Birth of an Army

David Bellavia, Owen West & Wade Zirkle:

On the fourth day of operation-no-name in Al Anbar's deadly provincial capital, Ramadi, an Iraqi infantry squad moves into a dingy alley on the eastern edge of the Mu'saab district. It's quiet. As their combat boots pick a trail along the garbage-strewn street, the crunch of glass can be heard. The operation is subdued, nameless by design. After two years and dozens of urban battles in Iraq announced with catchy titles, reverberating tank engines, and even rock music, this late-June operation is a slow squeeze. And Iraqis are leading.

American troops have heard that before, of course. Since early 2004, when defense department officials first began touting Iraqi leadership in battle, U.S. soldiers have been wondering where exactly this phantom was, sometimes bumping up against a group of insurgents and sarcastically shouting, "It's the ICDC [Iraqi Civil Defense Corps], leading from the front again!" Here in Ramadi, it's real.

Enemy mortars echo in a concrete canyon, too distant for accuracy, but plenty close for the shock waves to cause the Iraqi soldiers to hunch. The quick radio chatter that follows marks the new relationship; American Marines fighting on the flank are trading information with the Iraqis, who control their own large piece of the battlefield.

Their infantry skills aren't perfect. Iraqis carry their weapons every which way, and they enter buildings like horses out of the gate, often bumping into one another. American units drill urban movement to exhaustion; Iraqi squads may discuss it over sweet chai tea. Yet, when they search a building, they confidently rip detonation cords from under rugs and blasting caps from corners and belt-fed ammunition from hidden cupboards. Iraqis find in minutes all kinds of suspicious or incriminating items that even a polished American unit would have missed.

...

The Iraqi army's 1st Division, 1st Brigade commander, General Razaq, wears a thick mustache, an immaculate uniform, and perfectly trimmed hair when he agrees to meet with a reporter. Because of the insurgency's penchant for killing the families of government officials, senior civil servants often use a single tribal name--which means that the Iraqi army has more one-named leaders than the Brazilian national soccer team.

Like his American peers, Razaq is disdainful of the press corps. Both the Arab and American media have given him headaches. Every few minutes, he offers the reporter a cold or hot beverage, a cigarette, or a candy mint. The offers serve as a buffer to questions, an effective technique that eventually causes the general's fellow officers to snicker out loud. Five cigarettes smolder near the general, each one with an inch of ash, a clue that he has no time for concentrated smoking but is affluent enough to start multiple cigarettes.

Razaq is a Sunni married to a Shiite. Because of his occupation, he has buried two uncles, a brother, a sister-in-law, and dozens of cousins. His unit has fought in every offensive since 2004. The 1st Iraqi Division is the oldest of the new Iraqi army, and it has shared battle space with Americans in places like Sadr City, Falluja, Mosul, Najaf, Karbala, Habbaniyah, Tal Afar, Hit, Khyme, and now Ramadi.

"Every day the enemy is getting weaker and weaker. They cannot win. Because the good in Iraq will not let them. I will not let them," he says with a stern face.

Razaq understands counterinsurgency. As a recent firefight dwindled, the rumble of approaching engines filled the streets. Soldiers smiled, sure that American vehicles were coming to reinforce. Instead, a fleet of garbage trucks arrived. Razaq was cleaning the dirty streets he had just secured, and the locals noticed.

This is not to say he shies from the stick. "If they shoot one bullet," he says, "we will shoot many more." While the Americans struggled with force escalation, the Iraqis we observed had fewer reservations.

...

An interesting story. There is much more. The Iraqis seem to have excellent situational awareness most of the time and the ability to see the subtilities. Since they have been brought to the fight the quantity and quality of intelligence on the enemy has increased dramatically. The enemy is desperately trying to take advantage of the transition to Iraqi forces in the field, but the enemy is no match for them in combat, just as they are no match for US troops. So the enemy is left with his only remaining tactic, slaughtering non combatants.

The story gives some sense of the enemy's continuing efforts to intimidate the non combatants. There appears to be no attempt to win the hearts and minds of the people, only to intimidate them. That only works when they are around to intimidate, but when the Iraqi army moves in the non combatants tell them what they know.