The War as We Saw It

Baghdad - VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counter-insurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and non-commissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

This is VERY close to what I am hearing from the people I know that are IN Iraq, the guys that go outside the wire, the Intel guys, the ‘civilian contractors’ I know, from the REAL boots on the ground, not the FOBBITS, and you KNOW who you are, not from the Army wives that get their info from a base information officer (read propaganda officer), not from someone that never left the wire or fired a shot in anger or self defense, THIS is the same information I get from the real fighters, the guys that have their asses on the line every stinking day in Iraq, and the TRUTH isn’t a pretty picture…

Now you’re hearing it from infantrymen and non-commissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division and I guess there’s going to be some of the Bush Rah-Rah squad that are going to call them fakes, paid shills and so forth, all the normal accusations that they throw out every time someone criticizes Lord Bush and his massively disastrous war planning…

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

Iraq is already involved in a civil war, some refer to it as sectarian violence or an insurrection, call it what you like, it’s a civil war by ANY modern day definition, it’s just not as massively violent as it will be if and when we leave Iraq…

Iraq is nothing more than a powder keg being barely kept under control by U.S. forces, and I stress the word ‘barely’, in my previous story, Army Too Stretched if Iraq Buildup Lasts, I wrote about the supposedly exhausted U.S. forces that are stretched to the breaking point by the war in Iraq, and if the observations in that piece and this one are true, then we are barely able to keep the peace as it is, we’re keeping several factions from killing each other and we can trust NONE of them, and I DO include the elected government of al-Malaki, an ineffectual former war lord that has ‘peter principled’ himself into a corner, for those not familiar with the term, Peter Principle, plainly stated, is best defined as an hierarchy where every person in a position of leadership tends to rise to his level of incompetence, and that describes Bush to a ‘T’ as well…

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

And those familiar with my blog know that I have preached since the inception of the ‘Debacle in Iraq’ that NO war has been won by being the most PC participant, but we are past the WAR stage now and as this article goes on to say, it’s time for the Iraqis to step up and swing, it’s time for them to be in charge of their destiny, not us, them, it’s their nation and we have done all the damage we need to do, the fate of Iraq needs to handed to the Iraqis and we need to accept whatever happens TO Iraq after that point in time…

And the closing line of this story strikes a cord of true emotion with me and it speaks volumes concerning the dedication of our troops and their loyalty to carry out any mission this nation gives them, no matter their personal feelings…

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Best line in the entire story…

Full Story Here:
The War as We Saw It

A big H/T to The Ranando Report for sending this my way, great find…

Trackback URL:
http://texasfred.net/archives/457/trackback/