Sunday, June 10, 2007

Leading Indicators of Surge Success

Deaths among Iraqi security forces:


At least 751 Iraqi security personnel have been killed since the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown began Feb 13.

During a similar period immediately preceding the so-called surge, at least 593 Iraqi security personnel were killed, according to figures compiled by the Associated Press.

Turkish Forces Shelling Iraqi Kurdistan

Whether or not you believe that Turkish forces raided Iraqi Kurdistan last week to attack the PKK, Turkey has in fact attacked in Iraq.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry sent a letter the Turkish charge' d'affaires in Baghdad, complaining that Turkish forces have shelled in at least two Iraqi Kurdish provinces, disturbed Iraqi Kurds there, and set "huge fires."

Iraqi Kurds are sheltering PKK guerrillas in PKK-only zones across the border from Turkey, so the claims that locals are being disturbed by this shelling are somewhat disingenuous.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Dealing With the Devil

"The principal task of our military is to find and defeat the terrorists," he said. "And that is why we are on the offense. And as we pursue the terrorists, our military is helping to train Iraqi security forces so that they can defend their people and fight the enemy on their own. Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.

President George W. Bush

But what if the only Iraqis that stand up against Al Qaeda are anti-American fighters themselves?

For U.S. Unit in Baghdad, An Alliance of Last Resort

By Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, June 9, 2007; A01


BAGHDAD, June 8 -- The worst month of Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl's deployment in western Baghdad was finally drawing to a close. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq had unleashed bombings that killed 14 of his soldiers in May, a shocking escalation of violence for a battalion that had lost three soldiers in the previous six months while patrolling the Sunni enclave of Amiriyah. On top of that, the 41-year-old battalion commander was doubled up with a stomach flu when, late on May 29, he received a cellphone call that would change everything.

"We're going after al-Qaeda," a leading local imam said, Kuehl recalled. "What we want you to do is stay out of the way."

"Sheik, I can't do that. I can't just leave Amiriyah and let you go at it."

"Well, we're going to go."

The week that followed revolutionized Kuehl's approach to fighting the insurgency and serves as a vivid example of a risky, and expanding, new American strategy of looking beyond the Iraqi police and army for help in controlling violent neighborhoods. The American soldiers in Amiriyah have allied themselves with dozens of Sunni militiamen who call themselves the Baghdad Patriots -- a group that American soldiers believe includes insurgents who have attacked them in the past -- in an attempt to drive out al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Americans have granted these gunmen the power of arrest, allowed the Iraqi army to supply them with ammunition, and fought alongside them in chaotic street battles.

To many American soldiers in Amiriyah, this nascent allegiance stands out as an encouraging development after months of grinding struggle. They liken the fighters to the minutemen of the American Revolution, painting them as neighbors taking the initiative to protect their families in the vacuum left by a failing Iraqi security force. In their first week of collaboration, the Baghdad Patriots and the Americans killed roughly 10 suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq members and captured 15, according to Kuehl, who said those numbers rivaled totals for the previous six months combined. He is now working to fashion the group into the beginnings of an Amiriyah police force, since the mainly Shiite police force refuses to work in the area.

"This is a defining moment for us," said Kuehl, who commands the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, attached to the 1st Infantry Division.

But aligning Americans with fighters whose long-term agenda remains unclear -- with regard to either Americans or the Shiite-led government -- is also a strategy born of desperation. It contradicts repeated declarations by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that no groups besides the Iraqi and American security forces are allowed to bear arms. And some American soldiers worry that standing up a Sunni militia could have dire consequences if the group turns on its U.S. partners.

"We have made a deal with the devil," said an intelligence officer in the battalion.

The U.S. effort to recruit indigenous forces to defend local communities has been taken furthest in Anbar province, where tribal leaders have encouraged thousands of their kinsmen to join the police. In the Abu Ghraib area, west of Baghdad, about 2,000 people unaffiliated with security forces are now working with Americans at village checkpoints and gun positions.

Kuehl said he recognizes the risks in dealing with an unofficial force but decided the intelligence that the gunmen provided on al-Qaeda in Iraq was too valuable to pass up.

"Hell, nothing else has worked in Amiriyah," he said.

It was about 2 a.m. on May 30 when Capt. Andy Wilbraham, a 33-year-old company commander, first heard military chatter on his tank radio about rumors that local gunmen would take on al-Qaeda. Later that morning, a noncommissioned officer turned to him with the news: "They're uprising."

"It was just a shock it happened so fast," Wilbraham said.

By noon, loudspeakers in mosques throughout Amiriyah were broadcasting a call to war: "It is time to stand up and fight" al-Qaeda. Groups of men, some in black ski masks carrying AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, descended on the area around the Maluki mosque, a suspected al-Qaeda in Iraq base of operations, and launched an attack. For the most part, Kuehl's soldiers stood back, trying to contain the violence and secure other mosques, and let the gunmen do their work.

The next day, a Thursday, al-Qaeda counterattacked. Using machine guns and grenades, its fighters drove the militiamen south across several city blocks until they were holed up in the Firdas mosque, soldiers said. "I was getting reports every 10 minutes from one of the imams: 'They're at this point. We're surrounded. We're getting attacked. They're at the mosque,' " Kuehl recalled. He dispatched Stryker attack vehicles to protect the militiamen.

"We basically pushed that one back just by force," said Capt. Kevin Salge, 31, who led the Stryker team of about 60 men to the mosque. "We got in there. Our guns are much bigger guns. Then freedom fighters, Baghdad Patriot guys, started firing."

Spec. Chadrick Domino, 23, was with a Stryker unit that drove north of the mosque to set up a perimeter to prevent others from joining the fight. About noon, he was the first member of his team to walk into a residential courtyard. He may not have had time to see the machine gunner who killed him.

To the Americans, the fighters on both sides appeared nearly identical. They wore similar sweat suits and carried the same kind of machine guns. "Now we've got kind of a mess on our hands," Salge remembered thinking. "Because we've got a lot of armed guys running all over the place, and it's making it very hard for us to identify which side is which."

By afternoon, the Americans had secured the Firdas mosque and were helping treat the wounded who lay in the courtyard. Kuehl drove out from his headquarters to meet with the leaders of the militiamen and work out the terms that would guide their collaboration in coming days. Kuehl agreed to help if the militiamen did not torture their captives or kill people who were not affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq. The militiamen agreed to hold prisoners for no more than 24 hours before releasing them or handing them over to the Americans. They in turn wanted the Americans not to interfere and to provide weapons.

"We need them and they need us," Kuehl said. "Al-Qaeda's stronger than them. We provide capabilities that they don't have. And the locals know who belongs and who doesn't. It doesn't matter how long we're here, I'll never know. And we'll never fit in."

The militiamen, who call themselves freedom fighters, are led by a 35-year-old former Iraqi army captain and used-car salesman who goes by Saif or Abu Abed. In an interview, he said he had devoted the past five months to collecting intelligence on al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters in Amiriyah, whose ranks have grown as they have fled to Baghdad and away from the new tribal policemen in Anbar province. He has said his own group numbers over 100 people, but American soldiers estimate it has closer to 40. At least six were killed and more than 10 wounded in the first week of collaboration with Americans.

"These guys looked like a military unit, the way they moved," Wilbraham said. "Hand and arm signals. Stop. Take a knee. Weapons up."

Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, a leader of the Sunni Dulaimi tribe who works in Anbar and Baghdad, said many of the fighters in Amiriyah belong to the Islamic Army, which includes former officers from Saddam Hussein's military and is more secular than other insurgent groups. The fighters have been organized and encouraged by local imams.

"Let's be honest, the enemy now is not the Americans, for the time being," Suleiman said. "It's al-Qaeda and the [Shiite] militias. Those are our enemies."

The American soldiers initially asked their new allies to wear white headbands and ride around in the Strykers to point out al-Qaeda households. But the joint patrols didn't work because the local fighters were disoriented after riding in the enclosed Strykers and couldn't find the right houses, Salge said.

Before long, he added, "people everywhere were wearing headbands, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of them were al-Qaeda."

The Americans then supplied reflective armbands that could be seen from their vehicle scopes, and had the fighters ride in Iraqi army Humvees instead of Strykers. They also gave the fighters plastic flex cuffs, to subdue captives, and flares -- red to use if they are in trouble and green to signal when a raid is over.

On June 1, a Friday, the fighters directed the soldiers to a large weapons cache. Sniper rifles, Russian machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and thousands of rounds of ammunition were stashed in a secret room, accessible only by removing a circuit-breaker box and crawling through a hole. While the Americans were tallying the haul, an explosive detonated outside, wounding several soldiers, including one whose feet were blown off.

In return for their services, the militiamen had one request: Give us the weapons in the cache.

"Who are these guys really?" Salge remembered worrying. He told them to talk to the battalion commander.

Kuehl said later that he would probably supply weapons to the militiamen, but in limited amounts. The fighters have given the Americans identification, including fingerprints, addresses and retinal scans, so the soldiers believe they could track down anyone who betrayed them. "What I don't want them to do is wither on the vine," Kuehl said.

On Wednesday, a week after the fighting broke out, the Islamic Army issued a statement declaring a cease-fire with al-Qaeda in Iraq because the groups did not want to spill more Muslim blood or impede "the project of jihad." American soldiers played down the statement and suggested it did not reflect the sentiments of the men they are working with in Amiriyah.

Later that night, Wilbraham led his tank unit on an overnight mission to allow the militiamen to arrest seven al-Qaeda in Iraq members. The raids were to begin at 1 a.m., but two hours later the tanks were waiting on deserted streets, with no sign of the group. Then Wilbraham was told the militiamen had called off the raids.

The tank driver, Spec. Estevan Altamirano, 25, expressed skepticism about his new partners.

"Pretty soon they run out of al-Qaeda, and then they're going to turn on us," he said. "I don't want to get used to them and then I have an AK behind my back. I'm not going to trust them at all."

Repeat: This is NOT a Hostage Exchange, This is NOT a Hostage Exchange

The U.S. government has been holding five Iranians that the Iranian government says are "diplomats" since they were captured near Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan in January.

In what was probably an attempt to get the five released, Iran's IRGC captured a British naval crew and held them for 13 days in March-April of this year.

More recently, Iran's government seized four Iranian-Americans visiting Iran and has charged them with spying or other anti-regime crimes.

Now several U.S. officials have indicated that the U.S. will very likely release the five Iranians. This will probably depend on what tone comes out of Tehran in response.

Remember, this is not a hostage exchange. I repeat, this is not a hostage exchange.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Reports of Turkish Incursions into Iraq

Today, there were several reports of Turkish military incursions into northern Iraqi Kurdistan to attack PKK guerrillas.

The reports were denied by relevant government officials in Iraq, Turkey, and the United States. Its only sources appear to have been anonymous senior Turkish military officials. However, reports were repeatedly made throughout the day, and indicated that hundreds of Turkish soldiers had raided the country in "hot pursuit" of Kurdish terrorists.

Whether true or not, tensions in Turkey over attacks by Kurdish terrorists based in Iraq have been very high, and as many as 250,000 Turkish troops have been massed just across the border from Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey has frequently threatened to act in Iraq, but not like this.

The United States has been pushing Iraqi Kurds to do something about the PKK's occupation of a slice of territory just across from Turkey. Turkey is trying very hard to insinuate, whether by raiding Iraq or by raising that possibility through the press, that a Turkish attack is likely if the PKK is not dealt with, and soon.

If Turkey was to invade Iraq and remain engaged militarily against the Kurds in northern Iraq, that would be a serious crisis in a region that has been a bright spot in an unpopular American war in Iraq. Seeing Turkish soldiers killed by Kurds, with little done by Americans -- a strong possibility in such a situation -- would harden Turkish public opinion against the United States, and harm an otherwise moderate officially secular Muslim state. In short, it would be a Middle East-wide disaster.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Iraq Appropriations Politics

This Fall, Democrats in Congress will finally get their say on Iraq.

President Bush recently got what he wanted -- a timetable removed from an Iraq emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Democrats fought for timetables and sure benchmarks. They ultimately caved, leaving many rank-and-file Democrats terribly angry.

The results of November's Congressional elections, if anything, were meant to cause a change in Iraq policy on Capitol Hill. That the House and Senate would give President Bush all of the funding he needs to conduct the war exactly how he wants without any binding requirements was a big blow

But the fight for the emergency appropriations bill is nothing in comparison to what's going to happen when the real, regular Iraq appropriations bill comes up this September

In September, General Petraeus has promised a report on the results of this summer's surge. And Petraeus and the Bush Administration have said that they'll determine what to do with U.S. involvement in Iraq based on the results of this report.

But recent news reflects clearly that the surge isn't saving Baghdad, and the American forces in Iraq can't really change the general dynamic of civil war there.

So it's no surprise that General Odierno is saying that it's going to take more time to issue the report. And no surprise that today Ambassador Crocker would say that it will take a lot longer than September to see results in Iraq.

Of course, you could wait forever for positive results in Iraq without seeing any, but that's beside the point. We're talking about September's appropriations bill for next year's war operations.

No amount of spin or attempting to recast the debate can get the President out of asking Congress for money. And he's going to have to ask around September in order to actually have the appropriations process work.

Without magnificent success to show for the surge, the President is going to have to announce a significant change of course in Iraq. A few different initiatives have been floated -- a 50% cut in troops in Iraq during 2008, and an endorsement of the Baker-Hamilton Report. President

As much as the President didn't agree with the results of the Iraq Study Group Report, it doesn't require the President to do much besides attempt to engage Iraq's neighbors in dialogue. A dialogue that can be ongoing, fruitlessly, while the President stays the course, with a little window-dressing, in Iraq. And don't forget, the Iraq Study Group explicitly did not include any timelines in their Report.

Let's say what it really is: President Bush's "endorsement" of the Iraq Study Group's recommendations would be a transparent play for time. So I believe this will be the core of what President Bush will propose along with his request for war funding this Fall.

Democrats in Congress cannot be satisfied with an Administration that simply states that it will adhere by the terms of the Baker-Hamilton Report. Letting the Administration off without more would damage their own credibility and truly alienate the Democratic base.

The Democrats will include a harsh timetable, one with teeth, in September. They will limit the President's license to carry out the war. And they will take steps that will lead to a drawdown in U.S. forces in Iraq. The need for money to continue the war, and Democrats' unwillingness to give it without strings, means that the President will have to accept changes. The only question is whether these changes will be entirely on his initiative or not. And based on the President's lack of creativity in Iraq policy, the answer will be "not."

The other alternative being floated -- a 50% cut in U.S. forces during 2008 -- reflects not what the President wants but what he will likely have to accept. Floating this idea is only the President looking forward to 2008 and trying not to look like he was politically defeated. It is not a positive initiative to win the war.

In light of the situation that will likely exist in September, the question for Democrats should be, "what conditions should we place on the President's conduct of the war in Iraq," and "what is the right way to withdraw the large majority of American forces from Iraq during 2008 and possibly 2009?"

These are difficult questions that must be taken very seriously. Up to this point, posturing and posing on Capitol Hill has been no problem because in the end everyone knew that Congress wasn't going to upset the war-funding applecart. This time, however, Congress is likely to get most of what it asks for.

UNMOVIC Still Looking for Iraq's Weapons

Why?

Because Russia won't let the U.S. get away with declaring that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction without having a UN team review all the United States' intelligence on the subject. Presumably with full Russian access to said intelligence.

Four of Five Kidnapped Britons Were Bodyguards

What I hadn't noticed from the capture of a group of five Britons in Baghdad was that four of them were bodyguards for the fifth, a consultant coming to speak at an Iraqi ministry.

That is to say, as a small but effective security detail, these four presumably could have taken on a typical kidnapping and possibly prevented their own capture. That the believed Shiite militia that captured them sent dozens of men in official Iraqi Police uniforms and SUVs to where this foreigner was indicates to me that the ministry he had gone to speak was infiltrated by militias willing to tip them of his presence.

This was clearly a Shiite militia action, to have that kind of equipment and access. I think that these men's captors were a splinter Mahdi Army faction who feared being sold out by Moqtada Al Sadr as he consolidates his national position in Iraq and within the political and military operation that bears his name.

For followers under his direct control would be a risk to Sadr with no clear return. However, for splinter groups at risk from Sadr discipline, kidnapping Western captives might be a way of ensuring security, like Iran's attempts to gain nuclear weapons.

Something to Watch For:

The emergence of Al Qaeda-inspired jihadist groups in Gaza.

After BBC reporter David Johnston was captured by a "shadowy" group called the Army of Islam, everyone said, "who?" It appears that in addition to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Army if Islam might be one of a number of emerging groups supporting global jihad in the Palestinian territories, and Gaza in particular.

If Hamas remains in government, that may leave room for more radical groups to claim their slice of Gaza's angry young men.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Iraqis Fighting Al Qaeda

Leave it to Iraq's true "armed forces," the insurgents battling across Iraq's Sunni-Shia divide, to take on Al Qaeda. Lord knows, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police sure haven't been successful.

This battle is one of many that has gone on across Iraq, between local sectarian or tribal-based militias and the fanatically indiscriminate Al Qaeda or related groups like the Islamic State of Iraq.

I'm certain that the Bush Administration will hype this kind of thing in its favor when it has to state its case for continuing the war this Fall. How far we have fallen. Supporting one private army against another in Iraq is an element of victory?