Special Ops in Iraq

NY Times:

Every night in Iraq, American Special Operations forces carry out as many as a dozen raids aimed at terrorist leaders allied with Al Qaeda, other insurgent fighters and militia targets. Their after-action reports are the first thing that Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Baghdad, reads the next day.

The missions also are closely watched by senior policy makers in Washington, who differ on whether the small number of elite units should focus on capturing and killing leaders of the group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and foreign fighters in Iraq, or whether the greater threat comes from the Sunni- and Shiite-based insurgency.

In the shadows of the troop increase ordered by President Bush, Special Operations forces conduct between 6 and 12 missions every night across the country. A vast majority — between 80 percent and 90 percent — are aimed at Qaeda-allied targets, while the rest attack other extremist elements, say senior military officers in Baghdad and Pentagon officials.

“We are focused on those elements that are causing the most problems and going after a very specific target set,” said one officer in Iraq. “We are working very hard to go after the rogue elements or extremists of any flavor.”

...

In recent weeks, as the final elements of the troop increase ordered by Mr. Bush began arriving in Iraq, Special Operations units have captured or killed senior officers of the militia loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, an influential Shiite cleric. Senior officers said one mission earlier this month killed a militant Shiite commander, Azhar al-Duleimi, who is believed to have organized a deadly attack on a government compound in south-central Iraq in January.

“The first thing I want to know is how did we do last night,” General Petraeus said in a recent interview on National Public Radio, explaining how closely he follows the operations of the secret special-mission units.

The Special Operations teams are deployed throughout the country so they can respond faster to emerging intelligence on potential targets. Other foreign militaries contribute forces to the missions, and new Iraqi special operations units and counterterrorism teams join the effort.

...

In his recent speeches, at least, Mr. Bush has said Al Qaeda remains “public enemy No. 1.”

But academic experts who analyze the Special Operations missions in Iraq say the battle against any of those threats — Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Sunni insurgents or Shiite militias — requires far better intelligence on the inner workings of those adversaries than the American military is able to gather today.

“My own view is that they still have to solve the intelligence problem,” said Richard Shultz, who specializes in issues of special operations and terrorism at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “And the way that they are going to do that is not through ‘the surge,’ but by building up local, indigenous intelligence units. That is really the key, and not enough has been done to reach this level of intelligence dominance.”

Much of the rest of the article focuses on the political aspects of operations in Iraq. Shultz is a smart guy, but I disagree with him on the intelligence aspects of "the surge." It is already yielding significant intelligence such as the operation over the weekend that found an al Qaeda prison/torture facility in Diyala holding 42 Iraqis. The tip lines have provided significant intelligence in numerous cases as well as walk contacts with Iraqi troops that have been added to the surge operation.