A little while ago, I was watching a special on the Normandy break-out during World War II which described the differences in strategy, tactics and style of various Allied commanders and troops.

It's interesting that the following quote from an article published yesterday was also probably uttered in 1944:

"The Brits are good but they don't have the extreme aggression that we do."

(Via Hot Air)

Key graph in an Anbar update from the NYT:

[T]he Americans were now fighting alongside people with a deep knowledge of the local population and terrain, and with a sense of duty, vengeance and righteousness.

RTWT.

Via Reynolds, who dubs it "surprisingly good news from Iraq. Especially surprising since it's via the New York Times."

Further analysis at Mudville Gazette.

This scathing critique of US general officers by an active duty Army Lt. Col. is pretty negative. I can't personally speak to the quality of the generals, but I agree with much of the rest of the piece - in principle, if not degree. I'll also note that many of the right strategies are coming into place at this late stage in the conflict. This is notable:

The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq's population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America's generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as "Fiasco" and "Cobra II." However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.

Given the lack of troop strength, not even the most brilliant general could have devised the ways necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. However, inept planning for postwar Iraq took the crisis caused by a lack of troops and quickly transformed it into a debacle. In 1997, the U.S. Central Command exercise "Desert Crossing" demonstrated that many postwar stabilization tasks would fall to the military. The other branches of the U.S. government lacked sufficient capability to do such work on the scale required in Iraq. Despite these results, CENTCOM accepted the assumption that the State Department would administer postwar Iraq. The military never explained to the president the magnitude of the challenges inherent in stabilizing postwar Iraq.

After failing to visualize the conditions of combat in Iraq, America's generals failed to adapt to the demands of counterinsurgency. Counterinsurgency theory prescribes providing continuous security to the population. However, for most of the war American forces in Iraq have been concentrated on large forward-operating bases, isolated from the Iraqi people and focused on capturing or killing insurgents. Counterinsurgency theory requires strengthening the capability of host-nation institutions to provide security and other essential services to the population. America's generals treated efforts to create transition teams to develop local security forces and provincial reconstruction teams to improve essential services as afterthoughts, never providing the quantity or quality of personnel necessary for success.

The author outlines motivating the majority of the American electorate as a precondition for success in a protracted conflict (more thoughts on that here). The pre-invasion Pentagon leadership might have recognized this, as their entire plan relied on decapitation of the regime followed by handing over security to Iraqi domestic agencies and relatively quick phased withdrawal. Unfortunately, as we now know, an already tattered Iraqi civil society - flimsily held together with institutional violence - dissolved and there was no Plan B, in either actions (authority to declare martial law, for example) or force structure (another 150,000 troops to plug into the conflict). The US strategy has been reactive and undermanned ever since.

Beyond limited personnel for counterinsurgency, the biggest problem I saw in Iraq was the (apparent lack of a) relationship between the US authorities and elements of the Iraqi bureaucracy. As systems and government institutions were handed over to Iraqis, there seemed little maintenance of American responsibility or even oversight. Thus, when various Iraqi kleptocrats deny fuel and/or pay to the Iraqi security forces that Americans and Iraqis are dying to build, where is the US influence to curb corruption? To ensure the delivery of fuel? To make sure Iraqi soldiers get paid? To make sure the rolls of Iraqi soldiers are actually full when they are slated to take over primary responsibility for a given battlespace?

It's possible that American personnel I'm unaware of are feverishly working on this problem, but the results of any such efforts seemed wholly inadequate.

The security forces, the Military and Police transition teams are doing great work, and the Iraqi Army (and police, nationally, to a lesser extent) shows great promise. But without enough American engagement to set up enduring government bureaucracies that function properly, the efforts are hampered. I think it's possible. But it takes time and personnel. Almost exclusive public focus is on the violence, but these are the pivotal challenges to winning this war, because the Iraqi Army (and police in certain areas) will fight for their country.

If I were able to return to Iraq, a focus would be assessing the relationship between American authorities and these dysfunctional Iraqi bureaucracies.

Related: This headlinesums it up well:

Top general in Iraq asks Congress for more time

Notable:

Petraeus called progress in the volatile western Anbar province "breathtaking"

I don't have the time nor expertise to address this recurring problem, so I'm nixing the comments section. If someone knows a permanent fix, e-mail me.

With this statement, Glenn Reynolds nails a very strong feeling I developed after experiencing Iraq:

I think they're more interested in November, 2008 than, well, anything else, including the welfare of the country.

Or the other country. Click for context, and this interview with Fred Kagan, freshly returned from Baghdad.

Nothing groundbreaking, but a good article from the WaPo:

BAGHDAD, April 21 -- Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said the ongoing increase of nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in the country has achieved "modest progress" but has also met with setbacks such as a rise in devastating suicide bombings and other problems that leave uncertain whether his counterinsurgency strategy will ultimately succeed.

Assessing the first two months of the U.S. and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital, senior American commanders -- including Petraeus; Adm. William J. Fallon, head of U.S. forces in the Middle East; Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of military operations in Iraq; and top regional commanders -- see mixed results. They said that while an increase in U.S. and Iraqi troops has improved security in Baghdad and Anbar province, attacks have risen sharply elsewhere. Critical now, they said in interviews this week, is for Iraqi leaders to forge the political compromises needed for long-term stability.

Read the rest for detail.

Notable:

It is virtually impossible to eliminate the suicide bombings, the commanders acknowledged. "I don't think you're ever going to get rid of all the car bombs," Petraeus said. "Iraq is going to have to learn -- as did, say, Northern Ireland -- to live with some degree of sensational attacks." A more realistic goal, he said, but one that has eluded U.S. and Iraqi forces, is to prevent the bombers from causing "horrific damage."

Michael Totten videblogs a police interrogation in Kirkuk:

"You hit him very exactly, it seemed," Patrick said. "You knew exactly how hard to hit him. His face wasn't damaged. I would have broken his nose."

Mam Rostam laughed. "He still seems like a teenager," he said. "We have to fight them a little bit, to teach them not to do dangerous things, just to stop them where they are. They need to be adjusted more than they need to be punished. So we're trying this stage with them first. If it doesn't work, then there is another issue."

"His teeth were still intact," Patrick said.

Mam Rostam laughed again. "Those slaps were advice," he said. "Because the city is unstable, we have to be a little bit violent with people to stop them. Otherwise they won't be afraid to do many other evil actions. We have to be a little bit severe."

Click to the post for video.

Below is the extended version of remarks by CAPT Joseph Lizarraga, a corrections officer on loan to the Fallujah Police Transition Team as they conducted recruiting day for the local cops. If you're interested in understanding Fallujah and Iraq as a whole, it's a must-watch.

Lizarraga and I had many interesting conversations, ranging from the religious radicalization of inmates in local detention camps, to the manner in which the press has misrepresented the story of the American detention system in Iraq, to management theory in the civilian world vs. the Marine Corps. But perhaps the issue we most agreed on was the failure of the media to present a contextual narrative about the war. Body counts and bombings sprinkled with human interest stories are indeed newsworthy and true, but they don't come close to adequately giving news consumers an overview of the complex story unfolding in Iraq.

To some extent I still blame the oft-criticized flaws of the media: ideological bias, market-driven sensationalism bias, paint-by-numbers bureau & local stringer reporting, etc. But I also gained a little empathy for MSM reporters, because having taken my own crack at contextual reporting from Iraq, I failed in certain respects. There are so many moving parts in Iraq, it's deceptively easy to get lost in either tiny details or 30,000 foot abstractions; painting a contextual picture that incorporates both as well as relevant points in between is very difficult. That said, overall, our professional media could try a lot harder.

Read More »

JD Johannes is blogging from Anbar, and files a lengthy sitrep on "the Awakening:"

The other point that flipped the Sheiks is the simple fact that no one except for the hard core jihadists want to live under Sharia law--which is all the jihadists have to offer.

The Sheiks, sub-sheiks, former military leaders including a hero of the Iran/Iraq war who lived in the Khalidiayah area began the process of standing up neighborhood watch check points.

The neighborhood watch is supported by the Police District and Mayor. The Marines keep a close eye on the volunteers who man the check points but have no official involvement in their activities.

The Anbar Awakening is allowing one of the key aspects of counter insurgency operations to begin--population control and control of movement in and out of areas.

Thanks to Bill Roggio, for his generous guidance through the entire embed process.

Thanks to the Marines and soldiers who took care of me and gave me access. Specifically, the guys at the Fallujah Police Transition Team, Military Transition Team 6 (as well as the teams at the FOBs), 1-2-4 Civil Affairs Group and Team Gator. Additional thanks to all of the helpful PAOs, including MAJ Pool, SSG Buckley, CAPT Duncan, 1LT King and 1LT Edwards.

Thanks to Mark Tapscott at the Examiner for accreditation with his fine paper.

Thanks to Val Prieto for his emergency editing help.

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Allah at Hot Air, Dean Esmay, Patterico, the Mr. & Mrs. @ Mudville Gazette, Bill Quick, Donnah, Jules Crittenden, the guys at Blackfive, Jeff Goldstein and all of the other numerous blogs that linked my work.

Thanks to Mary Katharine Ham and Bryan at Hot Air for video editing help.

Thanks to Michael Yon & Michael Fumento for answering my questions, as well as setting standards for excellent work.

And last but not least, thanks to all who donated. I sincerely needed and appreciate the support.

Michael Fumento is embedded again, this time in Afghanistan:

Originally I was told my assignment was in Kandahar province, but it isn't. Rather it's in Zabul Province, a Taliban gateway between Pakistan and Kandahar. The name of the base camp is FOF Lagman, just outside Qalat. Here's an overview of Lagman. Zabul is on the Pakistani border and relatively small so all of it is near the mountain passes that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will be coming through. "With its sparse population, insecure border with Pakistan and little central authority, Zabul is a fertile ground for insurgents fighting against the current Afghan government," according to Wikipedia.

Also see "Forgotten War, Shoestring War."

And, in case you missed it, be sure to read Yon at his best describing "British Forces at War: As Witnessed by an American:"

They opened on us with massive small-arms fire from many directions, and RPGs. One RPG slammed into a British vehicle and exploded in the slot armor, but the vehicle took the hit, and the men inside continued to fight. The enemy pounded at one of the platoons with at least one large machine gun, possibly a 12.7 mm, which can blow a man in half and easily defeat British or American armor. But soldiers in that platoon responded with blistering fire, and silenced the gun.

The ensuing firefights were vigorous.

Read the rest ...

Below are extended remarks from Fallujah Police Transition Team Executive Officer CAPT Tad Scott answering a variation of my question, "What do the American people need to know about Iraq that they may not be getting from present coverage?"

Scott became somewhat more cynical about his mission after navigating the realities of Fallujan culture for months. Nevertheless, he was dedicated to smoothing relationships between various Iraqi factions, keeping the Joint Communications Center (a sort of Fallujan 9-1-1 center) functioning, establishing a prisoner transfer system, and encouraging, cajoling and even compelling (via withholding Marine Quick Reaction Forces per new policy) his Iraqi police counterparts to take responsibility for their own defense. In his answer, he covers a few important points that illustrate the challenges to success in Iraq. My itemized summary and a couple of practical examples are below the video.

Read More »

W. Thomas Smith writes about Iraq road-trips in NRO:

THE GREATEST DANGER Much of Baghdad, the wild west of Al Anbar, points north, a few places south, and all of the main supply routes are dangerous: From my vantage point in Baghdad, firefights and bombings were almost constant. Helicopters were routinely shot at, and jets were often heard screaming over the city. When the fighting was close, usually at night, the adrenaline surged. When it was distant, it devolved into something like "white noise." But the greatest direct threat to Coalition forces (military and civilian) in Iraq was - and continues to be - the highway ambush.

One U.S. soldier I spoke with, said, "one minute you might be daydreaming or watching a sandstorm on the horizon: The next second you're fighting for your life."

UPDATE: Speaking of convoy duty, the Air Force is being tapped for ground work:

CAMP BULLIS, Texas - A row of rumbling flatbed trucks and Humvees outfitted with gun turrets lurches toward a mock village of cinderblock buildings where instructors posing as insurgents wait to test the trainees' convoy protection skills.

The training range is Army, as is the duty itself - one of the most dangerous in Iraq these days. But the young men and women clad in camouflage and helmets training to run and protect convoys are not Army; they're Air Force.

They are part of a small but steady stream of Airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.

I've provided some video from my embed to Hot Air for a series of Vents. Today Michelle Malkin overviews both Fallujah and my embed as a preview of Thursday and Friday's editions: mini-interviews with various members of Team Gator, the Fallujah Police Transition Team and Military Transition Team 6. Enjoy.

4/12 UPDATE: The first interviews are up. Clarification: "Team Gator" specifically consists of Marines that run the Trak armored amphibious vehicles up and down Route Mobile looking for IEDs and providing security. I was in Fallujah with various units for a month, but I was specifically with "Team Gator" for only a day, described here. They are not involved in recruiting police; that's the Police Transition Team, members of which will be heard from tomorrow, I assume.

Also, 1SGT Massey, the first speaker, was shot at a few minutes prior to entering the room where I was being briefed by CAPT Dominijanni (the third speaker). His creative use of obscenities to describe his would-be assassin was an effective way of defusing tension.

The day after we went on our patrol, SSGT Mendoza (the second speaker) discovered an Improvised Rocket Launcher propped up at an angle on the side of the road to strike his command turret in the Trak. It was disarmed before it could be fired.

4/13 UPDATE: Part Two is up at Hot Air.

CAPT Lizarraga, a corrections officer on loan to the Fallujah Police Transition Team, and Captain Scott, Executive Officer of the Fallujah Police Transition Team, gave me very long but very interesting comments that I'll feature in an extended video version here at INDC.

LCPL Yeager was previously interviewed here.

The last speaker, Lt COL Fisher, was the MiTT officer who commented about the chlorine gas attack on the Fallujah Government Center in this post.

UPDATE: Might as well toss up the donation button until I get out of the red:

***


Please support citizen journalism, as you are willing and able.

If you'd prefer to donate via check, please e-mail me and I'll provide you mailing instructions. Thank you for your support.

I've long wondered whether science will ever catch up to and truly defeat asymmetrical terrorism, or whether tactics like suicide attacks in large population centers will remain practically indefensible. Now one company is claiming a new technology that's a step in the right direction:

Suicide bombers are part of the arms race of the 21st century. And they have an advantage over their victims, whether civilian or military: even if caught, they can often still blow up the checkpoint where they were detected.

One company claims to have developed a way around this: the first technology that automatically discovers the bombs at a safe distance. The system involves aiming a low-power radar beam at people from as far as 100 meters (109 yards) away.

Software within the system reveals concealed objects without showing the body underneath, which could violate subjects' privacy, according to the developers. The technology was described last month in Technology Review, a magazine of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The company says the system "could be ready for sale by this fall." RTWT.

A journalist mourns Iraq's descent into violence and castigates popular absolutist narratives:

That's what drives me crazy about the whole American discussion of Iraq now: it's treated as being so damned simple, when, if you care about the Iraqis at all, it's anything but.

Quite true. The same goes for caring about American military personnel, American foreign policy and the fate of the region, among other things.

Read the whole thing.

(Via IP)

Michael Totten embeds with the Kurdish Peshmerga:

SULEIMANIYA, IRAQ - Iraq is a country with three armies and I’m-not-sure-how-many militias and death squads. The Iraqi Army is nominally the national army, but it's still being trained, supplied, and augmented by the coalition forces, which is to say the Americans. It's also not allowed to operate in the north. The third army is the Kurdish Peshmerga, the liberators and protectors of the only part of Iraq - the three northern governates - that may be salvaged from insurgency, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and war. Do not confuse the Peshmerga with the ragtag ethnic and sectarian militias running rampant in Iraq's center and south. The Kurdish armed forces are a real professional army and are recognized as such in Iraq's constitution and by the so-called central government in Baghdad.

My colleague Patrick Lasswell and I spent a couple of days with officers and soldiers at the Ministry of Peshmerga in the northern city of Suleimaniya. I knew already that the Kurds bristled at charges that their Peshmerga was yet another of Iraq's many militias, and I have to agree now that I've seen and interviewed them myself.

Totten's work continues to impress. Read the whole thing.

With 24 hours of arriving in Karmah, documentarian JD Johannes encounters al Qaeda:

2300 Saturday March 24th, Arrive Camp Fallujah, Iraq
2230 Sunday March 25th, Arrive OP Omar, Karmah, Iraq to embed with Blackfoot 1-501 Airborne
1405 Monday March 26th, AQI attacks OP Omar

He's got video, of course.

The AP describes Pelosi's trip to Syria as a challenge to executive policy ...

DAMASCUS -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the White House on Middle East policy yesterday, meeting with Syria's leader and insisting "the road to Damascus is a road to peace."

... which she quickly lost, according to a blistering editorial by the WaPo:

Pratfall in Damascus
Nancy Pelosi's foolish shuttle diplomacy

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered an excellent demonstration yesterday of why members of Congress should not attempt to supplant the secretary of state when traveling abroad. After a meeting with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Ms. Pelosi announced that she had delivered a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that "Israel was ready to engage in peace talks" with Syria. What's more, she added, Mr. Assad was ready to "resume the peace process" as well. Having announced this seeming diplomatic breakthrough, Ms. Pelosi suggested that her Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy was just getting started. "We expressed our interest in using our good offices in promoting peace between Israel and Syria," she said.

Only one problem: The Israeli prime minister entrusted Ms. Pelosi with no such message. "What was communicated to the U.S. House Speaker does not contain any change in the policies of Israel," said a statement quickly issued by the prime minister's office. In fact, Mr. Olmert told Ms. Pelosi that "a number of Senate and House members who recently visited Damascus received the impression that despite the declarations of Bashar Assad, there is no change in the position of his country regarding a possible peace process with Israel." In other words, Ms. Pelosi not only misrepresented Israel's position but was virtually alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad's words were mere propaganda.

Seems like a, uh, significant error.

RTWT, as they say.

Via Michael Fumento, who notes that this interview was voted "best combat video of 2006 by the military":

*** From Michael Yon's RUBS #3:

Someone from Fox News called me a few nights ago, saying Fox had to turn down a two-week embed due to security reasons. Not security reasons meaning that they might get shot or blown up, but security reasons that their gear might get stolen on base. I have written before about how, even now into the 5th year of the war in Iraq, there are still are no dedicated resources - particularly, secure places for press to live and work so that they can launch off into combat embeds - on the major bases in Baghdad. Fox News, faced with staying in tents with itinerant workers who today might be in Baghdad, and tomorrow in Calcutta or Los Angeles (with someone else's gear), turned down a two-week embed with our forces.

Yeah, that was especially a problem at the airbases while waiting to travel. There were no secure places to lock up stuff, including thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment, and I wasn't allowed to take any bags or cases into the chow hall or various other buildings. Thus, the choice became not eat in the chow hall or leave camera equipment in a tent filled with transient contractors. It was a real annoyance. I ate a lot of pringles.

*** An interesting piece by Mark Bowden:

The inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's inner circle - without resorting to torture - and hunted down al-Qaeda's man in Iraq
...
The quest for fresh intel came to rely on subtler methods. Gators worked with the battery of techniques outlined in an Army manual and taught at Fort Huachuca, such as "ego up," which involved flattery; "ego down," which meant denigrating a detainee; and various simple con games - tricking a detainee into believing you already knew something you did not, feeding him misinformation about friends or family members, and so forth. Deciding how to approach a detainee was more art than science. Talented gators wrote their own scripts for questioning, adopting whatever roles seemed most appropriate, and adjusting on the fly. They carefully avoided making offers they could not keep, but often dangled "promises" that were subtly incomplete - instead of offering to move a prisoner to a better cell, for instance, a gator might promise to "see the boss" about doing so. Sometimes the promise was kept. Fear, the most useful interrogation tool, was always present. The well-publicized abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere put all detainees on edge, and assurances that the U.S. command had cracked down were not readily believed. The prospect of being shipped to the larger prison - notorious during the American occupation, and even more so during the Saddam era - was enough to persuade many subjects to talk. This was, perhaps, the only constructive thing to result from the Abu Ghraib scandal, which otherwise remains one of the biggest setbacks of the war.

It was an exciting, challenging job, filled with a sense of urgent purpose. Most of the gators had a military background, and they found the lack of protocol liberating. As the gators had been told, rank inside the Compound was eschewed entirely. People referred to each other by their nicknames.

*** "One Muslim's decision to join the US Army:"

Abdel Salam fits that profile. At 6 foot, 1 inch, 260 pounds, with an imposing build, Abdel Salam is aware of the intimidating impact of his large presence. He hopes it can be helpful, if and when he gets sent to Iraq. And he wants to go, very badly. Unlike many of his Arab and Muslim-American neighbors who believe the US is a primary cause of the current chaos in the region, he believes that America has a responsibility to play a role as peacemaker. He's aware that's an unpopular view. But it doesn't bother him, he says, because he grew up in Egypt when Anwar Sadat put out a hand of peace to Israel. At the time Sadat was roundly condemned in the Arab world.

"They may one day call me a traitor.... I'm not going to be surprised to hear it, but I'll ignore it," says Abdel Salam. "They called Sadat a traitor, but now he's a hero. Tomorrow, I'm also going to be the peace-process person."

The article is way too heavy with John Zogby quotes, but it's a good one. The Muslim translators I met varied in skill and motivation; beyond that all liked the good to very good money they could make in the highly demanded position, one was there to serve Iraq after Saddam was gone, one "liked dangerous jobs," one was quite explicitly there to make money and one guy just loved America. An Egyptian, he and I disagreed on foreign policy and Israel, but it was touching when he choked up talking about an American soldier killed in his unit, as well as when he animatedly described the U.S. as a "land of dreams."

*** Speaking of getting choked up, this one should get you:

(Via Hot Air)

I've disabled trackbacks because the blog only seems to accept about 1 in 10 trackback attempts. I suspect this has something to do with the huge volume of trackback spam this blog is receiving, but I'm not sure. Anyone with technical expertise in blog maintenance feel free to drop me a line. Thanks.

OpFor features an interview with General David Petraeus. I found this part notable, as it reinforces some of my impressions about the sectarian aspect of the conflict:

I interrupted with the comment that there seemed to be a large number of disparate groups all competing for their own piece of the pie. General Petraeus agreed. "It's a big competition right now among a variety of groups; and, again in an environment, in Baghdad in particular, [that is] very heavily colored by an influence of the sectarian violence." Neighborhoods have been depopulated and General Petraeus believes that "hundreds of thousands, maybe millions" of Iraqis have been displaced.

"Most damaging of all," General Petraeus contends that the situation "has reinforced suspicions or created suspicions where there weren't any between Sunni and Shia in a country in which there is a fair amount intermarriage between the sects in the past and where sectarian violence was not a huge issue, perhaps partly because Saddam ruled with an iron hand and put down the Shia all the time."

Read the whole thing.