The Marines are fighting bravely, but they just don't have enough soldiers. Insurgents Flourish in Iraq's Wild West The center of the rebel movement has shifted to Al Anbar province, near the border with Syria. But the U.S. has been moving its forces away. By Mark Mazzetti and Solomon Moore Times Staff Writers May 24, 2005 WASHINGTON — The U.S. military's plan to pacify Iraq has run into trouble in a place where it urgently needs to succeed. U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad agree that Al Anbar province — the vast desert badlands stretching west from the cities of Fallouja and Ramadi to the lawless region abutting the Syrian border — remains the epicenter of the country's deadly insurgency. Yet U.S. troops and military officials in the embattled province said in recent interviews that they have neither enough combat power nor enough Iraqi military support to mount an effective counterinsurgency against an increasingly sophisticated enemy. "You can't get all the Marines and train them on a single objective, because usually the objective is bigger than you are," said Maj. Mark Lister, a senior Marine air officer in Al Anbar province. "Basically, we've got all the toys, but not enough boys." The Pentagon has made training Iraqi troops its top priority since Iraq's national election in late January. But in Al Anbar province, that objective is overshadowed by the more basic mission of trying to keep much of the region out of insurgent hands. Just three battalions of Marines are stationed in the western part of the province, down from four a few months ago. Marine officials in western Al Anbar say that each of those battalions is smaller by one company than last year, meaning there are approximately 2,100 Marines there now, compared with about 3,600 last year. Some U.S. military officers in Al Anbar province say that commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon have denied their repeated requests for more troops. "[Commanders] can't use the word, but we're withdrawing," said one U.S. military official in Al Anbar province, who asked not to be identified because it is the Pentagon that usually speaks publicly about troop levels. "Slowly, that's what we're doing." Such reductions are especially problematic because U.S. commanders have determined that it is the western part of the province to which the insurgency's "center of resistance" has shifted. The insurgency's base of operations was once the eastern corridor between Fallouja and Ramadi. Now, Pentagon officials say, it is in villages and cities closer to the Syrian border. Commanders also believe the insurgency is now made up of a larger percentage of foreign jihadists than the U.S. military previously believed, an indication that there are not enough U.S. and Iraqi troops to patrol miles of desert border. Some Pentagon officials and experts in counterinsurgency warfare say the troop shortage has hamstrung the U.S. military's ability to effectively fight Iraqi insurgents. This was evident during this month's Operation Matador, the U.S. offensive near the Syrian border designed to stem the flow of foreign fighters and their weapons into Iraq. For seven days, Marines rumbled through desert villages and fought pitched battles against a surprisingly well-coordinated enemy. On the first day of the operation, insurgents appeared to be willing to stand their ground and fight the Marines, but U.S. military officials now believe that may have been a tactic to delay U.S. troops from crossing into the Ramana region north of the Euphrates River. This delay, officials said, could have given many of the insurgents time to escape into Syria. "It's an extremely frustrating fight," said Maj. Steve White, operations director for the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment. "Fighting these guys is like picking up water. You're going to lose some every time." A military news release declared the mission a success, saying that U.S. troops had killed more than 125 insurgents. Nine Marines were killed and 40 were wounded during the operation. Yet as soon as the operation concluded, the Marines crossed back over the Euphrates River and left no U.S. or Iraqi government presence in the region — generally considered a major mistake in counterinsurgency warfare. "It's classically the wrong thing to do," said Kalev Sepp, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., who last fall was a counterinsurgency advisor to Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq. "Sending 1,000 men north of the Euphrates does what? Sometimes these things can be counterproductive, because you just end up shooting things up and then leaving the area." Military officials in Iraq and Washington said there was little reason to expect that insurgent fighters would not return to the villages. "The right thing to do would have been to sweep the area with U.S. troops, and hold it with Iraqi troops," said a military official and counterinsurgency expert at the Pentagon who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not an official Pentagon spokesman. Yet, there were no Iraqi troops to leave in the area. Just one platoon of Iraqi troops is stationed in the far west Al Anbar province, garrisoned at a phosphate plant in the town of Qaim. But those troops were on leave during the week of Operation Matador, taking their paychecks home to their families. Lt. Col. Christopher Starling, operations officer for the 2nd Marine Regimental Combat Team, said the slow pace at which Iraqi troops were being trained in Al Anbar province meant that the province could be among the last areas in Iraq to put a substantial number of trained Iraqi troops in the field. The shortage of Iraqi troops in Al Anbar is due largely to a deadly intimidation campaign by insurgents. Iraqi trainees and recruits have been killed en masse in shootings and suicide bombings. Consequently, U.S. and Iraqi commanders have been forced to rely largely on Shiite troops to patrol the Sunni-dominated province. Iraqi troops could be particularly effective in helping U.S. troops gain a better understanding of the tribal divisions in Al Anbar province. Some U.S. commanders in Al Anbar have expressed frustration that they have not capitalized on recent armed conflicts between insurgent groups. Earlier this year, Marines began receiving intelligence about insurgent groups and clans in the area who were fighting foreign militants in towns along the Syrian border. In the days before Operation Matador, Marines posted on the outskirts of Husaybah reported a series of cross-town mortar attacks by opposing insurgent factions. Al Anbar province "is a region that is in turmoil and, in some regards, in conflict with itself," said Marine Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, who twice since the war in Iraq began has been the top U.S. commander in Al Anbar and who now is director of operations for the Pentagon's Joint Staff. U.S. commanders believe they are in a Catch-22: Defeating the insurgency depends on flooding towns and cities with hundreds of reconstruction projects. Yet the persistent insurgent attacks against U.S. troops and civilians, especially in Al Anbar province, prevent reconstruction projects from getting started. "There are areas where there is relatively little reconstruction because of insurgent activity. You go out to Al Anbar province, for example. It's pretty grim out there in terms of what has been done versus what could be done," Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, said last week. U.S. and Iraqi military leaders view Al Anbar province as the insurgency's supply line. Insurgents freely cross the long, unguarded border with Syria and have taken over a string of small villages along the Euphrates River to stage guerrilla attacks in cities to the east like Ramadi, Mosul and Baghdad. U.S. military officers in Al Anbar province say that Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi has been sighted in towns that U.S. forces have not visited for as many as six months. As a spate of deadly car bombings continues throughout Iraq, U.S. officials now believe it is the foreign jihadists — who military officials believe are more likely than former Saddam Hussein loyalists to carry out suicide attacks — who pose the most significant threat to the stability of the new Iraqi government. "I really want to believe that we are making great progress right now," said the counterinsurgency expert at the Pentagon. "What's killing us right now, literally and figuratively, is the foreign fighters. We just need to catch a few breaks." At the same time, the official said he expected it would take years to finish the job. "If we can win this thing in six years, we're setting new land speed records," he said. During Operation Matador, U.S. troops were surprised to find a large insurgent presence in towns south of the Euphrates in western Al Anbar, such as Ubaydi, where the heaviest fighting of the operation took place. That the Marines were unaware that there were so many insurgents in that city after having dispatched numerous civil affairs missions there indicates the complexity of the region as well as the military's limited knowledge of the area. "We're here and they're there," said Maj. Todd Waldemar, head of civil affairs for the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, a reserve unit stationed at the Haditha Dam in Al Anbar. "We kind of walk around in a security bubble, so to speak, that makes it kind of hard for us to figure out exactly what's going on." * http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...ry?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=2&cset=true
Surge in U.S. Deaths in Iraq Draws Concern By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer Tue May 24, 3:55 PM ET BAGHDAD, Iraq - The surge in deaths of U.S. soldiers in recent weeks has raised concern that insurgents may again be focusing their sights on American forces. Eighteen U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq during the past week — 14 in the past three days alone. The deaths come at a time when American troops are trying to hand more responsibility to Iraq's fledgling security forces, part of the U.S. strategy to eventually leave Iraq. While the killings paint a worrying picture, U.S. soldiers and analysts say they probably don't represent a ramping up of violence against American forces in the battlefields of Baghdad and beyond. "The cycle goes up and down and unfortunately it turns out to be the location of where you are or a matter of timing," U.S. Central Command spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said. "Attacks against coalition forces have never stopped. We are averaging about 70 attacks against us per day," he added. "It is always a concern when these types of events happen, but it is not unusual to see." The most recent deaths include three soldiers killed Tuesday when a car bomb tore apart a Humvee in Baghdad. Another was slain in a drive-by shooting while sitting in the back of a parked Bradley fighting vehicle in the capital. Five U.S. servicemen were killed a day earlier in attacks in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, and Ramadi, 70 miles west of the capital. On Sunday, a series of explosions killed four soldiers in northern Iraq, while an American soldier died in a vehicle accident in the same part of the country. In addition, every day from May 17 to May 20 a U.S. service member has died. During their two-year occupation of Iraq, more than 1,640 U.S. soldiers have died, many killed in multiple blasts caused by suicide attackers, car bombs or roadside explosions. Shiite Muslim fighters allied to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr waged intense battles against American troops in Baghdad and the southern city of Najaf last year. And Sunni extremists, who have used bombings, ambushes and kidnappings to deadly effect, have shown no signs of letting up in their campaign to push coalition forces out of Iraq and topple the country's U.S.-backed, Shiite-dominated government. A possible factor behind the continued vulnerability of U.S. troops is the poor state of preparedness of Iraq's own security forces. Gen. John Abizaid, the American military commander in the Persian Gulf region, said last week in Washington that Iraq's police force has not developed as quickly as U.S. generals had hoped, raising questions about how soon American forces could begin returning home. Edward B. Atkeson, a senior fellow at the Rand Institute of Land Warfare, believes it is the inability of U.S. authorities to produce an Iraqi security force capable of taking over complete control of Iraq that continues to place American troops in the firing line. "Whenever you take a larger part in the security operations you have to be prepared to take a larger part of the casualties," Atkeson, a former U.S. military intelligence chief in Europe, said from Alexandria, Va. Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst with Jane's Consultancy Group in Britain, said the rate of attacks against American forces are the same as any time during the conflict — but the key difference is the increasing capabilities of the insurgents. "We would have hoped that the insurgency would have decreased in line with the ability of the Iraqi security forces to hold the ring and become more capable," Heyman said. "But it doesn't appear to be panning out that way with the insurgents increasing in their abilities to kill, attack and strike when and where they want." http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050524/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_in_the_firing_line
Gen. John Abizaid, the American military commander in the Persian Gulf region, said last week in Washington that Iraq's police force has not developed as quickly as U.S. generals had hoped, raising questions about how soon American forces could begin returning home. I'm shocked! President Bush and Cheney talked glowingly during the debates of the 100's of thousands of our Iraqis ,would be ready by the end of last year to fight the resistance.:
It must really be getting worse. All of Bagdad to become green zone. ------------------------------ New Iraq Security Cordon to Ring Baghdad BAGHDAD, Iraq - The government announced Thursday that a security cordon of 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and police will ring Baghdad starting next week to try to halt a spree of insurgent violence that has killed more than 620 people this month. The security cordon next week would be followed by similar anti-terrorism moves across the country, part of an effort to shift the government stance toward the insurgency from a defensive to an offensive position, said Interior Minister Bayan Jabr and Defense Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi. "Next week, we will have a strong and safe cordon around Baghdad like a bracelet that surrounds the hand. We will not allow anyone to cross this cordon," al-Duleimi said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050526/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Didn't want to start another thread about bad news out of Iraq. We know how that upsets the neocons. So I'll put this here. Risk of Civil War Spreads Fear Across Nation Many worry that strains between Sunnis and Shiites could ignite a conflict that would overwhelm U.S. troops and the government. By Jeffrey Fleishman Times Staff Writer May 29, 2005 BAGHDAD — Explosions rip through marketplaces, scattering blood and vegetables and leaving women wailing in the alleys. Bodies bob in rivers and are dug up from garbage dumps and parks. Kidnappers troll the streets, sirens howl through morning prayers and mortar rounds whistle against skylines of minarets. Iraqis awake each day to the sounds of violence. With little respite, many wonder whether strange, terrible forces are arrayed against them. They fear that weeks of sectarian and clan violence, claiming the lives of all types from imams to barefoot fishermen, are a prelude to civil war. "I'm worried 24 hours a day," said Zainab Hassan, a university student majoring in computer science. "Whenever I hear bomb or shooting, I call my mother and husband to check if they're OK. I can see a civil war coming, it's obvious. Everybody is talking about it. We have to be more careful." Iraqis such as Abu Mohammed, who sells books along the Tigris River, struggle to comprehend how the euphoria of January's election has withered so quickly. They find contradictions rather than answers. Life has become a vicious thrum, with boys clinging to courtyard walls and gun battles beneath the date palms appearing live on TV. Interviews with Iraqis from Basra to Baghdad to Mosul suggest that much of the nation fears that intensifying strains between Sunni and Shiite Muslims could ignite a conflict that would overwhelm the increasingly unpopular Iraqi government and 140,000 U.S. troops. Abu Mohammed blames, among others, Saddam Hussein, who, even from his jail cell, seems to taunt the country. "Saddam created hostile sentiments between Sunni and Shiite," Mohammed said. "It was like a fire hidden under a cover and waiting to turn into a blaze. The remnants of Saddam Hussein are now trying to stoke and enlarge this fire. I blame both the Shiites and the Sunnis for playing parts in stirring up hostilities." Nearly 700 people have been killed in car bombings and by shootings and beheadings in the last month. What concerns U.S. officials and ordinary Iraqis is that militant leaders such as Abu Musab Zarqawi are attempting to instigate a two-track war: one, the continuing battle between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces, and another between Shiite and Sunni Arabs that could possibly draw in Kurds from the north. "It's time for Iraqis to stand together to foil the dirty attempts of the enemies to implant sectarian war on this injured country," said Naim Salman, a civil servant in Baghdad. "The government is trying its best, but it is still not enough. It is a new government and it needs time, especially when terrorists are infiltrating ministries." The Sunnis were the beneficiaries and power behind Hussein's Baathist regime. Many of them, including influential leaders, opposed the Shiite-dominated government that followed Hussein and formed the heart of the insurgency. Some Sunnis have begun to rejoin the political process. But so far, the government has been unable to persuade the nation's minority Sunni population to abandon its suspicions, and the squabbles in the corridors of the National Assembly have inspired violence tied to religion and clan. Nafi Alfartoosi, editor of a newspaper in Samawah in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, said, "The failure of the government to stop sectarian terrorism of Sunnis against Shiites has deepened the gap between the government and the people. I am sure that many of the millions who voted are sorry for going out on Jan. 30. This weakness in stopping sectarian terrorism and halting bloodshed is encouraging" those seeking a civil war. Sunni and Shiite organizations, along with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, have sought to calm tensions over the last week. But the effort is hindered by spiraling violence that since April 29 has included the killing of at least 10 Sunni and Shiite clerics, among them Mohammed Tahir Allaq, a representative of one of the nation's top Shiite leaders, Ayatollah Mohammed Saeed Hakim. Some Shiite and Sunni leaders have blamed each other for the assassinations. Images of the coffins of clerics being carried through the streets have unnerved a public that has had scant peace since Hussein was toppled two years ago and the country occupied by U.S.-led forces that quickly encountered an insurgency. The January election brought a brief gust of normality, but that has shattered with the surge in car bombings. In a Baghdad University poll taken earlier this year, more than 80% of the Iraqis questioned expected their government to gain strength in coming months. That has dropped to 45% today. With the insurgency killing more civilians, anger against American forces has intensified. Many Iraqis view the U.S. as an unwanted godfather who, despite his prowess and streams of military convoys, can't provide the basics let alone protect them from extremists who badger the nation with Internet screeds and jihadist rants on the radio. "I only want to put this question to you," said Sana Abdul-Kareem, a dentist with four children. "Why can't the U.S., with all its might and capabilities, impose security here? How come with all our oil they cannot provide us with electricity? My son was so happy when the American soldiers first came. But after two years of failure to make good on their promises, he abhors them." Baghdad resident Ali Jalal said: "The Americans are behind these problems. They don't want the country to be stabilized…. The Iraqi government is like a doll in the hands of the Americans." Many Iraqis choose denial to cope with the seething times around them. A Shiite will tell you he is married to a Sunni, or a Sunni to a Shiite. They will tell you their families are an intermingling of Iraq's classes and religions and that they have lived in harmony for generations. But every day new families line up outside morgues and new markers are added to graveyards. They blame it on terrorists and outside forces, who, they say, manipulate their lives much as Hussein did. "It's a policy of divide and conquer being applied by our occupiers," said Abu Izz, a Baghdad antiques dealer who was born in Fallouja. A civil war will not succeed because Iraqis are all brothers and relatives, he added. "You may not believe this, but some of my relatives are promujahedin [Sunnis], and others are members of the Badr Brigade [Shiites] and others are clergy. This is how we are interrelated." "Iraq is one nation, one land and one heart," said Sinaa Ali Musa, a state worker from Samawah. But Musa, a Shiite, conceded there were divisions. "I think the Shiites are being subjected to all kinds of terrorism because the Sunnis are losing power." Others consider Sunnis the victims. "There has been a flagrant violation of Sunni rights," said Saad Abdul Aziz Siqar, a Sunni from Basra. "This is affecting relationships between the two sects and could lead to war…. The Shiites have power and authority over us and are treating us like a minority." Navigating such chaos psychologically, and even on rural roads and city streets, has trapped many Iraqis. "It's the same problem everyday — traffic, traffic, roads are closed and in addition to that, we have national guards aiming their weapons toward us," said Tanya Mazin, a student at Baghdad University. "We are living in stress and fear. I do not think this will end one day because it's going from bad to worse." http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...may29,1,7977330.story?coll=la-headlines-world
