Counterinsurgency Lessons from Iraq
2009; The MIT Press; Volume: 89; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0026-4148
Autores Tópico(s)Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture
Resumo[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE MILITARY WAR in Iraq ended in 2008, although political conflict among Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds will continue for decades. At the same time, the war in Afghanistan has heated up, with more American troops committed to battle. This article, based on 15 extended trips I made to Iraq and interviews I conducted with 2,000 Soldiers and Marines, reviews the causes of the turnaround in Iraq and their importance for doctrine development and for success in the war in Afghanistan. A Two-Front War Imperiled From 2003 through 2008, two separate fronts accounted for about two-thirds of all American fatalities. In the west, the Sunni province of Anbar emerged as the heartland of a sectarian resistance that was gradually taken over by Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Anbar accounted for 42 percent of all U.S. fatalities in Iraq from 2004 through 2006. (1) To the east, the Baghdad region accounted for 27 percent of the fatalities in 2004-2006. (2) It increased to 44 percent in 2007. (3) Violence in and around Baghdad erupted in the spring of 2004, then subsided inside the capital city in 2005. U.S. brigades pulled out of the city during this false lull. However, behind the scenes, the Shi'ite militias were conniving with the Ministry of Interior and the police to create death squads. When those squads surged out of the Shi'ite strongholds in Baghdad in early 2006, U.S. forces were caught out of position, while the Shi'ite-controlled government was both unwilling and unable to support a joint effort to restore order. So by mid-2006, the coalition was losing on both fronts. In Anbar, according to an on-scene assessment, Al-Qaeda controlled the population. In Baghdad, a civil war was raging and the Sunnis were being driven from their homes. Yet, a year later the tide of war was flowing in the coalition's favor. What happened? Two events changed the course of the war: the 2006 Sunni Awakening in Anbar and the 2007 surge in Baghdad. The Awakening was the critical enabler for success of the surge. The Awakening on the Western Front A combat veteran once wrote, There is a vast difference in the perception of wartime events in histories and documents written later. (4) According to a later narrative that has achieved mythical status, in 2007 President Bush surged five brigades, enabling General Petraeus to implement counterinsurgency tactics that won the war. A Washington Post columnist referred to Petraeus as the Savior of (5) Such myths encourage over-simplified, wrong-headed theories about a similar tribal uprising in Afghanistan. The facts about Anbar are more complicated. Throughout the war, Anbar was an economy of force operation. In 2005, the 22,000 Marines and 5,000 Soldiers in Multi-National Force West (MNF-W), under the operational control of the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), accounted for one-fifth of U.S. forces in Iraq and two-fifths of the casualties. Anbar, according to conventional wisdom a vast land occupied by truculent tribes, would be the last province to be pacified. A rocky road led to the Awakening. In early 2004, several key Anbar sheiks agreed to support the fledgling Iraqi government, but then refused to send their tribesmen to training centers north of Baghdad. Anbaris, they declared, would not leave Anbar. Then in May of 2004, the MEF rashly allowed local insurgents to form the so-called Fallujah Brigade in order to control the city of Fallujah. Al-Qaeda quickly took over, forcing 10 U.S. battalions to return in late 2004 to retake the city, amidst much destruction. Starting in late 2005, the MEF deployed about 40 company-sized combat bases in a clear-and-hold strategy to control six cities and the surrounding farmlands. But this yielded only grudging gains and steady casualties. Several tentative offers by Sunnis to raise their own militias were firmly rejected. In early 2006, the sheiks in Ramadi did agree that their followers could join the Iraqi Army and police force. …
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