Some good news from Iraq

[BeanCounter]

10-19-2007

CO 1st Bn, 7th Marines -- SITREP/Newsletter From Al Anbar, Iraq

From: Dill LtCol Jeffrey J (1/7 Bn Co)
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 3:45 PM
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Family, friends, and Fellow Marines,

As promised, here is my first "update" from this tour in Iraq. I will try and get one of these out about every month. I hope this finds you all doing well. It has been a very fast moving month and a half as we moved the 1,000+ Marines from 1/7 and literally tons of equipment and material half way around the world through Kuwait and eventually into Iraq. We have inventoried and signed for well over a hundred pieces of rolling stock, thousands of pieces of electronic equipment and computers, joined a few hundred more reinforcements to 1/7 (making us now "Task Force 1/7") and then we put everyone in their new positions, spreading us out over 500 square kilometers. Needless to say, the Marines of the First Team have been busy!

Here is the million dollar question I have been asked repeatedly since I have arrived, "How is it compared to the last time you were in Iraq?" Well, I was in Hit, the main city within our AO, last October and daytime operations were limited to tanks and BFVs driving around the outskirts of the city because to venture inside meant a certain attack by an IED, RPG, small arms, or all of the above. Recently, I went on a 3 hour dismounted patrol through town in the middle of the afternoon and my biggest worry was having enough candy for all the children that came up to me to say hello and shake my hand.

I stopped in stores and talked to the merchants to see how business is doing. They told me business is good and improving everyday. I even went to a few shops to look for a carpet for my office and enjoyed myself as I tried to get the price lowered from "rich" American prices to normal Iraqi prices. I wasn't successful but will keep trying!

I stopped in one of the police stations in the city so I could make plans with the Station Chief to remove a number of the cement barriers on the street in order to open traffic back up. Those barriers were a must before as there was a constant threat of a suicide vehicle ramming into the station in an attempt to kill as many of the police officers as possible. While that threat still exists, the security provided by the police and my Marines has allowed us to take risks in certain areas as we try and balance security needs and normalcy.

I spend many hours working with the numerous city counsels and Mayors in my AO to address and solve many issues, problems, and to plan for the future. A year ago, the city councils would not show up to work because if they did, they were killed as they were seen as "agents" of the Americans by AQI. Now, they look forward to my arrival so issues like schools, rubble removal, water treatment plants, sewage repairs, repairs of the electrical grids, infrastructure modernization, and an assortment of other issues can be worked out, prioritized, and assets allocated for them to begin work.

I also spend a great deal of time with the major Sheiks in my AO. They are some of the most gracious hosts you have ever met. My Marines and I are treated liked royalty every time we arrive. Delicious lamb, goat, sheep, kabobs, fresh fruits and vegetables are served in amounts we could never finish and we always eat first and get the seats of honor closest to the Sheik. We then adjourn for Chi tea and discuss issues that require my attention such as security, economic stimulation, tribal reconciliation, local government issues, and of course stories of past battles and fights...all embellished but they make great stories anyway.

Three brothers in the town of Baghdadi, one of whom who happens to be the Police Chief and is known as the "Lion of Al Anbar", are particularly gracious hosts. They were some of the first to stand up against AQI and to stand with the Marines. They have suffered greatly for choosing to fight AQI and for freedom. The Police Chief, Colonel Shab'an has had no less then 7 direct assassination attempts against him. I was here last year and saw him after one attack against him was nearly successful. One of his brothers was killed, a brother-in-law was tortured and beheaded, and one of his younger brothers lost his legs in a mortar attack. Yet, he remains committed to a free and independent Iraq. His talks to me about freedom, democracy, and his loyalty to Iraq and justice are inspiring.

Colonel Shab'an has become a sort of folk hero to his community and his willingness to stand up for their freedom and safety has inspired thousands of Iraqis. His two brothers, one a Sheik and the other a local businessman are also servants to their community. The Sheik is the City Council Chairman and has almost single handedly reorganized the local government from a board of obstructionists to a functioning and effective governing body who work almost non-stop to improve the lives of the people within their area. The other brother is a very successful businessman who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to fix water treatment plants, to pay of the salaries of the police before the national government could or would, and his source network has led to the successful capture of many terrorists and criminals.

The nights in their neighborhood are particularly enjoyable as we sit outside to eat and the children in the neighborhood run around, laughing, and sneaking up to listen to me talk or to try and get some more candy from me. They are so proud of the security they have established for their families, their tribe, and the people in their community. I am proud just to be considered their friend.

Overall, the folks I have met are good people who want to raise their families, farm their land, and just have the ability to choose their own future for one of the few times in their country's history. Their admiration and appreciation to us and to the American people for the opportunity we have offered them is genuine and heartfelt.

While there has been a great deal of progress, there is still much to do. While most of the terrorists have been forced from the population centers, there are still secret cells. We have found and been attacked by a number of IEDs already. We have found a good number of buried caches along the river banks that were planted there for future use against us. Iraq is far from a peaceful land; there are many political issues above my level that must be worked out. The rifts between the religious sects are as tough a problem to figure out as anything else ever has been...think Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

The bottom line is this...we are winning the counter-insurgency fight here in Al Anbar. We are winning as a result of the past 5 years of work by thousands of Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers who worked tirelessly to get us where we are today. This didn't happen overnight and we lost many good men and women to achieve it. We have put the enemy on the run and we are not letting the pressure off. We continue to hunt him down and provide him no rest. My Marines, actually your Marines, are patrolling in the cities, in the desert, and on the river to find the enemy and destroy him. And the Marines do not patrol alone. Almost every operation we do has Iraqi Police, Army, or both with the Marines. They are brave, committed to winning, and they try as hard as they can to emulate the Marines they are serving with. At the same time we continue to build our relationships with the local leaders, Sheiks, and most importantly the Iraq people.

I am optimistic that if given the time and support of the American people, we can help create a country whose vast natural resources and potential will make it one of the strongest and most powerful nations in the region. Iraq will be our Ally and they will not forget the sacrifices the American people have made on their behalf. I realize and understand that many back home are tired of this conflict and want it to end. I will not provide any argument there but I will offer that "wishing" away this problem is not reality. The Islamic extremists that wish to destroy us are not going away, they cannot be 'talked' to, and they will not negotiate.

I have been here three years in a row now and I can see the progress. I can see the improvement in the capabilities and potential in the Iraqi Security Forces, I can see the willingness and desire of civic and local leaders to build a better future for their people, and I can see that most of the civilian population has turned its back on AQI because of their empty promises. I can see hope, a hope that many Iraqis have never known before, and a hope they do not want to loose.

Your Marines are doing exceptionally well. They are focused, they are disciplined, and they continue to attack each day with vigor and enthusiasm. I am continually inspired by their courage, dedication, and willingness to sacrifice for others. I am truly blessed for the privilege to lead them.

I would like to thank all of you for your continued prayers and support. It means the world to us to know you are all still behind us and that you want us to successfully complete this mission. Please remember all the 1/7 families and all the families of those serving here in Iraq that have been left behind in your prayers as well.

Semper Fidelis and God Bless,

JJ
LtCol JJ Dill
Commanding Officer
Task Force 1/7
Hit, Iraq


Let's see how long it takes for someone to speak up that by sitting in Boston they know better than the men on the ground.

[Ron61]

That is really great news and a pleasure to hear something besides the I know everything about everything poster. Hopefully, if the local people can gain confidence that they can defend themselves, they will start tom eradicate the radicals. Keep the updates coming as some of us still believe in this country and appreciate the sacrifices the men over there are making.

Ron

[VRM]

Bernie,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8fKwsRZDg

And

The War As We Saw It
By Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, Edward Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray and Jeremy A. Murphy

The New York Times

Sunday 19 August 2007

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a "time-sensitive target acquisition mission" on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse - namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington's insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made - de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government - places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict - as we do now - will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

[427 S/O]

I cannot even imagine how it must have felt to live under a muderious tyrant's rule for almost 30 Yr. and then, Wham! your free!.
Even though this is good, I suspect it will be tragically like the USSR when it fell. Corruption....Corruption. Big corporations were lined up to invest in the
USSR but everyone there had their hand out..big time....

[BeanCounter]

Didn't take long did it.

As usual Steve posts something to try to make everyone think that the entire country is going to hell. That's just not so. Here is one AO that seems to be doing well. Steve posted just one AO that seems not to be doing well. I'm sure there are good places and bad places throughout the country. Since there are some good places (An Bar, Mosul, much of the north) it is logical to me that good can be brought to the country. It's already there. Now we should find out why it is good and how it can be applied to the bad areas that Steve just loves for us to hear about (I wonder why he doesn't go over and fix it all up since he knows everything about everything).

[trularin]

Kids...play nice.

[VRM]

Bernie,
As the sargeants said, not all of the actors fit into a neat little box. They also say that the Iraqis should resolve their differences as they see fit. We can help them if we are needed, but the solution to their own power struggles has to come from them. And we have to be willing to accept the outcome, even if it means a country the leans favourably to Iran. We harm our country by pretending that we can solve the Iraqis problems for them.

Oh, and you'll notice that I made no points myself in my post. Everything was said by people who know a helluva lot more about what is going on over there than we do.

Steve

[BeanCounter]

Even uber liberal MSNBC is reporting that it's working.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21602649/

Just can't bring yourself to say it Steve?

I take what you posted with a grain of salt. First a Specialist being named prior to a bunch of NCO's leads me to believe he is the author. And someone named Buddhika Jayamaha gives me pause when taking what he says over a Marine Colonel named Dill. I tend to question both his loyalties and perspective.

[RAZOR]

Bernie, as usual the left doesn.t want to hear success stories, i.e. Bill Maher, after hearing Gen. Perraeus, report on Iraq said the Gen. was lying!!! And that is the normal response of the left, we are either either liars or ignorant. The war on terrorism, global warming, or pick your subject they are dismissive of an opposing view, especially if it puts the U.S. in a favorable light. I am speaking of the macro, I know their are exceptions, their always are.

[BeanCounter]

Steve believes we can deal with these people on a logical basis. Here is a clip from Saudi TV. This is that religions version of Dr. Phil.

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1594.htm



How can you deal with people like that? Steve tells us they are just like us. Maybe Steve uses the same size rod to beat his females with.

[VRM]

Bernie,
I have no problem acknowledging facts.

Here are some more for you:
Iraqi deaths in:
August = 1770
September = 840
October = 887

So yes, the surge is helping. It is still just a band-aid that will eventually have to be removed. We are not fixing their problems - we are delaying the Iraqis eventual solution of their own problems themselves. And it is costing lives of our servicemen while we do that. I prefer to take the band-aid off, and administer additional treatment as requested by the patient.

BTW, did you actually watch the video you posted?? Or were you just all excited that you found something that shows how evil those Muslims are? Did you see the size of the rod? The straws at McDonalds are bigger than your rod!! .

No, I'm not in favour of beating wives, and yes, Muslim men do it. So do Christian men, and so do Jewish men (Israel actually has a BIG problem with wife beating - yet I don't hear you whining about that).

And it really amazes me that you would stoop so low as to question the loyalty of a guy in uniform just because he has a name you can't figure out and a different opinion than you. I notice you mentioned nothing about Batiste... are you still touting what he says like you did a year or so ago?

Steve

[BeanCounter]

Oh crap, the lights came back on in Massachusetts (not the ones in their heads unfortunately)

Steve,

I still believe in what had to be done. But just like Viet Nam the politicos, urged on by the likes of you, screwed the pooch. The idea was right, the implementation was totally wrong. We needed more boots on the ground. Instead you would have sent a couple of CM's at their aspirin factory. Now all of these Generals are stepping forward and airing their views when they were too cowardly to do it when they were in uniform. We need more Hackworth's and fewer powdered and perfumed princes of the Pentagon.

You don't see priests and rabbis standing in the pulpit instructing the men of the congregation to beat their wives in the "soft spots" and don't hit them in the face so as to make them ugly. Nor do you see anything like it on US or Israeli TV not only condoning but urging that it be done. It's not even a valid comparison (but then you don't really care about things like that).