Petraeus 'Gets It'

There is a good chance that things will improve in Iraq, now that General David Petraeus is in charge of the US military. What took us so long to get to this point? Based on Gen Petraeus' previous successes, he should have been the top man at least 3 years ago.

Newsweek speaks of a do-over. And the likelihood that under the new Petraeus plan for Iraq, we're going to be there a long time. It's frustrating to me that we've spun our wheels with crap plans from non-thinking people for about 4 years now. But ineptitudes aside, I consider The Do-Over to be our only option.

Like only a few others, David Petraeus has been successful in combating the insurgency where he has tried it before. Thomas Ricks' stellar overview of our last few years in Iraq, entitled Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, points out that the adventure has had its bright spots. And Petraeus' tactics have been some of the best and most successful.

Gen. Petraeus took seriously the counter-insurgency tactics learned in Vietnam as he served over the 101st Airborne in Mosul in 2003. His maxim: Violence is a last resort.

Counter-insurgency (CI) realizes that the indigenous population is a crucial element to success. CI understands as best it can the culture and seeks to maintain human dignity at all costs. As opposed to anti-insurgency, which breaks in doors, points weapons at innocent people in a show of defiance, and rounds up all men in the area and carts them off to prison, CI understands that if you seek to understand, you will be understood.

CI realizes that constantly bringing the attack to the ever-elusive enemy is an exercise in frustration, which will only marginalize that portion of the populace that is your only hope for success. Anti-insurgency reaps ever smaller intelligence returns on its in-your-face investment. CI works among the people, learns the language, cultures, and frustrations, and seeks to help them overcome the problems that beset them--and inevitably gets far better intelligence information as to who the insurgents are. Where CI has been tried, two things have generally happened: (1) The place has gotten much more peaceful, and (2) the successful US military unit has been replaced by a unit that neither gives nor understands two cents about successful counterinsurgency tactics--and the place gets violent again.

Ricks provides an anecdote that captures the essence of Petraeus' engendering of success. When one of his brigade commanders heard of a rumor that Iraqi men thought American night-vision goggles could be used to see through Iraqi women's clothing, the commander had a town meeting where anyone who wanted to could look through the NVGs to see what they were really for. This generous act led to a a monthly convention of what came to be known as the Tigris River Valley Commission, which accomplished a great deal.

It's about time that they put Petraeus in charge. Imagine where we might be now if someone like him had been in charge from the beginning--someone who shows respect for the Iraqi people.

Petraeus and al Maliki Disagree? Get the Heck Outta Here!

The newspaper reported this morning that General David Petraeus' and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki's personalities are grating on each other. That is no surprise. Petraeus has an interest to see the Iraqi people succeed in their quest for liberty, while al Maliki has ever only had the interests of the Iraqi Shia' at heart. Updated 8/4/2007

I wonder what would happen if the Iraqi people did their genealogy. Some of the lines are probably already pretty well known. But I'd bet that they'd find in many cases that, regardless of whether they are now Sunni or Shia', somewhere along the line they are related. Is that what it might take to solve the problem of religious hatred in Iraq?

It sure doesn't seem to be working with Nouri al Maliki at the helm.

A key aide says Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's relations with Gen. David Petraeus are so poor the Iraqi leader may ask Washington to withdraw the overall U.S. commander from his Baghdad post.

Iraq's foreign minister calls the relationship "difficult." Petraeus, who says their ties are "very good," acknowledges expressing his "full range of emotions" at times with al-Maliki. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who meets with both at least weekly, concedes "sometimes there are sporty exchanges."

It seems less a clash of personality than of policy. The Shiite Muslim prime minister has reacted most sharply to the American general's tactic of enlisting Sunni militants, presumably including past killers of Iraqi Shiites, as allies in the fight against al-Qaida here.

An associate said al-Maliki once, in discussion with President Bush, even threatened to counter this by arming Shiite militias.

You mean like the ones he's already armed?

Just before I left Iraq in 2006, al Maliki became the Iraqi prime minister. All sorts of platitudes were offered, and I found myself somehow optimistic that al Maliki would make things happen. I shouldn't be surprised that I was wrong. Al Maliki seems to be a Shia first and an Iraqi last. It might have been easier if George Bush would have thought of nuances like these before we went running pell mell into Baghdad.

Maybe Petraeus should give Nouri al Maliki an ultimatum. Treat all Iraqis the same or we're outta here. Unfortunately, that's probably just what al Maliki and his Iranian compatriots want.

Update 8/4/2007 Harry Reid says the war is lost.

This [Iraq] war is lost," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has stated emphatically and without qualification. "There's simply no evidence that the escalation is working," he said recently. It requires "blind hope, blind trust" to believe in progress of any sort.

Maybe we should put him in charge of the US Forces in Iraq. Then again... General Petraeus says differently.

We have achieved . . . a reasonable degree of tactical momentum on the ground. Gains against the principal near-term threat, al Qaeda-Iraq, and also gains against what is another near-term threat, and also potentially the long-term threat, Shia militia extremists as well.

Being called a Shia extremist probably didn't sit well with Shia' extremist Nouri al Maliki. But you know, General Petraeus is right.

Wow! It Might Be Working!

Recent events in Iraq leave reason for optimism that we can ultimately be successful there. Civilian body counts are down. Car bombings are trending downward. And as is detailed here, civilians are providing more help to coalition troops as they develop relationships of trust.

I've stated here before that I don't think the Bush Administration has done a very good job in their plan for the post-invasion occupation of Iraq. I've also mentioned that I don't think adding 21,500 troops will improve much our ability to maintain security in the areas we have cleared in Iraq. I've mentioned my optimism that, if anything might work, it's the fact that General David Petraeus is now at the helm.

It may be a premature statement, but the Petraeus way of doing things appears to me to be paying dividends. In two recent incidents, increasing cooperation of Iraqi citizens has led to significant reductions in the ability of the insurgency to terrorize the Iraqi people.

Cybercast News Service reported today that

[] soldiers [] uncovered two underground rooms being used to store some 50 completed IEDs and materiel including grenades, end caps, blasting caps, welding equipment, 20 lbs. of bulk explosives, 200 bags of fertilizer and more than 1000 lbs. of urea, used with fertilizer in the production of car bombs. The rooms also contained shackles, apparently for restraining prisoners.

In another incident, an informant's tip led Iraqi police officers U.S. forces to a large cache of IEDs, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft rounds and other weaponry in the Baqubah area.

The idea of working with the civilian population to provide security (read: "Serving the People of Iraq") is the only way it's going to work. It appears that it just might be working. And a lot of the credit can likely go to General Petraeus. Said a US representative:

...the fact that the information leading to the raids was provided by local residents is an encouraging sign of the success of our efforts, based on increased presence of coalition forces in local neighborhoods, to build relationships and ties of confidence with Iraqi citizens.

Regarding the violence in Baghdad, an AFP report states

Iraq's spokesman for Fardh al-Qanoon, Brigadier General Qassim Atta al-Mussawi, at a separate press conference listed the successes of the security plan, involving 90,000 Iraqi and US forces.

"A total of 265 civilians and 57 militarymen, including nine officers, have been killed since the plan kicked off on February 14," Mussawi said. This compared with the preceding month when 1,440 people were killed.

He also said that 94 "terrorists" were killed by Iraqi and US forces since the launch of the plan, compared to 19 in the preceding month.

Security forces had arrested "713 terrorists and 1,052 terrorist suspects compared to 169 terrorists before the plan was put into action," Mussawi said.

The "Mini-Surge" is Showing Some Promise

For those who disagree with the Iraq war and the Bush Administration, one thing would improve the stock of our integrity--to admit that, despite our feelings one way or the other, the mini-surge is working in Iraq. Updated 8/4/2007

On today's edition of The Right Balance with Greg Allen, guest Daveed Gartenstein-Ross pointed out much more eloquently than I that a person lacks integrity when they let their politics color their opinion of what reality is. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current goings-on in the Iraq war. A lot of people are against the Bush Administration's handling of the Iraq War (including me), and they can't seem to admit when something goes right (not including me).

Michael E. O’Hanlon and Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution are now admitting that it is going right (H/T Utah Rattler).

Troop morale is higher than possibly ever.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Parts of Baghdad are looking better.

In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.

The north is seeing large-scale US troop reductions due to the success there. The Iraqis' greatest fear is that we will leave too soon.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

O'Hanlon and Pollack state (and I agree) that we can't stay there forever, but to leave too soon would be a travesty.

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

Investor's Business Daily weighs in on this subject as well.

It's now quite clear how the results of the surge will be dealt with by domestic opponents of the Iraq War: They're going to be ignored.

They're being ignored now. Virtually no media source or Democratic politician is willing to admit that the situation on the ground has changed dramatically over the past three months. Coalition efforts have undergone a remarkable reversal of fortune, a near-textbook example as to how an effective strategy can overcome what appear to be overwhelming drawbacks.

A cursory glance at 1943 would have given the impression of disaster: Kasserine, in which the German Wehrmacht nearly split Allied forces in Tunisia and sent American GIs running; Tarawa, where over 1,600 U.S. Marines died on a sunny afternoon thanks to U.S. Navy overconfidence; and Salerno, where the Allied landing force was very nearly pushed back into the sea.

But all these incidents, as bitter as they may have been, were necessary to develop the proper techniques that led to the triumphs of 1944 and 1945.

Someday, 2006 may be seen as Iraq's 1943. It appears that Gen. David Petreaus has discovered the correct strategy for Iraq: engaging the Jihadis all over the map as close to simultaneously as possible. Keeping them on the run constantly, giving them no place to stand, rest or refit. Increasing operational tempo to an extent that they cannot match, leaving them harried, uncertain and apt to make mistakes.

Update 8/4/2007 It appears that al Qaeda thinks quite highly of General Petraeus as well. The London Times reports:

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.

US Casualties Down in Iraq

It's a little early to tell, but it's interesting that US casualties are on pace for the lowest in any month in quite a while.

Cybercast News service is reporting:

Through the afternoon of October 15, the Defense Department reported that 15 U.S. military personal had been killed in Iraq since October 1. Thirteen of these were combat-related, while the other two were not. The most recent Defense-Department-reported death occurred on Oct. 12.

Last year -- during the same period -- 44 U.S. military personnel were killed in Iraq, all but two in combat-related incidents. That's more than three times the number of combat-related casualties now being reported for the first half of this October.

It sounds like the counter-insurgency tactics employed by General Petraeus are working, and that perhaps the MoveOn.org crowd was a bit premature in saying that he was betraying the US. Hmmm.....

CNSNews adds that

September 2007 marked a 14-month low in reported casualties: 68 U.S. military personnel were killed in Iraq, a drop in deaths the military credited to the 30,000 "surge" in troops that began in June. Among the 68 U.S. casualties in Iraq in September, 41 were from combat-related incidents.

It seems as well, from what I've been hearing on the radio, that car bombings are down, and the number of casualties from such bombings are down as well.

Sounds almost like a trend...or two.

With Abu Risha's Death, The Cheerleaders Are Jubilant

Hurray, the anti-war bigots are shouting. Abu Risha is dead! I find it hard to stomach that so many Americans do cartwheels when something goes wrong in Iraq. But they're doing it again. Their hope for failure in Iraq is palpable and pathetic.

Today in a car bomb explosion prepared by al Qaeda, Abdul Sattar abu Risha and some of his body guards were killed.

The assassination Thursday of the leader of the Sunni Arab revolt against al-Qaida militants dealt a setback to one of the few success stories in U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, but tribesmen in Anbar province vowed not to be deterred in fighting the terror movement.

American and Iraqi officials hoped the death of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha would not stall the campaign to drive al-Qaida in Iraq from the vast province spreading west of Baghdad and reconcile Sunnis with the Shiite-led national government.

And there was glee in the streets of anti-war America! Rob Kall of Op-Ed News gloats

"What's the bottom line to this killing,"- I asked.

Rowley answered, "It puts the lie to the statement that there's security in the region."-

"Bottom line," finishing my interview with Rowley, I said, "This is a charade, a chimera, this success which Petraeus portrays is actually something that will fall apart when the money stops coming in and could actually explode into far worse conflict, when the troops leave."

That statement is far from necessarily true, and can only be interpreted as a not-so-subtle hint of a hope of failure in Iraq.

The previous excerpt was from an interview Mr. Kall had with a so-called reporter in the region, a Rick Rowley, who clearly has an opinion and an axe to grind. Mr. Rowley's main sources, besides himself, for his claims are members of the al Dulaimi clan, who are know to have had serious disagreements with abu Risha.

As the Associated Press reported

"This is a criminal act and al-Qaida is behind it," said Sheik Jubeir Rashid, a senior member of Abu Risha's council. "We have to admit that it is a major blow to the council. But we are determined to strike back and continue our work. Such attack was expected, but this will not deter us."

Ali Hatem al-Sulaiman, deputy chief of the province's biggest Sunni tribe, said that if "only one small boy remains alive in Anbar, we will not hand the province over to al-Qaida."

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who had been reluctant to support Abu Risha, expressed "great sorrow" over the killing, but said he was confident "that this criminal act will strengthen the determination of Anbar people to wipe out the terrorists."

Meanwhile, someone who is constantly mingling with the military and with the Iraqis in Anbar and elsewhere, Michael Yon, has a completely different perspective. Here are some excerpts from his recent dispatches.

Back in 2005, many Iraqi Soldiers and Police preferred to hide their identities.Today it seems that most Iraqi Soldiers and Police want their photos taken. Their confidence is growing and their attitude toward the terrorists is increasingly one of being more the hunter than the hunted.

Shops in Anbar [are] reopening. Cigarettes [are] for sale. Just recently, al Qaeda was executing people who smoked, but this shop was selling cigarettes on the street.

To many of the Iraqis I’ve spoken with, terrorists are fair game. Kill them. But if we kill justice while doing so, we will create terrorists out of farmers. Here the Marines are creating farmers, police officers, shepherds, and entrepreneurs out of insurgents. To do that, they have to be seen as men who respect and honor legitimate systems of government and justice.

The sheiks of Anbar turned against al Qaeda because the sheiks are businessmen, and al Qaeda is bad for business. But they didn’t suddenly trust Americans just because they no longer trusted al Qaeda. They are not suddenly blood allies. This is business, and that’s fine, because if there is one thing America is good at, it’s business.

This conflict is often cast as either a battle between good and evil, or as a clash of religious ideologies, perspectives that fill cemeteries with brave souls willing to die for something they believe most fervently.

Reframed thus from a position of strength, this stage of the Anbar-war is more a sort of business transaction, where alliances beneficial to all sides—except al Qaeda—are formed. From this perspective, there is now a moment of genuine ground-floor opportunity in Anbar, if the people here can see that by doing business with the Coalition, everyone benefits—except al Qaeda, an exclusion that most can live with.

Politics often sucks. But beyond the politics are the people, in this case, the Iraqi people. Far beyond the news headlines, many stories are being made. Stories of success. Stories of friendship. Stories of improving lives.

I think I trust Michael Yon more than I trust Mr. Rowley.

I wish the anti-war cheerleaders would change their cheer for a while. Little by little, it's working. People's lives are better. Life in Anbar is improving.

The Best Reason to Get Rid of al Qaeda? Al Qaeda

Even the Democrats are conceding that things are looking better in Iraq. The reason that they are better is that as time goes on, more Iraqis see that the US Military has much more integrity than al Qaeda.

Even though accidental deaths are higher for the month of August, the death rate is still about that of July--part of a lower trend of US military deaths. Even considering the large scale killing in the otherwise peaceful northern Iraq this month, civilian deaths are maintaining their downward trend. Democrats in the US Congress are conceding that we're making progress. Why is this?

First of all because the surge is working. The general populace is being treated with more respect by the US military. The insurgents are getting their butts kicked. But there's another reason.

As the smoke begins to clear from the surge, Iraqis are beginning to see a distinctive difference between the US Military and al Qaeda. You can trust one but not the other. Michael Yon, who currently resides in Al Anbar, puts it this way:

Ironically, in Anbar Al Qaeda has become our best ally for killing al Qaeda. They’ve managed to do this directly, just by being al Qaeda. Despite the promised carrots, what Al Qaeda consistently delivered here was mostly stick, and with a special kind of hypocritical contempt that no sensible person would believe possible. (Not unlike the notion of baking the children of resistant parents or ordering shepards to diaper the corrupting genitals of goats.)

Al Qaeda has a management style—doing drugs, laying up sloppy drunk, raping women and boys, and cutting off heads, all while imposing strict morality laws on the locals—that makes it clear that they have one set of principles for themselves, and another for every one else.

In that kind of scheme, it didn’t take long before people in Anbar realized that any benefits from Al Qaeda having control would not be distributed equally. Once that realization spread, the tribal sheiks—almost all Sunni—had to consider the alternatives.

With the success of General Petraeus's plan, even some of the bigger fish are trying to call a truce. Captain's Quarters noticed this interesting development.

Earlier today, the Italian news service AKI reported that the presumed leader of the largest insurgency in Iraq will start cooperating with the Iraqi government. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, one of the highest-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's government, reportedly pledged to work with Iraqi and American forces to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Things have been improving, and they continue to do so. But it looks like our counterinsurgency tactics, which have been bearing fruit for quite some time now, are reaching critical mass. Hopefully, future improvements will be larger and/or more frequent.

al Qaeda is no good. They are not good Muslims. The Iraqis are starting to notice this en masse. Even a couple of Democrats have as well. What happens if things continue to improve? Democrats asking for Bush to serve a third term?

I Wouldn't Trust Muqtada al Sadr With a Ten-Foot Pole

Muqtada al Sadr has been a pain in America's butt from nearly the beginning of the occupation. He has taken many a trip to Tehran. So it wouldn't surprise me if his latest decision to call for a suspension of Mahdi Army operations for six months is a ploy.

But what about the new guy--Ammar Hakim?


Muqtada al Sadr is walking proof that the Iranians are involved in the Iraqi insurgency.

Paul Bremer wished that he had been successful in getting rid of al Sadr early on in the Iraqi occupation. The half-hearted way about which the attempt to do so was prosecuted caused al Sadr to gain an even greater following than he had before. He is still very well thought of among a large segment of the Shia population in Iraq. So it's not likely that he's up to much good when he asks for his Army to cease operations for six months. That can only mean trouble, especially when General David Petraeus is set to report on Operation Iraqi Freedom successes before congress next month.

The BBC says:

To some extent it may be merely a tactic aimed at distancing himself from the recent violence in Karbala.

It is certainly a tactic he has used before to distance himself from some of the worst excesses of the Mehdi Army.

But it is a puzzling and potentially risky move by the young Shia leader.

Puzzling because the very call for a re-organisation of the Mehdi army would seem to be an admission that he has lost control of it.

It's not that simple. One way or the other, the Mahdi Army will continue to fight. Now is the time for coalition forces and the Iraqi people to be most on their guard. Something is brewing.

Muqtada is all about power. He's all about himself. I wouldn't trust Muqtada al Sadr with a ten-foot Pole.

I'm not sure what to think of Ammar Hakim, another 30-something who is stepping into the limelight as leader of the Shia Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which got into fighting in Kerbala in the past few days with members of al Sadr's army. Hakim has been several times to Iran as well. But at least he talks a good talk:

"We are not agents of Iran," he said. He pointed out that it was his father who had encouraged Iran to open a dialogue with the United States about Iraq, and he said it was in Iraq's interests to maintain good relations with both countries.

He cautioned against a sudden drawdown of U.S. forces, saying it would be dangerous for Iraq. He said he supported a U.S.-sponsored bill to regulate the distribution of Iraq's massive oil wealth. And he expressed willingness to compromise with Sunni Arab politicians.

Based on his early hatred of Saddam (he was taught at age 4 to participate in the anti-Saddam forces) Hakim may see the light of what America is trying to help Iraq accomplish. Time will tell whether he contributes to peace and stability in Iraq. But we already know quite a lot about Muqtada al Sadr. So far, he hasn't. Do you suspect he's turning over a new leaf? Don't count on it.