David H
By David H Petraeus
The news out of Iraq is, once again, exceedingly grim. The resurrection of Al Qaeda in Iraq — which was on the ropes at the end of the surge in 2008 — has led to a substantial increase in ethno-sectarian terrorism in the Land of the Two Rivers. The civil war next door in Syria has complicated matters greatly, aiding the jihadists on both sides of the border and bringing greater Iranian involvement in Mesopotamia. And various actions by the Iraqi government have undermined the reconciliation initiatives of the surge that enabled the sense of Sunni Arab inclusion and contributed to the success of the venture. Moreover, those Iraqi government actions have also prompted prominent Sunnis to withdraw from the government and led the Sunni population to take to the streets in protest. As a result of all this, Iraqi politics are now mired in mistrust and dysfunction.
This is not a road that Iraqis had to travel. Indeed, by the end of the surge in 2008, a different future was possible. That still seemed to be the case in December 2011, when the final US forces (other than a sizable security assistance element) departed; however, the different future was possible only if Iraqi political leaders capitalised on the opportunities that were present.
Sadly, it appears that a number of those opportunities were squandered, as political infighting and ethno-sectarian actions reawakened the fears of Iraq’s Sunni Arab population and, until recently, also injected enormous difficulty into the relationship between the government in Baghdad and the leaders of the Kurdish Regional Government.
To understand the dynamics in Iraq — and the possibilities that still exist, it is necessary to revisit what actually happened during the surge, a history now explored in a forthcoming book written by my executive officer at the time, Col (Ret) Peter Mansoor, now a professor of military history at the Ohio State University.
The surge had many components. The most prominent, of course, was the deployment of the additional US forces committed by President Bush — nearly 30,000 of them in the end. Without those forces, we never could have achieved progress as quickly as we did. And, given the necessity to make progress by the hearings anticipated in September 2007, improvements before then were critical.
As important as the surge of forces was, however, the most important surge was what I termed “the surge of ideas” — the changes in our overall strategy and operational plans. The most significant of these was the shift from trying to hand off security tasks to Iraqi forces to focusing on the security of the Iraqi people.
But improved security could be achieved only by moving our forces into urban neighbourhoods and rural population centres. In the first two weeks, therefore, I changed the mission statement in the existing campaign plan to reflect this imperative. As I explained in that statement and the guidance I issued shortly after taking command, we had to “live with the people” in order to secure them.
This change in approach necessitated the establishment of more than 100 small outposts and joint security stations, three-quarters of them in Baghdad alone.
Beyond securing the people by living with them, foremost among the elements of the new strategy was promoting reconciliation between disaffected Sunni Arabs and our forces — and then with the Shia-dominated Iraqi government. I often noted at the time that we would not be able to kill or capture our way out of the industrial-strength insurgency that confronted us in Iraq.
Hence we had to identify those insurgents and militia members who were “reconcilable,” and we then had to persuade them to become part of the solution in Iraq rather than a continuing part of the problem. Reconciliation thus became a critical component of the overall strategy. The Awakening movement — and, in effect, reconciliation — spread dramatically. There were many challenges as this transpired, especially when Prime Minister Maliki and other Shia leaders developed concerns over the spread of the movement into Baghdad and areas near predominantly Shia or mixed communities.
Another critical component of our comprehensive approach was an intensive campaign of targeted operations by US and British Special Operations Forces to capture or kill key insurgent and militia leaders and operatives.
Although I publicly acknowledged from the outset that we would not be able to kill or capture our way to victory (hence the need to support the Awakening), killing or capturing the most important of the “irreconcilables” was an inescapable and hugely important element of our strategy. Indeed, we sought to pursue key irreconcilables even more aggressively than was the case before the surge.
Supporting the development of the Iraqi Security Forces was also vitally important — and an effort with which I was intimately familiar, as I had led the establishment of the so-called “train and equip” organisation and commanded the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq for the first 15 and a half months of the organisation’s existence, during which I was also dual-hatted as the first commander of the Nato Training Mission-Iraq.
Although I halted the transition of tasks from coalition to Iraqi forces shortly after I took command, we knew that ultimately such transitions would be essential to our ability to draw down our forces and send them home.
The comprehensive strategy employed during the surge also had significant civilian components. Indeed, Ambassador Crocker and I worked hard to develop unity of effort in all that our respective organisations and coalition and Iraqi partners did. The campaign plan we developed in the spring of 2007, in fact, was a joint effort of my command, Multi-National Force-Iraq, and the US embassy, with considerable input from coalition partners such as Britain.
Another important component of the comprehensive approach was the conduct of detainee operations. In this area also, we had to implement significant changes. The scope of this effort was enormous. In fact, the number of detainees in US-administered facilities reached 27,000 after I temporarily halted releases until we could implement programs that provided a review process for the detainees in our facilities and could establish rehabilitation and reintegration programmes to reduce the recidivism rate of those we released back to their communities.
The heart of the struggle in Iraq was a competition for power and resources between the major factions in the country — the majority Shia Arabs and the minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds. (There were subfactions of each group as well, of course, in addition to other minority sects and ethnicities such as Turkoman, Yezidis, and Iraqi Christians, among others.) Achieving enduring progress in Iraq thus required achievement of political agreements on a host of key issues that divided the various factions. Consequently, seeking to foster agreement on such issues was yet another important component of the overall approach.
As I’ve made clear, all of this was extraordinarily difficult and carried out in an environment of tremendous violence and frustratingly difficult Iraqi political discord. Moreover, we knew — and I stated publicly on numerous occasions — that the situation in Iraq would get worse before it got better. That proved true. There was no way to stop the violence without confronting those responsible for it. And there was no way that we could do that without putting our troopers and those of the Iraqi forces on the sectarian battle lines in Baghdad and elsewhere.
I recognised early on that I had become the face of the surge. I had not asked for this role, but whether I liked it or not, I had to fill it. Beyond that, of course, it was essential that I determine the right big ideas (with lots to help, to be sure), provide clear direction, communicate that direction in all possible forms, and then oversee the implementation of the resulting plans. It was also critical that I spend time with our troopers on the ground, that I share a measure of risk with them, and that I give encouragement and provide cautious optimism that we could, indeed, achieve the objectives we’d set out for ourselves and our Iraqi partners.
In many respects, Iraq today looks tragically similar to the Iraq of 2006, complete with increasing numbers of horrific, indiscriminate attacks by Iraq’s Al Qaeda affiliate and its network of extremists. Add to that the ongoing sectarian civil war in Syria — which is, in many aspects, a regional conflict being fought there — and the situation in Iraq looks even more complicated than it was in 2006 and thus even more worrisome — especially given the absence of American combat forces. This is a time for them to work together to help Iraqi leaders take the initiative, especially in terms of reaching across the sectarian and ethnic divides that have widened in such a worrisome manner. It is not too late for such action, but time is running short.
WP-BLOOMBERG
By David H Petraeus
The news out of Iraq is, once again, exceedingly grim. The resurrection of Al Qaeda in Iraq — which was on the ropes at the end of the surge in 2008 — has led to a substantial increase in ethno-sectarian terrorism in the Land of the Two Rivers. The civil war next door in Syria has complicated matters greatly, aiding the jihadists on both sides of the border and bringing greater Iranian involvement in Mesopotamia. And various actions by the Iraqi government have undermined the reconciliation initiatives of the surge that enabled the sense of Sunni Arab inclusion and contributed to the success of the venture. Moreover, those Iraqi government actions have also prompted prominent Sunnis to withdraw from the government and led the Sunni population to take to the streets in protest. As a result of all this, Iraqi politics are now mired in mistrust and dysfunction.
This is not a road that Iraqis had to travel. Indeed, by the end of the surge in 2008, a different future was possible. That still seemed to be the case in December 2011, when the final US forces (other than a sizable security assistance element) departed; however, the different future was possible only if Iraqi political leaders capitalised on the opportunities that were present.
Sadly, it appears that a number of those opportunities were squandered, as political infighting and ethno-sectarian actions reawakened the fears of Iraq’s Sunni Arab population and, until recently, also injected enormous difficulty into the relationship between the government in Baghdad and the leaders of the Kurdish Regional Government.
To understand the dynamics in Iraq — and the possibilities that still exist, it is necessary to revisit what actually happened during the surge, a history now explored in a forthcoming book written by my executive officer at the time, Col (Ret) Peter Mansoor, now a professor of military history at the Ohio State University.
The surge had many components. The most prominent, of course, was the deployment of the additional US forces committed by President Bush — nearly 30,000 of them in the end. Without those forces, we never could have achieved progress as quickly as we did. And, given the necessity to make progress by the hearings anticipated in September 2007, improvements before then were critical.
As important as the surge of forces was, however, the most important surge was what I termed “the surge of ideas” — the changes in our overall strategy and operational plans. The most significant of these was the shift from trying to hand off security tasks to Iraqi forces to focusing on the security of the Iraqi people.
But improved security could be achieved only by moving our forces into urban neighbourhoods and rural population centres. In the first two weeks, therefore, I changed the mission statement in the existing campaign plan to reflect this imperative. As I explained in that statement and the guidance I issued shortly after taking command, we had to “live with the people” in order to secure them.
This change in approach necessitated the establishment of more than 100 small outposts and joint security stations, three-quarters of them in Baghdad alone.
Beyond securing the people by living with them, foremost among the elements of the new strategy was promoting reconciliation between disaffected Sunni Arabs and our forces — and then with the Shia-dominated Iraqi government. I often noted at the time that we would not be able to kill or capture our way out of the industrial-strength insurgency that confronted us in Iraq.
Hence we had to identify those insurgents and militia members who were “reconcilable,” and we then had to persuade them to become part of the solution in Iraq rather than a continuing part of the problem. Reconciliation thus became a critical component of the overall strategy. The Awakening movement — and, in effect, reconciliation — spread dramatically. There were many challenges as this transpired, especially when Prime Minister Maliki and other Shia leaders developed concerns over the spread of the movement into Baghdad and areas near predominantly Shia or mixed communities.
Another critical component of our comprehensive approach was an intensive campaign of targeted operations by US and British Special Operations Forces to capture or kill key insurgent and militia leaders and operatives.
Although I publicly acknowledged from the outset that we would not be able to kill or capture our way to victory (hence the need to support the Awakening), killing or capturing the most important of the “irreconcilables” was an inescapable and hugely important element of our strategy. Indeed, we sought to pursue key irreconcilables even more aggressively than was the case before the surge.
Supporting the development of the Iraqi Security Forces was also vitally important — and an effort with which I was intimately familiar, as I had led the establishment of the so-called “train and equip” organisation and commanded the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq for the first 15 and a half months of the organisation’s existence, during which I was also dual-hatted as the first commander of the Nato Training Mission-Iraq.
Although I halted the transition of tasks from coalition to Iraqi forces shortly after I took command, we knew that ultimately such transitions would be essential to our ability to draw down our forces and send them home.
The comprehensive strategy employed during the surge also had significant civilian components. Indeed, Ambassador Crocker and I worked hard to develop unity of effort in all that our respective organisations and coalition and Iraqi partners did. The campaign plan we developed in the spring of 2007, in fact, was a joint effort of my command, Multi-National Force-Iraq, and the US embassy, with considerable input from coalition partners such as Britain.
Another important component of the comprehensive approach was the conduct of detainee operations. In this area also, we had to implement significant changes. The scope of this effort was enormous. In fact, the number of detainees in US-administered facilities reached 27,000 after I temporarily halted releases until we could implement programs that provided a review process for the detainees in our facilities and could establish rehabilitation and reintegration programmes to reduce the recidivism rate of those we released back to their communities.
The heart of the struggle in Iraq was a competition for power and resources between the major factions in the country — the majority Shia Arabs and the minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds. (There were subfactions of each group as well, of course, in addition to other minority sects and ethnicities such as Turkoman, Yezidis, and Iraqi Christians, among others.) Achieving enduring progress in Iraq thus required achievement of political agreements on a host of key issues that divided the various factions. Consequently, seeking to foster agreement on such issues was yet another important component of the overall approach.
As I’ve made clear, all of this was extraordinarily difficult and carried out in an environment of tremendous violence and frustratingly difficult Iraqi political discord. Moreover, we knew — and I stated publicly on numerous occasions — that the situation in Iraq would get worse before it got better. That proved true. There was no way to stop the violence without confronting those responsible for it. And there was no way that we could do that without putting our troopers and those of the Iraqi forces on the sectarian battle lines in Baghdad and elsewhere.
I recognised early on that I had become the face of the surge. I had not asked for this role, but whether I liked it or not, I had to fill it. Beyond that, of course, it was essential that I determine the right big ideas (with lots to help, to be sure), provide clear direction, communicate that direction in all possible forms, and then oversee the implementation of the resulting plans. It was also critical that I spend time with our troopers on the ground, that I share a measure of risk with them, and that I give encouragement and provide cautious optimism that we could, indeed, achieve the objectives we’d set out for ourselves and our Iraqi partners.
In many respects, Iraq today looks tragically similar to the Iraq of 2006, complete with increasing numbers of horrific, indiscriminate attacks by Iraq’s Al Qaeda affiliate and its network of extremists. Add to that the ongoing sectarian civil war in Syria — which is, in many aspects, a regional conflict being fought there — and the situation in Iraq looks even more complicated than it was in 2006 and thus even more worrisome — especially given the absence of American combat forces. This is a time for them to work together to help Iraqi leaders take the initiative, especially in terms of reaching across the sectarian and ethnic divides that have widened in such a worrisome manner. It is not too late for such action, but time is running short.
WP-BLOOMBERG
