Countering insurgency in Iraq
Subtitle: improving security policies and instruments
By: Stephen T. Hosmer, Olga Oliker.
Contributors: Oliker, Olga.
Publisher: RAND Corporation
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Santa Monica, CA
Language: eng
Subjects: Iraq War, 2003-; Insurgency -- Iraq.; Counterinsurgency -- Iraq.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
"MG-314"--CIP data view.
Table of contents: value: Recognize that the insurgency in Iraq is likely to be protracted; value: A multiplicity of groups and goals; value: A multiplicity of insurgent goals; value: Prospects and implications of a protracted conflict; value: Insurgents have largely been able to control and more than replace their losses; value: The insurgents have not been marginalized politically; value: Understand that improved intelligence will be a key to successful counterinsurgency; value: Actionable intelligence in Iraq has been poor; value: The insurgent threat has not lessened; value: U.S. forces have arrested many innocent persons; value: The impediments to acquiring actionable intelligence; value: Address the issues fueling opposition and inhibiting public cooperation; value: Make winning public support the centerpiece of counter-insurgency strategy; value: Ensure that elections are held as mandated; value: Make the elections a vehicle for rallying the Iraqi people to oppose the insurgents actively; value: Encourage the newly elected government to be inclusive and accommodating; value: Make restoring basic services and reducing unemployment high priorities; value: Accelerate the Iraqization process so that U.S. forces can be withdrawn at an early date; value: Minimize U.S. military actions that tend to alienate the Iraqi public; value: Avoid becoming inadvertent victims of "insurgent judo"; value: Build an effective Iraqi police service, special branch, and judicial system; value: Why the police deserve priority; value: Avoid overmilitarizing the counterinsurgency effort; value: Why the police are not ready; value: Make the training, equipping, and vetting of Iraq's police service a high priority; value: Expand the basic police mission to include intelligence collection on insurgents; value: Establish a special branch/type organization within the police service; value: Establish intelligence coordination and sharing structures; value: Establish local executive committees to integrate and manage counterinsurgency operations; value: Continue to reform Iraq's judicial and detention system; value: Be prepared to work with the police and judicial system over the long haul; value: Control infiltration and other external intervention; value: Iran and Syria are the greatest sources of interference; value: It is essential to bring external intervention under control; value: Mount a major diplomatic effort to induce Iraq's neighbors to restrain external intervention; value: Emphasize the risks of destabilization and the potential benefits of cooperation; value: Keep the klieg lights on external intervention; value: Promote a noninterference pact among Iraq's neighbors; value: Upgrade Iraq's border-control capabilities; value: Upgrade border police training; value: Ensure that border police and immigration officials are centrally controlled and sufficiently vetted, paid, and manned; value: Give the border police a robust intelligence capability; value: Provide the police with sufficient mobility and surveillance capabilities; value: Consider military support of the border police; value: Consider building a fence along the border with Syria; value: Make it more difficult for infiltrators to operate in Iraq; value: Degrade the infiltrators' support networks within Iraq; value: Make it easier to identify and track foreigners in Iraq; value: Deny insurgents internal sanctuary; value: Heed lessons from Vietnam; value: References.