Seeker Blog

Things are not going well at all in Southern Iraq, at least around Basra writes Military historian Max Boot:

…Now the militias are feeling their oats and the British are feeling under siege. The palace in Basra that serves as their headquarters has become one of the most-mortared positions in all of Iraq—according to the Times, the troopers call it the “worst palace in the world.”

The British difficulties have been exacerbated by their well-publicized decision to reduce their troop levels in Iraq, and to pull back from the center of Basra to a compound located outside of town. Far from placating the armed gangs, the British decision has only emboldened them. Everyone, it seems, is determined to get a last lick in—no doubt trying to establish “anti-colonial” bona fides in the coming struggle for power.

There is a lesson to be learned here by advocates of an American troop drawdown. Even if the drawdown were to be only partial, it could easily get out of hand by creating the perception that we’re on the way out and can be attacked with impunity. As Napoleon said, “In war, moral considerations account for three-quarters, the actual balance of forces only for the other quarter.” If we set a withdrawal timetable, the moral balance will tip against us even faster than the actual balance of forces—with deadly consequences.

We can avoid that problem by sticking with the “surge,” which, as another Times article notes, is working. This one is an op-ed written by Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, who have just returned from Iraq with a glowing report on all the progress that General David Petraeus and his soldiers are making. Pollack and O’Hanlon echo the sense of cautious optimism that I have been feeling for the past several months. That’s pretty significant coming from two Democratic analysts who, as they note, “have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.”

Here’s the beginning of the NY Times article linked by Dr. Boot:

BASRA, Iraq — As American troop levels are peaking in Baghdad, British force levels are heading in the opposite direction as the troops prepare to withdraw completely from the city center of Basra, 300 miles to the south.

The British intend to pull back to an airport headquarters miles out of town, a symbolic move widely taken by Iraqis as the beginning of the end of the British military presence in southern Iraq.

The scaling down by America’s largest coalition partner foreshadows many of the political and military challenges certain to face American commanders when their troops begin withdrawing.

Skepticism is widespread in Basra, as in Baghdad, about whether Iraqi forces are ready to take over. The British and the Americans will have to assuage the fears of Iraqis that they are being abandoned to gunmen and religious extremists. And each is likely to face intensified attacks from propaganda-conscious enemies trying to claim credit for driving out the Westerners.

As the British prepare for the withdrawal from the city center — and the wider transition of handing over Basra Province to Iraqi security forces during the coming months — Brig. James Bashall, commander of the First Mechanized Brigade, concedes that his men will almost certainly “get a lot of indirect fire as we go backward.”

…Mustapha Wali, a 49-year-old teacher, was blunt. “If they withdraw, we will live in a jungle, like the early days,” he said. “The parties control the government, and the aim of officials is to fill their pockets with money, millions of dollars inside their pockets and nothing to the city.”

The educated and secular middle classes fear that the Iraqi security forces — particularly the police — are hopelessly infiltrated by the extremist Shiite militias and Iranian-backed Islamist parties competing, often murderously, for control of Basra’s huge oil wealth.

Basra, an overwhelmingly Shiite port city controlling Iraq’s gateway to the Persian Gulf, is much less affected by the Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence plaguing Baghdad. But, as a June 25 report by the International Crisis Group concluded, it is virtually controlled by Shiite militias.

…The report by the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit organization that seeks to prevent or resolve deadly conflicts, concedes that a recent British-led crackdown was a “qualified success” in reducing criminality, political assassinations and sectarian killings, yet nevertheless concludes that Basra “is an example of what to avoid.”

It said the British had been driven into “increasingly secluded compounds,” a result, the report said, that was viewed by Basra’s residents and militia as an “ignominious defeat.”

Are Pelosi and Reid learning anything?

A fascinating overview from Michael Yon on how the combat operations centers and UAVs do their work. An excerpt:

At battalion level, maybe ten soldiers sit in front of these and other screens. One soldier will be the S-2, or intelligence. Another will monitor counter battery radar. Another will communicate with those who operate the UAV, which often is launched and controlled from elsewhere. The battalion can “task” the UAV, but an outside unit actually maintains, launches and flies it. The more high-flying UAVs might be operated from back in the United States.

The larger the unit, the more control stations in the TOC. Whereas company-level TOCs generally are limited to little more than a radio and a map, those at the battalion level are more like nerve centers which actually help coordinate battles, hence the person in charge is called the “Battle Captain.”

The next level up is the brigade and the thirty or so officers and soldiers at a brigade TOC will be clustered around computers and monitors at different stations, often three rows deep. In something reminiscent of the early NASA days, the Battle Captain sits up front in the first row, with computer screens wrapped around cockpit-like. At the next highest level up, the Division HQ, the TOC really looks like a NASA control center.

On Saturday morning about 0300 0n 23 June, a jet roared low and loud over the tents. Some soldiers rolled out of their cots to the floor, thinking it was “incoming.” I lay there in the tent looking into the darkness. The night was quiet for now. A few minutes later, I heard a Shadow launch from its catapult in the distance, sounding like a weed eater flying into the ink. Something was up. But that’s normal here in Baqubah for 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team. I couldn’t sleep, so rolled out of bed and pulled on my boots.

Units in Iraq that aren’t fighting much seem more intent on keeping their TOCs top-secret. I’ve seen exceptions, but as a general rule, access seems to increase with action, and in the case of 3-2 SBCT, embedded journalists are given full access 24/7. Journalists actually are given more access than they possibly can handle. They can stay all day and night, coming and going as suits their needs. They can go off on missions, and then come back to watch from the TOC as missiles and bombs splash across the television screen just like on those History Channel shows, only here, a few seconds later the TOC rattles from the blasts.

So I walked into the TOC at about 0320 that Saturday morning, and there was a video feed coming in from an F-16. Crosshairs were steady on a house the pilot was circling. We could sometimes hear the jet as it orbited over the Baqubah. The Shadow was circling the same house but from a lower altitude.

And an insight into big media reportage not likely to be found elsewhere. Michael Gordon is one of my reliable sources; need to look into Zavis, who I do not know.

A week after serious fighting began on 19 June, I watched as Michael Gordon of the New York Times and Alexandra Zavis of the Los Angeles Times tried to tally civilian deaths. After being out and seeing the battle first-hand, Gordon and Zavis were a few feet away from me, talking with Major Robbie Parke and comparing notes, trying to figure out the civilian deaths, and finally arriving at a consensus of about 7. Their earnestness was not an agenda-driven hunt for collateral damage victims. A number that low—and five of those deaths were from a single explosion that locals said had come from a US bomb—is almost unbelievable, considering the amount of firepower that had been used. Except when commanders have made avoiding civilian casualties a primary part of the battle plan, which is a basic tenet of counterinsurgency warfare. It’s hard to build civic relationships out of body parts.

Now, back to tonight’s terrorists…

The F-16 and Shadow both beamed down live images of the house where the terrorists had hidden after firing on US forces. Now was option time. Which weapon to use? There were so many choices: mortars, missiles, and cannons of various sorts, among others. With the enemy hiding in the building, an F-16 and a Shadow orbiting in the black above, both peering down on thermal mode, the Battle Captain asked the Air Force experts,(the JTACs) what weapons the F-16 was carrying. As a JTAC started ticking off a long list, I was thinking, “How in the world to do those little jets carry all that?” In fact, I believe they were reading down the list for two jets flying in the same package. They carry a mixture of weapons cross loaded between the jets so that they will have the black magic needed for a likely situation.

In addition to the F-16’s bombs of various sorts, there was the MLRS rocket system dozens of miles away that had been precisely punching rockets through Baqubah rooftops for days. The MLRS had been flattening buildings that were rigged as giant bombs. There were the 155mm cannons on this base that can hit and flatten anything in Baqubah and beyond. The Apache helicopters could spin up with their rockets and cannons. Infantrymen could just roll in. Or tanks. Or Bradleys. Or Strykers. Even Humvees. The idea was to use just the amount of force to kill the enemy fighters, but leave everyone in the surrounds unscathed, if possible. If that was not possible, often they would simply not fire, but other times they would. Judgment call.

By about 0400, the Battle Captain had decided to use 120mm mortars. As a reference, if a 120mm were to land on a car, the car would be obliterated, but a 120mm would not be enough to flatten a decent house. The first round was shot, and the explosion left a black-hot thermal cloud on the two video screens. The impact looked hundreds of yards off target. Successive shots did not hone it, but got worse. It was starting to look like a turkey shoot, so the Battle Captain ordered the mortars to cease fire and refused to consider using the mortars again for that mission.

Making a city work, and things you didn’t know that your military knows…

…The idea is to get the Iraqis to run their own cities but most of the old leaders are gone, and the new ones are like throwing babies to cow udders. Many just don’t know what to do, and in any case, most of them have no natural instinct for it. So our soldiers are mentoring Iraqi civil leaders, which is a huge education for me because I get to sit in on the meetings. The American leaders tell me what they are up to, which amounts for free Ph.D. level instruction in situ: just have to be willing to be shot at. (The education a writer can get here is unbelievable.) Meeting after meeting—after embeds in Nineveh, Anbar, Baghdad and Diyala—I have seen how American officers tend to have a hidden skill-set. Collectively, American military leaders seem to somehow intuitively know how to run the mechanics of a city.

Michael offers remarkable video of LTC Johnson meeting with Iraqi Army officials to figure out how to get diesel fuel delivered. For the video you need to <read the whole thing> and please click Michael’s support me link.