Iraq Bets are Paying Off and Flowers are Blooming

Many heartening stories have been reported from Iraq in recent weeks, the greatest being the first free election in Iraq, however, it looks as if some of long-term bets the administration made in Iraq are starting to pay dividends.

The initials stages of occupation had to deal with several problems that required long-term solutions being executed in the short-term with a constant and ongoing reassurance to the Iraqi people. Many of the war critics warned that America and its partners were headed into a hornet's nest--and they were right, they did. What the critics don't understand is that, instead of ignoring it, with a little courage and clever thinking, it is better to permanently remove the hornet's nest away from all that it threatens.

After the invasion America entered the hornets nest. They found a population that had been shell-shocked from 25 years of torturous rule under Saddam. Saddam's regime was Stalinist in everyway; he ruled Iraq by terror. Questioning Saddam's authority caused family members to be maimed, tortured or killed in front of the perpetrators. So when the Coalition successfully removed Saddam and his Baathists from power, Iraqi citizens were still reluctant to help for two reasons: (1) after years of seeing severe abuses of power, they were averse to trusting anything that came from positions of authority and (2) knew that there were thousands of muderous Baathists that were still roaming the country. American success in Iraq would hinge on getting Iraqis to believe that our intentions were not to, as Ted Kennedy put it, "reopen Saddam's torture chambers under new management."

Back in September of 2003, Steven Den Beste came up with one of the best visuals to describe this conundrum:

In the Antarctic, penguins nest on land but hunt at sea. There are leopard seals and killer whales who think that penguins are delicious, and who know where the rookeries are located. They hang out in the ocean nearby and wait, looking for a meal. If a group of penguins want to go to sea to hunt, the first few to enter the water take the greatest risk, and no one wants to be the first. So they collect on the edge of the ice, and jostle themselves, and eventually one or two lose their balance and fall in, and then the rest of them dive in after them.

Iraqis are not penguins, obviously, but there's something like that going on. After 25 years where expressing any kind of independence could earn you a horrible death, or earn such a death for everyone you love, it's hard to believe that it's changed. They were told that it was changed, but was it really true? And was it permanent?

There was a natural tendency for most to not take that chance. But a few took small chances, and didn't suffer for it. That encouraged others to try a bit more as time went on.

The first independent newspapers were very tentative. The Americans said they believed in free press, but did they really? And would supporters of Saddam visit the newspapers in the night? It was a risk, and those working on those newspapers were doing things which would have gotten them all killed just two months before.

But they didn't suffer. The Americans left them alone, and they didn't get visited by Baathist death squads. More newspapers appeared and began to be more frank, and Iraq now has the most free press in the Arab world. But that didn't happen overnight.

Part of why this change began slow was simple emotional trauma. People who go through a terrible experience go through a period in which they don't quite believe it's over. They may fear that it will happen again or that something like it will happen; to a certain extent they live in the past, and look fearfully to the future. It can take counseling for some people to really get past this. Some never do.

We're dealing with an entire nation that's going through this. We have to give them time.

During the following year, we noticed that the penguins weren't jumping in the water in the quantities that we had hoped they would. The press and the war detractors mistakenly pinned this as a failure of the United States to convince the Iraqi population that they weren't like Saddam. I disagree. As the Iraqis stood on the edge of the ice, they saw what everyone else refused or couldn't see: the same predators that hunted the Iraqis out in the open before, were quietly lurking below, ready to strike at anyone that was bold enough to take the plunge. Wretchard describes the predators' new hunting method in War Plan Orange; Saddam's plan was to move his terror machine from above to below ground, with the hopes of holding out until America lost its will:

...the successful campaign to prevent the US from pushing the 4ID down from Turkey gave Saddam the time and space to move assets into Syria and disperse munitions and men into the Sunni Triangle. About 600,000 tons of munitions were dispersed throughout the country of which 100,000 tons -- five Hiroshima bombs worth of explosive -- were taken to Anbar province in the Sunni Triangle alone.

...Nor was there any shortage of men to use these weapons. Former CPA Administrator Paul Bremer noted that 100,000 convicted criminals were released just before US forces overran the cities, ready to be officered, along with many Sunnis, by either the cadre of the former Ba'athist dominated armies or international terrorists flooding in from Iran and Syria.

The major modern innovation of the Arab Way of War has been its radical new conception of defense in depth. The concept made its debut in Algeria; it was subsequently refined in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Checnya and the West Bank. Unlike Ushijima's Shuri Line with its tunnels in rock, the Arab redoubt was founded on establishing an underground of terror in the civilian populace. From the anonymity of crowds, they could emerge to attack the enemy from the rear as the Imperial Japanese Army once had done from tunnels. Faced with superior United States forces, this 21st century War Plan Orange was the natural choice of the Arab strategists. By denying the United States proof of its WMDs and grinding them down through occupation warfare -- the one mode of combat at which they excelled, they had a reasonable hope of holding America until a politician willing to treat with them was elected into office. There was no need for despair because, as James Lileks put it, "hope is on the way" -- a reference to the eventual actions of the antiwar Left. In Iraq the ultimate blitzkrieg force met the ultimate protracted war army and the protracted war army awaited events confidently.

However, the United States dug in and got to work. The long process of rooting out these terrorists would be executed through the following measures:

• Creation of a sustainable Iraqi security force from the ground up.
• Development of a robust intellegence operation that networked and mapped the insurgency components. Sources of intellegence would combine various technologies with on-the-ground tips and information gathered from captured enemies.
• Commitment to ruthlessly squash any armed rebellions.
• Rebuilding of Iraq's delapidated civil infrastructure
• Commitment to keeping our word that their country, once the Baathists terrorists were defanged, would ultimately belong to them.

Strategypage posted a detailed analysis of the results from the execution of the first two bullet points:

Iraqi army and police forces are mow in charge of security in 12 of the country’s 18 provinces. The Iraqi armed forces currently have 136,000 trained and equipped personnel on duty, with another 3,500 completing their training this week. The Interior Ministry has 79,000 police and security personnel. These include regular police; special police commandoes (SWAT teams), plus public order and police mechanized battalions; border guard units; and VIP bodyguards ("dignitary-protection elements.") The Defense Ministry has the other 57,000 personnel, who are assigned to the Iraqi army, intervention forces (SWAT teams), National Guard, air force, navy and special operations (the Iraqi Special Operations Forces). These forces are organized into ninety battalions, or which 88 are operating, and two more are still in training, and will be in operation by the end of the month. The battalions tend to be smaller than American units, averaging 400-500 men each. There are some women in police units.

...Iraqi headquarters and intelligence troops are getting computers, and software for managing information. The bases being built for American troops will be turned over to the Iraqis when American troops leave. The American trainers make a point of saying that as soon as Iraqi troops and police can handle security in all 18 provinces, American combat units can go home. Exactly when this happens is up to the Iraqis. The last American combat units to leave will be a few combat brigades serving as reaction forces, to back up Iraqi military units.

The war against the terrorists is mainly a police operation, with Iraqi intelligence personnel and SWAT teams taking the lead in identifying, and arresting (or killing) the terrorists. The SWAT teams and commandoes get most of the publicity, but the work of the new Iraqi intelligence units is crucial (and, for obvious reasons, not given a lot of publicity). A major problem with intelligence work is the corruption that is endemic to Iraq. Eventually, American intelligence forces will turn over their huge collection of data to the Iraqis. But first, the Iraqis have to get control of the corruption that enables the terrorists to bribe or blackmail (by kidnapping a relative, for example) Iraqi intelligence officers. Such corruption is also a problem throughout the security forces, but it’s most troublesome with the Iraqi intelligence personnel. No one is predicting when this problem will be solved, or at least reduced to acceptable levels.

In a related post, they describe how the tide seems to be turning; the insurgents are starting to fear fighting these Iraqi commando units:

But month by month, more Iraqis were identified as effective officers and NCOs. Unfortunately, the few thousand men who filled the bill were spread thinly across a force of some 150,000 police and troops. What this meant, in early 2004, was that where was no Iraqi units that could be used for offensive operations. Meanwhile some foreign police advisors, and American division commanders, took matters into their own hands and collected small numbers of eager and capable Iraqis, and gave them commando or SWAT training. The main need here was for some combat capable Iraqis who could work with American troops in raids and, in particular, operations inside mosques. This worked, and soon the Iraqi Special Operations Force was established. The first battalion, the 36th Special Operations Commando battalion attracted applicants from all over Iraq. Some had served in Saddam’s commando units, but wanted nothing to do with joining the terrorists. Others were Kurds who had been trained by American Special Forces during the 1990s. By the end of 2004, the 36th battalion had 300 trained troops, and effective leadership. By this time, the Iraqi Special Operations Brigade was formed, and additional commando battalions were in training. The terrorists recognized this threat, and began using terror tactics on the families of commando troops. The answer to that was to build a base for the brigade, and their families.

For the police there was the similar Iraqi Security Forces Quick Response units. Basically SWAT teams, which gave police in heavily Sunni Arab areas some offensive forces. The SWAT teams could shoot it out with terrorist units and win. More importantly, the SWAT team commander learned how to outthink the terrorists.

...As more commando battalions and SWAT teams are formed, the rate of formation increases. That’s because Iraqi instructors are taken from existing battalions and teams. In another year, there will be several thousand Iraqis trained, or in training, for commando and SWAT operations. This is what will wipe out the terrorists. The Iraqi police can sort through the arrested a lot more quickly than can Americans, even Americans who speak Arabic. The terrorists also find it demoralizing when they are taken down by Iraqi troops or police. The terrorists recognize the threat, but now regard the Iraqi commando and SWAT operators as difficult targets, just as they do American troops. The result is that this year, you are going to see more battles between Iraqis and terrorists this year, battles the terrorists are going to usually lose.

In the meantime, the United States would have to back-up their talk with their own blood to prove that they were willing to bear any cost to ensure security. Led by the 1st Armored Division, the Coalition was able to suppress the uprising by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A few months later, after an initial siege and pullout from Fallujah, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, backed by the British Black Watch Brigade, retook the city and destroyed the central hub of the insurgency. There the Coalition would unveil torture chambers, car bomb factories and large munition caches, while killing or capturing thousands of terrorists. The terrorists proved they were no match for the Coalition.

So, the Americans proved that they could train fighters and proved that they themselves could fight, but what was being done about changing Iraqi's perception of their invasion intentions? How would America make them believe that they weren't a "hedgemonic empire" bent on stealing their oil? The fourth bullet point, the committment to rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, was one. I won't detail this here as there are hundreds of examples, but click over to Arthur Chrenkoff to see many examples of how well the Coalition is actively executing these measures.

Ultimately though, the Coalition put its money where its mouth was by delivering on their promise to give political control back to them. On June 28th, 2004 the United States shocked the Iraqi people by peacefully handing Coalition control over to the Iraqi Provisional Government lead by Iyad Allawi. Then President Bush firmly set January 30th, 2005 as the day that the Iraqis would be able to vote in their new leaders. As we saw two weeks ago, 8 million Iraqis jumped off that iceflow and plunged into the water despite threats of deaths and violence. This great act of courage delivered images of smiling Iraqis and joyous celebrations as Iraqis voiced their political views for the first time in their history.

The peanut gallery is right--voting doesn't make a democracy, but yet again they don't see the whole picture. Things are starting to look up and the seeds that America planted early on are starting to bloom. The insurgents may be able wrap their weeds around a couple of flowers here and there, but the garden, with the help of its gardener, is growing and sustaining faster than they can contain it.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at February 10, 2005 08:00 PM | TrackBack