The stakes couldn’t be higher. U.S. commanders report that, whatever the case before the war, Iraq has now become the central front of al Qaeda operations, drawing jihadists from all over the world. It is also a central front in Iran’s offensive to become the dominant player in the region. American generals say they have been “shocked” to discover the level of Iranian influence in Iraq. The Iranians are supporting not only the Mahdi Army, Badr Brigades, and other Shiite militias, but also, the generals believe, al Qaeda–the very group killing Shiites en masse.
With a bit more time to study Boot’s dispatch I’ve revised and retitled this post.
Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, Max Boot, spent the first half of April touring Iraq — Baghdad, Baqubah, Ramadi, and Falluja. This is an in-depth report, worth a careful read for Boot’s insights and first-hand observations of Petraeus and the situation on the ground.
E.g., did you know that Prime Minister Maliki had never visited Anbar, nor had any plans to visit this pivotal Sunni province until Gen. Patraeus forced the issue? On March 14 Maliki made the visit. “…Petraeus and his circle are fairly happy with Maliki. They say he has begun to think and act more like a national, not just a Shiite, leader. “I’ve been hearing a different tone,” says one Arabic-speaking American official who works closely with the prime minister.”
Some critical excerpts on the Maliki government’s report card [much more in the full dispatch]:
As evidence, he points to Maliki’s willingness to support an oil law that gives Sunnis a fair share and to agree to bring back some Baathists who had been purged from government. But the limits of Maliki’s power are evident in the fact that neither measure has yet been adopted by parliament. Although he is prime minister, Maliki does not command the loyalty of most members of parliament or even of most of his own cabinet, which was chosen by sectarian party bosses. Some major ministries, such as the Departments of Transportation and Health, had been under the control of Moktada al-Sadr’s allies until they announced their resignation last week. Others have better ministers at the top but are heavily infiltrated by Shiite extremists down below.
Petraeus argues, reasonably enough, that it’s unfair to expect the Shiite-dominated government to make too many concessions too quickly to the Sunnis who had oppressed them for decades. He frequently says that all the legislation being demanded of the Iraqi government–an oil law, a de-Baathification law, a provincial election law, and much else besides–is akin to getting the U.S. government to pass a civil rights act in 1866 or to pass Social Security reform and a comprehensive health care plan today. He hopes that success in pacifying Baghdad, if that is achieved, will provide breathing space for politicians to make the compromises necessary to foster effective governance.
Beyond the question of will lies the equally troubling question of competence. The Iraqis in charge of the government today, primarily exiles who spent years plotting against Saddam Hussein, have little experience of administration, much less of democratic administration. And they have to develop such a capacity in the midst of numbing violence–a challenge some American officers liken to building an airplane in flight. Widespread, corrosive corruption and deep-rooted mutual suspicion stand in the way. Most of the important factions in Iraq are willing to engage in politics but not to forgo the option of achieving their objectives at gunpoint.
…one U.S. general who deals closely with the crucial Ministry of Interior, which controls the police, says it “is not a functional ministry right now and may never be.”
Back to the beginning of Boot’s dispatch, focusing on Anbar and the Sunni tribes switching sides:
…Along the way I talked to everyone from privates to generals, both American and Iraqi. I found that, while we may not yet be winning the war, our prospects are at least not deteriorating precipitously, as they were last year. When General David Petraeus took command in February, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today there are some glimmers of hope in the unlikeliest of places.
Until recently Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, was the most dangerous city in Iraq if not the world. It was run by al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which had declared it the capital of its Islamic State of Iraq. The Iraqi police presence was limited to one police station, which the police were afraid to leave. Soldiers and Marines engaged in heavy combat every day, losing hundreds of men since 2003, simply to avoid having insurgents overrun the government center and close down Route Michigan, the main street.
…Yet, for all the shortcomings of their government, Iraqi forces have begun to play a key role in Coalition operations, and nowhere more than in Ramadi. Key to the success of this undertaking has been the recent decision by most of the major Anbar tribes to turn against al Qaeda. From 2003 to 2006, the sheikhs who traditionally dominate life in this rural province were happy to fight alongside al Qaeda against the American “crusaders” and the “Persians” (Shiites) who now run Baghdad. … A coalition of sheikhs based in Ramadi, led by Sheikh Abdul Sattar, has decided to throw in their lot with the Coalition in the fight against al Qaeda. Twenty-two of the Ramadi-area tribes are now cooperating with the Coalition; only two are still standoffish. In some parts of Anbar, fighting has erupted between al Qaeda and more nationalist, less fanatical “resistance” movements such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades.
The tribal forces are still too weak to defeat al Qaeda’s ruthless fighters on their own (and probably always will be), but they have been of critical help in generating tips that aid Coalition forces. They are also now encouraging their sons to join the Iraqi police and army. Last year, few if any Sunnis were signing up. Now so many are eager to join that training facilities are swamped and there is a waiting list of recruits. Sunnis are also willing to serve in local governments. Ramadi has just installed a new mayor and city council.
…Colonel Charlton and his battalion commanders have taken advantage of this newfound willingness to cooperate on the part of the sheikhs. Ramadi now has some 4,000 police officers as well as an irregular militia that is being integrated into the police force. It also has effective Iraqi army units, which are integrating more Sunnis into their ranks. But even the largely Shiite soldiers of the two brigades already in Ramadi have shown their mettle alongside American troops. One of the most encouraging sights I saw in Ramadi was an Iraqi army sergeant-major, a Shiite from Baghdad, supervising the rebuilding of a Sunni neighborhood and chatting amiably with the residents. This is the kind of intercommunal cooperation that was once the norm in Iraq and can be again if Shiite and Sunni extremists are defeated at gunpoint.
A brief profile of David Petraeus [more in the full dispatch]:
…With the support of President Bush (with whom he talks once a week via secure video-teleconference), Petraeus has adopted a fundamentally different strategy from that of his predecessor (and current army chief of staff) General George Casey. Casey’s philosophy, shared by his boss, General John Abizaid, the former Central Command chief, was that U.S. forces were an “antibody” in Iraqi society. The faster we left, the better. That resulted in a pell-mell scramble to turn over responsibility to Iraqi Security Forces that weren’t ready for the challenge. The result was a precipitous increase in violence following the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra in February 2006, bringing the country to the brink of all-out civil war. Petraeus’s priority, by contrast, is to reengage with the population in order to improve security. Only then will it be possible, he reckons, to turn over responsibility to the Iraqis.
Besides pushing more troops out of their Forward Operating Bases (a soldier who never leaves his FOB is known as a fobbit), Petraeus has emphasized information operations. Casey was very much a traditional soldier who shunned publicity and thought that results should speak for themselves. This had the inadvertent result of ceding the “information battlespace” to adversaries like Moktada al-Sadr and the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who proved skillful in exploiting the Internet and satellite television in particular. Petraeus, who has sometimes been derided behind his back as a “glory-seeker,” has tried to fight back by opening up his command to the news media. He often takes journalists along on his regular visits to troops in the field. When he went to Baqubah on April 7, he took a reporter from the San Antonio Express-News (as well as two WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editors, Fred Kagan and me). He is also trying to push authority to conduct “information operations” down to lower levels of his force…
Boot’s closing observations:
…Can Iraqis come together quickly enough to save their country before domestic politics forces American troops to begin pulling out? That is the great unknown that Petraeus grapples with. During my visit I found cause for both optimism and despair.
The contradictory impulses of a complex country were neatly encapsulated by Captain Rob McNellis, the lanky commander of the 57th Military Police Company, as he took me on a tour of some of the 15 Iraqi police stations he oversees in west Baghdad. Since he arrived in June 2006, he has seen some “major improvements.” When he first got here, most of the policemen were not even wearing uniforms, much less patrolling. Most of their vehicles were broken. They often did little beyond collecting a paycheck, and what they did tended to be destructive–Shiite policemen either turned a blind eye to, or actually participated in, terrible attacks on innocent Sunnis.
On Tuesday, April 10, when we visited police stations in his AOR (Area of Responsibility), we found most of the cops in uniform and most of their vehicles in operation. At one station, almost all the squad cars were gone because the cops were on the streets patrolling–a good sign. But McNellis also confided his frustration that “a lot” of policemen “are still involved in militia-type activity.”
“Some of the people we were training were trying to kill us,” he told me. A powerful EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator) that killed one of his MPs was planted within a few feet of an Iraqi police checkpoint, suggesting complicity on the part of the Iraqi cops. McNellis told me that “nonsectarian police commanders don’t last long because of pressure from militias, Shiite or Sunni.” Corrupt police commanders, on the other hand, are tough to get rid of. Even when a culprit is removed from one job he often turns up in another security post, sometimes even a higher-ranking post. Other American officers in the area told me they suspected some Iraqi National Policemen of running extortion rackets–arresting Sunnis and then threatening their families that they will be beaten or even killed unless a handsome ransom is paid for their release.
“The situation has come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go,” McNellis says. That sums up not only his own area but the entire country.
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