Ramadi in the Press, Part II

Last Sunday, my unit found itself on the front page of the Washington Post with a rollicking story about the "Battle of Donkey Island."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801270.html?hpid=topnews
(Washington Post may require you to login their site in order to view the article (it's free, but a hassle). MSN removed their link to the story).

As far as narrative goes, it's a great tale of the bravery and intrepidity of the Soldiers in my unit. They did an amazing job, and there were many stories of loyalty and courage that didn't make the cut. One of note: when Sergeant First Class Buchan was shot, one of our interpreters fought alongside the platoon and was the first to respond to his injuries and try to keep him alive. Many of our interpreters are the most loyal, valiant people in the fight. They get paid hardly anything, work away from the families much longer than even we do, are victimized by asinine suspicion-mongering "base security" policies, are directly threatened and risk their families being threatened.

Unfortunately, this inspiring war story is marred by a few sentences hinting at possible violation of the rules of engagement (war crimes) and some unhelpful, simplistic commentary at the end. It's difficult to comment on what the reporter writes in reference to killing wounded enemy combatants, especially involving my unit. I'm in the uncomfortable position of not quite being able to say it isn't true, not able to confirm the reporter likely took liberties with the story, not able to adequately explain the confusion of a violent firefight at night involving an entrenched enemy fighting to the death. I can with reasonable confidence say, barring any unfortunate revelations, that according to numerous sworn statements and a unofficial yet detailed report on the battle, that the Soldiers acquitted themselves honorably, bravely, and legally. However, maybe a few Soldiers got carried away with unsupervised, one-upping war stories to the reporter .

At the end of the article, the reporter attempts to summarize opposing viewpoints and in doing so sets up a false dichotomy. I think this is common in journalists looking to report differing perspectives; in reality they fabricate these differing opinions themselves. Here, the reporter posits that commanders are touting the battle as a decisive victory against Al Qaeda, while troops on the ground seem to think otherwise--that there was no decisive victory and that Al Qaeda is strong enough to muster a similar attack at any time, and could easily overpower the local Iraqi security force if we left. Well, both sides are obviously right, and don't really have anything to argue about. They are simply different answers to different questions juxtaposed out of context to construct opposing viewpoints. The fact remains this battle was a decisive victory against Al Qaeda, and yet, despite the Iraqi police's enthusiasm, they aren't ready to defend the city on their own. Despite our tragic loss, Al Qaeda's strategic level counter-offensive against the city that turned on them utterly failed, and sent them reeling for a while in the region. We also foiled another catastrophic attempt soon after Donkey Island involving multiple truck bombs. Since then there have been no significant offensives to retake the city, but Al Qaeda has surely learned their lesson and will likely not attempt the same methods. So yes--it was a significant victory of Al Qaeda, and yes--the burgeoning Iraqi Police and government in Ramadi need more time to become truly self-sufficient. Al Qaeda may be on their heels, but are still capable of inflicting serious set-backs. Our gains must be secured.

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This link is to a recent newsbrief by Kevin Drum of CBS News.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/24/politics/animal/main3201627.shtml

It is a trenchant and completely accurate summary of the Al Anbar Awakening during a time when it seems military leaders are clamoring to take the credit for turning Al Anbar. Unfortunately, this concise summary of the Awakening runs amok with frivolous assertions and implications at the end. Here is the last paragraph (with commentary in italics): "The Anbar Awakening is genuinely good news, but (a) it had nothing to do with the surge (true), (b) it's happening only in homogeneous Sunni areas (mostly true, but not necessarily--the Awakening has inspired tribal leaders in mixed areas that they can indeed stand up to Al Qaeda's bloody thuggery, and some tribal leaders have Sunni and Shia in their tribe, so it is in their best interest to encourage tribal unity. There is evidence of this in Salah ad Din and Diyala already, but it remains to be seen if it will succeed as in Anbar or not), and (c) it involves arming and training Sunni forces who are almost certain to turn against both us and the Shiite central government as soon as they've finished off AQI. (Completely false, and a wild speculation. The Awakening political party (SAI)--now the most prominent in Al Anbar--is the only political party in Iraq to unabashedly support the Coalition, indeed thus far it is one of the party's foundational points. Additionally, all the Sunni Iraqi Police in Ramadi were hired and equipped by the Shia Ministry of the Interior. At least in Ramadi, nearly all IP support SAI. There are concerns that various Sunni neighborhood watches in Baghdad, former insurgents, will turn on us and the government after Al Qaeda is defeated, but this is a worst case scenario. Al Qaeda is the single largest destabilizing factor in Iraq--they drive the rank-and-file to the militias for protection and prevent political reconciliation from occurring. If Al Qaeda is defeated, we are on the right track. The shady Sunni groups may well be amenable to political reconciliation if Al Qaeda is neutralized. However, I'm pretty sure that if we do a complete pullout ASAP, and Iraq descends into even more lawless chaos, that the Sunni Police here will defend their land against Shia incursion, but at that point there won't really be any "central government".)

* * *

This last link is to an interesting op-ed in the New York Times written by some enlisted Soldiers in the 82nd Airborne. It doesn't involve Ramadi, but I think it is fascinating simply because of the writers--Soldiers typically do not sound so erudite, nor do they often feel compelled to make their opinions of the strategic realm known outside their chain of command. Also, it is an extremely well-articulated viewpoint of many soldiers that one does not often hear: disillusioned and confused about their mission--which is susceptible to units especially in Baghdad (see my post on surviving vs. winning about this). Their description of the quagmire of Baghdad is a visceral, boots on the ground perspective abetted with an intelligent higher level perspective. However, being in Ramadi, I simply can't support the idea that for the people of Iraq to "regain their self-respect" they will declare us an occupying force. After taking pains to develop a nuanced picture of Baghdad's complexity, that assertion is a simplistic generalization that simply doesn't apply to large swaths of the country. While I do agree with their recommendation to force the Iraqis to be increasingly self-reliant given our American need to try to do everything for them, we can't forget that this sort of mentality was previously adopted toward the Iraqi Police and resulting lack of oversight allowed many units to be infiltrated by militia elements. Mainly, the article makes me sincerely grateful to be in Ramadi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/opinion/19jayamaha.html?pagewanted=1

Ramadi in the Press

Recently, Ramadi has received some noteworthy coverage in the press that I'd like to comment on.

The following article is from Der Spiegel, basically Germany's version of Time. It's a high profile, highly respected magazine that has been fiercely critical of the US in Iraq. Which makes the article featured here all the more noteworthy. While the section on Ramadi only takes up the first part, I think as a whole this lengthy article is probably one of the best summaries of the situation in Iraq. It pulls no punches with problems, such as the way the administration has continually self-mutilated its own credibility, ongoing sectarian violence, or the way the military (really, the Army) is stretching further to the breaking point; yet it also clearly demonstrates the tenuous, slowly growing hope that this crooked ship might somehow right itself, or at least not sink. It acknowledges the success with the failure; it shows that an immediate pullout is a fool's errand; and it also questions where this whole problem is going. The section on Ramadi features one of our company commanders in a neighborhood where in January we had two soldiers killed and a few injured. In fact we would not even drive down some of the streets because they were laden with deeply buried bombs. The same friendly folks mentioned in the article were uncommunicative and unhelpful--sullen or frightened--seven to eight months ago. The encouraging facts the article cites are straight from our Task Force records. It is a good thing to see the remarkable success here in our area juxtaposed with the mayhem in Baghdad, and the big picture perspective from General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker combined with detailed, tactical views. I think it's one of the more balanced reports out there.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,499154,00.html




This next article was published in the Wall Street Journal, and managed to make the front page. While I think it's great that Ramadi's success has made the front page of the Wall Street Journal, from my perspective this article can be a bit misleading. I have two signifcant qualms about this article and most other positive reports from Ramadi: the amount of undue credit we like to grab for ourselves, and the simplistic cause-and-effect type analysis that limits the scope and time this turnaround has taken. Take for instance this quote: "The key to the U.S. campaign has been recruiting, cultivating, and rewarding tribal leaders... The progress here, which has become central to American hopes of success in the deeply divided country. President Bush has repeatedly touted it and U.S. commanders throughout Iraq are looking to export the Marine model." The first and last sentence drive home the underlying subtext: that our campaign plan and efforts deserve the credit for this astonishing success. The 'U.S. campaign' and the 'Marine model' are off-handedly referred to as if the U.S. military were solely responsible for devising and bringing about a revolutionary strategy (involving bundles of cash) that overturned the region. It's the first assumption of the reporter and taken for granted throughout the article.

What is this "Marine model" he refers to anyway? The Marine campaign plan since we first arrived here last fall has been to prop up and defend (with the lives of Marines and Soldiers) the constitutional "legitimate" provincial government--a tiny cabal of cronies and opportunists despised by the general populace. In fact, 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, our higher headquarters when we arrived, had to ditch the worthless Marine model by wooing the Sheiks and building a trust and friendship with them over the course of months (for more on this reference the USA Today article linked in my first blog entry). Additionally, the tribal leaders generally come across as a group that can be bought or easily manipulated with cold hard cash. Prominent Iraq news website IraqSlogger summarizes the article: "how the U.S. was able to court the Anbar sheikhs into turning against al Qaeda. How? Money, and lots of it." There is no denying ongoing reconstruction efforts and lucrative contracts are maintaining the current stability, but the article portrays Sheiks as greedy moochers. We've been throwing money into Al Anbar for years now with nothing to show for it except indebtedness to China. The key event that the article glosses over is when "Sheik Sattar quietly approached the U.S. about forming and alliance to fight al Qaeda. His tribe saw an alliance with U.S. forces as a means to gain power." I can't say this statement isn't true, but it fails to accurately portray what really happened, and reinforces the subtext of tribes as pliable and us as willing paymasters. The truth is that Sheik Sattar unified the local tribes on his own. Fortunately, the Army unit at the time spent the painstaking hours building trust and rapport with the Sheiks, so when they made their decision, it was easy for them to come to the Army.

I get really frustrated with our quickness to congratulate ourselves out here. It's really not so simple. The fact my unit has done so well is simply because we came in at the right time, and our task force commander had the time, patience, and concern to continue the right relationships with the tribal leaders. We could just have easily come into the pointless death grind of Ramadi just like the many units before us--which is what we would have walked into if the local tribes hadn't decided fight Al Qaeda first.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118653546614491198.html