tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15931392228975342532024-03-14T00:39:50.247-07:00Up Country IraqObservations and commentary from a Reserve Army Major working the northern regions of Iraq.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-22950538791497744242008-12-06T14:02:00.000-08:002008-12-06T14:09:49.394-08:00End of MissionOne final hello to everyone via electrons,<br /><br /><br />I am happy to say that I am home and enjoying the re-integration process with my family. What a great feeling. For those who don’t know, families of individual deploying or returning military personnel are allowed to go through security and wait at the gates at the airport, so I was able to see those five friendly family faces as I was heading up the ramp from the aircraft.<br /><br /><br />This will obviously be my final post. I will just share a couple of personal observations that are separate from what I learned with regards to my Lessons Learned duties. Many of those observations were “For Official Use Only.” These observations were more “big picture” issues and are, obviously, my opinion. I have no plans to boycott your businesses or picket in front of your house if you happen to disagree with my opinions.<br /><br /><br />First topic is the Iraqi people. The Iraqis are tired of foreigners in their country, and I am not simply talking about US troops. They are tired of Iranians, Saudis, Somalis, Syrians, and the myriad other foreign terrorist who came to kill not only Americans, but Iraqi citizens as well. The Iraqis are anxious to run their own country on their own terms, but they believe that the US needs to help them for a few more years so that they are fully capable of doing just that. As I have mentioned before, the Iraqis have come to realize that the Americans are not in Iraq to dominate them for the foreseeable future. They have learned that it is these foreign Islamo-fascists elements that came to destroy and control them, and they do not approve. The Iraqis want to govern themselves, but they want to be sure that their security forces are able to provide protection so that they can govern successfully. The Iraqis taste freedom, and most of them enjoy the taste.<br /><br /><br />Second topic is the Islamic terrorists. First of all, I think that too much time is spent by “analysts” to determine which specific Islamic group is responsible for terror incidents when they occur. Obviously there is a tactical necessity for understanding the particular terror groups in different regions across a battle field. Different groups tend to have favorite methods of killing, so it is important to know what signs to look for on a battlefield when in the vicinity of certain groups. When a major terror incident occurs somewhere in the world, at that point, does it really matter which particular Islamic group committed the atrocity? The fact is that Islamo-fascists have declared war on all non-Muslims. The world at large has not quite figured out this very obvious point. These people despise freedom, and their mission is to attack freedom wherever they find it. Who cares which sect attacked India? These were Islamo-fascists, and the Islamic terror movement at large needs to be fought. If people want to believe that Islam is a peaceful religion, that is fine, but what matters is how the terrorists view their own religion. The Salifists who believe that Islam needs to be a universal religion do not believe that their religion is one of peace. While the world bravely stands up to such threats as allowing people to utter the word “Christmas” in public, it seems to be unwilling to believe that a group of people who regularly commit mass murder (and who vow to commit further terror acts) are actually a serious threat.<br /><br /><br /><br />The Islamic terrorists are barbarians. They kill without regard to age or sex or nationality. They use the most painful and medieval methods of torture and death possible to kill their victims. They are cowards who literally hide behind the skirts of women and they don’t hesitate to sacrifice children to advance their cause. The best way to handle a barbarian is to kill him or her, and we are fortunate that tens of thousands of them have died at American hands in Iraq alone. The world is a safer place as a result.<br /><br /><br />Third topic is the American military. The US military is without question the most professional, courageous, and skilled in the world. They are fighting in two wars where the enemy deserves no respect, yet they are treating them with respect, anyway, when they capture enemy fighters. Americans go out of their way to avoid collateral damage when they conduct combat operations while the enemy continues to kill anyone in his path. One of the reasons for the turning of the tide in Iraq is because the Iraqi people see the difference between the Americans and the Islamo-fascists who want to enslave them. A small number of individual service members have committed crimes during the wars, and unlike most militaries, ours takes action to punish those who do wrong. This shows the strength of our Armed Forces, and people like John Murtha who use individual incidents of wrong-doing to condemn the entire military are simply fools. No other military in the world goes out of its way to train its forces to minimize death and destruction while conducting war like the US military does, and no other military goes out of its way to rebuild its opponents after a war like the US has always done. In my opinion, the Army was never meant to be in the business of conducting governance and economic operations, but that is the mission that our Army was given in Iraq. Due to the innovation of our soldiers, the Army has managed to perform remarkably well even in these very non-traditional missions.<br /><br /><br />There are obviously very strong opinions on whether or not we should even be in Iraq. I personally support the war. Were weapons of mass destruction ever discovered in Iraq? Of course they were. Chemical weapons were found by the ton since 2003, and chemical weapons were discovered in the northern region of Iraq on several different occasions while I was there. I already wrote about the more than 500 tons of Yellowcake that was discovered in Iraq by the US and secretly removed this past summer to prevent the terror groups from obtaining it. Yellowcake is the base ingredient for nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein continued to prevent international inspections of his weapons programs right up until the invasion, and the US Congress voted overwhelmingly twice to support US action in Iraq. Sure, the political winds changed when things began to go bad in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, but the changing of the political winds doesn’t change the facts as they existed in 2003. Iraq is now a Democracy and an ally, and it is no longer a threat to the US or its neighbors in the region. Saddam Hussein supported terrorists and he ran training camps for terrorists within Iraq. Terrorists are trained to commit acts of terror, not to play soccer. Those training camps no longer exist.<br /><br /><br />My time in Iraq gave me the opportunity to take another look at our own country from afar. When I see the Iraqis and their hunger for freedom, it strikes me how we in the US are so unaware of tyranny that we are lacking that very hunger that the Iraqis now have. The Iraqis have lived for years under a system where the government was to provide for every need. The economy was a command economy, and businesses existed and performed under the dictates of a central planner. Freedom of speech existed as long as the opinion was approved by the central government. The challenge to the Iraqi people is that they still do not know how to take the initiative. They are unsure of how to start or run their own businesses, and they are afraid to step up to try to solve problems in their communities because in the past, the people have always waited on the government to take care of every problem or issue. We are teaching the Iraqis to reach out to others in their own communities because the whole concept is foreign to them; why worry about the orphans when that is the government’s job? Socialism sucks the soul out of people. They don’t live; they just exist from day to day as they wait for the government to take care of their needs. My obvious point is that it is astounding to me that so many people in the US can somehow believe that the US will be a better place as big government is given more control over our lives, as if some career politician has the answer to our everyday problems. The common thread between every Socialist society is that those who dictate to the masses how they should live always seem to live under a very different set of rules themselves – rules that tend to place them in the very lifestyle that they criticize if obtained in the private sector. I think that it is well past time for those in the US who value freedom to push back hard against the onslaught of a government that doesn’t remotely resemble the limited government authorized by our founding document. Tyranny comes in many forms, and a government that dictates to its citizens rather than serves its citizens is not the government that US Armed Forces have fought for over the years. If freedom is worth fighting for over seas, then it is certainly worth fighting for at home, and that is a fight in which everyone has a responsibility to participate.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The final attached picture is unintentionally symbolic with regards to Iraq. Note the teen on the left giving a harsh look to the teen on the right. The Iraqi people, in general, have learned to respect and trust the Americans, but they still have a ways to go to learn to respect and trust each other across tribal and religious boundaries, and I think the picture captures that reality very well.<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/STr3uPlWAmI/AAAAAAAAAGg/m3NLKwmCj9c/s1600-h/WynotDudes.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5276802287247164002" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 134px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/STr3uPlWAmI/AAAAAAAAAGg/m3NLKwmCj9c/s200/WynotDudes.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />This about wraps up the account of this trip to Iraq. I would like to wish everyone a great Christmas season and I look forward to seeing many of you in the near future.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Take care.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-59450146172072359182008-11-23T10:32:00.000-08:002008-11-23T10:54:55.090-08:00Task Force Iron<div><div><div>Hello everyone, </div><div><br /> </div><div>I realize that I prematurely offered a wish for a Happy Thanksgiving in my last post. We’ll just count that as a practice run for the real thing.<br /><br />This past week I participated in my final mission of this deployment as I ventured out with the local Police Transition Team (PTT) one final time. That was a good opportunity to see the progress, if any, that was being made with the Iraqi Police (IP). We went to two small towns during that patrol – Wynot and Owja. Both are south of Tikrit, and Owja is where Saddam Hussein was actually born and it is where he and his sons (or what was left of them) are buried today. As you can imagine, there is still some hard feelings towards Americans in those parts.<br /><br />One lesson that all US transition team members have learned since they have been here is that the objective in training or mentoring the Iraqis should never be to get them to the point where they are operating just like we operate. Their culture is different than ours, and we are not going to change that. Their philosophy on life is also very different, and we won’t change that, either. The big goal is to help them reach a level of competence within their systems and to ensure that they can provide security to their country. It is important to count it as progress when they handle events on their own, even though their method of handling those events will make a US soldier cringe sometimes.<br /><br />As we were heading to our first stop down in Wynot, we heard over the radio that the IP at a nearby check point had stopped a bus that appeared to have a bomb stuck on the undercarriage. The insurgents in these parts use what are called ‘sticky bombs.” They stick IEDs to the underside of vehicles and then detonate them when the victim drives away. We were heading towards the check point in question anyway, so the PTT asked if the IP required any assistance. They said that they did not require assistance. As we passed the check point, both IP and the Iraqi fire department were on scene with the bus. Imagine how US forces would have handled this. Everyone would have moved back a safe distance while awaiting Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel, traffic would be re-routed or stopped, and a robot would likely be sent up to disarm the bomb. The Iraqis handled it slightly differently. The fire truck pulled up literally right next to the bus, the firemen and IP were all standing around the bus, and traffic was flowing right past the scene. Is there room for criticism? Well, nobody got hurt, traffic was hardly interrupted, and the incident was handled completely by the Iraqis, so job well done.<br /><br />We met with the assistant police chief and a couple other members of his staff when we arrived in Wynot. It is possible to get a feel for the level of love that particular Iraqis have for the Americans by their show of their traditional hospitality, or not. As I mentioned, the south side of Tikrit was Saddam’s neighborhood, so it is no surprise that no Chai tea is offered to the PTT in Wynot. Despite the cool reception, the chief and his officers wanted to talk US politics. They were very interested in the election outcome, and they wanted to know if US forces would immediately be withdrawn. The PTT squad leader asked the IP their opinion on the elections, and one of the Iraqis blurted out, “We’re fu#$%d.” (Sorry, but this is kid-friendly writing.). Remember, these are Sunni who are not exactly thrilled with Americans. The chief started to tell us the history of Iraq starting at 1958. He asked us how the US Presidential transfer of power will actually occur, and after hearing about how that works, he said that in Iraq, the transfer of power has always occurred by gunpoint. The new guy, he said, simply came in and killed the old guy, and the transfer was complete. He said that if the US forces leave right away, the next transfer of power in Iraq would once again occur at gunpoint. The IP captain in the room said that if anyone in the Iraqi Parliament refused to sign the new agreement between the US and Iraq, then the US forces should arrest those people. The PTT members explained that the US was actually trying to teach the Iraqis that this was no longer the correct way to settle political disputes (Henry Waxman notwithstanding), so they would just have to let it work itself out (that very afternoon, the agreement was approved by the Iraqi Parliament. No arrests necessary). The IP chief then explained to us that the Iraqi Parliament is run by Iran, and that he hoped this would change in the January Parliamentary elections in Iraq. As we were leaving, one of the IP captains, who spoke English, told me that he has come to learn over the past few years that no matter who is President of the US, the American people have good hearts. He said that he has learned by watching US soldiers that Americans are good people and that his hope is that the US and Iraq will continue to be friends for generations to come. I said sorry, but the lack of Chai tea made that statement seem insincere. Alright, I did not say that, but I was surprised at his comment since this was not one of the real “friendly” IP outfits.<br /><br />During our visit in Wynot, the Wynot Mayor entered the IP station and expressed concern that the Iraqi Army (IA) and the Owja IP had conducted a raid the previous day in Wynot without informing him or the Wynot IP of their intentions beforehand. His concern was that he and his IP would have no legitimacy with the locals if other agencies could come in at will and arrest his citizens. The Mayor wanted us to order the IA to stop conducting raids in his town. While the PTT members agreed to find out what happened, they also told the Mayor that he and his IP chief needed to have a discussion with the IA and the Owja IP to work this out. The point is, they need to learn to handle these issues on their own, and sometimes they do not like to hear that.<br /><br />We left Wynot and headed up to the Owja IP station for a short visit, and as we arrived, we heard another PTT squad report that they had just come across two IEDs in front of the main Tikrit IP headquarters. After departing the Owja station, we headed into Tikrit to assist the other PTT. This turns into another “their way” versus “our way” story.<br /><br />The Tikrit IP had discovered two IEDs along a road in town a couple days earlier. Taking the initiative and apparently not wanting to wait for their EOD, the officers gathered up these two IEDs and brought them back to their station with them. They not only brought them back to the station, they brought them inside the station. On day two, someone inside felt that maybe it was not a great idea to have a couple IEDs sitting around the office, so he brought them outside and set them against the front wall of the IP headquarters, where the PTT found them as they came to visit. The Iraqi EOD was enroute to collect them, but there they were, sitting on the sidewalk in front of the station, one with wires still attached. A suspicious person might think that someone set these out there so that his buddies could take them and replant them somewhere. I tend to be a suspicious person in that regard. Anyway, probably not the best way to complete the mission, but it is obviously their way. I won’t say no harm/no foul because IP and IA have been killed by being too casual with explosives, but they have a very different attitude towards that.<br /><br />The good news with the IP is that they are learning how to make their system work a little better than they had in the past. The leaders are beginning to demand support from higher headquarters, which is having a positive impact. The transition teams are making the IP do the work themselves instead of holding their hands too much, so the training wheels are coming off.<br /><br />As I have mentioned previously, the 1st Armored Division is about to hand over the reigns to the 25th Infantry Division. Task Force Iron will soon hand control to Task Force Lightning. 1AD is heading home to Germany, and in the next couple years will relocate to Ft. Bliss, TX. TF Iron has done some great work in its long deployment in the most volatile region in Iraq right now, “volatile” being a relative term. TF Iron had to deal with the bulk of AQI as the terrorist group promised to never get pushed out of northern Iraq, and it dealt with Sunni fighters coming in from Syria and Shia fighters coming in from Iran; it dealt with the Kurds in their territorial disputes with the Government of Iraq (GoI) and with the Kurdish rebels inciting Turkish attacks into northern Iraq; TF Iron dealt with not only agricultural issues, but also industrial issues due to the oil refineries in the north, and it operated in urban centers, wide open desert, canal roads, and thick pine groves along the river valleys. It dealt with not just Sunni vs. Shia, but also with several different Sunni tribes squabbling with each other. TF Iron dealt with every version of the IED, plus massive mine fields to the east from the Iran/Iraq War. To top it off, every soldier had to be quick enough on the trigger to take enemy lives when the thugs slithered out from the population, but disciplined enough so as not to take innocent lives in the process.<br /><br />1AD officially ends its deployment in a couple of weeks. It is impossible to measure all that has been accomplished in the time that this unit has been here, because the challenge of measuring economic or governmental progress is one that frustrates military types. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) deal in their own mysterious way with those types of issues, although I will still say that the military drives the train to a high degree even in those arenas. I can mention that more than 11,000 detainees were taken off the streets and over 2,200 weapons caches were found and cleared in the north since 1AD has been in charge. Within these caches were hundreds of thousands of weapons and ammunition, including anti-aircraft weapons, grenades, artillery rounds, you name it. Think of all of the IEDs that were NOT made as a result of these cache finds. Over 3,000 IEDs were found and cleared by the Task Force since their tour began. Finally, while the military does not usually publicize figures for enemy killed in action (KIA), I personally think that it makes it appear to the US public that our guys are simply sitting around and allowing themselves to be targets when only US casualties are mentioned. Having said that, the enemy suffered over 1300 KIA at the hands of TF Iron – those are 1300 insurgents who won’t be around to “fight” while hiding behind women and children anymore. It is not known how many more died of wounds or were seriously injured.<br /><br />Obviously, numerous TF Iron soldiers also paid the ultimate price. 90 Task Force Iron soldiers lost their lives in combat since they arrived in October 2007. 14 others have died from non-combat related injuries. More than 800 soldiers were injured. Just inside Division Headquarters is an electronic bulletin board that continuously rotates through the names and faces of our colleagues from TF Iron who died on this deployment. It is a humbling reminder of those who will not be going home to their families in quite the same fashion that the rest of us will go home. When the TF chaplain has to announce the death of a soldier during the morning briefings, he displays this saying from Calvin Coolidge: “The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.” It goes without saying that the redeployment of the 1AD will be another tough time for the families of the dead soldiers, and they need to remain in our prayers.<br /><br />I know everyone has heard of MRAPs, and the first picture is of the very common MRAP Caiman. American industry quickly developed this vehicle which has saved untold US lives. I rode in this particular machine on that final patrol. Note the new anti-RKG-3 grenade armor. The 2nd picture is the local Iraqi jail. It reminds me of one I saw in Cleveland once.<br /><br />I will fire off one last note in the next week or so with some final thoughts, and then I will spend some time being a husband and a dad again when I get home. I will begin making my way out of Iraq and then out of theater in the coming days. In the mean time, and this time for real, have a great Thanksgiving. I will probably have mine in Kuwait.<br /><br />Take care.<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SSminQwq8iI/AAAAAAAAAGI/BMpSPp7hE_Y/s1600-h/HiCrimes1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271923634211582498" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SSminQwq8iI/AAAAAAAAAGI/BMpSPp7hE_Y/s200/HiCrimes1.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SSmj5tnL3tI/AAAAAAAAAGY/OuTr41VQgBU/s1600-h/Anti-RKG3+armor1.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5271925050705698514" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 134px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SSmj5tnL3tI/AAAAAAAAAGY/OuTr41VQgBU/s200/Anti-RKG3+armor1.JPG" border="0" /></a></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-65963275493707022122008-11-11T21:11:00.001-08:002008-11-11T23:28:21.423-08:00Winding Down<div><div><div>Hello everyone,<br /><br />Things are winding down here in Multi-National Division-North (MND-N) for the 1st Armored Division (1AD) soldiers, which means that they (and I) will be heading home in the not too distant future. Meanwhile, the beat goes on.<br /><br />I finally spent some time with my Aviation compadres last week and was not surprised by the data that I collected. The Army Combat Aviation Brigade (CAB) consists of the whole gamut of aircraft, including attack (Apache), cargo (Chinook), Scouts (Kiowa-Warrior), and utility (Blackhawk). The Cab also uses unmanned aviation systems (UAS). The CAB had aircraft in the air literally 24 hours a day somewhere in the division sector for its entire 15 month rotation. The CAB covered the largest division area in Iraq and they were in the fight during some of the roughest fighting over here, yet their safety record was phenomenal. If you are a pilot who likes to chalk up flight hours, this was the place to be. The proficiency levels of the pilots are at an all time high as far as flying and fighting their aircraft. Like other types of units, the CAB will have to spend a little time at home brushing up on skills required for a more conventional battle.<br /><br />I also did some work with the 1AD Military Police Company in the past couple of weeks. This MP unit is one of the few which are not performing as a Police Transition Team (PTT), although the unit does work with the Iraqi Police in Tikrit. This MP Company is a “landowner,” which means that the unit is responsible for the security situation in a large chunk of land in Tikrit. I joined the MPs on mission on Halloween Friday. The day began as we relieved a Special Ops group after they conducted a successful early morning mission against some not-so-friendlies out in town. The MPs and the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team arrived on scene at the raid and the EOD folks went to work clearing explosives and other IED making material from the front yard of one of Tikrit’s finest insurgents. He and a couple of neighbors were obviously on the wanted list of the special operators, and now that list is a little shorter.<br /><br />The MPs went to the houses surrounding the scene of the raid to touch bases with neighbors and to make sure everyone knew what was happening and to ensure that they were all OK. This raid got a little noisy so the locals new that something a little different was happening in the neighborhood. The MPs have earned a great reputation in the community from their willingness to keep the line of communication open with the citizens and to keep them informed. Usually the locals know very well who lives next to them, so they aren’t necessarily surprised when the authorities show up bright and early. <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SRqFM6TRl7I/AAAAAAAAAGA/STN4L9cirno/s1600-h/MeandTikritKids.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5267669171018241970" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 134px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SRqFM6TRl7I/AAAAAAAAAGA/STN4L9cirno/s200/MeandTikritKids.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />After we completed the work at the raid scene, we went to visit a local Iraqi jail. The jail sits on the base on which Saddam’s mother’s palace (from an earlier post) sits. Trust me, the jail is no palace. It is a small building which houses suspects who were arrested by the Iraqi Army (IA) or the IP. I supposed that it is important to keep things in perspective when viewing the jail. The inmates were not hanging by their fingernails and they were not being given acid baths as would happen under Saddam, but the jail certainly does not offer the creature comforts of your average US jail. There are no bars for cells, but a couple hundred people are placed into a couple of rooms that are so full that people have to take turns laying down to sleep. There is one toilet (hole in the floor) per room, and one shower. The prisoners sit back to back in these rooms with a couple hours to go outside per week. According to the guards, some of the prisoners have been in this jail for several years. Fortunately for the inmates, there was a TV in each of the rooms that I saw.<br /><br />The good news story here is that each of the prisoners has been before a judge within 24 hours of arrest. They may be stuck in the jail for awhile due to delayed court dates because of a continuing shortage of judicial investigators, but the point is, they are (slowly) moving through the judicial process, which is a giant leap forward from the old days in Iraq. The MPs questioned several inmates to see if they had any complaints, and the only issues that anyone had was that they are developing the skin disease called scabies, which is caused, in part, by continuous close contact with others in a not-too-clean environment. The prisoners were all just sitting in these rooms, back to back, watching TV, looking surprisingly content.<br /><br />The chief of the jail is frustrated because he would like to expand the jail, but he cannot get funding. The base on which the jail is located actually belongs to the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism. Due to the high number of Saddam palaces on the base, the Tourism ministry wants to turn the base into a tourist attraction, so no money is being allocated to improve the jail. I think that the jail would make a great tourist stop to encourage people NOT to need to go to an Iraqi jail. I will admit, sitting around day after day watching TV for a couple of years does have appeal to some people.<br /><br />After we left the jail, we briefly stopped at an IA base where a recruiting effort was underway. There is always a recruiting effort for the IP and IA. The line of volunteers was long, as is common. No more forced service in the army as in Saddam’s day.<br /><br />Before heading back to Speicher, we stopped in an area where there had been a high threat of a RKG-3 attack. The RKG-3 is an anti-armor grenade, and the Sunni criminals in MND-N have used them too frequently. We patrolled on foot through the area and stopped and visited with several shop keepers during the patrol. The MP Commander bought chicken for his troops from a local shop and a couple other MPs grabbed a broom and swept the sidewalk in front of another shop. It is apparent that the locals in that area have a good relationship with the MPs, and the better that relationship, the more likely someone will rat out those who toss the RKG-3s. Believe it or not, there is a pool hall at the end of a row of shops along grenade alley, and the owner invited us in to play pool, smoke cigarettes, and drink Pepsi. The smart shop owners know that the Americans will come in and spend money in their shops, but there were several owners who clearly did not want us in their stores, especially the guy with the RKG-3 hanging out of his pocket (just kidding). After we wrapped up our visit, the squad headed over to the local hospital to ensure that the staff had stopped giving patients water that came straight from the Tigris River. The sickness was getting a little out of hand, and it took the MPs to point out the cause to the highly trained hospital staff.<br /><br />The scenery is beginning to change here at Speicher. Those wearing the Old Ironsides patch on their shoulders are beginning to pack up and the Tropical Lighting patch of the 25th Infantry Division out of Hawaii is beginning to arrive by the hundreds. Although the 25th does not take charge until next month, our Commanding General gathered us all up for a few minutes to give us a Veteran’s Day message and to say farewell to the 1AD troops who are starting to head home. I will share some statistics with you in my next and final note from in country, but 1AD already made some history as being the first command to deploy to war with none of its own brigades. The Army has developed Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) which some people refer to as “plug and play” units. While the Division used to be the source of support for its brigades, the BCTs are designed to operate somewhat independently with the Division providing somewhat less support but taking on other command and control and combat tasks. Anyway, the CG pointed out that this speaks well of the standardized training of the Army as a whole when BCTs from different divisions can plug in and pick up the fight with a whole separate division. MND-N is a large area, and the 1AD and its component BCTs had some impressive accomplishments.<br /><br />The first attached picture is me with some hard core Tikrit kids. I only deal with the hardest criminal elements. I knocked on their door for trick-or-treat and they tried to play dumb with me so I had to get tough. You can see how scared they are of the Americans. This was actually at a house in the vicinity of the raid, and the MPs were checking in with the family.<br /><br />The second picture is obviously the pool hall. No country music playing and no beer flowing, but the table is supposedly always in use. Finally, the last picture is of the chicken vendor in grenade alley. He insisted that I take his picture, so I guess he wants me to plug his shop. So, if you ever happen to be driving through Tikrit and you crave fresh roasted chicken…By the way, the guys in the pool shop wanted to take a picture of me standing among them after I took my picture of them, so if you are surfing through your favorite AQI web site and there is a picture of me being “captured” by some local terrorists, it’s probably not true. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SRpouRzSY6I/AAAAAAAAAF4/Dyhmfw-hwvU/s1600-h/TikritChickenVendor2.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5267637858425004962" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 134px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SRpouRzSY6I/AAAAAAAAAF4/Dyhmfw-hwvU/s200/TikritChickenVendor2.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SRpn3zQILVI/AAAAAAAAAFw/eiWJGYj9qW0/s1600-h/TikritPoolHall.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5267636922511535442" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 134px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SRpn3zQILVI/AAAAAAAAAFw/eiWJGYj9qW0/s200/TikritPoolHall.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />Everyone take care and here’s hoping that you have a blessed Thanksgiving </div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-31582813325232807342008-11-10T08:40:00.000-08:002008-11-10T08:43:16.715-08:00Veterans Day and a reminderWith another Veteran’s Day upon us, it is always good to pause and to review why we serve.<br /><br />Below are the words of our Declaration of Independence. It provides the reason for the American Revolution, and it makes it clear that Americans would not stand for any form of despotic government “ruling” over them. American politicians do not “rule,” they serve.<br /><br />The Declaration of Independence was and is one of the most radical documents in history. While in every other nation in the world, governments ruled over people, the Declaration stood that philosophy on its head. The Declaration pointed out that man’s rights do not come from government. Instead, rights exist independently of government. If government ceases to exist in a society, people’s rights do not cease to exist, because their rights preexist government. Here are the words of our Declaration:<br /><br /><em>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. <strong>But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.<br /></strong></em><br />Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence was written, our Founders signed the Constitution, a document that each of us is sworn to defend. Our oath of office states:<br /><br /><em>" I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.''<br /></em><br />While the Declaration declares that “We the People” create our government, the Constitution purposefully <u>limits our government</u> to ensure that our government representatives never become the ruling class. The Constitution can be read here: <a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html">http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html</a>. As European countries have turned over their freedoms to unelected international committees, it is important that we understand the uniqueness of OUR Constitution and OUR way of life. We are free citizens of the United States, not subjects of a greater world order.<br /><br />As many of us serve our country abroad, it is vital that we always remember that we also serve that Constitution at home. Hundreds of thousands of American service men and women have died, and hundreds of thousands more have fought, to defend the principles in our founding document. The day that we forget our oath is the day that all of that sacrifice will have been in vain.<br /><br />Thank you to all who have ever served in the US military.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-11227226690752149552008-10-29T12:23:00.000-07:002008-10-29T12:33:51.572-07:00EOD<div><div><div>Hello everyone,<br /><br />The drought has ended, at least for a couple of days. Army won three out of its past four football games.<br /><br />Oh yeah, and it rained here, too. It rained a steady rain all day on Sunday, and it cleared the air enough that it was actually raining and not mudding. Of course the ground can’t handle all of that water at once, so everything turns to a thick muck out here, and the ground releases quite an interesting smell. Life is good.<br /><br />A couple of months ago I wrote about route clearance patrols and how those patrols go in search of IEDs. Those patrols are conducted by Combat Engineers, which really is not a core mission of theirs. They have traditionally cleared minefields, but they just blow those up and clear a path. The soldiers who are officially tasked with dealing with explosives of all kinds are the soldiers who work in the field of Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or EOD.<br /><br />In a conventional battle, EOD forces would handle unexploded ordnance quite often by destroying it in place. When you are fighting force on force, it isn’t all that important to wonder who placed explosives in a particular location, so EOD could simply destroy the ordnance and remove the threat. During a counterinsurgency fight such as this, every little detail on every explosive device is evidence. Evidence leads to individuals, and individuals lead to IED cells. While EOD used to work as an individual Army battalion, due to the extraordinary amount and variety of IEDs in Iraq, EOD is now the core of a larger task force, called Task Force Troy, which includes Air Force and Navy EOD teams, as well as law enforcement officers from the US and allied nations. If it involves explosives, EOD will exploit it and then destroy it after all evidence has been collected. TF Troy has played a major role in attacking the IED networks. To give you an idea of the decline in IED incidents across Iraq, in July 2007, there were about 2600 IED incidents across Iraq (an incident is defined as an IED that exploded against a target or an IED that was discovered and cleared). Keep in mind all of the categories of IEDs that are included here – HBIED, VBIED, SVBIED, you know the list. Anyway, as of July of this year, the number of IED incidents across Iraq was down to 500, and the overwhelming majority of those incidents involved IEDs that were found and cleared. In July of 2007, the number of IED incidents where there was a coalition force (CF) casualty was about 250 for that month – casualty being injury or death. In July of this year, that number was in single digits. Zero incidents is better than 500, but you can see the progress that has been made. Once the IED suspects are detained, they are held for trial in Iraqi courts. All of the evidence and the biometric information that I explained in the past is used to, hopefully, put these people away for a long time. Some of these judges still prefer two Iraqi witnesses instead of hard evidence like fingerprints or biometric matches, so there are still challenges to be overcome.<br /><br />The gadget in the first photo is one of the tools of the EOD team, and it is called TALON. The little guy is fearless when it comes to inspecting IEDs up close and personal. Equally fearless are the EOD working dogs, which are mainly German Shepherds. Explosive sniffing dogs have played a large role in this fight, as well. I don’t tell you this to upset any dog lovers, but an EOD dog happened to be killed at a separate location on the day that I was working with the EOD team. He found an IED and he inadvertently detonated it. Another Shepherd died a couple of days ago during a lethal operation right here in Tikrit as he went into a building to take on a suspect. I mention that only to point out that there are a lot of resources at work over here which are saving human lives, and there are hundreds of military working dogs in the fight.<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SQi4-wMaOjI/AAAAAAAAAFY/QZo-FauyM0o/s1600-h/TALON.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262659552810777138" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SQi4-wMaOjI/AAAAAAAAAFY/QZo-FauyM0o/s200/TALON.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The majority of the lethal activity in MND- North is still occurring up in Mosul, where AQI is still fighting it out. Even so, attack levels are remaining fairly low. A new Mosul Reconstruction Operations Center was just opened in Mosul last week, which was a major event in and of itself because that illustrates the commitment by the Government of Iraq to continue to put effort into rebuilding that city which has very few Shia, who hold majority power in the central government. Although this was a big event and many press agencies were present, I understand that there was no reporting on the issue. Voter registration for the January elections has ended, and it should be noted that the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) performed extremely well in preventing any attacks on voter registration centers. I don’t imagine that this was mentioned back home either. For the record, Iraqis have to register in person and they have to positively identify themselves and they have to provide a real address and they can only register at one location. How old fashioned of them. They cannot register and vote on the same day, by the way. They are new enough to the whole voting concept that voter fraud is still considered a bad thing and not simply another tool by which to win an election. Let me make a prediction: there will be less fraud and more order in the Iraqi elections than there will be in the US elections. Thank you, Chicago machine. When you have US judges ruling that a park bench can be used as an address to register to vote, I wonder how far we are from a lawless society.<br /><br />On the topic of Syria, there is no doubt that US military members and Iraqis have died as a result of Syria’s facilitation of foreign fighters coming across its borders. If they are worried about sovereignty, maybe they should do something about all of the Saudis and Somalis and Egyptians who populate their country enroute to their killing sprees in Iraq. Iraq has asked Syria to close its borders to foreign fighters, as has the US. Syria has ignored those requests.<br /><br />I know that there has pretty much been a news blackout back home with regards to Iraq. At the height of the violence, there were over 250 reporters in Iraq. Now, there are fewer than 50, and most are not from US agencies. A US news agency representative says, “There just isn’t a story there.” I understand that excitement sells papers. I also know that Americans like to win, so I have a feeling that good news stories would sell. I still read comments about the “Iraqi War disaster,” and that description might have fit a year ago. Maybe the American people need an update. Having said that, maybe people are getting around the media and learning for themselves what is happening over here. According to a Pew Research poll, Americans have had a huge shift in their thinking about Iraq. In the poll, they were asked to rate progress in Iraq, and they could answer “very” or “fairly well,” or “not to” or “Not at all well.” In June of this year, 52% gave the negative responses and 48% gave the positive. In September, 58% gave the positive responses and 37% gave the negative. In April 2008, 47% said that we would succeed in Iraq and 46% said that we would fail. In September, 58% said we would succeed and 34% said we would fail. It is good to see that the media has not been totally successful in defining Iraq in their terms.<br /><br />Here is my view on the media. I don’t expect them to ignore the bad when bad occurs, but neither is it OK to ignore the good when it occurs. I think that for many Americans, Iraq is going to end up being simply “The Iraq War.” The only opinion people will have is that they supported it or they did not support it, but no one will know anything about it, other than they learned the term “IED.” I think that the American people are being cheated by the press. I think that it is wrong that they do not get to experience the successes of their military. Think about the Olympic Teams, or even your favorite sports team. Win or lose, you get to analyze every detail of every event or game. Think if the press took the “there’s no story there” attitude towards the Olympics. You would have read about every event where the US did not win, but you would know nothing about Mark Phelp’s 8 gold medals. I think that it is extremely important that the American public has confidence in its military, which means that the public should have the full story when the military is engaged in war. I think that if the public was properly informed of the “stories” that take place every day in Iraq (or Afghanistan), people would be very inspired by the determination, competence, and honor of their young soldiers. I see that as a very good thing. I have been in the Army for a lot of years and I am still inspired by them. There is nothing wrong with allowing people to know that their fellow citizens in uniform are demonstrating courage and heroism on a routine basis. Every day, Iraqi citizens and soldiers are seeing a side of the American military that many Americans don’t get to see. As I said, you are being cheated.<br /><br />Congratulations – only 6 more days of enduring what must be a non-stop stream of political commercials on your TVs and radios. Good luck.<br /><br />The second attached picture shows you another weather day in Iraq. I once mentioned that it looked like Mars here one day back in April, but that particular day shown in the picture takes the cake. Mars or Mercury, it was a strange look. <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262660269813035618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SQi5ofPEcmI/AAAAAAAAAFg/4lBEXJB0PNE/s200/9AM.JPG" border="0" /><br />The third picture is probably the most disturbing of all. Look close and you will see little blue flags out there. Yes, it is a golf course. It is a 9-hole course and it opened here on Speicher on Father’s Day. I have never seen anyone use it (who actually brought clubs here?), but I imagine somebody has been out there. When the PGA tour sweeps through here in a few years, remember where you saw this course first.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SQi6TtwyKxI/AAAAAAAAAFo/y3Ca7kCrd3c/s1600-h/SpeicherGolf.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5262661012446915346" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 146px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SQi6TtwyKxI/AAAAAAAAAFo/y3Ca7kCrd3c/s200/SpeicherGolf.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />Everyone take care. </div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-1441726463592820572008-10-04T13:44:00.000-07:002008-10-04T14:19:00.710-07:00Kirkuk<div><div><div><div>Hello everyone,<br /></div><div>October has arrived, the temperatures up here in the north have consistently been down in the 90s during the day, and soldiers are resorting to long sleeve PT uniforms to fight the stinging cold during the 75 degree mornings. Fall finally arrives in Iraq. I am not a hot weather person, so you have to admit that I was good about not whining during the heat of the summer.<br /><br />Over the past couple of weeks I made my way up to Tamim Province to the north of my location. The most well known city up there is the city of Kirkuk. Tamim Province is a mixed province of Arabs and Kurds, yet despite the mixed population, it is also one of the most stable provinces in the northern region, not counting the three provinces that are officially in the Kurdish region.<br /><br />Kirkuk is one of the cities where Saddam Hussein ordered the Kurdish population to be evicted and replaced with Arabs. After the US removed Saddam, Kurds began to return to the region with the goal of reclaiming their homes and land. Tamim Province has a lot of oil and natural gas and the Kurds would obviously like to return to the industries in the province at which they once worked.<br /><br />My trip to Tamim was to visit with several different types of units. I met with another Field Artillery unit that is conducting non-traditional FA missions (they all are); I met with the Kirkuk Police Transition Team, and I slid over to the west side of Tamim to the town of Hawijah to spend time with an Infantry battalion that has done a remarkable job of pacifying what was once a very violent region.<br /><br />The most active terror groups in Tamim are Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Ansar al-Sunnah (AAS). Both are Sunni criminal groups, but the relationship between the two has been somewhat rocky over the years. AAS is comprised of Kurds and Arabs, mostly Iraqi, and they do support the goal of Osama Bin Laden to force the Sunni brand of Islam onto the rest of the world. AAS is considered a Salifist group, which means that its members believe that Islam should adhere strictly to its roots, and that innovation or ideas that did not come directly from Mohammed are forbidden. AAS has been very active in conducting IED attacks on coalition forces (CF) and Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), and its members are probably some of the most consistent in videotaping the IED attacks for posting on the internet (quick, someone perform a Google search and see how many video clips Mohammed posted online to ensure that this is not an innovative way for AAS to be spreading its beliefs). While AAS used to make it clear that it had nothing to do with AQI, as leaders from both groups have been captured or killed, the cooperation between the two groups has grown. AAS has been significantly damaged as an organization in Tamim.<br /><br />Many people refer to Tamim as Kirkuk province, and I noticed that some newspapers do that as well. As most of you have probably heard, the Iraqi Parliament has passed the provincial election law, setting provincial elections for January 2009. These elections are likely to bring greater Sunni representation to the Iraqi parliament since Sunnis are unlikely to boycott the elections as they did in 2005. The original intent of the election law was to include a question on the future of Tamim province. Kurds would like to see Tamim revert to the control of the Kurdish autonomous region, while Arabs would prefer that it remains under the control of the Government of Iraq (GoI). The question of the status of Tamim will not be on the ballot in January, but the election law requires parliament to deal with the Tamim question no later than the end of March 2009. One of the changes in the election law is that minority Christian groups will not be ensured any representation in Parliament as they are now. This caused thousands of Christians to protest the law in Ninewa, and Prime Minister Maliki actually came out and called for Parliament to reinstitute protections for minority representation.<br /><br />Although Tamim is fairly passive at this point, all is not completely well. In fact, a few days after I left FOB Warrior in Kirkuk, several rockets landed on the FOB, killing 6 foreign workers. During my time with the PTT in Kirkuk, we went on a mission to disrupt a local IED network with the local Iraqi Police (IP). Because of the favorable security situation in Kirkuk, the PTT has been able to train the IP rather than escort them from battle to battle, and they have developed into a fairly competent force. They are one of the police departments in the north that is fully staffed with full time investigators. I went with the PTT and IP on an early morning raid of a local known IED maker’s house. The suspect was captured at his other house in the country by an Iraqi Army (IA) raid, but there was plenty of evidence to be collected at his house in Kirkuk as well. The search of the house turned up spools of copper wire, timers, and trigger devices. The wife, of course, knew nothing, but the purpose for a person to have these three types of items hidden in various places around the house and yard is fairly obvious in this environment. The IED networks in Kirkuk have been heavily targeting the IP. The IP did a pretty decent job on the raid and on the search with a little help from the CF in finding those good hiding places around the (very cluttered) yard. <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfWg3OxBhI/AAAAAAAAAE4/jfuQMRxZ4Uc/s1600-h/KirkukWave.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253403350421014034" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfWg3OxBhI/AAAAAAAAAE4/jfuQMRxZ4Uc/s200/KirkukWave.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The Infantry commander over in Hawijah turned his area around much quicker than even he expected. His forces used a combination of carrot, stick, and a great deal of trust in the local Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to clear the region of the terrorists. This is the unit that organized all of those soccer games a couple of months ago, and those games were made possible due to the aggressive efforts at bringing the security situation under control. The CF forces and ISF have a great relationship with each other and with the community in Hawijah, and the US commander relies heavily on the ISF to use their connections to locate the insurgents that will then be targeted by a combined US/Iraqi force. While the infantry unit “captures” more often than it “kills” these days, persistent IED emplacers are known to end up getting the attention of the CF sniper teams, which tend to effectively put them out of business.<br /><br />Rather than fly back to Speicher this time, I joined up with a US logistics convoy for the return trip. These convoys are called Combat Logistics Patrols, or CLPs. These CLPs move out with a purpose, and they are on the roads constantly as they move supplies throughout the region. As the CLP traveled across the mountain range between Tamim and Salah Ad Din Provinces, believe it or not, there were some areas that actually looked nice. AQI apparently thinks so, too, because they are trying hard to keep a foothold in that area, which contains the oil rich city of Bayji. Who says that terrorists don’t enjoy a little nice scenery to start their day every now and then?<br /><br />In an interview with the press over here, Prime Minister Maliki, for the first time, acknowledged the contribution of US and other coalition forces to his country’s progress. He said that Iraq “appreciates and respects their sacrifices and said that the deaths of the US troops would act as a bridge between the two countries for years to come. Maliki has been walking a tight rope with heavy pressure from Iran to push the US out of Iraq. Iran, by the way, is continuing to funnel fighters and weapons into Iraq. Maliki went on to say that the American people may not be fully aware of the accomplishments that the US intervention in Iraq has brought them. While he has been touting the security improvements in his country over the past year, this is the first time that he has actually given credit to US forces for playing a large role in those improvements. Maliki also said that despite the drop in violence, Iraq still needs US troops for some time. The US and Iraq are still hammering out a status of forces agreement that needs to be adopted by 31 December.<br /><br />The US press is regularly critical of the political process over here, and even of the corruption that is common throughout government in Iraq. There are valid criticisms to be made on each of those topics, but I think that it is well past time for Americans to step back and realize what is happening in our own political process. When you have a group such as ACORN whose sole purpose it is to conduct voter fraud, and when you have a political party that applauds these illegal efforts, and when you have a population that simply shrugs their shoulders about it, you have a Republic that is in trouble. When you have judges ruling that it is unfair to require people to identify themselves before they vote, or to verify their place of residence, or to have a system in place that confirms whether a person has already voted, or to even show up to vote during posted voting hours, you have the makings of a crack pot third world system. Even in Iraq, voters are required to prove who they are before they vote. I somewhat mocked the happenings in Chicago a couple of months ago, but there is very little humor in the types of fraudulent activities that are now occurring in Ohio. Add to the mix a supposed “free press” that is complicit in the cover-up of the fraud, and I would like to know how that is different than what occurs in third world nations. The military and State Department are over here trying to teach the Iraqis how to execute a fair election process and how to run a corruption free government. Who is taking on that responsibility back there? With the vitriol that is being spewed in the US over one of the candidate’s Christian faith, it is apparent that there are some in the US who would gladly make an election law that bans Christians from seats in government. People should probably wake up.<br /><br />The attached photos are from Kirkuk. The first one speaks for itself – the kids like the Americans. The second photo shows the typical wiring system in the towns over here. People rig wires anywhere they can to tap into electricity. My electrician brother-in-law will see this and realize that he has great job opportunities in Iraq if he wants them. The third picture is from the back yard of the target house. No room for after-raid soccer this time around. Iraqi yards are pure clutter. Finally, I don’t have relatives in the waste disposal business, so the street cleaning opportunities can go to someone else. For those who don’t know, Iraqi roadways are notorious for their litter. It is everywhere.<br /><br />Everyone take c<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfXY0F4kRI/AAAAAAAAAFA/mlfoRHxC9RY/s1600-h/Wirejob.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253404311651127570" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfXY0F4kRI/AAAAAAAAAFA/mlfoRHxC9RY/s200/Wirejob.JPG" border="0" /></a>are, and remember, if you are voting early, it’s only legal to vote once. <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfdgqHMYdI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/LwQ8S9366dg/s1600-h/KirkukStreet2.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253411043480986066" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfdgqHMYdI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/LwQ8S9366dg/s200/KirkukStreet2.JPG" border="0" /></a><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253405169822906802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SOfYKxB-ubI/AAAAAAAAAFI/7hPfOXRHbA4/s200/Kirkukyardsearch.JPG" border="0" /></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-65926849840830567222008-09-15T23:52:00.000-07:002008-09-16T00:02:38.394-07:00Bucca<div><div>Hello everyone,<br /></div><div>I am back at Speicher for a little while after spending a couple of weeks down in the southern reaches of Iraq. Although the trip to and from Bucca was somewhat grueling, it was nothing compared to getting back in time to watch the Ohio State football team embarrass itself on national TV once again. I suppose that this is as good a year as any to miss the opportunity to watch much football. As for that Army football team, when the head coach has to apologize to the Army for the performance of his team, you know something isn’t right over on the Hudson River.</div><div><br /> </div><div>I spent the past couple of weeks presiding over a Multi-National Force Release Committee (MNFRC) down at a place called Camp Bucca. Bucca is a Theater Internment Facility (TIF). It currently houses about 17,000 guests, and that number is decreasing as the MNFRC boards do their work. Bucca is located about 800 meters north of the Kuwait border and it is south of Basra.<br /></div><div>The purpose of the MNFRC boards is to review the case file for each detainee to determine which of the detainees no longer present a security threat to the multi-national forces in Iraq or to the Iraqi government or citizens. Each detainee, no matter what their reason for being in the TIF, is given a hearing at a MNFRC board once every six months. Each board consists of three US military representatives (senior NCOs and officers) who review the files on one day and hold a hearing with the detainee present the next day. </div><div></div><br /><div>Note that the people being held at Bucca are called “detainees” and not Prisoners of War. By international law and Geneva Convention statutes, they are unlawful combatants if they were fighting against coalition or Iraqi forces. In plain language, to be lawful combatants under the Geneva Convention standards, a person must be fighting while in a distinguishable uniform, he must have a command structure, he must carry his weapons openly, and he can’t hide among the civilian population. The actual verbiage of the Convention is a little more official sounding, but that is the gist of it.</div><div></div><br /><div>Despite their unlawful status, the US treats the detainees like no other nation would consider treating captured enemy personnel. The commander of the TIF operation at Bucca makes it clear that the press has an open door to visit the facility any time they choose. He says that there is nothing that the US will hide down there. A few weeks ago, a western reporter did visit Bucca, and he asked to speak to Iraqi families who were visiting. As you can imagine with a “Western reporter,” this guy was looking for an Abu Graib moment. He interviewed 20 different sets of families after they conducted visitation with their relatives in the TIF. Of the 20 families, none told him that their loved ones were suffering any mistreatment or abuse. Many told him that they were grateful for the educational opportunities being offered, and one mother, who has 2 sons in the TIF, told the reporter that this is the first time in her sons’ lives that they were “making something” of themselves by taking advantage of the educational offerings in Bucca. She said that she actually hopes they finish their education before they are released. Naturally, the reporter reported none of this and instead wrote a story of how bad these families missed their loved ones (I’m sure that they do). By the way, the US pays the families mileage for traveling to see their kin at Bucca. While at the facility, they are fed a meal and the kids are given gifts.</div><div></div><br /><div>While in the TIF, the detainees each have the opportunity to take a wide variety of educational and vocational courses. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that many of these detainees cannot read, so they are taught to read and perform math, among many other courses. They are also offered an Islamic studies course, and no, it is not the Saudi extremist version. Many of the detainees are here because they were told that Islam demands that they commit certain acts against the infidel. Not being able to read, they don’t know any different. The Islamic studies courses are taught by Iraqi clerics who provide a very different take on Islam than what so many of the detainees were taught. The detainees are served 3 full meals each day, and they receive medical and dental treatment at the same facility and by the same medical personnel that the US forces use at Bucca. Many of these Iraqis see a dentist for the first time in their lives at Bucca. Many have surgeries that they would have never have been able to receive in their hometowns. The conduct of the US forces towards the detainees at Bucca is designed to teach the detainees that the lessons they have been taught about the evil Americans were probably incorrect lessons. Obviously, no one wants to be stuck behind high walls and concertina wire for several years, but my point is, these detainees, most of whom have engaged in some type of activity designed to hurt or kill US or Iraqi forces, are given first class treatment regardless of what they were accused of doing to earn a spot in the TIF.</div><div></div><br /><div>As for the board itself, it was interesting duty. To determine whether a person should be recommended for release or not, we were not simply supposed to focus on the charges against the detainee. We were not conducting a criminal trial to determine guilt or innocence for past conduct. We were conducting hearings to determine who we believed could be released with a high expectation that they would no longer commit negative acts against us. (The recidivism rate after several years of MNFRC boards, by the way, is only .7% - that is “point 7 percent”). One of the factors that we had to take into account is the detainee’s willingness to admit that what they did was wrong. Unfortunately, none of these guys admit that they did anything in the first place. They can be caught on tape laying an IED or shooting at US forces, or they can be shot while engaged in a fire fight, or they can have a hand blown off while emplacing an IED, but that doesn’t matter. In their version, they were just walking down the street heading towards the mosque to pray when out of nowhere shots rang out and here they are. How about the explosive residue on your hands? (What is an explosive?) How about the anti-aircraft weapon buried in your back yard? (Those damn neighbors probably snuck it there one night). How about the 152 millimeter field artillery round sitting on your dining room table with wires hanging out of it? (You know, I never even noticed that). Like I said, it was interesting. There were certainly people in the TIF who were swept up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. These brave AQI/ISI souls and their Jaysh al-Mahdi counterparts do fight amongst civilians, so oftentimes these civilians get hurt or they get detained. The MNFRC boards are a way to help sort this out.</div><div></div><br /><div>On the other hand, we came face to face with some hard core killers as well. Some came in with their horns clearly visible, and some were very sophisticated. There is a way to ask the right question in the right way to shine the light on what is really inside a person. You have all heard the stories of the medieval brutality that some of these people inflict on others, and when a person is capable of doing something like that to other people, that piece of them comes out. No, you don’t have to waste time wondering how many of these types are recommended for release.</div><div></div><br /><div>The leaders of the insurgent groups are generally intelligent people. Unfortunately, there were a high number of high school teachers and college professors among them. They have easy access to young people and they use this access to recruit for the insurgency. These are the people who would come in and explain that an insurgent is a dumb and poor young person who can be easily manipulated to carry out senseless acts of violence against others and, as educated and respected community members, they certainly wouldn’t fit the profile of an insurgent. At that point, I would agree that they did not fit the profile of an insurgent fighter, but then I would ask them to do the board the favor of describing the people who recruit these poor, easily manipulated young people. Not one of those who we thought were the recruiters and leaders would go down that road. None of them would take the chance of describing themselves to us. That was telling in and of itself. If a detainee is recommended for release, the US Brigade Combat Team in the area to which they would be released has the opportunity to object to that release based on their knowledge of the person. The obvious goal is not to release the real bad guys or the leaders who can easily assemble another group of fighters.</div><div></div><br /><div>I know that everyone has been hearing that Iraq is calling for a specific date for the US to leave Iraq. Publicly, that is a true statement, but also publicly, and not widely reported, is the real story that Prime Minister Maliki is looking for a pull out date based on conditions. Immediately after Maliki told his party faithful last month that he is demanding that the US be completely out of Iraq by 2011, one of his aides came over to a reporter and said the following: “The agreement (with the US) will be met with significant discomfort, so Iraqi officials will resort to using the dates mentioned in the agreement to sell it to the public, even though they might be used in a guidance way. If you ask the Prime Minister, ‘What happens if the situation on the ground changes before 2011?’, then he would obviously say that the dates might need to change.” Keep in mind that it is election season over here, too.</div><div></div><br /><div>I didn’t get many pictures this trip. The aircraft you see is the Marine Osprey touching down at Bucca. We hooked up with the Marines over in Fallujah and rode to Bucca in that thing. It has a unique feel to it as it tries to figure out if it is a plane or helicopter. I know people have heard that things are looking up over in the Marine sector in Anbar Province, so you may be wondering if I can confirm this. I was only over there a couple of days, but I can tell you that I did meet two Marines who could both read AND write, and I met a third who could speak in complete sentences, so yes, I would say that things are looking up in Anbar. The second picture is from the outside of the TIF looking in. That is just a small portion of the TIF as the complex can hold over 20,000 detainees if needed.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SM9ZCIlQTyI/AAAAAAAAAEo/arXOvKn3vP4/s1600-h/OspreyBucca.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246509984108269346" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SM9ZCIlQTyI/AAAAAAAAAEo/arXOvKn3vP4/s200/OspreyBucca.jpg" border="0" /></a></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246510302223236242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SM9ZUppxfJI/AAAAAAAAAEw/Q_n_J4VMWoE/s200/BuccaTIF.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div></div><br /><div>Everyone take care and enjoy the rest of your September.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-71718012457399153522008-08-25T03:06:00.000-07:002008-08-25T03:29:59.812-07:00Muntheria<div><div>Hello everyone,<br /><br />I trust that everyone has been getting their fair share of the Olympics, and more importantly, pre-season football. I haven't had the opportunity to see much of either. I didn't even get to watch the 9 year-old Chinese girl lip-synching during the opening ceremonies, so I guess I am missing out on some good stuff. I did read an Op-ed where the writer blames that incident on the US because of the emphasis on beauty in the States. The "Hate America First" crowd doesn't let up.<br /><br />As part of my ongoing collection effort, I spent some time out east on the Iraq-Iran border gathering information on Port of Entry Transition Teams (POETT). Closely related, but not quite the same, is the Border Transition Team (BTT). The BTT works with the Iraqi version of our Border Patrol, and the POETT works with the customs, passport, and immigration people at the (legal) border crossings (as my wife asked, "Do they really have people immigrating to Iraq?).<br /><br />The Port of Entry (POE) which I visited is called the Muntheria POE, which sits near a city called Khanaqin. Khanaqin is in the northeastern area of Diyala Province. This area has a heavy Kurdish population, and the Kurdish tribal affiliation crosses the border into Iran. Interestingly, the water and electric lines coming into Muntheria come from Iran. The cell tower sitting on Muntheria is Iranian. Unfortunately, although electricity still flows to the POE from Iran, the Iranians cut off the water when the US POETT moved onto the port. A somewhat high level priority is for a desert based port of entry to have water, so that issue is being worked by someone (I think).<br /><br />The terrain up in the Muntheria area is similar in appearance to eastern Utah, with hills and rock outcroppings everywhere. The trip out there could only be accomplished partially by helicopter, with the final two hours being accomplished on the road in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP. The ride was somewhat like a 2-hour serpentine course, with the vehicles weaving in and around holes from previous IEDs. In addition to the IEDs, the whole area up there still has its fair share of mines from the Iraq-Iran War in the 80's. Tank and field artillery fighting positions are still present, and they face both east and west, which speaks to the back and forth nature of that fight. On the way to Muntheria, we passed by a small village that sat probably 200 yards off of the road. As we approached, it was obvious that the kids in that village had ears for the MRAPs. These kids came pouring out of the village and running towards the road. The gunners threw what little toys and candy they had out to the kids, and, as in any survival of the fittest situation, the big burly kids made sure that they took anything that the little kids picked up.<br /><br />The POETT at Muntheria has done a great job at building up trust with the Iraqi personnel at the POE. Overall, the Iraqis working there seem to possess a good deal of competence. The POE commander, a Brigadier General (BG) Kahlid, comes down hard on corruption, and he even signed paperwork to fire a corrupt employee while we were meeting with him in his office. The POE only handles pedestrian traffic at this point, with buses (or relatives) transporting Iranian visitors to their destinations once they are inside Iraq. Many visitors come from Iran to visit the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. The exception to the pedestrian traffic is that oil tankers roll from east to west continuously. The tankers transport unrefined crude oil into Iran, and they return empty or with refined fuel. The goal of the POE is to eventually open up to other types of commercial traffic. Prior to 2003, the POE supposedly processed 2000 people per day. That number today is somewhere around 300 people per day. The POE commander does not believe that he receives enough funding from Baghdad to get the port to the performance or appearance level that he wants. Being that this is a Kurdish region, and since the area might end upin the Kurdish autonomous zone after the elections, the central government is not eager to spend money up in the Khanaqin area, although the government is more than happy to receive the income from trucks coming through from Iran. </div><div> </div><div>Besides US military personnel working on the POETT, there are also Department of Homeland Defense and Border Enforcement Administration employees assigned there. These guys are the experts at running border ports and securing the border (go ahead - insert wise crack about the US border security). Despite the well run nature of the POE, there are unofficial border crossing points where other types of products and people enter the country, just as happens in the US. Some of those people belong to the Iranian Special Groups. With the new toned down nature of the Shiite Mahdi Army in Baghdad, the Iranians are supposedly training operatives to get back into Iraq to target US forces and Iraqi leaders for assassination.<br /><br />As always, I had the opportunity to visit with Iraqi leadership and drink Chai tea while I was traveling. I was able to meet the POE Commander, the POE fire chief (he wanted the US to buy him a bigger TV), and the Director of Passports & Immigration. In the first attached picture, I <a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SLKGXYs0G5I/AAAAAAAAADg/au0JolgpTZE/s1600-h/ImmigrationDirectorOffice.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238397052910836626" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SLKGXYs0G5I/AAAAAAAAADg/au0JolgpTZE/s200/ImmigrationDirectorOffice.JPG" border="0" /></a>am seated next to COL Shugart, who is the Director of Passports and Immigration. He reminded me of my grandma in that he wouldn't stop sticking those pastries in our face. The next picture is of BG Kahlid, who is celebrating in traditional Iraqi fashion after the grand opening of a shooting range complex on his POE. First lesson - stop shooting your weapon straight in the air when there are people standing around you. The third picture is obviously towards the Iranian side of the border.<br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238397613025633570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SLKG3_SlpSI/AAAAAAAAADo/zA9qEVeT8cg/s200/Kahlidcelebrates.JPG" border="0" /><br />Let me do something different and share a couple of observations from outside of Iraq. If anyone still tries to make a moral equivalence between US and Russian forces as they did during the cold war, they only need to look at the Russians today to see the major difference. Saddam and his cronies raped and pillaged their own people all across Iraq until the US showed up. Now that type of behavior is unacceptable in this country. The Russian army showed up in Georgia, and now they are running around raping, pillaging, and looting that country. While a Russian officer was forcing some Georgians to work for him, he said to an AP reporter that, "You can even make a monkey look human by putting him to work," and then he threatened to arrest the reporter if she used his name or took his picture. I hope people are paying attention.<br /><br />While the US Army is conducting plenty of non-traditional missions over here, it is now resorting to non-traditional missions back in the US. Acouple of years ago, someone warned the nation's youth that they had better do well in school or they will end up in the Army. The reality is that they had better do well in school or else they will need to get a waiver to have the privilege of serving in the Army. GEN William Wallace, the commander of the Army's Training & Doctrine Command (under whose command I currently fall), is extremely concerned about studies that show that only 28% of US 17-24 year-olds meet the Army's physical, intellectual, and moral criteria for enlistment. As a result of his concern, the Army is opening a charter school in South Carolina to get students qualified to join the Army. The Army charter effort will soon move to other states as well. Yes, we have a crisis in education in the US, and yes, it does ultimately affect our national security.<br /><br />I will be pulling a different type of duty for the next couple of weeks. I will be sitting on a board at a US detention facility in southern Iraq in which we will be reviewing Iraqi detainee files to make recommendations for the release or further detention of the Iraqi prisoners. It should be interesting.<br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SLKHOvigXrI/AAAAAAAAADw/HtDMaYz_4XI/s1600-h/Iran_IraqBorder.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238398003934420658" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SLKHOvigXrI/AAAAAAAAADw/HtDMaYz_4XI/s200/Iran_IraqBorder.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />Take care. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-82102965438712915842008-08-09T05:41:00.000-07:002008-08-09T05:54:52.957-07:00Moving ForwardHello everyone,I don’t have much in the way of personal travels to write about this time around. The continuing saga of sand storms has made traveling a real hit or miss experience. I have spent the last couple of weeks stuck on Speicher, and the issues that I have been working on here are not interesting enough to make you want to read about them (or me to write about them).<br /><br /><br />There is obviously still plenty going on in Iraq in general. Although the government was hoping to hold provincial elections on October 1st, that timeline won’t be kept. The sticking point is the failure of the Parliament to pass a Provincial Elections Law before adjourning for the remainder of August. One of the major stumbling blocks has been the status of Kirkuk Province up here in the north. Kirkuk is heavily Kurdish, and there is a lot of oil coming from the province. The Parliament has been trying to figure out how to frame the elections in Kirkuk. The Kurds want Kirkuk to be a part of the autonomous Kurdistan region, while the national government does not want this. According to reports from Kirkuk, many Arabs living there are content to allow the Kurds to govern their region because the Kurdish regions have been the most orderly and stable in Iraq since Saddam was removed. The Kurds in Kirkuk will not accept a proposal to have the elections set up so that there are equal numbers of seats in the Kirkuk provincial government to divide power equally between Kurds and other factions. Most reasonable people don’t see how the elections can occur at all in 2008 based on the fact that this Kirkuk dispute is holding up the entire election law process. Voter registration is moving forward, however. I’ve read comments that although the security has improved in Iraq, the political process is still broken because there are still some stalemates. Doesn’t the fact that there is a stalemate in Parliament rather than a shootout in the streets of Kirkuk over this issue mean that the political process IS working?<br /><br /><br />In an interesting turn of events, Muqtada al-Sadr from Sadr City has called on his Mahdi Army to lay down their arms. He issued a document that says that his followers will now be guided by Shiite spirituality instead of anti-American militancy (let’s hope that there is a difference). The document says that the new focus of the Sadr sect will be on education, religion, and social justice. Under Islam, I don’t know how much separation there is between those three focus areas.<br /><br /><br />Sadr has been responsible for a lot of violence in Baghdad, but he began to lose influence when he ran away to Iran. Although there are plenty of Shiites in Iraq and Iran, thousands of Iraqis lost relatives in the war with Iran. They don’t appreciate Iran’s influence. The people of Sadr City have grown tired of being locked in their homes due to the fighting that at first Sadr, and then the Iranian special groups, have caused in their neighborhoods. Sadr has very much been forced to play catch up to remain relevant. Several months ago, he ordered his men to fight, and many said that they were tired of fighting, so he changed his mind and said that they should have a cease fire. Then the Iranians kept trying to keep the fight going, and the people realized that he is nothing but an Iranian stooge. Then Sadr said that his sect would boycott the elections, but then his own people said that they were going to participate anyway or else they would have no power, so then he said that what he meant was that some of his party could participate if they wanted to. And then Sadr said that he would no longer target Iraqis and that he would just kill Americans, but his people asked him why because the Americans keep helping them, so now he says that there will be no more focus on anti-American militancy. Let me summarize what I just said in five words or less: I think we beat him.<br /><br /><br />So what does that mean to the Sunni fight that is taking place up here in the north? Although the Sunni and Shia groups dislike each other, they feed off of each other. When you have a major group like the al-Mahdi Army laying down their arms, that is a morale breaker for other criminal groups in country. Every time peace breaks out somewhere in Iraq, the people living in areas where the terrorists are still active start to understand that peace is possible, and they start to turn against the terrorists. Every time the security improves in different regions, the Iraqi Security Forces gain credibility, so people begin to trust them and feed them information. Al-Mahdi was heavily influenced by Iran, and the Iraqis didn’t like that. AQI is largely a group formed of foreign fighters. The Iraqis are not happy about that, either.<br /><br /><br />The Sunni Awakening, as it is called, began over in Anbar province just to our west. Fallujah and Ramadi sit in Anbar, and some of the most violent battles of Iraqi Freedom occurred in those towns. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ran his main slaughter houses out of Anbar until two F-16 pilots sent him to his Maker via two 500 pound bombs. Anbar was supposed to be turned over to be fully administered by the Iraqis back in May (the US Marines run the security in Anbar). Weather problems initially caused a delay in the handover process. Now that we are in August, the turn-over of Anbar from US to Iraqi control has not yet happened, and the reason is because the Iraqis in Anbar don’t want it to happen. Here is a quote from the Anbar area: “The people in Anbar love the US Marines. If anyone tells you any different, they are lying.” Now you would expect that I would mention that the quote came from a US Marine spokesperson, but it didn’t. The quote came from Iraqi Army Brigadier General Ali, who is the military commander in the Fallujah area. The Iraqi people do not want to take back governing authority because they think that means that the Americans will leave, and they don’t want that. Not to be repetitive, but I believe that we won in Anbar province, too.<br /><br /><br />Moving on to a final topic, there was a US GAO report recently released that claims that the Iraqis are not doing their share to fund reconstruction efforts. Let me touch on that just a little bit. First of all, a read of that report shows that it compares US spending from 2003 through the present. It only shows Iraqi spending from 2005 to the present. Keep in mind that after we invaded, Iraq had to rebuild a central government from scratch. Saddam did not have a mature centralized budget process. If he wanted money to go towards “X,” he ordered it to go towards “X.” It has been a total cash society. The figures in the GAO report show huge US reconstruction spending in 2003/2004, which is true. We went in right behind our combat troops and began to rebuild when the Iraqis literally had no government of their own. Since 2005, once the Iraqis had established a constitutional government, they have budgeted more money towards their own reconstruction than we have budgeted. For 2008, in fact, the Iraqis have ten times more money budgeted towards their construction than the US. While there is a large oil surplus here, that was not expected. No one saw the price of oil hitting almost $150 per barrel. Due to the large surplus, the Iraqi government passed a supplemental $22 billion budget on August 7th in which they directed $8 billion towards their reconstruction. Their reconstruction budget is 10 times more than the US is directing towards reconstruction here.<br /><br /><br />Once a budget is established, the government then has to have systems in place to disburse and spend that money. That may not be as simple as it seems. Until you have the technical ability to conduct funds transfers and similar electronic transactions, how do you transfer a couple million over here and a couple million over there in a cash economy? The Iraqi officials had to learn everything from scratch. What is the contracting process? Who can bid on the jobs? What is the payment process and what are the payment terms? Add to that some misguided US projects that were turned over for upkeep to Iraqis who had no technical ability to maintain the project, and you have a lot of money spent. Executing a budget is not exactly straight forward when a society has never executed a budget before.<br /><br /><br />That is probably much more information on that topic than anyone really wanted, but I have no war stories to tell this time around. The pictures aren’t necessarily related to anything that I just wrote about. The one picture shows how Iraqis get gas without waiting in long lines in this country with so much oil. I have no idea where the roadside gas sellers get their gas. The other picture shows how Saddam spent his budget when he ran it. That is called the Moon Palace, which just another Tikrit area getaway for the tyrant.<br /><br /><br />Everyone take care.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SJ2ROw1X3UI/AAAAAAAAADQ/ED5Vip65mE4/s1600-h/Moonpalace.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232498024887344450" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SJ2ROw1X3UI/AAAAAAAAADQ/ED5Vip65mE4/s200/Moonpalace.jpg" border="0" /></a><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5232498214234266834" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SJ2RZyNMnNI/AAAAAAAAADY/Iy26_wL_-QE/s200/Tikritblackgas.jpg" border="0" />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-17321447362854327492008-07-23T23:35:00.000-07:002008-07-23T23:44:25.155-07:00From Searching to Soccer<div><div>To start things off, I am happy to report that my family has made it back home to Colorado after 2 months and over 9,000 miles of driving. Yes, Tina is still sane, but she had to work to keep the casualty count among the kids down to one appendectomy, one re-injured knee, and one broken arm. It appears that Deployed Dad maintains a commanding lead in the category of “Fewest Trips to the ER.” Despite 75% of the kids getting hit with one type of injury or illness during the trip, they had a blast. Thanks to all of you who hosted them on that journey. </div><div><br />My journeys over the past couple of weeks included a trip down to the city of Balad in southern Salah Ad Din province. Balad was the home of a large portion of the Saddam Hussein Air Force. The few fighter jets that we maintain in country are based out of Balad, but I did not travel to Balad to visit with the Air Force. The Army calls the base around the airfield COB Anaconda. Like most inhabited areas in Salah Ad Din province, Anaconda sits in the Tigris River Valley. Insurgent activity down in that area has not been limited to just AQI. The region has a mix of Sunni and Shiite citizens, so there have been Shia insurgent groups as well as a couple other Sunni groups operating in the area. </div><div><br />The unit that I visited at Anaconda is a Field Artillery (FA) battalion. When you think Field Artillery, you obviously think of the big guns and the rolling barrages of destructive firepower. In the Counterinsurgency (COIN) fight, the need for that type of fire support is not generally required. Therefore, our FA units have been asked to take on a lot of non-traditional FA roles in the past couple of years. I was visiting with the battalion to collect information on how they have organized for their new roles. They have had to adjust to fight an infantry fight, as well as having to perform the other duties and community engagements that are important to winning over the population.</div><div><br />I had mentioned a few weeks ago that the insurgents may have been moving towards the river valleys as the Iraqi Army (IA) and US forces chased them around the Northern provinces. During my visit to Anaconda, the FA battalion conducted the first series of riverine operations to be conducted by Army units during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). I did not have the opportunity to participate on these operations, but the soldiers would have made their Navy brethren proud with their performance out there on the river.</div><div><br />One of the missions that is being handled by the FA soldiers is that of reconciliation. The reconciliation process is a method being used for former fighters to clear their names with US forces. The Iraqis do not have any formal part in the reconciliation process. Anyone who reconciles with the US still has to deal with the Iraqi system if they have committed Iraqi criminal offenses. There are rules as to who can reconcile with our forces, and there are certain requirements placed on those wishing to clear their names, such as the requirement to turn in weapons and provide information on weapons caches. The troops down at Anaconda have been leading the pack on reconciliation efforts in the province and have discovered a lot of weapons caches. The result has been a significant reduction in violence.</div><div><br />Along with the reconciling, governance, and economic issues, the FA battalion still has to deal with security issues day to day. I participated with one of the companies (or “batteries” in FA speak) as they went to search a farm house complex in the region for a suspected weapons cache. The property sits in an isolated rural area that is only accessible via elevated canal roads. An IA unit linked up with us on our way out to the farm. Upon our arrival, we were met by the farm owner, who explained that he lived there with his brother, his three wives, and his ten sons. He said that he knew nothing about any weapons caches, and he invited a search of his property. The US and IA troops took him up on the invitation and searched for quite awhile, but did not locate any caches. There were plenty of sheep, a few cows, and a lot of rats, but no hidden weapons. It is never a surprise to watch our soldiers act with tremendous professionalism, but it was also nice to see the Iraqi soldiers acting very professionally. The IA platoon leader was definitely in charge of his troops, and in a real sign of progress, the platoon sergeant was even giving commands. That is a big deal in an army where non-commissioned officers (NCOs) have had no role in the past. The strength of our military comes largely from the leadership of our non-commissioned officers as they train, supervise, and mentor our soldiers. The US Army is trying to develop the IA to the point where they also have a strong NCO corps.</div><div><br />The US Battery Commander did not want to leave the farm house without showing some appreciation for the cooperation that we received (for those of you in Colorado Springs, this Captain happens to be a 1997 Harrison High School graduate and a subsequent graduate of UCCS). He went to one of his vehicles and produced a soccer ball, which he gave to one of the 10 sons. An immediate impromptu soccer match broke out, pitting the sons against some of the US and IA soldiers. The soldiers, wearing full battle-rattle, were no match for the quick little farm kids, so as usual, we probably would have lost to the kids had there been nets to use for scoring. One of the kids told us that we were welcome back to his house every day if we wanted to come back. The farmer was thinking, “Hey thanks, guys; I have 200 sheep to tend to and now my kids will spend their day playing soccer instead of doing their farm duties.” Admittedly, I was looking around while the kids were playing with their new soccer ball, and there were sheep wandering around everywhere. I imagine the kids were busy rounding them up after we left. The attached pictures are obviously from the search-turned-to-soccer visit.</div><div><br />I have a couple of news stories from this end. Marie Colvin of the Times of London has been embedded with one of the IA units up in Mosul during Lion’s Roar. She called the operation up in Mosul “one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.” While our Commanding General did not agree that the terrorists have been completely defeated in Iraq, he did say that he thinks that we are at the “irreversible point” as far as taking on the insurgency. These guys are still here, and they are still killing, but as I mentioned before, they haven’t been able to muster the big attacks over the summer that they have conducted in the past. </div><div><br />Also from Iraq, which I assume you probably know about, the last of 550 metric tons of yellowcake was safely shipped out of Iraq to a firm in Canada. Yellowcake is the raw material from which nuclear bombs are made. A professor from Sussex University in England (Norman Dombey), estimates that the yellowcake shipped from Iraq was in large enough quantities to make 142 nuclear bombs. The presence of the material was kept very secret and it was shipped very quietly out of country to avoid any possibility of any of the insurgent groups getting their hands on it. To top things off, there was a mass re-enlistment ceremony conducted by GEN Petraeus at Al Faw Palace on the 4th of July. 1215 US servicemen and women re-enlisted, making that the largest re-enlistment ceremony on record. Not bad for a stretched-thin military.</div><div><br />As the elections are approaching in both Iraq and the US, poll-taking will begin in earnest. In an interesting poll taken in Iraq, most Iraqis don’t want a quick US withdrawal or an immediate time table. The polling results indicate that the majority want the US to leave, but only a minority say that they want us to leave immediately. Here are some comments taken from the article. I will not comment on the comments:</div><div><br />“The American presence in Iraq is the safety valve to keep this country quiet. If they withdraw, that will lead to calamity.” – Maied Rashed al-Nuaemi, Mosul.</div><div><br />“The proposal…to pull out the troops by summer 2010 is foolish. If the United States withdraws from Iraq, I think its credibility among the international countries would collapse.” – Mohammed Sulaiman, Baghdad. </div><div><br />“We need more training, as well as new and developed weapons and supplies. We also need modern and developed technology. The US should withdraw gradually so our Iraqi forces can fill the gaps that the American forces will leave.” Brig. General Najim Abdullah, Iraqi National Police.</div><div><br />The Iraqis are still struggling to pass an elections law, so it is unclear whether their elections will even happen this fall. Registration drives have already begun and so far, no attacks on registration stations. I think these people are realizing that they lose power if they don’t participate in the elections process. </div><div><br />Everyone take care and enjoy the last full month without what we have all been waiting for – the beginning of another football season. <a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SIgj87mG-oI/AAAAAAAAADA/WtWy8l_aK3M/s1600-h/RaidSoccer2.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226466897260116610" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SIgj87mG-oI/AAAAAAAAADA/WtWy8l_aK3M/s200/RaidSoccer2.JPG" border="0" /></a><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SIgkRR71laI/AAAAAAAAADI/6r3O8Fq18cc/s1600-h/FarmFamily%2B.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5226467246854215074" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SIgkRR71laI/AAAAAAAAADI/6r3O8Fq18cc/s200/FarmFamily%2B.JPG" border="0" /></a></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-55166749837327910822008-07-09T05:31:00.000-07:002008-07-09T05:37:05.594-07:00Land of Palaces<div><div>Hello everyone,<br /><br />Hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer. It’s hard to believe that it is already a week into July.<br /><br />Everyone has heard the stories of Saddam and his palaces that he had built around Iraq. I had the opportunity to see a few of these palaces over the past couple of weeks. Some of these palaces have holes where ceilings used to be, courtesy of the US Air Force, but most others are still in tact. While the palaces make good pictures and are built with marble floors and chandeliers, when you actually take a close look at the workmanship, it reminds you that this is Iraq. The palaces do stand out among the common houses in the surrounding villages, particularly up here in Tikrit.<br /><br />I spent some time down in Baghdad attending a biometrics conference and collecting information on Army Space Support Teams. I know most of you can hardly contain yourselves thinking of the excitement of that adventure, but hey, some of the work isn’t quite as “field army” as others.<br /><br />Biometrics is actually playing a large role in fighting the insurgency right now. Biometrics is the ability to establish an individual’s identity through a unique physical characteristic. There are uses of biometrics here in Iraq that we wouldn’t stand for in the States, but the people here are accepting of this intrusion because it is helping to track the bad guys and it is saving lives. Biometrics involves taking fingerprints, facial photographs, and iris scans of Iraqis and keeping this information in a data base. Iraqis can refuse to be enrolled in the biometrics system, but they can then be refused employment or admittance to certain buildings or regions. All Iraqi security forces (ISF) have to be enrolled in the biometrics system and the system is used to scan them into their work places to ensure they are who they say they are. Fingerprints are being pulled from IEDs and IED makers are being captured right and left. Obviously people don’t leave their eye print on IEDs, but the iris scan is used to verify identities for people crossing the borders and for people entering secured facilities. The insurgents are so concerned about the use of biometrics that an Al-Qaeda member actually jumped at a biometrics computer at a border crossing and blew himself and the computer up in an attempt to destroy biometrics data. Known criminals or suspects are placed on a biometrics watch list, and if a person at a checkpoint receives a “hit,” they are immediately arrested. As I said, we obviously would not accept this type of personal intrusion at home, but we aren’t dealing with an insurgency at this point, either.<br /><br />The Marines tend to be a little more aggressive with their use of biometrics than the Army. They wall off whole cities and towns and require anyone wanting entrance to have to be scanned. This has helped cities like Fallujah and Ramadi to become pretty secure.<br /><br />The Army Space Support Team, or ARSST, is also located in Baghdad. The team is out of Colorado Springs and it provides the Army with information heavily derived from satellites. Unfortunately, most of the work that the ARSST performs is conducted at a level that can’t be discussed among unclassified friends, so there is not much that I can write about this topic. I will say that the Army hasn’t completely grasped the full potential of space in its day to day operations quite yet.<br /><br />The attached picture is the Al Faw palace at Camp Victory in Baghdad. There are several lakes and numerous other palaces and large homes in the area that were built for Saddam’s family or for his Baath Party brethren to use. Most of the palaces, even some with holes for ceilings, are used by coalition forces now. Victory is just west of Baghdad by the airport. I will have to admit that while visiting Al Faw, I did take some leisure time and I swatted golf balls off of a 3rd floor balcony into the surrounding lake. <a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SHSwLtP8TsI/AAAAAAAAACw/NGIxz3C51g4/s1600-h/Al+Faw+palace.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220991583200759490" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SHSwLtP8TsI/AAAAAAAAACw/NGIxz3C51g4/s200/Al+Faw+palace.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Most of the palaces in Iraq were built after the Gulf War and after sanctions were placed on Iraq. Saddam took the oil for food money and used it to build mansions all over the country for himself while his people went hungry.<br /><br />While in Baghdad, I also went to the International Zone, which is also called the Green Zone. The international embassies are all located in that area, as well as Iraqi government facilities. I was never really clear as to what the Green Zone was like until I visited it. I pictured it as an area completely cleared of local Iraqis to keep the diplomats safe. There are actually Iraqi homes and Iraqi citizens living in dumpy homes all throughout the Green Zone. It has the Washington DC feel about it, with nice buildings surrounded by slums. To get back and forth from the Green Zone to Victory, you ride in a rolling safe called a Rhino. It is making its final journeys, though, as MRAPs will soon take its place.<br /><br />The other palace in the pictures is called the Mother’s Palace. Saddam built this one in Tikrit for his mom, who counted the 365 rooms and decided that she wasn’t going to get stuck cleaning that sucker, so she never lived in it. I visited the mommy palace as I was patrolling with another Police Transition Team (PTT) in the Tikrit area. The police in Tikrit are in pretty decent shape compared to some cities. The station that we visited was the station that handled the Trojan water truck attack that I mentioned a few weeks back. These guys have the incident on video and they couldn’t help but show us the video over and over again. They even have it set to music now, and who knows, they may have it posted on their version of Youtube already. Unlike us, they have no prohibition against videotaping the dead enemy, and they had what was left of the AQI members all laid out in the back of their pickup trucks like big game during hunting season. They were very proud, but they should be. They handled it well, even the choreographed music. <a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SHSwwzGoLHI/AAAAAAAAAC4/7vsyZTWhQL4/s1600-h/Mompalace.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220992220427463794" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SHSwwzGoLHI/AAAAAAAAAC4/7vsyZTWhQL4/s200/Mompalace.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />That PTT patrol took place on the 4th of July, and for lunch, we ate chicken kabobs from a local Tikrit vendor. Chicken, freshly made pita bread, humus and an imported Pepsi made for a great July 4th lunch in Iraq. For the record, no stomach issues arose, so we picked the right vendor.<br /><br />During the PTT patrol, we found a large group of Iraqis and we stopped and released a pigeon. Believe it or not, there was a military reason for that release, and I will have to let you ponder that event using your best cloak and dagger thought process.<br /><br />It was pointed out to me recently that the US press will talk about the security gains in Iraq, but they don't ever talk about how other areas are progressing. While in Baghdad, we received a briefing that covered every topic from security to governance to economics, and there are improvements in all areas across the board. In a counterinsurgency, the security issue is tremendously important, obviously, or these other activities cannot occur. Interestingly, while everyone here is waiting for the big up-tick in violence that usually occurs during the summer months, it just hasn't happened yet. That is referred to as a "good thing."<br /><br />What is occurring in large numbers is a reconciliation process. Wanted insurgents are being given the opportunity to turn in weapons or to lead the authorities to weapons caches in exchange for clearing their names and giving them a chance at a fresh start. They are appearing before Iraqi judges and most are having their records expunged in exchange for them renouncing the insurgency. They only get one chance and if they screw up, they get put away for a long time. Thousands of rounds of ammunition have been turned in, and nearly 1,000 insurgents have reconciled in the past few months in the northern regions alone.<br /><br />Everyone take care. </div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-44811639237703310002008-07-05T05:03:00.000-07:002008-07-05T05:14:15.874-07:00Looking for bombsThis should be my last catch-up post.<br /><div></div><br /><div>Rain, anyone?<br /><br />Just a couple of months ago I was reading an article on how global warming was going to turn the center of the US back into a dust bowl comparable to the 1930’s. I’m thinking that this will not be the major problem this summer. On the topic of rain, it actually began to rain here a couple of weeks ago during a sand storm. The result was basically mud globs falling from the sky. The rain part didn’t last very long.<br /><br />Everyone is probably already aware of the fact that IEDs are the main killer of our troops over here right now, with 80% of US casualties being caused by IED strikes. My guess is that I don’t even have to define what those initials stand for, but just in case, they stand for Improvised Explosive Device. There are now several variants on the IED term. A VBIED is a vehicle borne IED, while a SVBIED is a suicide vehicle borne IED. The difference is that a person is in the SVBIED when it is detonated, while the VBIED is a parked vehicle that is detonated by remote control or timer. There is also the HBIED, or house borne IED, and then there is the SVEST, or suicide vest. Basically, it seems that if anything explodes and belongs to the insurgents, it has the term IED attached. The most deadly to date has been the Iranian provided EFP IED, which is an explosively formed projectile IED. These devices have copper placed inside of them and upon explosion, the copper shoots out towards the target at super high speeds and in a molten state so that it penetrates through armor. The EFP has been a Shiite weapon due to their close ties to Iran. The Sunni up here in the north have fortunately not been able to get their hands on those things yet, although they are trying to make their own version.<br /><br />While I was eating dinner last week, I was approached by a couple of lieutenants who informed me that they have used the Lessons Learned handbook on route clearance, but that this handbook, being two years old now, was outdated due to the rapidly changing enemy tactics and procedures. They wondered if I would be interested in working with them to update the information in the publication. That happens to be one of the reasons I am over here, so of course I was interested. These lieutenants are combat engineers who work in a route clearance company. Their purpose in life over here is to clear routes of IEDs, so naturally they invited me along to watch them practice their trade.<br /><br />Needless to say, we have convoys and patrols out on the roadways constantly. These route clearance units are some of the most appreciated units out here. Their priority is to find and clear any IED that is along their assigned route. To clear it is to make it safe before it explodes. If they do not successfully recognize an IED, they will tell you that their second goal is to have that IED explode on them rather than on another US or Iraqi convoy against vehicles that are less protected from the blast than the vehicles they use. This is what these route clearance units do, every day and every night, all over Iraq.<br /><br />The big vehicle in the attached picture is called a Buffalo. It is a 25 ton monster, and that mechanical arm on top is used to poke around at suspicious objects. The caging that you see is used to defeat rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs. While the route clearance crews have to keep a sharp eye out for IEDs, they also have to keep an eye out for the angry insurgents, who obviously are not happy when these crews remove their IEDs. While the Buffalo is by no means invincible, it can take a pretty big punch and keep on moving. <a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SG9juqN6amI/AAAAAAAAACo/1LiOlwgPhXY/s1600-h/Buffalo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5219500146403469922" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SG9juqN6amI/AAAAAAAAACo/1LiOlwgPhXY/s200/Buffalo.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I jumped in and rode in the Buffalo on a morning route clearance mission that took us on a round trip from Tikrit all the way south to about Samarra and back. We were clearing a well traveled divided highway with 2 lanes in each direction. The route clearance patrol is made up of four vehicles, and they take up both sides of the highway, with 2 vehicles driving against traffic and 2 driving with traffic. The locals understand the drill by now, so when they see the vehicles coming, they pull over and stop. This does tend to tie up traffic, but the other option for the locals is for them to hit more IEDs themselves if the Americans weren’t out clearing their roads.<br /><br />There are different ways for an insurgent to detonate his IED on a vehicle. One way is through a remote control device, such as a cell phone. They also use pressure plates over their IEDs, or crush wire, which is exactly what it sounds like. If you have never seen an Iraqi roadway (and chances are that you haven’t), they are strewn with trash and discarded tires and anything else you can imagine. All of this stuff makes for great hiding places for IEDs. The crews travel these roadways enough that they are very good at recognizing when something is out of place. It is a technique called change detection. There are blast holes all along the route from previous IED attacks, yet these guys will notice when a hole looks as if it has been re-used. Among all of the trash, they are able to recognize when something looks out of place, and they are great at noticing wires on the roadway. They don’t take chances by passing on something that looks suspicious. Just because a hole was empty yesterday doesn’t mean that it will be empty today, so the patrol is slow and meticulous.<br /><br />The crew poked and prodded at several objects during our patrol, but we didn’t find anything IED related. A couple of impatient locals tried to weave their way through the patrol at one point, but that isn’t allowed due to the VBIED threat. They kept coming despite the flashing lights and blowing air horns, but the site of a .50 caliber machine gun aiming down at them made them reconsider. For the record, the patrol does move off of the roadway on several occasions to allow the cars to pass. An unfortunate side effect of that nice gesture is that the locals sometimes find the IEDs that the route clearance team may have found. The insurgents will watch for the route clearance patrol, and they will try to arm their munitions to hit the US trucks when they see them coming. They know that the cars have to remain behind the patrols. On occasion, the patrol has pulled off to allow traffic to pass, not knowing that an IED has been armed just up the street. The result is obvious. AQI is losing its popularity right now, so they really don’t like to kill locals unless they are police or army, so these types of incidents don’t go over well for their cause.<br /><br />While there are still plenty of IEDs being placed, total IEDs found and hit have been reduced significantly up here in the north in the past six months. Route clearance crews are on the job both day and night, and yes, they are even spotting these IEDs at night.<br /><br />The big Iraqi Army (IA) push up in Mosul is having some pretty decent effects. While the IA arrested over 800 suspects up there, our guys estimate that about 200 were high value targets. Not a bad haul. While many AQI headed west to escape back to Syria over the open desert, the US had some task forces out there waiting for them. Over 300 AQI were killed trying to get to the Syrian border in the past couple of months, and many more were captured. It now appears that some of the AQI who escaped Mosul are heading back in this direction down the Tigris River Valley. Looks like it’s time to call on those Navy Riverine forces to come into action up here. The Marines have actually been using the Navy forces over in Anbar Province in the Euphrates River Valley, so maybe they will let our side borrow them for awhile. Unfortunately, over the past couple of days, AQI has gone to Iraqi Police homes in Mosul and placed RCIEDs (Remote Controlled IEDs) next to their front doors. They have also killed 2 Sheiks up in western Mosul for calling on the locals to help the IA defeat the insurgency. As I have said before, AQI vowed never to be pushed from Mosul, so they aren’t going to leave quietly.<br /><br />To give you some idea about the reduction in the level of violence in Iraq, there have been fewer enemy attacks in the rest of Iraq combined than there were in the north last week. I am not pointing that out to suggest that things are out of control in the north, but that things are settling down in the rest of the nation. The Sunni are still battling up here the best they can, and Syria is close enough to keep offering sanctuary and support. To put the numbers in persepective, one year ago, there were as many attacks per province per week in the north as there now are in the entire northern region per week. An attack does not mean killings, by the way. It is just enemy action directed against coalition forces or IA or other local nationals. The battle is certainly not over, but the violence is heading in the right direction.<br /><br />Let me give you a quick Vince Lombardi quote. He once said, “It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.”<br /><br />I write that quote to segway into the fact that Saturday was the Army’s 233rd birthday, and I have to put in a plug for my service. The Army is doing some heavy lifting over here and over in Afghanistan. Our sister services are here as well, but the Army is carrying the bulk of the load. Its forces are taking the heaviest casualties, both in killed and wounded. That isn’t surprising since this is mainly a ground fight. However, as I have mentioned before, there are several other federal agencies that are missing in action, and the Army is filling in where they are absent.<br /><br />We use the term, “The Army,” but that Army is made up of individual soldiers who get up, suit up, and head out into the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan to perform their duties – every day. It really isn’t possible through email to do justice to the work they are performing or to the situations that they are encountering, but I can tell you that they are definitely “doing” and they are “achieving” – every day. They aren’t running from AQI, or Ansar al-Sunnah, or al-Mahdi, they are running after them. It is a pretty amazing feeling to link up with a platoon of soldiers, gather in a circle and unashamedly say a prayer, then load up and go search for bad guys. I am honored to be having the opportunity to work with these soldiers who are, in their words, just doing their jobs. I can tell you that you can be proud of the soldiers in your Army as it turns 233. </div><div><br />A disappointing update on the soccer tournament up in Kirkuk. So far, the Iraqis are up 2 games to 0, after whipping the US 6-1 and 4-1. Nobody listens to the lesson’s learned guy, but I’m telling you, football; play them in football. On second thought, I’ve watched the Army football team in recent years, so maybe that isn’t such a smart idea, either. In all seriousness, these games are attracting hundreds of people from the community. They are really enjoying it.<br /><br />Everyone stay dry, and take care. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-48142753444400059312008-07-03T03:01:00.000-07:002008-07-03T03:08:03.563-07:00Salah Ad Din<div><div><div>I am slowly cathcing up to myself. I originally sent this in early June.</div><div></div><div> </div><div>Hello everyone,<br /><br />For my latest travels, I didn’t go all that far, but I did switch gears from the Police Transition Teams to a Military Transition Team, or MiTT. I spent some time with one of our MiTT teams just a little south of Tikrit in Salah Ah Din Province. The MiTT is housed at a little outpost called Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dagger, which sits on a bluff overlooking the Tigris River. To get to Dagger from Speicher, there was no air travel option this time. We went by ground convoy, which can be a little more interesting with the constant IED threat. The route from here to there is covered heavily with Sons of Iraq (SoI) and Iraqi Police (IP) check points, so the IED implanters are having a tougher time getting too many IEDs buried out there right now.<br /><br />Dagger used to be a US FOB, but it was turned back over to the Iraqi Army (IA) a couple of years ago. In the one attached picture, you can see the old palace, which is now the headquarters for the 4th Iraqi Army Division, or 4IA. <a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGykMcD4CGI/AAAAAAAAACQ/pDbOAkZPDVc/s1600-h/DaggerPalace3.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218726601813395554" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGykMcD4CGI/AAAAAAAAACQ/pDbOAkZPDVc/s200/DaggerPalace3.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br />One of the initial differences between being with a PTT and being with a MiTT is that there is a much greater level of trust between our soldiers and the Iraqi Army than between our guys and the Iraqi Police. The police units are much more infiltrated by insurgents than are the army units. When in an IP station, none of the US soldiers go anywhere without several other soldiers. On Dagger, it is common for our MiTT members to walk over to the IA headquarters by themselves without a problem.<br /><br />When I arrived at Dagger, the MiTT Operations advisor showed me around camp. The Iraqis operate quite a bit differently than we do. The operations officer and I walked over to the Iraqi motor pool and we looked at a small privately owned car that had its front end blown off. The car belongs to the Iraqi Division Engineer, a full-bird Colonel. The Colonel was ordered by his commanding general to drive down the oil pipeline and check for saboteurs. In our army, the engineer would normally not be the first person chosen to go hunting for saboteurs, but more importantly, our guys wouldn’t jump in the old family car to complete that task. Lucky for the Colonel, he lived through the IED blast. The family, however, will be needing to look for other transportation.<br /><br />The 4IA Division is a very large Iraqi division, but it is not a mobile unit. The 4IA soldiers are tied to an infrastructure protection mission, which keeps them in checkpoints along the oil pipeline that crosses Salah Ah Din, and it keeps them guarding power lines and highways. The fact that the division engineer takes the family car on missions with him probably makes it obvious that, unlike their sister divisions up in Ninewa Province who are engaged in the big AQI fight right now, these guys don’t move around a lot. The good news is that they are good at protecting the infrastructure, which is good for growing the economy, which is good for keeping citizens from joining the insurgency.<br /><br />The 4IA leadership is fairly diverse, which should be a good lesson for other sectors of Iraqi society to emulate. The Commanding General (CG) is a Turkoman, his assistant is a Shiite, his Chief of Staff is a Sunni, and his Operations Officer is a Kurd. The CG tries hard to squash corruption in his forces, so he rotates his forces around fairly frequently. He thinks that if a unit is in one location too long, those with tendencies to start extorting money from the locals will start to do just that. By rotating his forces, he has actually run a pretty clean ship. If the 4IA was actually engaged in a lot of combat actions, it might not be such a good idea to shift people around like this, but these guys are essentially moving from one check point situation to another. </div><div><br />When I was getting the grand tour of Dagger, the MiTT Operations Officer and I walked over to the palace to look at the IA Tactical Operations Center, or TOC. A US Division TOC is a busy place. Representatives from each staff section are on duty 24 hours per day in our TOC. When we walked into the IA TOC, there was one Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) sitting behind the phones, sound asleep. We startled him, of course, and he jumped up, buttoned his shirt and put his shoes on. We said our hellos and moved on so that he could get back to sleep.<br /><br />The next morning, we attended a battle update brief at the IA TOC, and it was full, although every one of the staff officers had his cell phone ring at some point during the briefing. After the briefing, the IA Operations Officer (called a G3), invited us into his office for Chai tea (of course). He had a lot on his mind and he wanted to share some of his thoughts, most of it dealing with the tactical situation with his forces. During our visit, the Deputy Commanding General (DCG) came into the office and he ordered another round of Chai tea for everyone. I am getting my share of Chai tea, which is OK because it is good stuff.<br /><br />The DCG wanted to talk about my job and the Center for Army Lessons Learned. We just helped the Iraqis start their own lessons learned center a few months back, so he wanted to see if the Iraqi center was operating like ours. He thinks that his center has too many civilians working in it, so he is not sure how much they will know about military operations. The DCG had a pretty good grasp on the English language and he was very friendly and interesting to talk to. It shouldn’t be surprising, but they are just as interested in our world as we are in theirs, so we talked quite a bit about the US.<br /><br />Our MiTT team feels like they are making slow but steady progress with the Iraqi Army. The Iraqis will never operate like we do, so the MiTT members have learned to not get frustrated by the Iraqi system. The Iraqi Army tends to be further ahead in their core competencies than the Iraqi Police, but again, they come from a very different culture than we do. Keeping in mind that they are engaged in a war, the schedule under which they operate is 10 days on, 10 days off for every soldier. Each soldier literally only works half a year under this schedule. This schedule includes the commanders and staff, so you can see the challenges in conducting a war this way. The Iraqis don’t understand the concept of planning to the extent that we plan. They tend to simply get up and go without really thinking things through too much, such as where they are getting their fuel or water. The MiTT teams used to cover all of this for them, but now they are making the Iraqis think through these issues or live with the consequences if they forget to include these issues in their “plan.” There is one request that the Iraqis submit any time they actually do plan, and that request is for Apache air support. I had to put that plug in for my old aircraft. Conducting a raid? They want Apaches; manning a checkpoint? How about some Apaches. They love our Apaches, and the MiTT members say that they actually fight harder when Apaches are providing cover for them. That shouldn’t be all that surprising considering the fact that our guys like the air cover as well.<br /><br />I understand that this is war, but you have to find humor where you can. This probably falls into the category of pathetic humor, but you’ll get my point as you read about a recent event here.<br /><br />The SoI at a checkpoint just south of Dagger stopped a water truck and asked to look into the tank, just as they are supposed to do. The driver reached down and offered the SoI a handful of money to let him drive through without a search. The SoI called for Iraqi Police backup for a suspicious truck. He then informed the driver that he was going to search the vehicle. As the SoI member walked to the back of the truck, the driver jumped from the cab, yelled something, and then blew himself up with the suicide vest that he was wearing. As I understand the purpose of a suicide vest, called a SVEST, it is supposed to be used to kill a lot of other people as well. Mass casualty vest is probably a more accurate term. Well, this poor AQI member took the “suicide” term literally, so he blew himself up with no one standing anywhere near him. One enemy gone. After this stunt, an AQI member jumped out of a hole on the top of the tanker portion of the truck, jumped over the side, yelled something, and then blew himself up as well. Two enemy down. As #2 blew himself up, he blew the side of the tanker open, exposing seven of his best AQI buddies to the SoI and Iraqi Police. The seven remaining AQI members started firing at the SoI and IP, but the good guys took out all seven without any casualties of their own. A US convoy was rolling past and was prepared to assist, but they didn’t have to. The SoI and IP performed very well with no US intervention at all. I hope you can see the weird humor in the hapless AQI actions at this checkpoint, but if you can’t, sorry.<br /><br />The good news is the way that the SoI and IP performed. They didn’t call for US help, and it is a huge deal that the SoI member turned down the bribe. The insurgents often get around through bribery and threats, and this SoI member put his life on the line and became a real hero. No doubt these AQI members intended to kill a lot of people.<br /><br />Over to our east in Kirkuk, the situation has stabilized to the point that one of our brigades is hosting a series of 5 soccer tournaments against local Iraqi teams. Soccer is fine, but when you hear that they are hosting football tournaments, then you will know that we have really crossed the Rubicon.<br /><br />Our CG, who does not take 10 days off for every 10 days worked, pointed out to the Division that things are going well enough right now that it makes him nervous. He obviously doesn’t want complacency during the summer months when activity usually gets a little heavier. With the Iraqi election registration about to begin, I imagine that all of the insurgent groups will try to step it up a little bit in the coming weeks. We will just have to see how it goes.<br /><br />The second attached picture is obviously me after a patrol, and the colorful picture is of the Tigris River running past FOB Dagger. It actually looks pretty nice down there. <a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGykfn9V8MI/AAAAAAAAACY/Ki3Nl4sO8rI/s1600-h/MAJ+Cox+after+patrol.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218726931424735426" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGykfn9V8MI/AAAAAAAAACY/Ki3Nl4sO8rI/s200/MAJ+Cox+after+patrol.JPG" border="0" /></a><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218727191236481714" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGykuv1SkrI/AAAAAAAAACg/WlFz9pnLhSM/s200/Tigris.JPG" border="0" /></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-31491583967427788112008-06-29T00:35:00.000-07:002008-06-29T00:41:18.276-07:00Baquba<div><div>This is from early June.</div><div><br />Hello everyone, </div><div><br />I have spent several days at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Warhorse, which is in the city of Baquba. Baquba is located northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province. Diyala is one of those provinces in the north that is still somewhat volatile. Having said that, just about 18 months ago, Diyala was more than just volatile – it was a massive killing field. As the US surge began, Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) began heading north out of Baghdad. As they moved north, they set up slaughter houses all throughout Diyala. Diyala is a mixed Shiite/Sunni province, and it is split with about 50% of each sect living there. Baquba is the largest city in the province, and it is also split evenly between Shia and Sunni. AQI was obviously targeting Shiite victims, and the Shiites began to go after Sunnis in return. Over 100 people per week were being murdered in Diyala during parts of 2006 and 2007. </div><div><br />As the US forces moved into Diyala 15 months ago, AQI began moving further north. Diyala was one of those provinces where the Sons of Iraq (SoI) citizen groups began to stand up, which was a large reason that AQI left the area. The SoI in Diyala were mainly Sunni at the time, and this lack of support by their own sect made it tough for AQI to stick around. They still have a small presence in Diyala, but they haven’t been able to create too much trouble there. They are hard at work trying to recruit female suicide vest wearers, and they have managed to find a couple of “volunteers” for that task in the past couple of months. </div><div><br />The main Shiite criminal elements in Diyala are the al-Mahdi army militants. Sadr city sits on the northeast edge of Baghdad, so the al-Mahdi thugs don’t have all that far to go to get up to Diyala. </div><div><br />During my trip to Baquba, I spent time with another Police Transition Team (PTT). This one was the 202nd Military Police (MP) Company out of Ft. Eustis, Virginia. They are responsible for training all of the Iraqi Police (IP) in Diyala province with the exception of a few stations in the northeast tip of Diyala. They are a busy group of MPs. </div><div><br />I went with one of the PTT squads as they patrolled Baquba, which included a visit with a Quick Reaction Force (QRF) station and a regular police sub-station. QRF police are a little better trained and equipped than are the police at the regular stations. Unlike many of the regular IP stations, this station had functioning staff officers in place, such as an armorer, a training officer, a supply officer, etc. The chief was an ex-army officer, so he runs a tight ship as far as discipline. He even brought one of his police officers in to chew him out in front of us for not being in proper uniform. I didn’t understand a word the chief was saying, but it was clear that this officer was getting a thorough tongue lashing. </div><div><br />Like the chief in Mosul who I met, this chief had a decent sense of humor as well. Apparently one of the most important pieces of equipment to these police chiefs is their TV set and satellite TV hookup. When we went into this chief’s office (Chief Hussein), he was watching the Blue Collar Comedy show – the one with Larry the Cable Guy and his buddies. The chief thought that I was a wimp for not smoking his cigarettes with him. I did the chai tea and I even ate a hometown Baquba apple, but I wouldn’t go for the cigarette. So I guess I’m a wimp, or whatever the corresponding trait is in Arabic. </div><div><br />The big internal challenge that the PTT teams face is the lack of qualified translators. It was painful to listen to the translator struggle with his English and then try to communicate to the IP in Arabic. Some of these chiefs understand English better than some of the translators, and the PTT members say that the chiefs will have to correct the translators on occasion. The best translators are those who are US citizens and who have returned to work for the US here. Meanwhile, these translators who are recruited locally have to be watched carefully. One of them stood there on Warhorse and called in rocket fire on the base using his cell phone. The dope is lucky that he didn’t get hit himself, but he is now in US custody. </div><div><br />Although Diyala province is one of the more active northern provinces, I need to put that in perspective by pointing out that the enemy activity is down to a few of contacts per day between them and IP or US forces in that province. The situation is similar to Mosul in that the heavy presence of police and army checkpoints has severely limited the ability of the insurgents to plant IEDs or to move freely around the cities, so they have resorted to suicide vests and cars packed with explosives, although there haven’t been all that many instances of those types of explosives recently. A suicide bomber tried to drive his car into an IP station a couple of weeks ago, but with the better protection that the police have put in place for their stations, the driver had to blow himself up outside of the barriers. Unfortunately, he did manage to kill one IP who was outside at the time. One of the police officers showed me a plaque in the QRF station that listed names of 169 police officers from that station alone. These were all of the officers who have been killed by terrorist activity since 2003 from just that station. The station has 475 officers right now, so you can see that they are literally making sacrifices by holding down these jobs. Most of those police deaths occurred in the 2005-2006 time period. </div><div><br />The calming of Diyala has been accomplished in large part due to a good US operation combined with a very determined Iraqi police commander at the provincial level. The large US Brigade in Diyala is departing next month as part of the surge drawdown, leaving a smaller US presence in the province. The commander of this US Brigade had two years to prepare for his deployment, so he did some smart training during that time period. He put hundreds of his soldiers through intensive Arab language training, so that proved valuable with the lack of translators. He had his junior leaders conduct ride-alongs with the police in the Ft. Lewis, Washington, area to get a feel for how to get information from the public and how to earn their trust. COL Lehr and his staff also met regularly with mayors and city managers back home to learn the basics of running cities and towns so that they would be better informed on how to teach the Iraqis the basics of city management. </div><div><br />The US Commander also regularly used the carrot and stick approach with the communities in Diyala. Despite the new existence of elected government officials in the cities and towns, the Sheiks still have great influence all around Iraq. Anytime attacks against US forces or civilians in an area would begin to rise, COL Lehr would cut off money for the local projects or electric power to the towns in that area. He would also conduct what is called “terrain denial fire” in areas that have been hot with attacks on US forces. He said that before long, the local Sheiks would come in and tell him that they have put a stop to the attacks and they would ask him to please turn on the power and resources again. The higher levels of security have given the people a chance to get businesses running again and the police have had a chance to become a little more proactive rather than strictly reactive. As business has picked up, people are making money off of the economy rather than by participating in the insurgency. </div><div><br />Although Diyala has a governor, the man who is making a difference in the province is named General Ganum. He is the head of law enforcement in the province. He tends to have a strong concern for the people and they know it. There are a couple of towns in Diyala that went without power for a long time, and the Iraqi officials in Diyala kept promising that power would be in place by certain dates. GEN Ganum got fed up with the false promises, so he arrested the top three officials who were responsible for the power projects in Diyala. He told them that as soon as power was being provided to the towns, he would release them from jail. Electric power was running to these towns in no time, and GEN Ganum even paid these arrestees for the work that was finally completed. I’m not sure that this technique would go over so well in the US, but hey, this isn’t the US. </div><div><br />During a bridge opening ceremony, while others were applauding the bridge that the US engineers constructed over the Diyala River, GEN Ganum was looking at the water level of the river. He noticed how high the water was flowing, and he ordered that irrigation equipment be brought in to route a good portion of the water to the farmers in Diyala, who have been suffering through a drought. He scored huge points with the citizens, which is pretty important in a counter-insurgency fight. On top of this, GEN Ganum is relentless in his push to get the captured insurgents convicted of their crimes. He is another ex-Saddam era military officer. </div><div><br />As far as the Iraqi operation in Mosul, it is moving along nicely. Iraqi army commanders have been asking what they should do as AQI members approach them and ask to surrender. They have never seen anything like this (except when their army was surrendering to us), so they weren’t sure how to handle this. The Iraqi army is literally conducting door-to-door house searches in Mosul to confiscate weapons and evidence of insurgent supporters. Their intelligence has been pretty good as far as identifying the insurgents up there. They have been finding weapons dumped in trash bins, and they are uncovering massive weapons caches. One cache contained over 1800 rocket propelled grenades, which will be 1800 grenades not fired at our guys. AQI types seem to be laying low for awhile until they can figure out how serious the Iraqi army is. The Iraqi general in Mosul is realistic in that he understands that AQI will try to return as soon as the current operation ends, but they have lost a lot of arms and ammunition (and supporters) to the operation so far. </div><div><br />The attached pictures are from Baquba. One is just a traffic circle in town. The other one is obviously a couple of Baqubian kids – future allies or future terrorists? We didn’t stop to give them candy, so they were probably leaning towards terrorist that day.<br />Take care <a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGc7-TMo0QI/AAAAAAAAACA/iQGUf-xZOBA/s1600-h/Baqubacircle.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217204634823217410" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGc7-TMo0QI/AAAAAAAAACA/iQGUf-xZOBA/s200/Baqubacircle.JPG" border="0" /></a><a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGc8MUtLkOI/AAAAAAAAACI/Vq3nUOjzqCA/s1600-h/Baqubakids.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5217204875746316514" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGc8MUtLkOI/AAAAAAAAACI/Vq3nUOjzqCA/s200/Baqubakids.JPG" border="0" /></a></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-36176964763887781272008-06-24T22:15:00.000-07:002008-06-24T22:19:29.389-07:00The Sand RulesThis was sent in mid-May:<br /><div><br />The sand does rule out here when it decides to take to the air so I have been stuck on Camp Speicher for the past week as the sand storms keep driving through. No trips to write about this time around and life can be pretty “normal” here on camp. Some of the locals do try to keep everyone’s senses alert as they sneak in under cover of sand and pop off a few rockets in this direction during the storms. Everybody appreciates them thinking of us and giving us samples of Syria’s ordinance.</div><div><br />The biggest event up here in the north right now is the kickoff of Operation Lion’s Roar. Lion’s Roar is an Iraqi planned and (so far) Iraqi led operation to hit al-Qaeda in Iraq and their Islamic Sons of Iraq (AQI/ISI) brothers up in Mosul. AQI/ISI have vowed that they will never be pushed from Mosul and the Iraqi government has vowed that it will finish AQI/ISI off once and for all. My educated guess is that the result of the operation will be somewhere in between those two promises. </div><div><br />I will start by saying again that it is a big deal when the Iraqi Army takes the initiative. Whether this operation turns out to be a 100% military win for the Army or not, the first success was that these guys put this plan into motion and they are executing their plan. Not only that, but the plan involves the local and national police as well, so this is good for the security forces in general. To top it off, they have even included the air assets that they have, including their helicopters. (The operation has now been ongoing for several weeks).</div><div><br />When this operation started, the commanding Iraqi general announced a total curfew for the city. That curfew was partially lifted after a couple of days, and hundreds of arrests have been made by the Iraqi forces. Lion’s Roar has been more of a round up than an actual military battle so far as there has been very little fighting. The Iraqis are uncovering dozens of weapons caches in the area based on some good tips by the locals. Let’s hope that the arrests that are being made are arrests of the right people, but a lot of these AQI types are laying low. They really can’t afford to engage in a head-on fight right now, so I imagine that they will try to make themselves heard when this operation is over.</div><div><br />I know that it would have been great if after the 2003 portion of the war, the Iraqis would have immediately understood how to operate a democracy and immediately understood how to develop industry and a work ethic and a competent police and military force, but that didn’t happen. Years of socialist oppression obviously took a toll. Let me share a few positive signs that may point to a little brighter future for this country.</div><div><br />The push by General Petreaus to get US forces into the neighborhoods of ordinary Iraqis is having a big impact on how the Iraqis view Americans. They have always been taught that we were the bad guys, and when our forces stayed behind walls or in their armored vehicles, that made it easy for the insurgents to continue to portray our guys as the bad guys who don’t care about the people. The group who is showing the most outward signs of having a growing trust in US forces is the youth. More and more, it is the kids who are providing the truthful tips on locations of IEDs and weapons caches. It bodes well that this generation of kids is seeing the good side of the US and not the bad that their parents have always been taught. By the way, they are also feeding intelligence to their own army and police as well, which in some ways is an even bigger step for them.</div><div><br />A couple of weeks ago, several politicians from the Iraqi Parliament held a protest march in Sadr City to protest the violence. So what – there are protests every day in Washington D.C. Can you imagine a protest march in Iraq six years ago when Saddam ruled this country? It would last approximately one block until Saddam had time to get his firing squad lined up to end that march. While the Iranians were busy trying to keep the al-Mahdi Army firing at the Green Zone, these politicians were marching for an end to the violence. A simple act like that is another leap forward in this country.</div><div><br />I have mentioned that AQI is attempting to get women to “volunteer” to be suicide bombers. I may be wrong, but there do not appear to be all that many takers on that offer. On the other hand, women are volunteering to be part of the citizen forces that are fighting the insurgency. Out in Fallujah, there is now a “Sisters of Fallujah” organization. These women are providing security and they are very useful when it comes to searching other females, which is timely with the elevated female suicide bomber threat right now. The Fallujah sisters are a Sunni outfit, and south of Baghdad, a group called the Daughters of Iraq is a Shiite group of women formed for the same purpose. While the US has been funding these concerned citizen groups, the Iraqi government is now moving to take over the payments. Maybe it is more accurate to say that the US is beginning to hand over the responsibility of the payments to the Iraqi government. I think that they will sit back and let us pay forever if we want to.</div><div><br />Iraq’s president al-Maliki gained tremendous credibility with the Sunnis in this country when he took on fellow Shiites in Basra and Sadr City. The Sunni legislators had accused him of only focusing on the AQI threat, and they were actually threatening to boycott Parliamentary sessions to protest what they claimed was a very one sided government. This move by Maliki against the Shiite militia groups has caused the Sunni block to rejoin the political activities in Baghdad. I already mentioned that in Sunni provinces, the expected voter turn out is expected to be fairly high. They have decided that if they can’t shoot their way into office, they want to vote their way in. I call that progress. (The Sunni law makers have recently threatened to sit out the political process once again, but we will see how far they take that threat).</div><br /><div>One more piece in this Iraq puzzle that is beginning to take shape is that the security forces are beginning to show some resolve. Some of these US soldiers who have been here in the past have watched as Iraqi police or army units would literally turn and run away from the sound of gunfire. That isn’t happening anymore. Although the security forces are targeted, they are standing and fighting now. They have a ways to go in many respects, but they are engaging the enemy now. The constant mentoring and training by the US forces and by the US civilian police officers who are over here is paying off, particularly in the area of professionalism (of course, one of our military police officers joked that we should pass a lesson learned from the streets of the US onto the Iraqi police - that lesson being that you should always make sure that there are no helicopters with cameras overhead before you begin to beat on your unarmed suspect). </div><div><br />Anyway, there is plenty of work to be done in this place, both by the US and by the Iraqis themselves. The borders of this country are too wide open and too easily crossed by foreign insurgents. The Iraqis are beginning to get tired of the meddling by these people, and that is a good thing because they are not being welcomed to hide in the communities. </div><div></div><br /><div>The picture is actually one of the sunny days at Speicher. The sand makes it presence known even then.</div><a href="http://bp0.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGHVHpYnMZI/AAAAAAAAAB4/x2kW5Ej4sog/s1600-h/May+08+Dust+Devil+1+COB+Speicher.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5215684170816631186" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp0.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SGHVHpYnMZI/AAAAAAAAAB4/x2kW5Ej4sog/s200/May+08+Dust+Devil+1+COB+Speicher.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br />Take care.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-91307423699745617342008-06-21T04:33:00.000-07:002008-06-21T04:34:11.362-07:00MosulI initially sent this one out to my family back in early May, and quite a bit has happened in Mosul since this time with the Iraqi Army taking the initiative up there:<br /><br />Imagine yourself flying across Iraq in the middle of the night in an Army helicopter to join the battle of Mosul for a couple of days. Now that is living.<br /><br />I returned early Monday morning from a couple of days up in Mosul. There is a lot going on up there right now with Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) trying to make a tough stand. Let me add a few more acronyms to the list here so that I can use them in this email to save me from having to spell everything out. There is now a new acronym to go along with AQI. It is now called AQI/ISI. ISI stands for Islamic Sons of Iraq. AQI was getting upset that people keep accusing them (accurately) of being all foreigners, so they added a little hometown flavor to their name with the ISI piece. When I write “IA,” that stands for Iraqi Army; IP is Iraqi Police. ISF is Iraqi Security Forces. PTT is Police Transition Team.<br /><br />My trip to Mosul was to spend some time with the PTT team up there. PTTs are US Military Police (MPs) whose purpose it is to teach the Iraqi police how to function as a professional police force. Part of my assessment is to determine how close the IP are to becoming self sustaining. I was actually surprised at what I learned.<br /><br />Mosul is a city of about 1.2 million people up in Nineveh Province in northern Iraq. It is split down the middle by the Tigris River and it is a typical congested urban area. Up until about 2005, Mosul was actually a fairly stable and peaceful city. In 2005, AQI moved in to try to prevent an orderly election process there, and AQI has not yet willingly left the city. The Iraqi Army has two separate armies in the area, one being to the east of the Tigris, the other being to the west. The army to the east is heavily Kurdish, the one to the west is heavily Sunni. AQI being Sunni, guess which Iraqi army unit is doing a bit better at taking on AQI/ISI? Along with the 2 Iraqi army units, the US has some 3rd Armored Cavalry units to the west, and some 1st Infantry units to the east.<br /><br />The US 1st Infantry commander has done a tremendous job with his side of the city. Just a few months ago, AQI dominated the streets of eastern Mosul. The 1st Infantry went in and set up Combat Outposts (COPs) right in the heart of the worst neighborhoods. The commander ordered his troops to shoot on sight anyone laying Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). No chasing, no arresting, the orders were to shoot. AQI does not emplace its own IEDs. What they do is walk around and offer people money to “go put this in that hole over there and walk away.” After the 1st Infantry showed up, people became very unwilling to put big metal objects into holes on the east side anymore. In addition to the 1st Infantry tactics, the Iraqi army on that side of town has worked very well with the IPs to locate and attack AQI elements. AQI has sworn never to lose Mosul, so no part of the city is out of the woods yet, but AQI is in a fight and it knows it.<br /><br />I went out on patrol with the PTT team into Mosul. The IP have check points all around town to try to limit the movement of AQI elements. These check points are frequently targeted by AQI. We were checking up on some of these check points and visiting a couple of IP leaders. We stopped in at the police station of the commander of the southeast district of Mosul. His name is Colonel Hussan. This man is one of the top police commanders in Mosul in that he and his men are pretty effective. COL Hussan is very charismatic, intelligent, and very funny. Since I was the highest ranking US officer present, and since Iraqis are very attentive to rank, I got to play the part of special guest for COL Hussan. We sat and talked and sipped Chai tea for two hours. We covered some pretty weighty topics and some not so weighty topics. COL Hussan had nothing but positive remarks to make about the US Army and his PTT trainers. We discussed his training and equipment needs, we discussed security issues, we discussed politics (his, not ours), we discussed maps and Google Earth (he wanted us to tell the “satellite people” to update it), we discussed the upcoming Iraqi elections, and we discussed accountability of his people (IPs keep “ghost police” on their records. These are police who have been killed but whose families keep getting paid to take care of their needs; it is hard to determine actual police numbers when they do this).<br /><br />Hussan did not have much positive to say about the Ministry of Interior (MOI), under which the police fall. Hussan said that he gets very little support from the MOI. He runs out of fuel the third week of each month because he says that someone from MOI sells a week’s worth of fuel on the black market for personal gain. While the Iraqi Ministry of Defense is doing a fairly decent job of equipping the IA, the MOI is not doing much for the police.<br /><br />Another issue for Hussan is his own court system. He complains that many of the people who are arrested are soon released without going to trial. He believes that the judges are corrupt. Here is the problem he faces. There are US attorneys and judges here in Iraq teaching judges how to follow their own law. They are further ahead in their training than are the police. The police are busy dealing with the insurgency. There are very few detectives conducting criminal investigations because everyone is busy fighting AQI. Hussan and his men will make an arrest and turn the prisoner over to the courts. The judges, being newly trained on how to be honest judges, notice that the police brought no evidence with them to use against the defendant. Therefore, following their own law, the judges have to release the prisoners. Hussan doesn’t quite understand this. He says that everyone knows that some of these people are criminals or terrorists, so why would the courts let them go. You can see the dilemma. Hussan is probably correct about many of these prisoners. They probably are criminals, but the new standard is for there to be evidence of a crime. The IPs in Mosul are nowhere near proficient enough in investigative work to collect and retain evidence at this point, so that is the next big task for the PTT teams. For the record, the Iraqi court in the Tikrit area is convicting terrorists right and left. The security situation didn’t get as bad as it did in Mosul, so there was ample opportunity to teach investigators how to investigate.<br /><br />After we ended our conversation, Hussan wanted to go on patrol with us. It is his district, so that was his choice, and the PTT teams are trying to play a support role rather than a lead role. Hussan chose not to ride in our armored vehicles, so he rode in his Ford pickup truck. There is a particular check point in Mosul that was getting hit by AQI at the same time each night, so we were going to set an ambush there on our way back in to camp, but Hussan, not knowing what our plans were, went there with a whole armada of flashing red and blue police lights to keep AQI away from his men. AQI chose not to show up that night.<br /><br />It was a very informative trip for me. Hussan feels that he can fully handle the security situation if only he receives support from his own government. Until that happens, he does not want the Americans to leave. I was surprised in that I thought that the police would be in a little more disarray up there, but considering their lack of equipment and supplies, they are holding their own. If the army gets the insurgency in check, that will speed up the training of the IP quite a bit.<br /><br />A couple more notes as I wrap up. There is plenty of concern about these local citizen groups in Iraq who we are arming to help in the fight against the insurgency. Are they for real or are they just taking our arms to fight us? AQI seems to think that that these groups, (now called Sons of Iraq, or SoI), are for real. AQI is fretting about the lack of volunteers for suicide bombing missions and the lack of support that they are receiving from Sunni Arabs. They are also upset that many of their own have returned to Syria. The fact that they are actively targeting SoIs indicates to me that they feel threatened by them. As for the lack of suicide bombers, now up in Mosul AQI is calling for its members to convince their girlfriends to become suicide bombers. I’d love to hear those conversations. As for the SoI, there are nearly 100,000 in Iraq now, and they are having a very positive impact on their communities. The US commander in Mosul will not allow many SoIs in that town. We will have to wait and see if that turns out to be a good decision or not.<br /><br />Take care.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-54257653229205853382008-06-20T03:24:00.000-07:002008-06-20T03:27:19.154-07:00Who is in Control?Here is another Iraq update. I first sent this back on 29 April. Remember, this is a lazy man's way of catching up to date rather than re-writing everything that has been happening in the past 2 months.<br /><br />It may sound as if I am starting this email off with a little negativity, but when you see the figures, you will understand why that is the case.<br /><br />Since last weekend, there were nearly 40 shootings in one of the northern cities of the country alone. In the past two weeks, there have been 19 murders in that particular city, with five bodies discovered dumped in one trashed house. Can you declare a country “civilized” or able to conduct self government when this type of violence occurs? Where are the police during times like this? They obviously do not control the streets or neighborhoods where this violence is occurring. Are they responsible for this condition, or are events simply too out of control for them to be able to have any effect? We think that the police are receiving top notch training, but apparently they are not able to deter these types of crimes. There appears to be plenty of corruption in the police force and in city hall. Is this violence a problem that the US military should be able to step in and fix, or is this type of violence at the city level something that the local authorities should be able to handle? Do we blame the national government for the failure to stem the violence, or is it caused by a culture of violence that the government can’t change overnight? There are people in these big cities who hate other people simply because someone belongs to a different group or wears the wrong color of scarf or bandana. Do we walk away and allow them to kill each other, or do we have some obligation to fight this violence to help the majority of people in these towns who simply want to be able to go to the store without fear of being attacked or killed? In addition to the problems up in this northern city, the southwestern border is equally out of control. Gangs of bandits cross the border at will and wreak havoc in the small border towns. The military is nowhere to be found on the border, and the few border police who are out there are doing the best that they can in between gunfights. From the border, these people are moving throughout the rest of the country, committing murders and other violent crimes. As soon as one thug is arrested, there is another one coming along to take his place.<br /><br />Is the country out of control? Do we throw up our hands and walk away and allow lawlessness to rule, or do we make an effort to stand and fight?<br /><br />Those are great questions, and I don’t have the answers. Since I am talking about the US (Chicago in the north and the Texas-through-California border in the southwest), you tell me what we should do. When I read these press reports of what is going on over there in the US, it makes me wonder if it is safe for my family to take that cross country trip this summer or not. Who is in control over there anyway?<br /><br />I guess that is what happens when all someone knows about a situation is what one reads in the paper.<br /><br />I am not going to downplay the enemy out here and pretend that all is well. These guys are ruthless and medieval in their desire to kill. What the US doesn’t have to deal with in its streets are IEDs and suicide bombers. For all of you women out there, you will be happy to know that there is a push from Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) to give women equal rights in their group. The equality that they offer is the equality of being able to blow themselves up just to kill other people. Women are the suicide killers of choice right now over here. I shouldn’t even use the term “women,” because AQI is using young girls younger than 16 to do their work. A few weeks ago, a young girl blew herself up in front of an Iraqi couple and their two children up in Mosul. During that same day, the US 3ACR was fighting some AQI elements near a mosque (not IN the mosque, NEAR the mosque). Two AQI were killed in a house next to the mosque. The press was hounding our public affairs people about the damage to this holy mosque that could have occurred from this battle right outside its doors. No mention of the Iraqi suicide killer who killed 2 Iraqi kids and their parents.<br /><br />I am honestly not being facetious here, but while men are being recruited to the suicide bomber ranks with promises of 72 beautiful women on the other side, no one has figured out what the women are being offered. It is looking as if these girls who are being used are generally very low IQ girls. The bomb vests are often being detonated by someone else using a remote control. In addition to using women, AQI is using little kids. A driver asked some Iraqi soldiers to allow him to park his car near a market so he could keep an eye on his two sleeping children in the back seat while he quickly grabbed some produce. The guards saw the kids and let the car park near the market. The driver got out of the car, walked away, and blew up the car with the two kids in the back seat. It turns out that he had kidnapped the kids to use as tools for his killing.<br /><br />Both the Sunni Al Qaeda and the Shiite Mahdi Army (with their Iranian counterparts) are facing a slight dilemma at the moment. While both groups continue to declare that the US is the great enemy, these same groups keep killing their own civilians to prove that the US and Iraqi governments are not maintaining security. People in the north and in the south are starting to figure out that when the Americans are in their neighborhoods, they are not being shot and killed or blown up. When AQI and Mahdi elements are around, people get killed. AQI is beginning to try to target Iraqi police and military forces more than civilians, and they are trying to hit US forces in the north. Down in Baghdad, the Mahdi are directly confronting US troops, and they are loosing a lot of their own fighters by doing that. Iraqi citizens generally do not get a good feeling when they hear that Iranian agents are in their country influencing events, so Muqtada Al Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi bunch, went on TV to announce that there was absolutely no Iranian influence over him or the Mahdi army at all. Of course, he broadcast that speech from Iran, and everyone on the streets knew it.<br /><br />Here are a couple of other news items from Iraq. Again, there is still plenty of fighting going on, particularly up here in the north, but these are just some other happenings that you probably don’t hear about.<br /><br />One of the big challenges that US trainers have when training Iraqi military leaders is to get them to take the initiative. Remember, they came from a culture where if Saddam or his sons didn’t tell you to do something, then you had better not do it. The big Basra fight from a month or so ago occurred after an Iraqi general was given the green light to take the initiative and he took his forces to Basra to fight the rogue Shiites who are aligned with Iran. The US wasn’t completely informed of the operation, and the general, so proud that he was taking the initiative, forgot to inform the US military that he was carrying out this operation. At least he took the initiative.<br /><br />There were a couple of bright spots from that operation. President al-Maliki fired 1300 soldiers and police who left their duty stations. Also, an organization called the National Police went in and cleaned house. The National Police are not the city police and they are not the army. The National Police intentionally recruit a mixed Sunni/Shia/Kurd cross-section from all around the country to become officers. They are trained to be loyal to the law and each other, and not to their sect or tribe. Since they are recruited nation wide and since they don’t operate in their home regions, they are becoming very effective. They are the guys who arrested the locals and soldiers who abandoned the fight in Basra. Their role is to deal with the insurgency. This organization is growing slowly but surely.<br /><br />I don’t know if the US press told the complete story from Basra, but the Iraqi government sent in new leadership and took Basra back. An article from Basra begins with this: “CD shops sell love songs again. Some women emerge from their homes without veils, and alcohol sellers are coming out of hiding…The changes in recent weeks mark a surprising show of government sway – for now - after an Iraqi-led military crackdown…”<br /><br />Progress is being made in incremental steps over here. It is a big deal when Iraqis take the lead and achieve some success. Their military hasn’t won anything in quite a few years, so each little victory is a proud moment for them.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-29583557788103872282008-06-18T02:14:00.000-07:002008-06-18T02:27:36.609-07:00Life on Mars<div>I have obviously not been able to post in quite awhile, so I will do what I can to catch up. I have been sending a series of emails to family/friends over the past couple of months, so I will copy those emails on this blog every few days until I catch up to what is happening today. Bottom line is that I will be compressing the last 2 months into about a 3 week period on this blog, so some of what you read will have to be understood in the (slightly) past tense.</div><br /><div></div><div>For openers, I am based out of COB Speicher mear Tikrit, Iraq. I am attached to Multi-National Division North (MND-MN), and our main insurgency problem up here is a Sunni problem. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is the largest and most vicious of the groups, but none are afraid to kill. There is some Shiite activity down around Diyala Province, which is in the southeast sector of MND-N. AQI is fighting hard for its last stronghold up here, which is in Mosul. The following was first sent out to my list around late April:</div><div><br />Hello everyone,<br />If any of you ever had the desire to live on Mars, come here to Speicher on a day like today and you will be pleased. The attached photo doesn’t do justice to how red the day was with this massive sandstorm. It blew in Wednesday night around midnight and it will be going strong until around noon on Friday. It actually got worse as the day wore on after that picture was taken.</div><a href="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SFjUL8BU5dI/AAAAAAAAABw/wBmZ4tNlTj4/s1600-h/Sand+storm.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5213149870236689874" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp1.blogger.com/_coPJvP3Ewrw/SFjUL8BU5dI/AAAAAAAAABw/wBmZ4tNlTj4/s200/Sand+storm.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>I spent the week adjusting and attending briefings to get a good grip on what is happening in the region. Someone back home asked me about rockets, and if we were receiving rocket fire like the troops down in Baghdad. The answer is almost entirely “no.” Speicher sits in open desert (hence the massive sand storms). In the past, the insurgents tried to get close enough to hit Speicher with rockets or mortars. Due to the normally great visibility for miles around the camp, these insurgents were easily spotted and they didn’t manage to live long enough to do much shooting. Somebody occasionally fires a round in this direction, but they usually land in open desert. Relatively speaking, the Tikrit area is fairly stable. Being the home town and home tribe of Saddam Hussein, the people in this area are fairly educated and not prone to run around fighting. As I mentioned, the areas to the north and east of here are a little livelier, in military terms. The locals do not necessarily like the US in Tikrit, so they will not pass up the opportunity to do damage when they can.</div><div><br />As I was making contacts the other day, I went to lunch with an Iraqi-American interpreter (Isaac). He works for our Civil Affairs section. They are the people who go into the community and perform outreach duties. Isaac used to be a college professor of economics in Tikrit before he left for the US. He told me that the reason that he volunteered to come back to Iraq is because he loves his country and he wants it to be successful. He paused for a minute and then said, “I’ll bet you think I am talking about Iraq when I say that I love my country.” Of course he was correct – that is what I was thinking. He was talking about the US, though. He said that he loves the United States and that he will do all that he can to help in this battle. He feels that the downfall of Iraq really accelerated during the Iran-Iraq war. He says that corruption is the norm here and that it will take a generation before that changes. Isaac wonders why the US keeps handing out US money and not Iraqi money to make Iraqis invest in their own economy. He invited me to come out with him in the future to meet some local leaders. By the way, Isaac is a Christian who points out that his Christian ancestry goes back in this area much further than does the Islamic religion which has forced him and his family from the country.</div><div><br />Another Major from Civil Affairs had lunch with us as well. He is part of a team that holds town meetings to listen to claims from Iraqi citizens who claim to have been injured or had property damaged from US military operations. The Major said that the stories these people tell to get money are unbelievable but very creative. His instructions are to do what he can to make the people happy. He said that he keeps getting into trouble because he turns down more requests for money than he grants. He believes that these people need to be taught that corruption is not OK. The Major is going to have me attend one of these meetings with him up in Mosul, and he is going to have me be the person hearing the claims so that I can see for myself what he is dealing with. I figure that this will be easy. I will just educate these Iraqis on the true value of a dollar bill these days and they will be thanking me for not paying them in US dollars.</div><br /><div>Here are a couple of other tidbits of information before I sign off. The majority of forces helping the Iraqis are obviously from the US, and we are criticized for going it alone. We are joined here by Britain, Italy, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Spain, Denmark, El Salvador, Slovakia, Latvia, Romania, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, and South Korea. Each of those countries has lost soldiers in battle. Sure, they don’t have thousands of troops from each of their countries, but most of them don’t have huge militaries in the first place. They are doing what they can to participate in the effort. Notice that we don’t have most of our NATO “allies” in country. I would suggest that this might not be a bad thing. Look how NATO has been handling their part of the mission in Afghanistan.</div><div> </div><div>I wish everyone the best, and I will be posting again soon.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-52155866947247468512008-04-07T07:39:00.001-07:002008-04-07T07:39:24.961-07:00Decent PeopleI grew up in the 60’s and 70 during the Vietnam era, so I remember the days when soldiers had to travel incognito for fear of having to endure taunts and criticism from the public. Today we hear of very different attitudes towards traveling service members. We have all heard of, and many of us have seen, service men and women receiving very warm welcomes at airports and restaurants.<br /><br />As I was traveling to Ft. Benning last weekend for final departure processing, I and another officer were exiting the Atlanta Airport train station to retrieve our checked baggage. As we came to the top of the escalator, we heard raucous applause. I looked around, thinking that there was a victorious sports team somewhere in the vicinity. It turns out the people were applauding for us, and they cheered and applauded each time other service members would come up the escalator.<br /><br />It was humbling (and quite frankly, a little embarrassing) to be received like that. During the few days that I was staying in a hotel near Ft. Leavenworth, people would go out of their way to thank me and others for our service.<br /><br />Although any military in any country works for the government of that country, our military is different in that, although it takes its marching orders from the government, it serves the citizens. When we meet people all around the country who go out of their way to show gratitude and support, it makes me realize what a privilege it is to serve on behalf of fellow citizens. I imagine other service men and women feel the same.<br /><br />It is a fantastic feeling to experience first hand the support that people are showing for the troops. It is encouraging to know that when young soldiers come home from long deployments, they will be welcomed with open arms by their public. The other officers and soldiers here at Ft. Benning feel much the same, and everyone is grateful to all of you who are showing that type of support.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1593139222897534253.post-68560583777769768252008-03-31T19:38:00.000-07:002008-03-31T19:40:28.625-07:00Just a startWelcome to my blog. This blog will be my unofficial record of Army life north of Baghdad. It may appear that I am often writing in vague generalities on this blog, and that will probably be a fairly accurate assessment. I will not discuss details of any military operations so as not to jeopardize the lives of US soldiers or our allies. I will not hesitate to offer my own opinions and comments on matters that are already in the open press.<br /><br />I am just at the beginning stages of this deployment to Iraq. For the next two weeks, I will be training/processing at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, and Ft. Benning, GA, before heading overseas. Once I am on the ground in Iraq, I will be stationed north of Baghdad at COB Speicher (near Tikrit), and my duties will take me to various locations around Iraq.<br /><br />I am an Army Reserve Major who was once an Active Component officer. I was initially mobilized a couple of years ago after a break in service, and this will be my first deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom.<br /><br />So it is clear where I am coming from on this blog, I have been and still am a strong supporter of the US military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that we each owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the service men and women who are serving in these two countries, many of them multiple times. These military men and women who are patrolling the streets and towns of Iraq and Afghanistan are the ultimate professionals who are making split second life and death decisions on a daily basis. They are shouldering responsibilities at a level that their peers could never imagine, and they are accomplishing their missions with the full knowledge that the only time that they will receive attention for what they are doing is if or when they make a mistake.<br /><br />With that being said, the pace of this blog will pick up a bit once I am in country. I hope to be able to relay a little bit of life in Iraq back to my friends and family (and anyone else) as time and mission permit.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2