In the Middle of a Perilous Peace

by | Dec 5, 2008 | Afghanistan, Hearts & Minds, Military, The Iraqi War, War On Terror | 12 comments

Posted by Wordsmith on 5 December, 2008 at 12:57 pm. 12 comments already!

       

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On the Horizon
A U.S. Army Soldier from Charlie Troop, 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division out of Ft. Lewis, Wash., patrols a village during an operation south of Baqubah, Iraq, Oct. 4, 2007. U.S. Air Force photo

Michael Yon in November traveling with soldiers of the 2-4 Alpha of the 10th Mountain Division:

We rumbled into various neighborhoods in south Baghdad. Nothing was going on. No gun battles. No mushroom clouds from car bombs or IEDs. I wore the headset and the incessant radio alerts about units fighting here or there were completely absent. In the old days, while the Iraq war was hot, there was constant chatter about fighting, car bombs, snipers, name it. Today, there were no alerts at all. There was more chatter about the Kenyan sitting in front of me who had been in the Army for a couple years. The other soldiers said he should get automatic citizenship for volunteering to fight, and we all agreed. The soldier came straight from Kenya into our Army. Did not even pass GO, and suddenly was in Iraq.

On another day, I had lunch with a soldier from Ghana. He told me that Ghana has the same constitution as the United States, and that he was proud to join the American Army. He had become an American, to which I said, “Welcome aboard.” He had one of those Ghana accents and was black as coal. By the time he finished telling me about his homeland, I was sold on wanting to travel there someday.

“Are Americans welcome?” I asked.

“Sure!” He seemed to think the question was humorous for its simplicity about Ghana. He said that American soldiers in Ghana are treated like kings, and if anyone gives a hassle, a U.S. soldier has only to show his military ID, and the clouds all disappear. The soldier from Ghana told me that when he goes home on leave, the police actually salute him because he joined the American army. I was incredulous, and asked for reassurance, “Really?! They salute you?”

“Yes,” he said, with that funny Ghana accent. “They Salute American soldiers in Ghana! They love America and many Americans retire there.”

Sounded like Kurdish Iraq, where the kids ask soldiers for autographs, and even ask interpreters for autographs if they work for American soldiers.

Why al Qaeda has lost legitimacy, thanks to the war in Iraq:

I still find people in America, Nepal, Thailand, UAE and other countries who believe al Qaeda propaganda that they attack us because we support Israel or occupy Muslim holy land. This would not explain the decapitated Iraqi children I photographed when locals told me al Qaeda did it. This would not explain the Iraqi children al Qaeda has blown up, or the Afghans and Pakistanis killed by al Qaeda, or the Africans who are murdered by the same cult of serial killers. Did those decapitated children in the Iraqi village even know where America or Israel are? What about the Shia mosques they destroyed in Iraq? Were they occupying Saudi Arabia or supporting Israel?

Read the whole dispatch.

Michael Yon has recently been very optimistic about the current path to stability in Iraq, declaring the “war over” in Iraq as far back as July, and re-affirming it last month. Michael Totten has been more cautious and reserved, while noting that “pessimists have been losing the argument in Iraq ever since General David Petraeus radically transformed the American counterinsurgency strategy”. Recently, he made a return to Baghdad, and has a more somber view, which includes the need to insure that Iraq remains on the right course, by keeping an American footprint in Iraq longer than 16 months:

BAGHDAD – For the past two weeks I’ve been embedded with the United States Army in Baghdad, and I find myself unable to figure out what to make of this place. Baghdad, despite the remarkable success of the surge, is as mind-bogglingly run-down and dysfunctional as ever, even compared with other Arabic countries. Iraq is a dark place. At times it feels like a doomed country that has only been temporarily spared the reckoning that is coming. Other times it is possible to look past the grimness and see progress beyond the mere slackening off of violence and war. Is Iraq truly on the mend, or has a total breakdown been merely postponed? Opinions here among Americans and Iraqis are mixed, but nearly everyone seems to agree about one thing at least: terrorists and insurgents will respond with a surge of their own in the wake of the upcoming withdrawal of American forces.

Sergeant Nick Franklin took me to meet an Iraqi woman named Malath who works with the local Sons of Iraq security organization in the Adhamiyah district of Baghdad. When I asked her if she thought her area was ready to stand on its own without American help, she bluntly answered “Of course not.” She doesn’t think Iraq needs another year or two or even three. She thinks it will need decades. “We won’t be ready until young people replace the older generation in the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police. They need to replace the old Baath Party members who are still inside.”

Her view is the darkest. But Iraqis who think the job should only require a few more years are still pessimistic about what they think is likely to happen when the negotiated Status of Forces Agreement goes into effect and American troops withdraw from Iraqi cities in 2009. “We’ve seen hell,” an Iraqi intelligence source said when I met him in his house. “And that hell, if the American forces evacuate, will repeat. If Obama forces an evacuation from Iraq soon, everything will turn against him in this land.”


Read more…

Headline title for this post inspired by From Counterinsurgents to Peacekeepers

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Obama has made promises to evacuate based on what the American people what and in the best interest of American. Is the answer to their problems to stay over their forever? the liberal illuminati have a point when it comes to war. I think they need a better place but they have a point.

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We still have troops in Bosnia. Granted not too many now, but how about bringing them home?

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Is it in our best interest to stay in Japan, Korean, Germany?

Probably. We have had 60+ years of perspective in some of those places.

I wish I will live another 50 years to see what happens with Iraq.

I have been following Yon thru his website for the past year. Even sent him a couple buck after reading his “Moment of Truth…” book.

Cheers—

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i love reading the accounts of the people who are actually there and are seeing things and not using the situation as propaganda. to hear what the average peron in iraq thinks of our nation, how they feel we have/hurt their nation. i trust that more than andrea mitchell reporting with obama’s campaign stop. i like to hear there are nations out there that love america more than the democrats do, it makes me have hope for not only our nation, but our way of life. thank you to all of the brave men and women who put on their unifroms everyday to defend our way of life.

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Yon does a great service to those who want the truth good or bad. Wish we had more like him. Michael Totten is another good one to follow.

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(McClatchy) The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs, the Pentagon’s acting inspector general charged Tuesday.

The IG’s report says that the military knew years before the war that mines and homemade bombs, which the military calls “improvised explosive devices,” would be a “threat . . . in low-intensity conflicts” and that “mine-resistant vehicles” were available.

“Yet the military did not develop requirements for, fund or acquire” safer vehicles, the report says. The military invaded Iraq in 2003 “without having taken available steps to acquire technology to mitigate the known mine and IED risk to soldiers and Marines.”

Even after the war was under way, as the devices began taking a deadly toll and field commanders pressed for vehicles that were better protected from roadside bombs, the Pentagon was slow to act, the report says.

After the IG’s report became public the Pentagon announced it would order towards 10,000 more MRAPs for the Army and Marines. A further note that needs emphasis is this report is only looking at Marines, not the Army; notably the report for the Army will likely be even more scathing.

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Confederate Yankee:

A vehicle that can withstand IEDs built from artillery shells is going to be too heavy (14 tons in some variations) to leave the main roads or even cross many of the world’s bridges. The has two significant and lasting effects. It cedes the majority of territory to the insurgents, and also creates targeting funnels where ambushes can be concentrated, increasing the likelihood of Marines being hit by IEDs.

When insurgents know that they face a vehicle with limited mobility, they can then concentrate on building bigger or more effective types of IEDs to defeat that specific vehicle, while simultaneously using the majority or their forces to dominate the surrounding towns and villages.

Historically, the Marines have always chosen mobility over armor, using speed, tenacity, and tactics to overwhelm opposing forces with weapons systems lighter armed and armored than that of their more heavily armed and armored Army counterparts.

It is true that some Marines who died in HMMWVs because of IED strikes may very well have survived strikes by similar weapons on MRAPs, but at what cost?

Would they have had the mobility to strike al Qaeda and insurgent supply lines running though remote areas of the country, or find weapons caches located on farms and in fields far away from the hardened roads that MRAPs require?

Could Marines have penetrated communities and established relations with friendly Iraqis to develop a counterinsurgency program while hiding inside these metal beasts? The answer to these questions is a resounding “no.”

MRAPs are great vehicles for their intended purpose of protecting their occupants against IEDS, but their mobility is horrific, and cedes the majority of the battlefield to the enemy, leaving the enemy to pick the time and place of engagement with American forces.

In short, an early deployment of MRAPs into the Iraqi theater of operations may have saved some lives in the short run, but it would have crippled the Marines ability to take the fight to the enemy and put the insurgency on the defensive.

MRAPS and similar vehicles have a time and a place, as does every weapons system, but they are not nearly mobile enough to be as useful in an offensive war against a lightly armed and mobile enemy as are the lighter and less armored HMMWV.

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. Even Army soldiers used to more heavily armored equipment find the MRAPtoo heavy and slow:

And so we rolled out of FOB Falcon in those giant MRAPs. It seems that most of the seriously experienced combat soldiers do not like MRAPs. Yes, MRAPs are great for the main roads and convoys, but they are too big and too cumbersome, and they get stuck in mud that you could peddle a bicycle through. MRAPs are not offensive vehicles. There is no doubt MRAPs can save lives – they’re like giant vaults on wheels, though I did see the wreckage of one in Afghanistan that had been nearly obliterated. When we’re on the main roads, I love MRAPs, but we will never win wars or major battles with those things, or by staying on main roads. MRAPs need good roads. Good roads are bomb magnets. In Afghanistan, many of the Taliban scoot around on motorcycles, and there is no doubt that mobility is a weapon. We should melt most of the MRAPs down and forge that metal into killing machines like Strykers. The combat vets from 10th Mountain that day were also not fans of MRAPs. And though it’s easy to find MRAP-lovers, the hardcore fighters seem to want more mobility than steel.

Marines encumbered by MRAPs cannot take the battle to the enemy, and Marines that can’t take the battle to the enemy will not win wars.

CNN’s article is a poorly-researched hit piece designed to attack the credibility and judgement of the Marine Corps.

Perhaps before questioning the judgment of others, they should start by looking at their motivations and biases first.

Totten has updated with two posts, btw.

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“What the author of this CNN article fails to explain is that you can have either mobility, or you can have armor; you can’t have both.” -C.Y

— false dilemma. There is disagreement over a lighter vs. heavier footprint, yet both are mobile. Furthermore, Marine commands even tired to have both: they started fortifying hummers with steel plating.

Additionally, not all MRAPS are the same:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/army_mrap_072808w/

Secondly, when welding plate steel to hummers didn’t work, the battlefield commanders asked for MRAP vehicles to replace Humvees– yet they were not given them. —“Odd” that they chose welding ‘armor’ to humvees over ‘mobility.’

Third, why is the Pentagon now giving Marines thousands more MRAPs for Afghanistan, a place where the terrain calls for them to be even more mobile?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/09/AR2008120901425.html

Fifth, listen to the DoD stuttering/stumbling on the question of Marine ‘neglect’ in the IG’s report:

My question is this: Could this report be used as kind of evidence of the secretary’s repeated complaints that this building focuses too much on the next war and not on the current conflict?

MR. MORRELL: Well, I — without sort of getting sucked into that, I would — I’d say this, Tony. That, you know, we — listen, let’s remember, this report was asked for by the Marines [It was actually demanded due to an internal Marine report that accused the leadership of “gross mismanagement”]. You know, it was — they had full cooperation from this department. And we welcome any report that helps us better understand how to meet the needs of the commanders and our troops in the field as quickly as possible. We clearly need to do — we clearly can improve on that. The secretary has been pushing that, but there’s still room for improvement. And so we welcome this report in that sense.

I just take issue with the notion that somehow there was negligence on their part of the department. I know that term wasn’t used, but that’s sort of the inference I draw from that one set of inflammatory bit that you quote from.

And it wouldn’t be the first — first time, though, Tony, in which this department has taken issue with something that the IG has written. I’m not breaking new ground here.

But I think that — I think that we certainly feel comfortable with the actions that have been taken since May of 2006 (sic2007) to get the MRAP to as many troops as need them. And now you see a huge effort being made to get more MRAPs to Afghanistan, where we’re seeing an increased need, including moving some that are no longer needed in Iraq to Afghanistan, including buying more.

Now we’re looking to build a lighter MRAP, to — so it’s ideally suited for our forces in Afghanistan. This is a challenge to physics, though, because you want a vehicle that’s just as strong, but lighter so it can deal with the terrain there. But that’s where we are.

Q You meant May ’07, didn’t you? You said May ’06.

MR. MORRELL: Yeah, I originally said May ’06, then I corrected myself. But did I do it again? I’m sorry — May ’07. Thank you for protecting me.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4329

In the end, CY doesn’t even mention the IG’s report; he’s more interested in straw-manning CNN’s peice and baiting the reader; CNN’s piece is similar to hundreds of other news organizations reflections on the IG’s report.

CY also doesn’t mention the Marine leaders “stopped processing” an urgent request in February 2005 for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles from combat commanders in Iraq’s Anbar province after declaring that a more heavily armored version of existing Humvee vehicles was the “best available” option for protecting troops. And it wasn’t until Gates arrived in ’07 of june that he made MRAP’s his top priority.

By CY’s logic all news organizations and the IG’s report are demonizing the Marines. It may explain why Word could not find a reputable counter-argument to the IG’s report and had to hobble to CY’s blog to find his “answer”.

More here, with links:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-12-08-mrap_N.htm

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(BBC) A suspected suicide bomber has killed at least 47 people at a restaurant near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, police say.

Around 102 people were injured in the explosion at the Kurdish restaurant, some 5km (three miles) north of the city, police told the BBC.

The blast came as Muslims celebrated the Eid-al-Adha holiday.

Families were eating lunch in the Abdullah restaurant, located on the main road to Irbil, when it happened.

A suicide bomber activated an explosives belt in the middle of the restaurant, officials and at least one witness say, although one interior ministry official was quoted as saying a car bomb was the cause.

There were also unconfirmed reports that Kurdish officials were also in the restaurant having lunch with Arab tribal leaders at the time.

A branch of the same restaurant in Kirkuk was itself hit by a car bomb last year, with 25 people killed.
——

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It may explain why Word could not find a reputable counter-argument to the IG’s report and had to hobble to CY’s blog to find his “answer”.

Actually, I was too busy to care much, as I never quite know what the point of your comments are when all you do is paste news items. What was your point in relation to the topic, here? I skimmed your comment and saw you were reporting on the latest news item of the day, and knew CY had posted on this as well.

You might as well rehash old arguments regarding not enough body armor and Walter Reed. What’s your point? How does it relate to the battle in Iraq, winding down?

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@sanjay #9: Again, what’s your point? You’re merely doing what MSM has been so good at for 5 years.

Nothing in this post suggests that what we are witnessing is cotton-candy clouds over Baghdad and fuzzy bunnies prancing through the tulip fields.

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