When Petraeus puts his new Counterinsurgency Manual into action he will have the full support of the Bush adminstration. He puts into play a classic "pacify the natives" program that is designed to choke off support, movement and refuge for a old-fashioned guerilla movement. Petraeus will front the plan ultimately chosen by President Bush as this administration's version of "The Way Forward". Petraeus's plan has been jerry rigged to include tactics and strategy from an academic-penned fantasy entitled "Choosing Victory, A Plan for Success in Iraq". A neoconservative plan that lays out a long-term and depressing view of victory that requires longer deployments, greater expenditure of U.S. lives and dollars and an endless commitment to whatever government is running Iraq.
Regardless of the draconian neocon view of a locked down Iraq, General Petraeus is the right man for the job...if he is allowed to think on his feet, be flexible and put his considerate ground experience into play. In other words, Petraeus must be allowed to apply ground smarts even if it flies in the face of the neocon agenda. Plain speaking, smart commanders have historically been the anathema of the Bush administration and a trait that Petraeus is famous for having, based on his efforts in Mosul.
The high points of the "Clear, Hold and Build plan are simple:
-U.S. troop levels will increase over the next four months to 150,000 total (17,500 troops Baghdad and 4,000 to Anbar province). The build-up has already begun with the departure of the 82nd Airborne and increased deployment notices sent.- Iraqi Army units will increase with units sent from Kurdistan and Basra to add one Iraqi Army Brigade to each of the nine sectors. The units are already moving into U.S. and Iraqi bases.
-Iraqi Police will be integrated into operations.
-Baghdad to be cordoned into 9 different sectors, the operation will begin in Sunni neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital such as Salman Pak and Abu Ghraib.
- Some districts are to be walled in with only one entrance in and out, some will have earth bermed walls to prevent movement outwards and inwards.
- There will be 27 high visibility "Joint Security Stations", essentially small fortified local bases staffed by US and Iraqi units an manned 24/7
- Troops to use “cordon and knock”, violent "no knock entries" will be replaced with more diplomatic entries but no discussion of the negative use of air strikes in built up areas.
- Ideally insurgents will be forced out of the secured zones, residents will be issued with IDs and provided protection. This was done in Fallujah with little to no long term success
- Reconstruction programs will employ locals, reducing the number of available insurgents recruits and lowering hostility.
- The unemployed will be put to work in the hope of reducing the incentives for extremism as part of the third tier of the policy of pacification.
- Finally Iraqi troops will increase their peacekeeping skills due to direct U.S. involvement and they will carry on security operations by themselves.
The problem is that Petraeus will not be replaying his successful role as Warlord of Mosul. Petraeus simply went against many of Rumsfeld's and Bremer's edicts and ran Mosul as his own fiefdom, rewarding those who helped, punishing those who didn't. Bottom line i that his methods worked...until he left.
Petraeus will now be in the middle of an insurgency...but more likely he will also be in the middle of what some call a civil war. A war that is focused on ethnic cleansing not attacking U.S. assets. A civil war that is partially abetted by the current Iraqi government. Yes, there are hostile groups that will attack U.S. interests but the battle for Baghdad is now one of the Shia majority versus the Sunni minority. A battle that cannot be won by simply locking down violent neighborhoods.
There are upsides; better intelligence will be gathered, a softer stick will be used and perhaps a more enlightened understanding of what freedom to the Iraqi's actually means will be sent back to the White House. Freedom in Iraqi terms may be not be a U.S.-centric future but an pan-Arab one with closer ties to Iran and Syria and hostility to U.S. allies like Turkey and Israel. There are wild cards; Saudi Arabia may increase its covert support for Sunni insurgent groups, Shias may openly revolt against their own government cracking down on them and there is still no solution for the growing outflow of Iraqis into Syria and Jordan. At best the plan is similar to a prison lock down, the prisoners patiently outwaiting their jailers while their cels are searched until they can resume their internal violent machinations.
What They Don't Tell You
- The "Strongman" option has been abandoned. Former Baathist and Saddam security head Iyad Allawi has had his CIA-funded personal protection detail pulled and has moved to Amman, Jordan.
-There may be spectacular high tech violence meted out in built-up areas. Air strikes, smaller smart bombs, heavy artillery, AC 130 gunships and even the F-22A Raptor are being readied for use inside Baghdad.
- Many of Petraeus' published wisdom, warnings and writings directly contradict what is about to happen (see the Slogger stories on Petraeus and his advise)
- Iraq is much of the way through ethnic cleansing. The Kurds have literally created a Kurdish nation in the north. The Shia's are very successful in pushing Sunni's westward and the south is in effect a Shia region.
The Petraeus project or Bush's Way Forward, flys directly in the face of the Baker Hamilton report by welding on a flawed fatal twist, "pacify-in-place" to a standard "draining the ocean" tactic.
The clearing or cleansing method has been tried by the U.S. in Iraq many, many times with little success. The excuse has always been the inability to hold secured areas. The new tactic is evidence of a how Bush has embraced a neocon written plan that assumes that a)insurgents are somehow different than the general population (ie an outside funded and sparked event) and that b) Iraqis will magically take over the efforts and commitments of the U.S. miltiary even thought Iraqi security forces clearly lack the resources, cohesion and even purpose of the Bush administration.
This summer's progenitor; "Operation Forward Together" failed when Iraqi troops did not arrive to support the multi-staged clearing events. Cleansing in place is difficult since the insurgents can simply go dark, patiently waiting for the operation to end. City after city, district after district has been searched, cleaned and then simply returned to the control of the violent groups who live there.
The author of the latest reiteration "Choosing Victory,"plan is 36 year old Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute . Kagan is a major supporter of Petraeus and the architect of the "surge" idea
- Petraeus is the chief architect of the Army's new Counterinsurgency manual based on traditional counter insurgency tactics but he is not fighting an insurgency, but rather a conflict that increasingly looks like a Shia government condoned cleansing operation
-the "Surge" also is lockstepped with increased expenditures and added value for military equipment manufacturers and supplies.
- The plan will involved increasing contractors and civilian roles in the reconstruction, a move hinted at in Bush's speech and in Petraeus' questioning but not quantified in numbers or dollars.
-There is no mention of what will happen to the thousands of young men who are currently fighting against each other and the U.S./Iraqi forces. Will they be detained in large concentration camps, tried for crimes or encouraged to fight and be killed as in Fallujah?
The concept of isolating villagers into safe zones and fighting insurgents in the outlands has been the standard counter insurgency concept since the British used the idea in Malaya, which itself was a less brutal modification of the British tactic used against the Boer's in South Africa. In that instance hostile villagers were resettled in armed prisons called "concentration camps". A tactic used by the Americans against the Japanese in World Two and by the Nazis against the Jews, insurgents and ethnic minorities in Germany. Concentration camps work, but only when they population is displaced leaving a clear battleground and disrupted support networks.
The US used this tactic in Vietnam to create "strategic hamlets", Israel concentrates Palestinians and Indonesia and China have launched major concentration and resettlement programs to reduce insurgent levels in hostile regions.
The most recent use of this tactic has been in Russia where "Zachystas" or cleansing operations were used against villages in Chechnya. But even with Russia's brutal tactics, the region may be stumbling back into life but the war goes on 12 years after it began.
The neocons are right that if America "stays the course" and applies endless resources to solving insurgencies, we can "win the war on terror". The problem is that they are shooting for the moon, with a direction but no clear deadline, cost or victory date. We all wish Petraeus luck, Baghdad and Iraq needs security.
