all government institutions from the village to provincial 

level have disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted 

and infiltrated by AQI or criminal/insurgent gangs.” That 

same year, AQI was calling Ar Ramadi, the provincial capital, the new capital of their Salafist caliphate.

However, AQI’s aggressive campaign to reorder Al 

Anbar society alienated many Iraqis living in the region. 

Since 2005, many tribes in Al Anbar Province had been 

seeking to forge an alliance with the coalition forces operating in the region to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. These 

overtures were often met with suspicion from coalition 

commanders, as many of the tribes were hostile to the 
36

new Iraqi government and supported the anti-American 

insurgency. However, as the Sunni insurgency was largely co-opted by radical Islamists such as Zarqawi, the 

tribes found themselves under siege. Zarqawi’s vision of 

a radical Islamist state had no room for traditional tribal culture. Furthermore, Zarqawi needed money to fuel 

his operations, and his organization fought the tribes 

to seize control of Al Anbar’s smuggling networks in order to gain access to capital. Sheikhs relying on illegal 

trafficking to give them the capital needed to provide 

their tribes with patronage and work saw their power 

diminish in the face of AQI’s aggressive onslaught. The 

organization also instituted Sharia law in areas under 

their control, and assassinated prominent sheikhs to intimidate the populace.

Beginning with the Abu Mahal tribe in Al Qa’im, the 

marines in Al Anbar began to cooperate with tribal groups 

in the fight against al-Qaeda in Iraq. However, little was 

done to build on the Abu Mahal alliance, as many commanders remained suspicious of tribal militias that had 

only recently been participating in the insurgency against 

the American forces. Meanwhile, the insurgency in Al Anbar continued to fester. Most troubling was the continued 

insurgent activity in the province’s capital, Ar Ramadi, a 

city of 400,000 residents, which had remained largely outside coalition control since the invasion. Al-Qaeda in Iraq 

forces enjoyed remarkable freedom of movement throughout the city and the few Iraqi policemen in the city stayed 

in their stations, too afraid to venture out into the streets. 

As in Al Qa’im, tribal leaders had attempted to resist alQaeda in Iraq only to see their efforts collapse in the face 

of the organization’s assassination campaigns.

By late 2005, many American small-unit commanders 

began to recognize that ignoring the tribes was counterproductive and potentially fueling the insurgency. The 2d 

Brigade, 28th Infantry Division, an Army National Guard 

unit, undertook efforts to cooperate more closely with 

Ar Ramadi’s tribal sheikhs. In need of jobs for the men 

in their tribes, the sheikhs sponsored police recruiting 

drives. AQI reprisals against these efforts only pushed 

the tribes further into the American camp. In May and 
37

June 2006, the 2d Brigade was relieved by the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, commanded 

by Col. Sean B. MacFarland. General Casey gave MacFarland’s brigade a daunting task: “Fix Ramadi but don’t 

do a Fallujah.” The Coalition’s 2004 effort to clear the insurgent base in Al Fallujah had been a large, divisionsized effort lasting several months and costing over 600 

coalition casualties. MacFarland had significantly fewer 

resources and combat power to use for operations in Ar 

Ramadi. Nevertheless, he decided to immediately go on 

the offensive, clearing the city’s southern area of insurgent forces and then establishing a series of combat outposts to secure his brigade’s gains. The posts were jointly 

manned by U.S. soldiers and Iraqi Army units. However, 

MacFarland’s brigade was too small to hold the entire city 

and its environs, a problem common to most U.S. combat units operating in Iraq at this time. Consequently, he 

chose to capitalize on efforts begun in early 2006 by the 

2d Brigade, 28th Infantry Division, and continued by his 

own engagements officer, Capt. Travis Patriquin, to build 

an alliance with the local tribes in the region, in particular the Albu Risha and Albu Dhiyab. As with many of Al 

Anbar’s tribes, these tribes had been unable to prevent 

AQI from displacing their economic interests and authority. After many hours of meetings over tea in which the 

sheikhs frequently seemed to talk about everything but 

the insurgency, MacFarland and his staff were able to 

convince the tribal leaders that the Americans intended 

to stay and were willing and eager to work with them to 

clear Ar Ramadi of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

By September, the majority of the tribes of Ar Ramadi, 

under the leadership of Sheikh Abdul Sattar al-Rishawi, 

proclaimed the Al Anbar Awakening and committed themselves to the struggle to expel al-Qaeda in Iraq from the 

province. Significantly, Sheikh Sattar was able to convince 

other tribes and insurgent organizations such as the 1920 

Revolution Brigades to join his alliance. With the assistance of the tribes, MacFarland’s brigade was able to press 

the offensive throughout the city, largely securing it by the 

end of the year. Although insurgents continued to operate 

in the city, the brigade and their Iraqi police allies achieved 
38

remarkable success. Between the time MacFarland’s brigade arrived in Ar Ramadi in July 2006 and January 2007, 

indirect-fire attacks dropped 67 percent, IED attacks declined 57 percent, and daily attack averages were down 38 

percent. Weapons cache finds jumped over 1,000 percent 

because of the now robust and expanded local police force. 

Once inside the city, coalition forces undertook humanitarian and civic rebuilding projects.

Nevertheless, the Awakening movement sparked 

mixed reactions on the part of senior U.S. commanders and 

Iraqi leaders. Visiting MacFarland’s command on 25 September, General Casey stated that the Coalition needed to 

“figure out if these guys are real or not.” Because Sattar 

and his allies were relatively low-level sheikhs, American 

commanders had some doubts about what influence they 

actually held. MNF-W Commander Marine Corps Maj. 

Gen. Walter E. Gaskin Sr. was skeptical of the Awakening 

sheikhs, believing that the leaders with real influence were 

in Jordan. Prime Minister Maliki, perennially concerned 

about potential Sunni threats to his predominantly Shi’ite 

government, was also wary of what the Coalition was doing in Al Anbar. Colonel MacFarland expressed frustration 

with the lack of recognition his brigade’s efforts were receiving, telling a marine field historian in 2006 that “it’s 

amazing how little of our story gets out as far as Baghdad.”

One leader who did notice MacFarland’s efforts was 

the newly installed commander of MNF-I. Within days of 

arriving in Iraq in February 2007, General Petraeus took 

a tour of Colonel MacFarland’s area of responsibility, and 

was impressed with the brigade’s results. The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, had not only 

devised a new and effective approach for securing Al Anbar, but had also presented a possible means for reducing 

violence throughout the country. MacFarland’s Ar Ramadi 

campaign brought together many disparate threads: aggressive actions against insurgent fighters, coordination 

with local Iraqi forces, operations inside major urban areas among the people, and civil affairs activities. However, 

for all the operation’s efficacy, some points of concern remained. The Awakening militias were hardly committed 

partisans of liberal democracy. “We fought like outlaws, 
39

and that’s why we began to beat [the extremists],” recalled 

Sheikh Hamid al-Hais, a tribal leader from the Ar Ramadi 

region. “You have to abide by the law if you’re an American, 

even if you’re an American in Iraq. We were not bound by 

any laws in the fight we started with al-Qaeda.” Furthermore, although the tribal fighters had enrolled in the Iraqi 

police forces, many sheikhs still looked at the government 

in Baghdad with suspicion. Despite these risks, Petraeus 

saw in Ar Ramadi a blueprint on which the coalition forces 

could model future counterinsurgency operations.

The Battle for Baghdad I: Fardh al-Qanoon

For all the Coalition’s achievements in Ar Ramadi, 

the key to success in the surge campaign remained securing Baghdad. The effort would involve two lines of effort. The first, Operation Fardh al-Qanoon, called for the 

1st Cavalry Division to reduce violence in the city itself. 

The second, code-named Phantom Thunder,

1 would focus on securing the Baghdad belts, with the 3d Infantry 

Division operating in the south and the 25th Infantry 

Division working to secure the north. The plan called 

for a level of coordination that had been missing from 

earlier coalition campaign plans, which tended to focus 

on a single, major objective such as Al Fallujah at the 

expense of other regions, thus allowing insurgent forces 

to withdraw and regroup. 

Baghdad was a massive urban center of about 5 

million residents. The multiethnic city, marked by 

numerous neighborhoods where Sunni Arabs and 

Shi’ites had lived side by side, had become a center of 

bloody violence as extremist forces undertook aggressive ethnic-cleansing campaigns to clear neighborhoods of rival sectarian groups. Extrajudicial killings 

were frequent, as militias carried out reprisal attacks 

against Iraqis based on religious affiliation, with Sunni 

1. Odierno’s headquarters, III Corps, had acquired the nickname “Phantom 

Corps” during World War II. It had begun the practice of naming major 

operations beginning with the word “Phantom” in 2004 when it designated the 

effort to retake Fallujah Operation Phantom Fury.
40

rejectionists targeting Shi’ites, Shi’ite militias attacking 

Sunnis, and AQI fighters staging spectacular terrorist 

attacks to further stoke sectarian violence. Kidnapping 

for ransom was another common tactic. Civil order and 

public works collapsed, and government service workers, fearful for their lives, stopped reporting for work. In 

some neighborhoods, such as Doura, trash piled up on 

roadsides and raw sewage flowed down the streets and 

into homes. Electricity had to be rationed, and was only 

available for a few hours a day. Baghdad’s mixed neighborhoods consequently emerged as the centers of violent 

activity. In light of this bloodshed, it was not difficult 

for extremist groups to claim that the Iraqi government 

had lost complete control over its capital. 

Exacerbating the problem was the sense that the Iraqi 

government was complicit in ethnic-cleansing operations 

designed to drive Sunnis out of Baghdad. Col. James B. 

Burton, whose 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, held responsibility for northwest Baghdad, observed 

that “I truly believe that there was a sectarian-motivated 

denial of essential services to large portions of the Sunni 

A street following the detonation of a car bomb in Haswa.

Department of Defense
41

population in northwest Baghdad. . . . In the Sunni areas, 

they’re marginally operating to failing because the government had yet to push forward any formal effort that I can 

see to deliver essential services equitably across northwest 

Baghdad.”

General Fil’s 1st Cavalry Division consisted of five 

brigade combat teams, each of which was assigned a sector of the city to secure and stabilize. Colonel Burton’s 

2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, was stationed in the northwestern Mansour and Kadhimiyah 

districts. The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, commanded by Col. Ricky D. Gibbs, took up positions to the south of its sister brigade in the Rasheed District. Col. Byan T. Roberts’ 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st 

Cavalry Division, occupied central Baghdad. Operations 

in southeast Baghdad were the responsibility of the 2d 

Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division, commanded 

by Col. Jeffrey L. Bannister. Finally, Col. Billy Don Farris’ 2d Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne Division, took 

over northeast Baghdad, an area that included the volatile militant Shi’ite stronghold district of Sadr City. Col. 

Stephen J. Townsend’s 3d Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division, a Stryker unit, served as both the MultiNational Division–Baghdad quick-reaction strike force 

and the MNC-I operational reserve (Map 5).

The division’s mission was broad: reduce sectarian 

violence, destroy extremist forces, and strengthen the 

Iraqi armed forces. To carry out these objectives, MNDB based coalition forces inside the major population areas at battalion-sized joint security stations and smaller, 

company- and platoon-sized combat outposts. These austere positions, consisting of the barest facilities and amenities, were designed to ensure that Iraqis would have 

daily contact with U.S. troops. They allowed American 

troops to gain a sense of the local society, acquire valuable intelligence on the communities they were charged 

with securing, and give them a rapid response capability 

against extremist attacks. MND-B divided the city into 

security districts, with each one served by a joint security 

station or combat outpost. An important operative word 

in the approach was “joint,” as Iraqi and American forces 
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43

would both occupy the various positions. Each post contained a mix of coalition units, Iraqi military units, and 

Iraqi police units. This forced them to work together, and 

proved mutually beneficial. By working with Americans, 

Iraqi security forces acquired advantageous training and 

combat experience. In turn, American forces were able to 

draw on the Iraqi troops’ knowledge of the local community and society, and gain valuable intelligence. As the 2d 

Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne, reported after the 

surge, with “the [brigade combat team’s] combat forces located in their area operations, they were able to conduct 

dismounted patrols from these locations, reacted fast to 

time sensitive targets, and developed relationships with 

the neighborhoods they occupied.” 

The American decision to shift overall missions from 

transitioning security responsibilities to the Iraqis to 

taking over the mission of providing security inside the 

country’s major urban centers required units to retrain 

and reorient their posture in the field. The majority of 

U.S. forces in Iraq had already been in the country several months before the Bush administration chose to 

change commanders and strategy. The 25th Infantry Division, for example, had received its orders to deploy in 

late 2005 and consequently focused its predeployment 

training on implementing General Casey’s transition 

strategy. However, within months of its arrival the division now had to shift gears in order to surge “combat 

forces into Iraq in a bid to increase security and head 

off a possible civil war.” First Lt. David Stroud, a platoon leader with Company B, 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry 

Regiment, from the 3d Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 

2d Infantry Division, bluntly noted that “an overwhelming majority of the platoon said nothing they did back 

at Fort Lewis remotely compared to the missions and 

hardships they have endured in Iraq.” Even the surge 

brigades, such as the 2d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, 

had to quickly adapt to the new mission. 

The Fardh al-Qanoon actions were characterized 

by dismounted patrolling, intelligence gathering, raids 

against insurgent hideouts, and other combat operations against extremist fighters. Lt. Col. James R. Crid-
44

er, whose 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, operated in southwest Baghdad under the command of 4th 

Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, deployed 

“two platoons on the streets 24 hours a day, 7 days a 

week.” Crider’s soldiers took photos of every militaryaged male they encountered and visited every home in 

their patrol area, speaking to residents to determine 

who exactly lived in the neighborhood and who was 

an outsider. The tactic not only helped the battalion 

to compose a census of its area of operations, but also 

created a closer connection between local residents 

and the Americans. Recognizing that the Americans 

would be maintaining a constant presence in the area, 

locals felt more comfortable providing information to 

soldiers, as many were no longer fearful of reprisal atSoldiers from Battery A, 2d Battalion, 319th Field Artillery Regiment, 2d Brigade Combat Team, 82d Airborne Division, conduct a joint patrol with Iraqi 

policemen in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah District on 17 February 2007, during the 

opening days of Operation Fardh al-Qanoon.

Department of Defense
45

tacks should their assistance be discovered by extremists. Capt. Nicholas Cook, a member of Crider’s squadron, recalled, “We sat down with them [Iraqi civilians] 

in the kitchen and just talked with them. . . . As soon 

as we did that, we started building trust, and we inundated the community with tip cards.” Significantly, 

the joint stations also stood as symbols to local Iraqis 

that U.S. forces would not withdraw immediately after 

they had cleared an area of insurgents. General Odierno recalled that “attitudes changed when the first 

concrete walls of a coalition patrol base were erected. 

The protective barriers were an indicator of our intent 

to stay and conduct sustained operations among the 

populace.” 

Despite the increase in U.S. forces, many Iraqis 

remained wary of being seen out in the open working 

with the Americans. One resident of the Mansour District recalled that, 

I was very scared about the whole thing. The Americans had just established a combat outpost very near 

my house, and I knew signing up for the Awakening would probably involve coming and going from 

there. Anyone could see you. Our neighborhood was 

still mixed, with Sunnis and Shi’ites. Both the Mahdi 

Army and al-Qaeda operated in the neighborhood. Either one might come to kill you for working with the 

Americans.

As they acquired more intelligence from Baghdad’s 

residents, Crider and other battalion commanders soon 

discovered just how much sectarian antipathy was fueling violence and hostility in the city. Distrust fed criminal activity, and in some neighborhoods, such as Doura, 

Sunni residents bought supplies on the black market 

rather than risk having to cross police checkpoints. So 

many Sunnis in Colonel Crider’s area viewed the Iraqi 

police as nothing more than a state-sanctioned, Shi’ite 

militia that Crider left his partnered Iraqi units at the 

security posts. Thus, many Sunni Arabs came to trust 

the Americans more as honest brokers than they did 
46

the Shi’ite-dominated government and security institutions. A platoon leader from Company B, 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry Regiment, 1st Lt. Charlie Parsons, 

recalled that locals tended to trust the coalition forces 

more, and recommended leaving “the Iraqi Army out of 

collecting intel.” 

Nevertheless, the relationship between U.S. soldiers 

and Iraqis was not always harmonious. Lieutenant Parsons noted, for example, that his soldiers often had to be 

wary around local Iraqis: “Watch locals preparing chai 

(tea) or drinking it with you to be sure it is not drugged.” 

Parson’s further recommended: 

Be firm but friendly with local nationals. Remember 

they are not all the enemy. Most are just too scared 

and do not have the guts to tell you the information 

they have. Some may share their intel with you after building a relationship, as this worked with us in 

Shula and Baquoba (sic) several times. Some may always be too scared to give you intel, so you will need 

to cuff them and threat to detain them, for them to 

give up the intel they do have. Iraqis respect authority. Demonstrate you are in charge, not Al-Qaeda or 

militia groups.

Parson’s fellow platoon leader, Lieutenant Stroud, believed that a delicate balance needed to exist when 

working with both Iraqi soldiers and interacting with 

the Iraqi people. “Don’t allow heavily Shia units to 

work alone or unattended in a predominantly Sunni 

area unless they have established a good reputation 

with you or someone else.” Petty theft was another 

problem. Stroud bluntly noted, “The Iraqi soldiers are 

going to steal.” He recommended that teams conducting clearing operations always have an equal number 

of Iraqis and Americans, and cautioned Americans to 

keep their eyes on their Iraqi partners. Yet, U.S. soldiers also needed to be cautious when dealing with civilians accusing Iraqi soldiers of robbing them. “Sometimes the complaint is legitimate, but sometimes local 

nationals are trying to extort money from Coalition 
47

Forces.” An American carrying out a clearing operation 

thus often needed to pay close attention to the Iraqi 

soldiers he was partnered with and the civilians who 

he was protecting while also being prepared to fight 

extremist fighters and being on the lookout for improvised explosive devices. The experience of both lieutenants underscored the myriad of challenges of operating 

in a densely populated area and relying on locals for 

support and intelligence. 

Ultimately, security had to take precedence over 

forcing reconciliation. In a controversial move, beginning in the spring of 2007 the Coalition acceded to local Sunni requests to build concrete barriers around 

their neighborhoods in Iraq. The first effort began in 

the Al Ghazaliyah neighborhood and was undertaken 

by Colonel Burton’s 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. The construction provoked a public backlash from the Iraqi and international press, as well as 

from Maliki’s government—although it encouraged the 

effort in private. The construction of concrete walls 

seemed to be an admission that the extremist efforts to 

ethnically cleanse the city had succeeded in destroying 

the city’s multiethnic, multisectarian character. However, the impact of the barriers was immediate and significantly reduced the levels of violence in the capital. 

Al Ghazaliyah alone witnessed a 50 percent drop in 

murders following the construction of the barriers. 

By channeling vehicle traffic away from major 

squares, mosques, and marketplaces, the barricades 

blunted the effectiveness of car bombs. A good example 

was a wall erected between the Adhamiya community 

and the Shi’ite stronghold of Sadr City, in northeastern Baghdad. The 2d Brigade, 82d Airborne, established three entry points, each one manned by Iraqi 

security forces. They kept Shi’ite militias out and prevented Sunni extremists from leaving the neighborhood. The barriers produced dramatic results; murders 

in Adhamiya dropped from one hundred in December 

2006 to twenty in June 2007, with further decreases 

throughout the brigade’s deployment. In light of the 

severe restrictions placed on the Americans regarding 
48

operations in Sadr City, the decision to enclose the Adhamiya district was a regrettable but ultimately effective means of curtailing violent activity between the 

two neighborhoods.

While methodical and persistent patrolling through 

heavily populated areas was the hallmark of Operation 

Fardh al-Qanoon, the struggle for Baghdad was nevertheless still marked by intense combat. The increase 

in American forces in the city provoked a ferocious response from al-Qaeda in Iraq and militia fighters, and 

the U.S. forces frequently found themselves drawing 

on their expertise and training in conventional, smallunit combat to defeat the enemy forces. Indeed, many 

veterans of the surge campaign found that, for all the 

talk of protecting the people, providing humanitarian 

aid, and carrying out civil-military projects, the fight 

for Baghdad was much more about locating and killing 

enemy fighters. Maj. Jesse Pearson, the operations officer for 1st Battalion, 23d Infantry Regiment recalled: 

We were most effective when we focused primarily on 

finding and killing the enemy. A key effective shaping 

effort was establishing restrictive population control 

measures. When we focused our efforts primarily on 

lethal targeting of enemy militias and insurgent cells, 

we reduced threats against our forces and gained the 

most ground with local nationals that we were attempting to influence. 

Pearson further noted that by carrying out those types 

of operations more commonly associated with winning 

hearts and minds, such as nonlethal targeting, engaging local leaders, and humanitarian aid, that “threats 

against us and attacks on our units seemed to increase.” 

The account of a particularly violent firefight along 

Baghdad’s Haifa Street by a company commander from 

the same battalion gives a sense of the intensity of the 

combat that troops faced. “I had one platoon and my 

[fire support officer] in an 8 story building and my other platoons screening/isolating to the south. We kept 

receiving fire from an area and could not neutralize the 
49

threat. I called for fire on the area with our [battalion] 

Mortars and Fired for Effect after a 1 round adjust.” 

With the area cleared, the company advanced and immediately came under fire from enemy forces stationed 

near a mosque, necessitating another call for fire support that neutralized the insurgent threat. 

The shift from transitioning to securing the population centers necessitated major logistical shifts. Before the surge, barracks, field feeding, and distribution 

operations had been largely centralized around the 

large forward operating bases outside the cities, with 

logistical assets located at the brigade, division, and 

corps levels. The perennial dearth of troops also meant 

that contractors such as Kellogg Brown & Root took 

on greater responsibility over billeting, fuel, and food 

as a part of the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation 

Program. As more dining facilities were taken over by 

contractors, unit food specialists transferred to security and quick-reaction units. The centralization of the 

Army’s logistical functions on the forward operating 

bases diminished the ability of brigade support battalions to provide feeding services in the field.

This system was not well-suited to the type of operations General Petraeus wanted to carry out, however. The general’s security-centric approach required 

smaller units dispersed across a wider geographic area. 

Unfortunately, as the surge began, units such as the 

115th Support Battalion lacked the adequate number 

of personnel and equipment to carry out many distribution operations. Relying on forward operating bases 

also meant that units at the outposts and security stations lacked tents and climate-control equipment, necessities when operating in Iraq’s oppressive heat. 

Furthermore, troops, companies, and platoons needed 

to plan far in advance for any supply issues that might 

emerge down the line. Sometimes such forward planning 

was not possible, however, and soldiers often had to look 

to Iraqi contractors to handle immediate logistics problems. The 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, based 

in the Baghdad suburb of At Taji, came to rely on contractors for electricity and for the equipment and labor 
50

needed to construct the new joint security stations and 

outposts. Relying on local contractors often had a beneficial effect, however, as the construction projects helped to 

spur sorely needed economic activity and development.

Transporting supplies to a greater number of locations inside urban areas was another logistical challenge. Roadside bombs were a perennial threat to coalition convoys. Spreading U.S. units across a wider 

geographic range in order to carry out the new security 

approach put transports at even greater risk. In the 

course of its deployment from 2006 to 2007, the 15th 

Sustainment Brigade carried out over 6,500 patrols 

and encountered “40 incidents involving detonated 

and found improvised explosive devices (IEDs), more 

than 50 attacks by small-arms fire, and 25 direct-fire 

actions.” The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry 

Division, an Army National Guard formation responsible for cross-border convoy duty into Iraq, conducted 

over 10,000 one-way missions covering 3,968,000 kilometers. IED attacks during those missions led to 106 

wounded and 10 killed in action. To counter these attacks, support units altered their routes and schedules 

to avoid setting any kind of predictable patterns. The 

1st Cavalry Division’s Combat Aviation Brigade also 

proved to be a valuable logistics asset, as its helicopters ferried over 13,000 pallets throughout Baghdad. 

The use of aircraft cut the number of ground convoys 

by 250.

Operation Fardh al-Qanoon dramatically altered 

the physical and social landscape of Baghdad. While it 

further propelled the city’s division into homogenous 

ethnic and sectarian communities, separating the various groups and asserting control over the population 

allowed the Coalition to reduce incidences of violent 

attacks. However, the city remained a volatile place. 

The number of Iraqis killed in Baghdad had also shown 

signs of declining in the fall of 2005, only to rapidly rise 

again following a large-scale terror attack such as the 

Al-Askari Mosque bombing of February 2006. General 

Odierno’s headquarters recognized that reducing violence in Baghdad proper would not be enough as long 
51

as so-called accelerants to violence—such as fighters, 

supplies, and bombs—could continue to enter the city 

via the Baghdad belts. 

The Battle for Baghdad II: Operation Phantom Thunder

As the final surge force, the 2d Brigade Combat Team, 

3d Infantry Division, arrived in Iraq in May 2007, MNCI launched a major offensive to secure the country’s capital. The plan, code-named Phantom Thunder, included 

three simultaneous efforts to clear the Baghdad belts of 

insurgent forces. Operation Arrowhead Ripper, carried 

out by the 25th Infantry Division, would clear Ba’qubah 

and fortify the Diyala Province, a persistent center of 

Sunni extremist activity and an al-Qaeda in Iraq base 

northeast of the capital city. Concurrently, the 3d Infantry Division would carry out Operation Marne Torch in 

the southern belt. The II Marine Expeditionary Force 

(Forward) would also launch Operation Alljah to target 

insurgent forces to Baghdad’s west (Map 6). 

Ba’qubah and Diyala Province had long been a center of insurgent activity. The U.S. forces received a grim 

reminder of this shortly after the start of the surge campaign when insurgents opened fire on two UH–60 Black 

Hawk helicopters from the 1st Battalion, 131st Aviation 

Regiment, an Army National Guard unit, on the afternoon of 20 January 2007. The battalion was a part of the 

36th Combat Aviation Brigade, which was serving as the 

MNC-I’s primary aviation arm, transporting the III Corps 

staff throughout Iraq. The insurgent fire struck one of the 

helicopters, forcing it down. The Black Hawk burst into 

flames on impact. The second Black Hawk quickly landed 

and the soldiers aboard engaged the attacking insurgents. 

With the support of two more Black Hawks, U.S. forces 

secured the crash site and killed three and captured one 

enemy fighter. Tragically, the entire complement aboard 

the downed Black Hawk (four crew and eight passengers) 

died in the crash. Ten of the twelve lost were from the 

Army National Guard, making 20 January 2007 one of 

the deadliest days for the Guard during the Iraq War.
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54

The success of Fardh al-Qanoon and the Al Anbar 

Awakening only increased the need to secure the river 

valley. The Coalition’s security operations in the capital city made Baghdad into an increasingly inhospitable place for AQI. Squeezed out of the capital, the 

insurgent cells regrouped around Ba’qubah. An important commercial hub connecting Baghdad with Iran, 

Ba’qubah was split in two by the Diyala River, a tributary of the Tigris. Like Baghdad, its population was a 

mix of Sunni Arabs and Shi’ites, making it a particularly volatile place as al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni 

organizations fought with Shi’ite militias to purge the 

city of their opposing sect. Criminal gangs, eager to exploit the lack of order, freely roamed the streets. By the 

spring of 2007 the city had become a veritable ghost 

town, where few of its nearly 300,000 inhabitants, including the city’s police force, dared venture outside, 

for fear of being killed or kidnapped. Al-Qaeda in Iraq 

had also taken advantage of the collapse of civil order, 

using its management of public works and the distribution of food to control the city’s inhabitants. 

The city and surrounding Diyala Province lay in the 

area of operations of MND-N (25th Infantry Division). 

Responsibility for security in the city and province fell 

to the 3d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. 

As was so often the case, the brigade lacked the manpower needed to clear the city, hold it, and conduct operations throughout the rest of Diyala. The only unit in 

the area, stationed about five kilometers outside the city 

at Forward Operating Base Warhorse, was the brigade’s 

1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, commanded by Lt. 

Col. Morris T. Goins. Recognizing the 3d Brigade Combat 

Team, 1st Cavalry Division, needed more forces in the 

region, General Odierno detached Lt. Col. Bruce P. Antonia’s 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment from Colonel Townsend’s 3d Brigade, a Stryker unit, and ordered it 

north to reinforce Goins in March 2007. 

However, the expanded task force was still not 

enough to clear the entire city of AQI fighters. An answer 

to the U.S. dilemma came from Iraqis living in the area. 

As the Coalition worked to secure the city, Diyala be-
55

came one of the first locations outside of Al Anbar to see 

a concerted effort by Sunni Arabs to turn on al-Qaeda in 

Iraq and ally themselves with the Americans. Throughout the winter and spring of 2007, U.S. soldiers operating in the region began to observe internecine fighting 

between insurgent groups. As in Al Anbar, al-Qaeda in 

Iraq’s aggressive tactics and radical social and religious 

agenda alienated many locals, and many looked to the 

Americans for support and supplies. Unsure of how 

much trust to put in these new volunteers, considering 

that some were members of insurgent groups like the 

1920 Revolution Brigades, the Americans nevertheless 

accepted their aid in searching out IEDs and al-Qaeda 

in Iraq fighters. Given the name “Kit Carson Scouts,”2

the Iraqi volunteers provided the Americans in Diyala 

with benefits similar to the U.S. alliance with the tribal 

sheikhs in Al Anbar. Thanks to the assistance of these 

new allies, the two battalions operating in the city were 

able to clear and secure Ba’qubah’s eastern districts 

over the course of the spring of 2007. 

Despite these new allies, American forces in the city 

still lacked the combat power required to sweep the 

city’s western neighborhoods, a hub of al-Qaeda in Iraq 

operations. Once again, General Odierno looked to the 

3d Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division, a Stryker unit, and in May ordered Colonel Townsend to move 

out with the remainder of his forces from Baghdad to 

Ba’qubah. The operation to finally clear the city’s western districts, to begin in June, was given the code name 

Arrowhead Ripper.

3

In selecting the Stryker unit to take the lead, 

General Odierno had chosen one of the most battlehardened combat units in Iraq, having already served 

2. The term came from a Vietnam War program in which U.S. forces 

recruited Viet Cong who had defected to the South Vietnamese and American 

side to serve as intelligence guides. The Marine Corps commander who 

originated the program chose to name the defectors after the famous U.S. scout 

Kit Carson. 

3. The name was chosen to recognize the different units participating 

in the operation. The overall division headquarters directing the operation, 

the 25th Infantry Division, had carried out Operation Ripper during the 

Korean War. The 3d Brigade Combat Team, 2d Infantry Division, was 

nicknamed the “arrowhead” brigade.
56

in theater for twelve months. The Strykers’ networked 

capabilities and light armored vehicles allowed the Coalition to compensate for the perennial dearth in force 

numbers, and the units were readily deployed as an 

operational reserve and quick reaction force for difficult clearing missions. In the twelve months before the 

battle to clear Ba’qubah, the brigade had served in Al 

Qayyarah, Mosul, Tall ‘Afar, At Taji, Karbala, An Najaf, 

and Baghdad and had operated in three different division areas of operation. In total, the Stryker brigade 

had conducted eleven brigade-sized offensive operations, a remarkable testament to its rugged versatility.

Operation Arrowhead Ripper began on 19 June 2007, 

as the remainder of the 3d Brigade Combat Team advanced north from Baghdad. Meanwhile, blocking units 

were lifted by helicopter to the city’s south and west to 

cordon off the town and make sure insurgents would be 

unable to escape. The Stryker brigade then advanced directly into the city. There they encountered whole blocks 

of houses rigged to explode, and it soon became clear that 

al-Qaeda in Iraq’s strategy was to force U.S. troops to 

take cover in these houses, which the fighters would then 

detonate, maximizing the number of American casualties 

they could inflict. Over the course of a week, Townsend’s 

brigade methodically cleared the city’s western half using 

the full arsenal at its disposal: the firepower from his soldiers and vehicles, drones, guided missiles, and artillery. 

Enemy casualties included 100 killed and 424 captured, 

and the Coalition also successfully uncovered about 250 

roadside bombs. 

By July, Ba’qubah was largely clear of insurgents, 

although because of its damaged infrastructure important supplies such as wheat needed to be shipped north 

under escort from Baghdad. To lay the foundations for 

future reconciliation and security, Colonel Townsend 

initiated a robust and energetic civil affairs program. As 

Townsend’s deputy, Lt. Col. Frederick L. Johnson noted, 

“3-2 SBCT had to ensure life was better after the attack 

then (sic) it was when al-Qaeda in Iraq dominated the 

city. If not, citizens would have no reason to risk the 

lives of their families to insurgent death squads, whom 
57

the populace believed could reinfiltrate to exact revenge 

for supporting the Coalition Forces (CF) and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF).”

Operation Arrowhead Ripper demonstrated that the 

Awakening could expand beyond Al Anbar to other regions of Iraq. Despite anxiety on the part of the Iraqi 

government, General Petraeus continued to support the 

efforts of his brigade and battalion commanders to build 

alliances with Iraq’s tribal militias and former insurgent 

groups. Al Anbar was far enough from Baghdad that 

Maliki was willing to sanction those efforts, but Diyala 

Province—a mixed Shi’ite and Sunni region close to the 

capital—was a different matter. Nevertheless, Petraeus, 

Odierno, and their field commanders were not about to 

pass up the opportunity to forge an anti–al-Qaeda in 

Iraq alliance, especially if it meant bringing more Iraqis 

U.S. Army Spec. William McGrath (left) and Spec. Daniel Brothers launch 

a grenade against an insurgent position after coming under fire in Bihriz, 

Iraq, just south of Ba’qubah, in February 2007. The soldiers were part of the 

1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry 

Division.

Department of Defense
58

to the Coalition’s side. To mask the fact that organizations that had once been openly hostile to U.S. forces 

were now fighting alongside them, MNF-I and MNCI spelled out a series of specific instructions to govern 

how the new alliances would work. First, the Coalition 

deployed a range of euphemisms to avoid the inference 

that it was empowering nonstate militias. These included Concerned Local Citizens, Sons of Iraq, the aforementioned Kit Carson Scouts, and Ba’qubah Guardians. 

It also instituted strict rules regarding how such forces 

should be deployed. For example, while a group of Sons 

of Iraq could provide coalition forces with actionable 

intelligence, they would not participate in combat operations. Recognizing the critical importance these new 

alliances represented, General Petraeus ordered the 

creation of a Multi-National Force–Iraq Strategic Engagement Cell to better organize and exploit potential 

reconciliation efforts.

The effects of the Awakening could also be felt in 

Baghdad itself. The 2d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, 

responsible for operations in the capital’s northeastern 

districts, confronted a restive Sunni populace frustrated by the increase in Iraqi security force checkpoints 

around the local hospital. Although the ISF had created 

the checkpoints to bar insurgent fighters from obtaining 

medical care, the presence of Shi’ite dominated military 

forces controlling access to health facilities seemed to 

only confirm the worst fears of many Sunnis that the 

Iraqi military was carrying out a sectarian campaign 

of discrimination. To counteract this perception, the 

brigade’s Task Force 1-26 began training local Sunnis 

to man the checkpoints in June. The 3d Squadron, 7th 

Cavalry Regiment, and 2d Battalion, 319th Field Artillery Regiment, also made concerted efforts to hire locals for security purposes, with each formation hiring 

700 and 695 local citizens, respectively. By August, local 

Sunni forces began undertaking actions against insurgent fighters in the brigade’s area of operations. 

In the southern belt, the American combat forces that 

began Operation Marne Torch in mid-June also found 

themselves confronting the question of how to deploy 
59

Iraqi volunteers. The 3d Infantry Division’s commander, 

General Lynch, was wary of enlisting the aid of former 

insurgents, many of whom had until recently been targeting and killing Americans. Although he established a 

reconciliation cell within his command, he was firm in 

his resolve that Sons of Iraq groups would not participate in joint combat operations. “There are two lines we 

won’t cross. We won’t arm them or give them ammunition. Also, we won’t support them in any fight against 

al-Qaeda. They can give us the intel and we will fight alQaeda.” Nevertheless, his subordinate, Col. Michael M. 

Kershaw, whose 2d Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, was conducting operations in the region 

known as the Triangle of Death, energetically pursued 

alliances with Sons of Iraq volunteers, relying on them 

for intelligence on AQI operations.

One issue that Lynch confronted was the need for 

his division to establish a firm presence in its area of 

operations before reconciliation efforts could even begin. 

Consequently, Lynch’s operations were much more aggressive and relied on a significant amount of firepower 

to root out al-Qaeda from the southern belt. The general 

told his soldiers, “This is all about killing and capturing 

bad guys. Later we can do area security. So use anything 

you can to hit him in the nose. Once he is back on his 

heels, then we can worry about the population.” 

Operation Marne Torch focused on neutralizing the 

town of Arab Jabour as an al-Qaeda in Iraq hub and 

staging zone in order to prevent insurgent forces and 

material from moving into Baghdad. The operation drew 

on the full combat power of Lynch’s division: the 3d Infantry Division’s 2d and 3d Brigade Combat Teams; the 

2d Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division; and, 

the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry 

Division. The 2d Brigade Combat Team, 3d Infantry Division, would focus on clearing Arab Jabour itself, with 

the main effort falling to the brigade’s 1st Battalion, 

30th Infantry Regiment. The 3d Brigade, operating to 

the east on the other side of the Tigris, would target insurgent fighters fleeing Arab Jabour across the river in 

private boats. 
60

The operation commenced on 16 June with an air 

strike against Arab Jabour conducted by Air Force 

B–1B bombers. Following the strike, the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, and 1st Squadron, 40th 

Cavalry Regiment, advanced into and around the 

town, clearing insurgents and ensuring that they could 

neither escape nor be reinforced. By 23 June the 2d 

Brigade had secured a foothold in the town. General 

Lynch expanded the operation to the west on 20 June, 

launching a series of assaults against insurgent hideouts with a combined force consisting of the 2d Brigade, 

10th Mountain Division, and the 4th Brigade, 6th Iraqi 

Army Division. In turn, the 3d Brigade Combat Team, 

as it continued to block escape routes across the Tigris 

to its west, moved forces to the east in a region called 

Duraiya, south of Salman Pak. There, elements of the 

brigade encountered Shi’ite fighters from the Mahdi 

Army, a reminder that Sunni extremists were not the 

Americans’ only enemy. 

Operation Marne Torch, which ended in mid-July, 

led to a significant drop in enemy activity in the region as extremist groups fled Arab Jabour. General 

Lynch then immediately turned his attention to his 

southwestern flank in the Euphrates valley north of 

Karbala, around the towns of Jurf as Sakhr and Al Iskandariyah. The area was an important waypoint for 

fighters and weapons traveling to and from Al Anbar 

Province, and Lynch consequently ordered Operation 

Marne Avalanche to clear the region. The unit responsible for carrying out the effort, the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, conducted 

ten company-sized operations to neutralize the area as 

an AQI base, leading to a nearly 50 percent drop in 

insurgent attacks between June and July. In a testament to the importance of advancing against AQI on 

multiple fronts, a major turning point in the Marne

Avalanche effort occurred not in the Euphrates valley, 

but in southern Baghdad, where the 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, captured Abu Bakr, 

the leader of the insurgent forces in the Jurf as Sakhr 

area. 
61

As MND-N and MND-C worked to clear the belts, the 

Coalition also continued to take the fight to extremist 

groups in the west. Northwest of Baghdad, the 1st 

Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, secured 

the belt town of At Taji and its environs. In Al Anbar, the 

Marine Corps’ Regimental Combat Team 6 pushed east 

into the town of Al Karmah while other Marine units 

secured Lake Tharthar. The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 

3d Infantry Division, which had relieved MacFarland’s 

brigade at Ar Ramadi, continued reconciliation efforts 

and continued to restore order to Al Anbar’s capital city. 

Fighting coalition forces on multiple fronts, al-Qaeda 

in Iraq found it more and more difficult to regroup and 

Soldiers from 2d Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment, 3d Brigade Combat 

Team, 3d Infantry Division, climb a wall during a cordon and search operation in the Rusafa District on 19 June 2007.

Department of Defense
62

reorganize. Brought into the open, the insurgents became 

targets for coalition special operators who were able to 

acquire valuable intelligence through their raids. Before 

the campaign, the Special Operations Forces in Iraq, 

consisting of elements from the various service special 

operations commands, the Central Intelligence Agency, 

and the British Special Air Service, had often operated 

independently from the conventional units, sometimes 

conducting raids in areas without informing the local 

commanders on the ground. By 2007, Lt. Gen. Stanley 

J. McChrystal’s Joint Special Operations Command Task 

Force had fine-tuned its operational approach, effectively 

synchronizing its reconnaissance and analysis efforts to 

ensure targeted raids took out the most prominent and 

influential extremist leaders in both al-Qaeda in Iraq and 

the Shi’ite militias and acquired valuable intelligence in 

the process. A key weapon of McChrystal’s arsenal was 

the MQ–1 Predator unmanned vehicle, a lethal airframe 

that afforded the special operators a valuable reconnaissance capability. Their increased effectiveness during the 

surge demonstrated the need to couple conventional and 

special operations during a counterinsurgency. 

By the summer of 2007, many observers detected 

a shift in the war in the Coalition’s favor. The spring 

and summer campaigns had nevertheless been costly. 

The period during which Operations Phantom Thunder

and Fardh al-Qanoon took place was among the most 

volatile of the Iraq War. The British Web site Iraq Body 

Count, which drew its data from media stories, nongovernment organization analysis, and mortuary reports, 

recorded that 5,811 violent incidents took place between February and August 2007. Estimates for civilian 

deaths range between 13,000 and 18,000. In that same 

time frame, the United States suffered over 5,000 casualties, 650 of whom were killed in action. Army losses 

were over 3,900 wounded and 548 killed. Such high casualty rates made 2007 the bloodiest year of the war 

for U.S. forces. Two hundred fifty were killed fighting in 

Baghdad. Iraqi military losses were even higher, with 

1,368 Iraqi security force soldiers killed in the same period. However, a late summer drop in violence seemed 
to confirm the wisdom of General Petraeus and General Odierno’s strategic and operational designs. Violent 

civilian deaths throughout Iraq were down 45 percent 

compared to December 2006, and in Baghdad the number of deaths declined by almost 70 percent (Chart 1).

Thanks to the surge of brigades, the Coalition finally 

had enough forces to simultaneously clear multiple towns 

and urban areas of insurgent fighters and hold them without the need to redeploy and leave the recently cleared territory open to renewed infiltration. By taking the fight to 

al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jaysh al-Mahdi in the belts, MNC-I 

cut the extremist groups’ supply lines and diminished the 

flow of fighters, weapons, bombs, and equipment into Baghdad. At the same time, Odierno made sure that the Coalition continued the Fardh al-Qanoon security operations in 

Chart 1
64

Baghdad. It was a sound display of operational art grounded in basic principles of warfare: synchronizing operations, 

holding terrain, disrupting the enemy’s line of communications, and closing with and defeating the enemy. 

Maintaining the Pressure: Operation Phantom Strike

Both Fardh al-Qanoon and Phantom Thunder demonstrated that, for all their skill and ingenuity, the insurgent forces’ effectiveness and freedom of maneuver 

were severely constrained in the face of unremitting 

force from well-trained coalition soldiers. With General 

Petraeus scheduled to brief Congress on the progress of 

the surge campaign in September, Odierno decided to 

maintain that pressure through a second major series of 

offensives, code-named Phantom Strike. The operation’s 

objective was to exploit the gains achieved in Phantom

Thunder. Multi-National Division–North (25th Infantry 

Division) would continue to advance up the Diyala River 

Valley from Ba’qubah and also clear al-Qaeda in Iraq 

hideouts in the Kirkuk Province. Multi-National Division–Center (3d Infantry Division) would maintain its 

efforts in Baghdad’s southern belt. The operation would 

also focus efforts on a largely ignored region in Iraq, the 

area between the northern belt town of At Taji and Lake 

Tharthar (Map 7). 

The 3d Infantry Division’s contribution to the operation was code-named Operation Marne Husky. The 

main objective was the west bank of the Tigris River, 

south of Salman Pak. Here, the 3d Infantry Division 

confronted two major threats. Following Operations 

Marne Torch and Marne Avalanche, AQI fighters 

were retreating farther south into the Tigris valley, 

outside the operational reach of the 3d Infantry Division’s ground forces. Meanwhile, the same region was 

a logistics hub for Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias. 

Trying to devise a means for securing this area, General Lynch confronted the same problem that faced 

so many of his predecessors who had led divisions in 

Iraq: even with the surge, he simply did not have the 
65

combat power to dominate his entire area of operations all the time. 

To compensate, Lynch decided to launch a series of 

aerial assaults using his division’s Combat Aviation 

OPERATION 

LIGHTNING

HAMMER II

OPERATION 

LIGHTNING

HAMMER I

OPERATION

MARNE HUSKY

Euphrates R

Tigris R

Lake Tharthar

Tall ‘Afar 

Sinjār 

Tikrīt 

Bayjī 

Ḩadīthah

Al Fallūjah

Al Kūfah

 Al Iskandarīyah

 Khānaqīn

Dahūk

Mosul 

Erbil 

As Sulaymānīyah

Ba‘qūbah

Al Kūt 

Sāmarrā’ 

Ar Ramādī 

Ad Dīwānīyah

Karbalā’ 

An Najaf

Al Ḩillah

Kirkuk 

BAGHDAD

NĪNAWÁ

DAHŪK

ARBĪL

AS SULAYMĀNĪYAH

KIRKŪK

ŞALĀḨ AD DĪN

BAGHDĀD

DIYĀLÁ

AL ANBĀR

KARBALĀ’

AL QĀDISĪYAH

BĀBIL

WĀSIŢ

AN NAJAF DHĪ QĀR

IRAN

SYRIA

0

0 75 Miles

75 Kilometers

August 2007–January 2008

OPERATION PHANTOM STRIKE

Operational Area

Map 7
66

Brigade, commanded by Col. Daniel L. Ball. With a reinforced infantry company, the aviation brigade would 

carry out attacks against insurgent positions between 

Salman Pak and Suwayrah, twenty-five kilometers to 

the southeast. Between 15 August and 15 September, 

the aviation brigade launched a series of raids between 

Salman Pak and Suwayrah using the 4th Brigade (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division’s Company B, 3d Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment. As the paratroopers 

carried out raids, the aviation brigade’s aerial assets 

continued interdiction operations against targets of 

opportunity throughout the area. In total, Ball’s brigade carried out 9 air assaults, 105 air strikes, cleared 

836 buildings, uncovered 19 weapons caches, killed 63 

insurgents, and captured another 193. Among those 

captured was Hafiz Khalif Jassim, an al-Qaeda in Iraq 

commander who had fled south in the wake of Operation Phantom Thunder.

Lynch and his staff were aware that using aerial 

assault tactics was an imperfect approach and did not 

A soldier from 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3d Brigade Combat 

Team, 1st Cavalry Division, stands guard as Iraqis play an evening soccer 

match in October 2007.

Department of Defense
67

accord with General Petraeus’ overall strategy of securing major urban centers and operating among the Iraqi 

people. While the brigade was able to bring its superior 

maneuverability and devastating firepower to bear on 

the enemy forces in the area, the Americans were unable to establish a permanent presence, meaning that 

AQI fighters and the militias could simply return once 

the soldiers withdrew. Yet, Lynch calculated that doing nothing left the initiative with the insurgents and 

would potentially allow the area to become a permanent 

safe haven for extremist forces. 

Meanwhile, to the north the 25th Infantry Division 

continued to sweep through the Diyala River Valley with 

Operations Lightning Hammer I and Lightning Hammer

II. On 19 August, five days after Operation Lightning

Hammer I began, the sheikhs of the river valley swore an 

oath against al-Qaeda in Iraq. It was a remarkable testament to just how dramatically the course of the war in 

the region had shifted. Operation Lightning Hammer II, 

begun on 5 September, continued the advance northwest, 

this time targeting the triangle between Al Qayyarah, 

Hawijah, and Ash Sharqat, the Hamrin Mountains, and 

Lake Tharthar. The effort resulted in the discovery of 61 

weapons caches and 125 IEDs, the capture of 500 enemy 

prisoners, and 72 enemy killed in action. Seeking to regain the initiative, AQI retaliated with a suicide bombing in Ba’qubah that killed twenty-four and wounded the 

governor of Diyala. Hoping to intimidate the “concerned 

local national” groups that had emerged from the tribal 

alliances against al-Qaeda in Iraq, the attack actually 

emboldened tribal efforts against the Islamist terrorist 

group. On 13 September 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq made 

another attempt to demoralize the tribal alliance in Al 

Anbar when they assassinated Sheikh Sattar. The charismatic sheikh, whose efforts with Colonel MacFarland’s 

1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, a year 

earlier had done so much to change the course of the war 

in Al Anbar, had become a major symbol of the Awakening and the other tribal alliances which were emerging. 

However, his death did little to blunt the growing movement against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
68

General Odierno planned the Phantom Strike operations to last into January 2008; therefore, actions would 

overlap with General Petraeus’ mandated congressional 

report on the progress of the war scheduled to begin on 

10 September 2007. The testimony was highly anticipated, evidence of the level to which domestic opinion in the 

United States had come to influence the course of the war 

in Iraq. President Bush’s decision to escalate the U.S. commitment in Iraq had been a gamble and public opposition 

to the conflict had continued to grow over the course of the 

surge campaign. Even a number of notable Republicans, 

such as Senator John W. Warner, had suggested taking 

steps to limit strictly the United States’ involvement in 

the conflict. Much of the domestic and international press 

was also critical, with the BBC reporting on 11 September, while Petraeus was delivering his report, that “there 

is no doubt that there has been a significant turnaround 

in Al Anbar, because of the tribal rebellion against al-Qaeda there. It is the one relative success the Americans can 

point to. But it is far from clear this will help bring wider 

peace and reconciliation.” In a sign of just how politically 

charged his testimony was likely going to be, on the day he 

was set to begin testifying, the advocacy group MoveOn.

org published a full-page advertisement in the New York 

Times accusing General Petraeus of misrepresenting 

the surge’s achievements and “cooking the books” for the 

Bush administration. The advertisement sparked outrage 

among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, with 

some accusing the organization of slandering the general.

In the end, Petraeus’ testimony to both the House 

and Senate was measured and precise. Avoiding sweeping statements and grand promises, he declared, on 

behalf of Ambassador Crocker and himself, that “there 

are no easy answers or quick solutions. And though we 

both believe this effort will succeed, it will take time.” 

Petraeus patiently parried often critical questions and 

assertions from congressmen, effectively deflating much 

of the criticism of his command and the Bush administration. The testimony proved to be a decisive moment 

in the course of the surge campaign. By presenting a 

frank assessment that steady progress was being made 
69

by coalition forces, Petraeus placated many congressmen weary of the sometimes sunny prognostications 

delivered by his predecessors and the Bush administration. In a dramatic turn, many in Congress no longer demanded the immediate withdrawal of American forces 

from Iraq, but instead began to discuss how long the 

commitment needed to be.

Success on the surge battlefield nevertheless produced 

new difficulties for the Coalition. The aggressiveness and 

scope of operations such as Phantom Thunder and Phantom Strike led to a dramatic increase in the Iraqi prisoner 

population. Detainee operations presented a range of challenges. The anger sparked by the 2004 revelations of abuse 

of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib had badly 

damaged America’s reputation throughout Iraq during the 

fraught and often chaotic months following the fall of Saddam’s regime. The disclosure of prisoner abuse outraged 

many Iraqis and turned them against the occupying American forces. Coalition attempts to reform detainee treatment 

after the scandal were largely inadequate and failed to effectively address the challenges of a growing, often more 

radicalized, prisoner population. This population mirrored 

the makeup of the insurgency as a whole: a combination of 

radical Islamist fighters, nationalists, ex-Ba’athists, and assorted militants who had taken up arms for a variety of reasons. Also present were men suspected of aiding al-Qaeda in 

Iraq and other insurgent groups but who were not involved 

in insurgent activity. In a war where euphemisms such as 

“military aged male” often replaced a solid and detailed understanding of the enemy, many so-called “reconcilable” insurgents were often imprisoned alongside “irreconcilables” 

who were unwilling to cooperate with the Americans and 

had every intention of returning to the fight if released.

By failing to differentiate between the various prisoners in its detainee camps, the Coalition had unwittingly built a crucible that helped produce new Islamist 

fighters sympathetic to movements like al-Qaeda. In 

a microcosm of the Sunni insurgency, radical prisoners used threats, intimidation, and torture to pressure 

more moderate detainees to accept their authority. The 

central detainee facility, Camp Bucca, became a “Jihad 
70

University,” and the longer prisoners were detained, the 

more likely they would reenter society more radicalized 

and eager to undertake violent action against fellow 

Iraqis and the Coalition. As the camp reached capacity, 

riots erupted, with more than 10,000 acts of violence 

committed by detainees in May 2007 alone. The largest 

riot, which broke out on 14 May, proved to be a turning 

point, with more than 10,000 prisoners nearly bursting 

the compound’s fortifications.

Releasing fighters loyal to al-Qaeda in Iraq was certainly not an option. However, General Petraeus’ staff 

recognized that a new approach to detainee operations 

was clearly needed. In the course of the Awakening 

and similar movements, the Americans in Iraq gained 

a better understanding of how the cracks in the Sunni 

insurgent movement could be exploited to isolate more 

radical fighters. The unit responsible for detainee operations, Task Force–134, under the command of Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone, recognized these 

fissures, and began to treat the detention system as 

yet another front in the counterinsurgency campaign. 

With 160,000 Iraqis moving through the detention process at one point or another by the end of the surge, 

and with each detainee estimated to have a network of 

about one hundred Iraqis, the system had the potential 

to influence the opinions and attitudes of nearly half 

the country’s population. 

Under General Stone’s direction, the detention facilities at Camp Bucca became another important battlefield of General Petraeus’ campaign. The guards at the 

camp followed a number of principles in their handling of 

prisoners. Care and custody was governed by the Geneva Conventions, radical prisoners were segregated from 

more moderate detainees, and officials tried to replace 

destructive ideologies through education and rehabilitation. Stone’s command permitted reconcilable prisoners 

to receive visits from family members and offered them 

work opportunities in numerous trades. In other words, 

just as Petraeus and his subordinates worked to determine which insurgents could never be reconciled to the 

new regime, they also looked to determine which detain-
71

ees could be convinced by the Coalition to abandon their 

efforts to wage violence against the Iraqi government, 

people, and coalition forces. The Coalition established a 

review board to adjudicate whether detainees had the 

potential to return to violent activity or whether they 

would reintegrate into society. The success rate of the 

board was remarkable, with less than 1 percent of detainees relapsing into criminal activity. However, the 

decision to separate radical prisoners in the camp also 

had unintended consequences. Isolated from moderate 

detainees, the so-called irreconcilable detainees came 

to adopt even more fundamentalist and radical beliefs, 

built close social and political connections with each 

other, and helped lay the groundwork for the future Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). At least nine 

future leaders of ISIL, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, 

spent time detained in Camp Bucca during the height of 

the surge campaign.

Operation Phantom Strike continued into January 

2008. The impact of that operation, and those that preceded it, could be readily seen by the end of the surge 

campaign’s first year. In Baghdad alone, attacks had 

dropped by nearly 80 percent, the number of murders 

had dropped by 90 percent, and car bomb attacks had 

declined by nearly 70 percent. The effort was costly, with 

over 200 Americans killed in action between 15 August 

2007 and the termination of the operation in early January 2008. But by the end of the year, it was clear that 

Operations Fardh al-Qanoon, Phantom Thunder, and 

Phantom Strike had dealt a critical blow to al-Qaeda in 

Iraq. The Shi’ite militias remained active however, and 

as the new year began, breaking their continued hold 

on much of northeastern Baghdad and southern Iraq 

would be the Coalition’s primary security objective. 

Political Efforts, Civil Affairs Operations, 

and Building Iraqi Security Forces

During the surge and afterward, General Petraeus 

frequently noted that “you can’t kill your way out of an 
72

insurgency.” Offensive operations against insurgent forces were fruitless if they were not buttressed by concurrent political progress. The key political effort was reconciliation of the Sunni and Shi’ite communities, as the 

coalition headquarters and Bush administration both 

realized that Iraq’s future depended on a government 

that ruled in the name of all Iraqis, not just one ethnicity or sect. U.S. units in the field were able to make significant inroads in this regard. The Al Anbar Awakening 

and Sons of Iraq movements helped turn many Sunnis 

from al-Qaeda and militancy and convert them into supporters, if often lukewarm ones, of the Iraqi state. 

Another important effort to help build legitimacy 

was reconstruction. Iraq’s infrastructure had been in a 

state of disrepair since the first Gulf War and the international sanctions that followed. American commanders 

had long recognized the need to rebuild the country’s 

roads, essential services, and power grid. Some commanders, notably Odierno’s predecessor as the commander of Multi-National Corps–Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter W. 

Chiarelli, had made a forceful effort to restore essential 

services and to create jobs in the belief that doing so 

would strengthen support for the government and turn 

Iraqis away from insurgent activity. However, the multiple threats presented by the insurgencies and militias 

taxed the Coalition’s ability to provide anything more 

than temporary solutions. Both Generals Petraeus and 

Odierno certainly saw wisdom in this approach, but recognized that some insurgent fighters would never accept the new Iraqi regime, regardless of how many jobs 

were available or whether the power worked. It was this 

realization that led to the large-scale offensives of 2007. 

However, as these offensives expelled insurgent and 

militia forces from major urban areas, units undertook 

numerous construction efforts. A key tool in every unit 

leader’s satchel was the funds allotted to them by the 

Commanders’ Emergency Response Program (CERP). 

In coordination with Provincial Reconstruction Teams 

from the State Department and members of the United 

States Agency for International Development, brigade 

commanders were able to draw on the necessary ex-
73

pertise and funds to effect significant progress in the 

rebuilding effort. In all, MNC–I spent $882 million in 

fiscal year 2007 and $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2008 on 

CERP. The Sons of Iraq militia forces were also financed 

by CERP contracts until the end of 2008, with the highest paid members—those based in Baghdad—typically 

receiving $300 a month. By 2008, the reconstruction effort had borne considerable fruit, with the Iraqi gross 

domestic product growing by 6 percent, electricity production finally matching prewar levels, and oil production improving.

While Iraq was making a slow economic recovery, 

the Coalition achieved less marked success on the national political stage. As Petraeus and Odierno struggled to destroy al-Qaeda and break the power of Jaysh 

al-Mahdi, the Iraqi government often proved to be as 

intransigent and difficult to work with as it had been 

First Lt. Giles Wright of 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2d Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, speaks with an Iraqi policeman in Baghdad’s 

Mashtal District on 6 February 2007.

Department of Defense
74

during Casey’s tenure. Many of these problems could be 

attributed to Prime Minister Maliki himself. A partisan 

Shi’ite, Maliki was suspicious of conspiracies against 

his government and convinced that Iraq’s Sunni Arabs 

were in league with al-Qaeda. Along with frequent boycotts staged by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Shi’ite militia 

bloc, Maliki’s government also faced dissension from the 

parliament’s Sunni parties. On paper, the Iraqi government seemingly balanced the country’s diverse groups, 

with a Shi’ite prime minister (Maliki), a Kurdish president (Jala Talibani), and a Sunni vice president (Tariq 

al-Hashimi). The Defense Minister, Abdulqder Alobeidi, 

was also a Sunni. However, Maliki initiated a number of 

measures that undercut the attempt to distribute power 

across the different sects and ethnic groups. For example, he created an Office of the Commander in Chief to 

circumvent the chain of command, allowing him to ignore the Sunni officials in government and issue orders 

directly to Iraqi military forces, many of which were 

controlled by Shi’ite militias. 

Even though they met with him regularly and did 

what they could to influence his decision making, Petraeus and Crocker had only limited influence with the 

Iraqi prime minister. At some moments, Maliki proved 

to be a decisive leader, such as when al-Qaeda in Iraq 

forces destroyed the remnants of the Samarra Mosque 

in June 2007. Following Petraeus’ advice, the prime 

minister personally went to the site to survey the damage and demand answers to how the mosque could have 

been attacked again. However, the American efforts to 

encourage Maliki to pass more legislation that would 

better reflect Iraqi cooperation were less successful. Maliki never overcame his general suspicion of Sunnis and 

conspiracies against his party and rule. This persistent 

problem handicapped the surge’s ability to achieve a 

more long-standing strategic success.

Although the surge campaign emphasized U.S. combat operations over transitioning the security mission 

to Iraqis, MNSTC-I and its military transition teams 

(MiTTs) continued to train and equip Iraq’s security 

forces throughout the campaign. The task remained 
75

just as daunting as it had been when the transition 

command had formed three years earlier. U.S. units 

working alongside Iraqi Army forces found their effectiveness to be mixed. The reports drawn up by various 

American military transition teams depicted an Iraqi 

Army plagued by a range of problems. Despite the Coalition Provisional Authority’s decision to dissolve the 

old army in 2003 and then recreate it from the ground 

up in 2004, the Iraqi security forces nevertheless carried with them many cultural, social, and political 

legacies from the Ba’ath regime. A highly centralized 

organization, its officer corps was often more concerned 

with ensuring that their soldiers were politically and 

ideologically reliable than with whether or not they 

were able to carry out basic combat operations. One 

MiTT attached to the 6th Iraqi Army Division, for example, noted that the division’s intelligence branch was 

an inward looking organization, assessing the loyalty 

of its soldiers rather than acquiring information on 

the enemy. A MiTT with another Iraqi unit noted that 

Iraqi commanders rarely extended their trust beyond a 

small, reliable circle of officers, which usually consisted 

of just the commander, his intelligence officers, and his 

operations officer. General Sunni Arab mistrust of the 

predominantly Shi’ite force also led many of them to 

see the Iraqi Army as a sectarian tool of the Maliki 

regime dominated by the militias. Consequently, many 

Iraqi units in 2007 focused their efforts more on rooting out internal enemies and sources of dissent than 

with defeating external threats.

The deficiency most commonly noted in after action 

reports from this period was the general ineffectiveness 

of the Iraqi Army’s noncommissioned officers. A by-product of the Iraqi military’s centralizing tendencies and a 

reluctance on the part of officers to delegate authority 

or trust subordinates, the noncommissioned officers had 

little power or responsibility. The 3226 Military Transition Team (Provisional), supporting 3d Brigade Combat 

Team, 101st Airborne Division, reported in late 2008 that 

“the current Iraqi Army does not empower its NCOs or 

warrant officers with any authority which limits their 
76

ability to be effective leaders, now or in the future.” The 

same team noted that “officers in the IA unit would rather do the work of the NCOs instead of developing them.” 

Nepotism and corruption were also general problems, 

especially when it came to ensuring that Iraqi soldiers 

were paid. Officers often enjoyed authority due to the 

prestige of their rank rather than any inherent ability 

or proficiency. The weaknesses that plagued the army’s 

logistical capabilities were also exacerbated by corrupt 

officers who saw the quantity of supplies and provisions 

under their control as a sign of authority and prestige. 

“They find great comfort in knowing that their warehouses are full and would rather store vast amounts of 

supplies and equipment rather than issue them.”

Ambassador Crocker at a press conference held in Baghdad on 16 June 

2007. Secretary Gates stands behind him.

Department of Defense
77

U.S. advisers made steady progress as they worked to 

build up the Iraqi security forces. However, by 2008 the 

force remained very much a work in progress, as it was 

largely reliant on the Americans for logistics, air support, 

and special operations capabilities. Nevertheless, as 2008 

began Prime Minister Maliki had gained enough confidence in the combat abilities of the still nascent Iraqi 

Army and National Police that he began to contemplate 

using them in a unilateral campaign against the Shi’ite 

militias in Al Basrah, much to the dismay of his American allies.

Continuing Operations and the Showdown with

Jaysh al-Mahdi

As 2008 began, General Odierno continued his offensive against al-Qaeda in Iraq, launching Operation 

Phantom Phoenix. As with the previous year’s operations, Phantom Phoenix called for a broad range of actions. Multi-National Division–North, which was now 

commanded by the 1st Armored Division, continued to 

push up the Diyala River to secure the towns of Hibbis, 

Sherween, and Dali Abbas. The division also worked to 

clear and retain the city of Mosul, the largest metropolitan center in the country’s northwest. Meanwhile, MultiNational Division–Center renewed the effort to clear 

Arab Jabour of AQI forces. The plan also called for the 

creation of a Combined Interagency Task Force to break 

AQI’s hold on oil smuggling from the Bayji oil refinery in 

the Salah ad Din Province (Map 8).

The order for Phantom Phoenix attested to the fact 

that al-Qaeda in Iraq’s freedom of maneuver had been 

significantly limited by the previous year’s Operations 

Phantom Thunder and Phantom Strike. Particularly 

important was that, beside the need to continue to interdict car bomb networks in the capital, Baghdad was 

no longer the principal theater for the fight with alQaeda in Iraq. Excepting Arab Jabour, AQI had also 

largely been rooted out from much of the Baghdad belts 

by coalition forces. With each successive operation Odi-
Euphrates R

Tigris R

Tall ‘Afar Sinjār 

Tikrīt 

 Khānaqīn

Bayjī 

Ḩadīthah

Al Fallūjah

Al Kūfah

 Al Iskandarīyah

Dahūk

Mosul 

Erbil 

As Sulaymānīyah

Ba‘qūbah

Al Kūt 

Sāmarrā’ 

Ar Ramādī 

Ad Dīwānīyah

Karbalā’ 

An Najaf

Al Ḩillah

Kirkuk 

BAGHDAD

NĪNAWÁ

DAHŪK

ARBĪL

AS SULAYMĀNĪYAH

KIRKŪK

ŞALĀḨ AD DĪN

BAGHDĀD

DIYĀLÁ

AL ANBĀR

KARBALĀ’

AL QĀDISĪYAH

BĀBIL

WĀSIŢ

AN NAJAF DHĪ QĀR

IRAN

SYRIA

0

0 75 Miles

75 Kilometers

January–July 2008

OPERATION PHANTOM PHOENIX

Operational Area

Map 8
79

erno had been able to push the radical Sunni organization away from central Iraq and its major population 

centers. The successful implementation of Operation 

Phantom Phoenix would maintain this effort. The operation was also the last major one executed by General 

Odierno’s III Corps during its tour as the MNC–I. In 

February 2008, Odierno’s III Corps was relieved by the 

XVIII Airborne Corps, commanded by Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. 

Austin III.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq may have been receding as the 

principal danger to the Coalition by the beginning of 

2008, but MNF-I could not truly restore order in Iraq 

unless it also neutralized Jaysh al-Mahdi as a threat 

to the Iraqi government and coalition forces. Beginning 

in the summer of 2007, the Jaysh al-Madhi militia had 

begun to supplant al-Qaeda in Iraq as the Coalition’s 

primary adversary. The militia had long been a thorn in 

the American’s side, dating back to 2004 when Moqtada 

al-Sadr had led revolts against the occupation forces in 

An Najaf and other Shi’ite-dominated regions. By 2007 

Sadr’s political movement was a key component of Maliki’s government, although open fighting between Sadr’s 

militia and the Badr Organization had become a common feature of the sectarian fighting waging throughout much of the country. Sadr was also rapidly losing 

control of his own organization. By choosing to enter 

the government, the mercurial Shi’ite nationalist had 

been forced to moderate some of the more extreme objectives of his organization in order to forge compromises 

with the Maliki ministry. In response, many of the more 

radical elements within the militia began to turn their 

backs on Sadr’s leadership. The financial and logistical 

demands of running the militia had also undermined 

Sadr’s authority, as splinter groups broke away to raise 

their own funds through organized crime and by extorting Baghdad’s citizens.

Sadr’s unpredictability also played a hand in diminishing his authority. His organization staged a number 

of boycotts of the Iraqi government. The first was in protest of Maliki’s decision to meet with President Bush in 

Amman, Jordan, in November 2006. The second came 
80

in June 2007, following the destruction of the minarets 

of the Al-Askari Mosque. Each boycott increased distance between Sadr and Maliki, reducing Sadr’s role as 

a kingmaker in Iraqi politics and increasing the prime 

minister’s ability to isolate and neutralize the Sadrist 

movement. To ease tensions between his Mahdi forces 

and the Badr Organization and avoid any more destructive confrontations with coalition forces, Sadr declared a 

six-month cease-fire in August 2007. The decision would 

reduce Sadr’s authority even further.

Sadr’s decision to stand down his forces had major 

repercussions during the surge campaign. Many observers, both during the surge and since, have credited 

Sadr’s cease-fires as the principal reason incidences of 

violence dropped during the summer of 2007. Sadr’s 

order to stand down certainly played a role, as it allowed Odierno to focus his offensive operations against 

al-Qaeda in Iraq without also having to worry as much 

about the Shi’ite militias. However, it is important to 

note that Sadr’s control of the militia forces had declined noticeably by the middle of 2007. In his place, 

Jaysh al-Mahdi’s Iranian backers gained considerably 

greater influence and authority. Iran continuously 

lurked in the shadows throughout the surge. A weak, 

dependable, and solidly Shi’ite Iraqi state was in the 

Islamic Republic’s interests, as it would increase Iranian influence in the region and offset its Sunni rivals, 

led by Saudi Arabia. The chief power behind the Shi’ite 

militias was the enigmatic Iranian Qassem Suleimani, 

the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force, an 

organization described by one journalist as “the sharp 

instrument of Iranian foreign policy, roughly analogous 

to a combined C.I.A. and Special Forces.” The organization sought to expand Iranian influence throughout the 

Middle East using proxy forces, such as the terrorist 

organization Hezbollah, which had successfully gained 

political power in Lebanon and was Iran’s primary 

means of attacking Israel. It was clear to the Bush administration and Iraqi government that the Qods Force 

aimed to achieve similar goals in Iraq through Jaysh 

al-Mahdi. Iranian support ensured that the Mahdi 
81

Army was well-trained, well-armed, and had a strong 

base of political support. 

The Qods Force also carried out well-planned and 

coordinated attacks in its own right. Among the most 

notable was a 20 January 2007 raid into Karbala Province in which operatives dressed in U.S. Army–style 

uniforms entered a provincial joint coordination center 

and attacked the U.S. forces there, killing one, wounding three others, and kidnapping four more from the 2d 

Battalion, 377th Field Artillery Regiment. When U.S. 

forces found the soldiers forty-three kilometers away 

in Babil Province, three were dead, and the fourth died 

en route to the hospital. The level of sophistication and 

preparation needed to carry out the kidnapping convinced coalition headquarters that it was neither the 

work of al-Qaeda in Iraq or a Shi’ite militia; one source 

noted “the Karbala Government Center raid the other 

day was a little too professional for JAM [Jaysh alMahdi].” Further evidence backing this theory that the 

Qods Force was responsible was the recent capture by 

U.S. forces of seven Qods Force members operating in 

Iraq, along with ample documentation detailing the organization’s operations in the country. The ultimately 

aborted kidnapping effort was thus likely a retaliatory 

effort and ill-fated attempt by the Iranians to gain bargaining chips to obtain the release of their captured operatives. Instead, the Bush administration responded 

by authorizing U.S. forces to “kill or capture Iranian 

operatives inside Iraq.” 

As lethal and effective as these Qods Force operations were, the Iranians nevertheless used the Mahdi Army as their primary weapon in Iraq. The Mahdi 

Army operated throughout the country’s Shi’ite heartland, but two strongholds in particular remained important bases of support: the city of Al Basrah and the 

Baghdad District of Sadr City. Al Basrah had been an 

ulcer in Iraq’s southeast corner since 2005. Initially, 

many analysts believe it would be a relatively quiet 

spot. Dominated by Shi’ites, the city’s population had 

much to gain from the collapse of Saddam’s regime. 

Many analysts bought into the notion that the Brit-
82

ish were somehow more adept and skilled at counterinsurgency than Americans, due in large part to the 

United Kingdom’s long counterinsurgency campaigns 

in Northern Ireland, Malaya, and in other countries 

that had once constituted the British Empire. British 

domestic opposition to the Iraq War and the increase 

in requirements from Afghanistan had led to a significant reduction of the United Kingdom’s contribution to 

the MND-SE. As a result, over the course of 2007 the 

British force largely withdrew from the city and established itself in Al Basrah’s nearby airport, effectively 

ceding the city, and its lucrative commercial interests, 

to Jaysh al-Mahdi. The militia continued to harass the 

British force even after the withdrawal, besieging it 

with constant rocket attacks. 

Without any major coalition force to patrol the city’s 

streets, Jaysh al-Mahdi was able to establish a firm 

grip over Al Basrah. Instituting an Islamist regime and 

running a lucrative criminal empire, the Shi’ite militia 

turned the city into a militant stronghold. The British 

forces continually underestimated the severity of the 

threat, and it was not until well into the surge that 

American commanders began to recognize that a major 

effort would be needed to recapture the city. When they 

could do so was another matter. With the surge brigades 

making preparations for their return to the United 

States later that year, Petraeus had fewer forces with 

which to work than he did in 2007. He certainly planned 

to address the Al Basrah problem, but determined that 

continuing the efforts to secure Mosul from al-Qaeda in 

Iraq was a more pressing matter.

However, Prime Minister Maliki did not agree. The 

Iraqi leader had gradually grown into his position over 

the course of the surge campaign. Initially a political unknown, Maliki had managed to survive parliamentary 

efforts to replace him, helped the Iraqi government overcome frequent deadlock, and worked to diffuse Shi’iteon-Shi’ite violence in the city of Karbala in August 2007. 

With Baghdad becoming more secure and incidences of 

violence dropping, the prime minister had become more 

confident in both his governing abilities and in the capa-
83

bilities of the Iraqi security forces. He thus ordered his 

commanders to draw up a plan to attack Al Basrah and 

destroy the Jaysh al-Mahdi presence there. 

Petraeus was wary of the plan, and tried to discourage the prime minister from implementing it too hastily. Maliki had presented the coalition commander with 

something of a conundrum. Coalition leaders strongly 

believed that the only way they could effectively defeat Jaysh al-Mahdi and other Shi’ite extremists was 

for the Iraqi government to take the lead against them. 

“We will never solve this problem ourselves,” General 

Odierno observed in September 2007, “Only Iraqis can 

solve this problem.” That the Shi’ite leader had made 

the decision to take the fight to the most powerful 

Shi’ite militia demonstrated how far the Iraqi leader was now able to act without the sanction of Sadr’s 

Soldiers from the 3d Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, patrol 

Siniyah, Iraq, on 21 September 2007 during the surge campaign.

U.S. Army
84

political movement. But launching an offensive against 

a well-entrenched insurgent stronghold without the requisite logistical support or Special Forces assets, could 

potentially lead to a major setback for the coalition effort. A failed offensive would shake the often unsteady 

legitimacy of the Maliki administration and potentially 

set back the gains achieved during the previous years’ 

offensives. It would also force Petraeus to change priorities in the middle of the Coalition’s efforts against 

al-Qaeda in Iraq in Mosul, as he would likely need to redeploy resources to assist Maliki in Al Basrah and deal 

with any retaliatory actions launched against the U.S. 

forces in Baghdad from Jaysh al-Mahdi’s stronghold in 

Sadr City.

Despite Petraeus’ concerns, Maliki informed the coalition commanders on 21 March 2008, that he intended to go through with his campaign against Jaysh alMahdi. Four days later, the Iraqis launched Operation 

Sawlat al-Fursan, or “Charge of the Knights.” Under 

Maliki’s personal command, the Iraqis moved to seal off 

the northern approaches to Al Basrah and then clear it 

of militia forces from the south. However, as Petraeus 

feared, Maliki had underestimated the level of opposition he would face upon striking Al Basrah. Jaysh alMahdi proved to be skilled fighters and the Iraqi Army, 

whose performance was always uneven at best, became 

locked in a stalemate. In the face of the fighting, one brigade of the 14th Iraqi Army Division simply collapsed as 

an effective combat unit, its remnants fleeing for safety 

in the face of the onslaught of militia fighters.

General Petraeus found Maliki’s optimistic outlook 

for the Al Basrah effort dubious. Petraeus nevertheless recognized that the Coalition needed to respond 

quickly to help the prime minister. Failure in Al Basrah would likely lead to the collapse of the Maliki 

government. Jaysh al-Mahdi had also increased the 

pressure on Maliki by launching retaliatory uprisings 

in Al Kut, Al Hillah, and Baghdad. To help the Iraqi 

prime minister, the coalition commander subsequently 

sent a robust contingent of Special Operations Forces 

to Al Basrah and supported them with AC–130 gun-
85

ships, Predator drones, Army helicopter gunships, and 

Air Force fighter jets. Maliki also rushed in reinforcements, including the seasoned 1st Iraqi Army Division, 

from Al Anbar Province, to strengthen his Iraqi contingent. With more American assets moving south, Jaysh 

al-Mahdi’s leadership began to sense that the tide was 

turning against them in Al Basrah. Furthermore, Suleimani, the shadowy Qods Force commander behind 

Jaysh al-Mahdi’s activities, had come to the conclusion 

that Iranian interests would be better served if Maliki 

remained in power. With his sanction, Sadr negotiated 

another cease-fire, allowing Iraqi forces to enter the 

city and occupy the nearby port of Umm Qasr.

The cease-fire did not bring an end to fighting in 

Baghdad however, as on 23 March Jaysh al-Mahdi began to fire 107-mm. rockets into the Iraqi government 

complex in the International Green Zone, which was lo-

 Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki

U.S. Air Force
86

cated about six kilometers southwest of the Mahdi base 

in Sadr City. Meanwhile, Madhi Army fighters began 

to overrun Iraqi security force checkpoints throughout 

the district and along its borders. Like Al Basrah, Sadr 

City remained a festering ulcer of extremist activity 

despite the successful inroads achieved by the surge 

offensives of the previous fifteen months. Thus, while 

Fardh al-Qanoon had secured most of the capital city 

and ended much of the sectarian violence that had 

nearly torn it apart, Sadr City, thanks in no small part 

to Maliki’s prohibition of coalition activity there, remained a Jaysh al-Mahdi stronghold. By 2008 however, 

the Sadrists no longer held the political sway over the 

Maliki government that they had just a year earlier, 

giving the prime minister greater freedom of maneuver against Sadr City. Consequently, by the spring of 

2008, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey W. Hammond’s 4th Infantry Division, which had replaced Fil’s 1st Cavalry Division as 

the coalition headquarters in Baghdad, began to make 

preparations for a final showdown with the Shi’ite militia forces. 

General Hammond ordered Col. John Hort’s 3d 

Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, to seize 

the rocket launch sites in the district’s southern areas 

and then advance into the neighborhood to clear Jaysh 

al-Mahdi fighters and neutralize the area as a site for 

launching further attacks throughout the Iraqi capital. 

Clearing Sadr City, a district encompassing over twentyone square kilometers and with a population of 2.4 million inhabitants, was a significant challenge for a single 

brigade. However, the battle demonstrated the potent 

combat power contained within the new modular brigade command team. Hort’s force included a combined 

arms battalion, the 1st Battalion, 68th Armored Regiment; an infantry battalion, the 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment; a Stryker cavalry unit, the 1st Squadron, 

2d Cavalry Regiment; and support forces from a brigade 

support battalion and special troops battalion, as well 

as a company each of engineers, explosive ordnance disposal personnel, and civil affairs teams. The brigade was 

also able to draw on ample unmanned aerial vehicles for 
87

close air support, including two MQ–1 Predator drones 

armed with Hellfire missiles, RQ–7B Shadow drones, six 

AH–64 Apaches, and Air Force fighter jets.

On 26 March 2008, Hort’s forces began the offensive 

to clear Sadr City. Striking from the northwestern and 

southern approaches to the district, the 3d Brigade, 4th 

Infantry Division, encountered unexpectedly heavy resistance in its initial effort to seize the neighborhood’s 

southern communities of Ishbiliyah (also called Jamila) 

and Habbibiya. Using M1 tanks and M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, the brigade cut southeast across Sadr City, 

along a series of roads code-named Route Gold. To prevent additional infiltration south, brigade engineers constructed a wall along a section of the route designated 

Phase Line Gold, thus robbing Jaysh al-Mahdi of the 

forward positions from which they had conducted rocket attacks against the Green Zone. In total, the effort to 

seize the southern neighborhoods and build the wall took 

about six weeks. By the time the twelve-foot tall barrier was finished, Jaysh al-Mahdi fighters had exhausted 

themselves trying to prevent the wall’s construction in a 

battle of attrition. To finish off the militia, the 4th Infantry Division launched an elaborate aerial operation combining drones, attack helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft 

in order to conduct continuous surveillance and maintain 

unceasing pressure on enemy forces. (See Map 9.)

Unable to keep the Coalition out of Sadr City, Moqtada al-Sadr once again declared a cease-fire on 12 May 

and ordered Jaysh al-Mahdi to stand down. The Coalition, with Iraq forces in the lead, had been conducting 

a range of civil affairs and reconstruction efforts in the 

areas south of Phase Line Gold. Robbed of popular support and exhausted by the constant fighting, Jaysh alMahdi’s hold on the rest of the district began to collapse, 

with many of the militia’s leaders fleeing the city. Eight 

days later Iraqi troops occupied the remainder of the 

former militia stronghold.

The spring offensives against Jaysh al-Mahdi were 

a significant turning point of the surge campaign. Both 

campaigns demonstrated that much work remained 

with regards to the Iraqi Army; in both Al Basrah and 
88

Sadr City, regular army units often broke formation and 

ran in the face of persistent militia resistance. The Iraqis were heavily reliant on American aerial and logistical support as well. Nevertheless, the fact that Prime 

Minister Maliki, a committed Shi’ite politician, took the 

fight to the most powerful Shi’ite militia in Iraq was a 

promising turn of events. General Petraeus and his predecessor, General Casey, both recognized that success 

in Iraq would only come when Iraqi leaders undertook 

initiatives in the name of national, rather than sectarian, interests. Certainly, the spring offensives had as 

much to do with Maliki’s concerns about losing power 

as they did with strengthening the Iraqi state. But the 

two were not necessarily exclusive, especially in the unstable months of early 2008. Had Maliki failed, his government would likely have fallen. A major victory for 

Jaysh al-Mahdi would also have potentially undermined 

the gains achieved the previous year against al-Qaeda 

in Iraq. A protracted war against the Shi’ite militia had 

the potential to throw Iraq into sectarian violence once 

again. Luckily, thanks in no small part to U.S. support 

in Al Basrah and the 4th Infantry Division’s successful 

campaign against Sadr City, Maliki was able to ensure 

the survival of his government and dramatically weaken 

Jaysh al-Mahdi. The summer of 2008 was consequently 

far less violent than the bloody spring and summer of 

2007. 

The surge officially came to an end in December 

2008. However, as the political scientist Eliot Cohen 

once remarked, “Outcomes in irregular warfare are blurry; these wars end not with a bang, but with a haggle.” 

The campaign wound down in phases. The surge brigades, whose deployment the Bush administration had 

announced with significant fanfare in January 2007, 

gradually withdrew from Iraq between March and June 

2008: the 2d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, in March; 

the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, in April; the 2d 

and 3d Brigades of the 3d Infantry Division in May; and 

the 4th Brigade, 2d Infantry Division, a Stryker unit, 

in June. In spring of 2008 new forces rotated into Iraq, 

but not as many as had been needed the previous year. 
1 68

I I

1 2

I I

JAM

JAM

JAM

JAM

P L G O L D

P L G O L D

Army Canal

Jamila Market

Ishbīliyah

Habbibiya

RUSAFA

9 NISSAN

ADHAMIYAH

SADR CITY

SADR CITY OPERATIONS

BAGHDAD

26 March–14 April 2008

U. S. Attack

Jaysh al-Mahdi Militia

Wall

0

0 1 2 Miles

1 2 Kilometers

JAM

Map 9
90

Meanwhile, U.S. forces continued to root out AQI cells in 

northern Iraqi cities such as Mosul. That summer and 

fall, Special Operations Forces carried out cross-border 

raids into Syria against al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu 

Ghadiya, who was ultimately killed in a raid into Syria 

just across from the Iraqi city of Al Qa’im.

In September, General Petraeus handed over command of MNF–I to his former subordinate, General Odierno, now on his third tour in Iraq. Petraeus in turn became 

the commanding general of CENTCOM. As Odierno took 

command, the Bush administration worked to formulate 

a new status of forces agreement that would codify American-Iraqi relations beyond the end of Bush’s presidency. 

The effort to create the agreement in many ways constituted the final act of the surge campaign. It also demonstrated how dramatically the situation in Iraq had turned 

as a result of the reduction in violence. Emboldened by his 

successes against Jaysh al-Mahdi, Maliki held firm and 

insisted that the United States agree to a specific date to 

withdraw all forces from Iraq. Eager to conclude a settlement to ensure U.S. forces would remain in the country 

past his presidency, Bush acquiesced, agreeing to the withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq’s cities by the end 

of June 2009 and from the country entirely by the end of 

2011. On 27 November 2008, the Iraqi parliament ratified the accord and the two countries formally signed the 

agreement in Baghdad on 14 December. 

Analysis

The cost of the surge was high. Over 1,200 U.S. servicemen and women died between 10 January 2007 and 

the end of December 2008, about a quarter of the total 

Americans killed throughout the eight-year-long Iraq 

War. Over 8,000 Americans were wounded. The Army 

bore the brunt of the American losses; 1,012 soldiers 

were killed in the campaign, 931 from the Active Component, 62 from the Army National Guard, and 19 from 

the Army Reserve. About 6,700 soldiers were wounded 

in the fighting. Iraqi security forces casualties were 
91

about 2,900 killed while over 33,000 Iraqi civilians died 

in the course of the campaign. Most of these casualties 

were incurred in the first half of 2007. By the middle of 

the year, the incidences of civilian deaths and insurgent 

attacks started to drop. Between August 2006 and December 2007, the average number of civilians killed a 

month in Iraq fell from over 1,700 to 500. The fatality 

rate continued to decline over the course of 2008. 

Three major causes contributed to the drop in violence. The first was President Bush’s decision to put the 

brakes on the transition strategy and instead pursue a 

more rigorous effort to provide security to Iraq’s civilians. This necessitated an expanded American force and 

a renewed U.S. commitment to defeating extremist elements that had been tearing Iraq apart ever since the 

Al-Askari Mosque bombing. The second factor was the 

Multi-National Force–Iraq’s new operational approach 

that balanced securing the major population centers 

with aggressive counterinsurgency offensives against 

al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jaysh al-Mahdi, and other extremist 

forces. Most of the elements of General Petraeus’ operational design, such as the use of joint security stations, 

an emphasis on protecting the population, and clearing 

operations, had been carried out by American units during General Casey’s tenure as commander in Iraq. However, the Bush administration’s decision to abandon the 

transition strategy along with the addition of five new 

brigades allowed Petraeus to implement a coordinated 

and comprehensive counterinsurgency effort across the 

country with resources that were not available to coalition commanders up to that point in the war. While some 

analysts have characterized the surge as a shift from 

killing insurgents to protecting the people, it is more 

accurate to define the new approach as killing insurgents and protecting the people. The surge granted the 

Coalition the necessary combat strength to both patrol 

and secure major urban areas like Baghdad while also 

taking the fight into the belts that surrounded the Iraqi 

capital. Cut off from their safe houses outside Baghdad 

and their networks inside the capital, insurgent cells 

were quickly destroyed over the course of 2007 and their 
92

ability to carry out major attacks against civilian and 

coalition targets dramatically diminished.

On its own, however, the addition of 30,000 American 

troops would not have allowed MNF-I to clear and secure 

Iraq’s urban centers while simultaneously carrying out 

offensive operations against insurgent forces. Thus, the 

Al Anbar Awakening proved to be the third significant 

factor contributing to the surge campaign’s success. The 

decision made by many of the Al Anbar Province’s tribes 

to turn against AQI and other extremist forces occurred 

months before the surge campaign. However, General Petraeus’ decision to support the Awakening in Al Anbar 

and back similar Iraqi-led initiatives against al-Qaeda 

in Iraq across the rest of the country was a critical decision. Having driven much of the Iraqi population into an 

alliance with the Americans, AQI had effectively robbed 

itself of the infrastructure and local support needed to 

plan and stage major attacks against Iraq’s large population centers.

Throughout the campaign, the Army proved itself to 

be an agile organization capable of learning in the field. 

General Petraeus’ arrival as commander and his new 

strategic focus infused the U.S. forces with a renewed 

energy and vigor. Nevertheless, success was incumbent 

on the ability of field commanders to translate Petraeus’ broad strategic guidance into effective operations 

and tactics. This often required patience on the part of 

small-unit leaders. General Odierno, for example, observed that units needed to acquire a solid understanding of the cultural and social dynamics of their area of 

operations before they could devise an effective means 

for providing security. “You have to first come in, you 

have to understand the area you are operating in, and 

that, in my mind, takes somewhere between sixty and 

ninety days at a minimum.” Colonel Townsend, whose 

Stryker unit would serve across Iraq from 2006 into 

2007, noted in April 2007 that “there’s just some stuff 

you got to learn when you get to Iraq.” Sometimes acquiring a greater understanding of their areas of operation led commanders to undertake operations at a variance with Petraeus’ overall focus on population security. 
93

For example, General Lynch’s decision to order his 3d 

Infantry Division to carry out large-scale aerial assaults 

and sweeps across Baghdad’s southern belt was driven 

largely by the recognition that he simply did not have 

enough forces to both secure the population and destroy 

al-Qaeda in Iraq and Jaysh al-Mahdi.

While the surge was an operational and tactical success, its strategic achievements were more limited. The 

surge’s main objective had been to reduce incidences of 

violence in order to give the Iraqi government breathing 

space. The Americans hoped that the Iraqi leadership 

would use this window of opportunity to build a more 

inclusive government that would govern in the name of 

all Iraqis. However, while the surge helped to dampen 

the sectarian war that nearly destroyed Iraq in 2006, it 

U.S. Army Spec. Jonathan Morris, a soldier with the 1st Squadron, 75th Cav- alry Regiment, 2d Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, patrols a 

street in Baghdad’s Gazaliyah District on 19 September 2008.

U.S. Army
94

could not eradicate the tensions and institutional weaknesses that had fanned the violence in the first place. 

Emboldened by his success against Jaysh al-Mahdi at Al 

Basrah and continually wary of the Al Anbar Awakening movement, Prime Minister Maliki continued to govern Iraq as a parochial leader concerned largely with 

the interests of the country’s Shi’ites, at the expense of 

its Sunni Arabs, Kurds, and other population groups. 

The Iraqi security forces remained firmly Shi’ite organizations, alienating the country’s Sunnis. The success of 

the surge also convinced Maliki that he did not require 

American forces to govern and secure Iraq, contributing 

to his reticence to maintain a continued U.S. troop presence in the country past the promised 2011 withdrawal 

date. However, many of these strategic problems were 

outside the control of General Petraeus and the U.S. 

forces in Iraq. 

Nevertheless, the Army’s efforts during the surge 

went a long way to shifting the course of the Iraq War. By 

reducing sectarian violence, defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq, 

stemming the influence of Jaysh al-Mahdi, and maintaining security throughout the country, the soldiers who 

carried out the surge demonstrated considerable agility 

and versatility as they adapted to an ever-changing irregular fight against a wide array of insurgent groups. 

Having won Maliki’s government breathing space, the 

Army now set about continuing its efforts to help Iraq 

provide for its own security after the withdrawal of U.S. 

forces. It would not be an easy task.
95

THE AUTHOR

Nicholas J. Schlosser is a historian at the U.S. Army 

Center of Military History where he specializes on the 

Iraq War. He holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, College Park. His publications include 

Cold War on the Airwaves: The Radio Propaganda War 

against East Germany (2015), U.S. Marines and Irregular Warfare, Training, and Education, 2000–2010 (2015), 

and The Battle for Al-Qaim and the Campaign to Secure 

the Western Euphrates River Valley, September 2005–

March 2006 (2013).

FURTHER READINGS

Andrade, Dale. Surging South of Baghdad: The 3d 

Infantry Division and Task Force Marne in Iraq, 

2007–2008. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of 

Military History, 2010.

Bailey, Beth and Richard H. Immerman, eds. Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

New York: New York University Press, 2015.

Ballard, John R. From Storm to Freedom: America’s 

Long War with Iraq. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute 

Press, 2010.

Mansoor, Peter R. Surge: My Journey with General 

David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War. 

New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2014.

Ricks, Thomas E. The Gamble: General David Petraeus 

and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–

2008. New York: The Penguin Press, 2009.

Woodward, Bob. The War Within: A Secret White House 

History, 2006–2008. New York: Simon & Schuster, 

2008.

For more information on the U.S. Army in Iraq, please 

read our other titles in the U.S. Army Campaigns in Iraq series published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History 

(www.history.army.mil).
IRAQI SURGE 2007–2008

PIN: 201357-000