Progress in Anbar Province & Ramadi

[Raptor 597]

General Discusses Milestones for Stability in Iraq's Anbar Province

May 11, 2007
BY John J. Kruzel, American Forces Press Service

Sheikh Abdul Sittar speaks with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of Multi-National Corps - Iraq at Camp Ramadi, April 2. Sheikh Sittar helped spark the Anbar Awakening Movement, a widespread rejection of al Qaeda by leaders of the province.
WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service, May 9, 2007) - Continued vigilance against al Qaeda, improved governance and focused reconstruction are vital to continued success in Iraq's Anbar province, a top military official said today.

"Six months ago some people said that al Anbar was lost, but today, due to the patience, perseverance and commitment of the people in that province, we are seeing encouraging signs of progress in regards to security," Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, told reporters in Baghdad.

The Anbar security conference held April 9 in Ramadi brought Iraq's minister of defense and national security advisor together with provincial Iraq security force and coalition commanders to discuss security and transition in the province.

"This meeting created an environment for the initial promising steps towards security that we see happening in the Anbar province today," Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.

Increased collaboration between tribal leaders and Iraqi officials has encouraged participation in municipal council elections and led to more active community mayors, he added.

A key ally driving national and regional reconstruction is the Army Corps of Engineer's Gulf Region Division. Along with Iraqi ministries, provincial and local leaders, coalition forces and U.S. government agencies like U.S. Agency for International Development, the division is spearheading public works projects to improve Anbar's water, oil and electricity infrastructure.

Maj. Gen. Caldwell said tribal leaders' engagement in Anbar's political process also has driven up Iraq army and police recruitment, despite the threat of terrorist reprisals. Anbar police forces, for instance, have suffered more than 500 attacks this year.

"The last three basic training courses for the Iraqi army ran over 100 percent of capacity just to handle all of the new recruits," he said. "This (is occurring) in spite of, and in some cases in defiance of, al Qaeda's continuous campaign of murder and intimidation that we see out there."

Iraqi security forces are dependent on coalition advisors, but Maj. Gen. Caldwell said Anbar's capital, Ramadi, illustrates forces' increasing professionalism and capabilities.

"Much like the 'clear, hold and build' strategy here in Baghdad, recent and relentless operations with Iraqi forces and coalition forces have proven successful in clearing the majority of (Ramadi), and allowed them to establish Iraq police stations and joint security stations," he said.

Cooperation from local residents is crucial for establishing provincial stability, Maj. Gen. Caldwell said. "As you can tell from the Anbar efforts, they are complex and there are many facets to supporting the stabilization of Iraq, but the most vital element is the people themselves.

"Together, (citizens) with their Iraqi security forces and us supporting them are making progress," Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.


General Discusses Milestones for Stability in Iraq's Anbar Province

And another article..

Al Qaeda Chief Foe of Anbar Residents, Says General

May 18, 2007
BY Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service, May 17, 2007) - Al Qaeda is the chief threat plaguing the residents of Anbar province in western Iraq, a senior U.S. military official said yesterday.

"The main enemy facing the Iraqi people in al Anbar province is al Qaeda," Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference today.

Al Qaeda possesses a backward, hateful ideology that's been rejected in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Caldwell said, noting the terrorist group routinely employs murder and chaos to further its aims.

Al Qaeda terrorists operating in Iraq offer Iraqis just two choices: death or submission, the general said.

Conversely, U.S. forces deployed in Iraq are there "to secure progress and provide hope," Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.

"We want to help the Iraqi people develop a secure, stable and self-governing nation that they can be proud of," Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.

American forces are assisting the Iraqis to achieve that goal by training army and police forces and instituting the rule of law across Iraq's court system, he said. "We want to help the Iraqis build capable police and courts so that the people can believe in the rule of law instead of fearing the law of the gun," Maj. Gen. Caldwell explained.

The United States shouldn't pull its troop out of Iraq before the job is finished, Maj. Gen. Caldwell said. "This is a very complex and challenging fight, but that doesn't mean we should desert the Iraqi people to their enemies," he said.

Measurable progress has been made against al Qaeda terrorists and other insurgents operating in Iraq since the surge of U.S. and Iraqi security forces began in mid-February, Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.

For example, he noted, an al Qaeda member, Abu Nur, who's alleged to have headed the group's Baghdad operations, was caught in December 2006 and is now facing murder charges in a Baghdad court room. The captive terrorist has admitted complicity in 800 to 900 car and roadside bombings in Baghdad and the surrounding area, Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.

"Abu Nur has claimed that al Qaeda targets everybody. He claims there aren't any innocent people," Maj. Gen. Caldwell said, noting evidence has tied the al Qaeda network to savage bombings of innocent Iraqi men, women and children.

Al Qaeda's and Abu Nur's "absolutely disgusting" beliefs and actions, amply illustrate why the terrorist group is "being increasingly rejected by the Iraqis, particularly out west in al Anbar province," Maj. Gen. Caldwell said.

For example, the city of Ramadi in mostly Sunni Arab-inhabited Anbar province was formerly a hotbed of violence directed against U.S. and Iraqi security forces, Maj. Gen. Caldwell explained. Weekly attacks and murders committed against civilians and Iraqi and coalition security forces have decreased from a high of 108 at the end of February to just seven in the week ending May 11, he said.

Anbar province's tribal leaders and citizenry are simply fed up with al Qaeda's murderous agenda, Marine Brig. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus, ground forces commander for Multinational Force West, said during the news conference.

The province's tribal leaders "are on board to get rid of public enemy number one, which is al Qaeda," Brig. Gen. Gurganus said, noting the province's young men are joining Iraqi security forces in record numbers.

Anbar province's tribal leaders "are bringing their young men to us and saying, 'I will guarantee his behavior; I will guarantee his participation in conjunction with the coalition force to fight as a son of Anbar and to fight for the Iraqi government,'" Brig. Gen. Gurganus said.

What is occurring in Anbar demonstrates "a major shift" in residents' thinking, Brig. Gen. Gurganus said. "It is clearly a move away from any of the ideological pieces that al Qaeda has to offer, to where they understand now that they're going to be part of a functioning government in Iraq," he said.


Al Aqaeda Chief Foe of Residents

Just figure I would post this, showing that there is genuine progress being made over there. Alot of citizenry is finally getting fed up with al Qaeda in Iraq. General Petraeus is taking charge well, making a huge difference surpassing even his expectations. Only time will tell though if it'll be enough.

[Patrick Degan]

The Iraqis want Al-Qaeda out of Iraq for the same reason they want the Americans and British out —they're a bunch of damn foreigners shitting all over their backyard. That does not however point to any real progress towards halting the overall disintegration of the country.

[MKSheppard]

The Iraqis want Al-Qaeda out of Iraq for the same reason they want the Americans and British out —they're a bunch of damn foreigners shitting all over their backyard.

More to the point; while the nationalist-based insurgents try to avoid civilian casualties (remember, these people live here and have to deal with the aftereffects of the war); and try to target primarily coalition and Iraqi government forces, Al-Quaeda simply lives for mass mega-death casualties, and sees no problem with their primary target being civilians of all stripes; this has the effect of annoying the locals.

Here's a nice article on the effects of Al Quaeda on the various groupings:

Iraq's Real 'Civil War'

Sunni tribes battle al Qaeda terrorists in the insurgency's stronghold.

BY BING WEST AND OWEN WEST
The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
Thursday, April 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq--Last fall, President Bush, citing the violence in Baghdad, said that the U.S. strategy in Iraq was "slowly failing." At that time, though, more Americans were dying in Anbar Province, stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. About the size of Utah, Anbar has the savagery, lawlessness and violence of America's Wild West in the 1870s. The two most lethal cities in Iraq are Fallujah and Ramadi, and the 25-mile swath of farmlands between them is Indian Country.

Imagine the surprise of the veteran Iraqi battalion last November when a young sheik, leader of a local tribe outside Ramadi, offered to point out the insurgents hiding in his hometown. "We have decided that by helping you," he said, "we are helping God."

For years, the tribes had supported the insurgents who claimed to be waging jihad. Now, citing the same religion, a tribe wanted to switch sides. Col. Mohammed, the battalion commander, accepted the offer. "The irhabi (terrorists) call themselves martyrs. They are liars," he said. "I lost a soldier and when I pulled off his armor, there was the blood of a martyr."

With Iraqi soldiers and Marines providing protection, the sheik and his tribesmen rolled through town, pointing at various men. The sweep netted 30 insurgents, including "Abu Muslim," who was wanted for the murder of a jundi (Iraqi soldier). "He was just standing there waving at us with all the others," one jundi said during the minor celebration at the detention facility.

Six months ago, American intelligence reports about Anbar were dire. Although the Marines won the firefights, insurgents controlled the population--the classic guerrilla pattern. Among the groups, the extremists called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) had achieved dominance. In 2004, AQI briefly held Fallujah, where they whipped teenagers who talked back, bludgeoned women who wore lipstick and beheaded "collaborators"--hapless passersby and truckers. AQI preached a persuasive message: Our way or the grave.

In Anbar, AQI became the occupier, shaking down truck drivers and extorting shop owners. In the young sheik's zone, AQI controlled the fuel market. Each month, 10 trucks with 80,000 gallons of heavily subsidized gasoline and five trucks with kerosene were due to arrive. Instead, AQI diverted most shipments to Jordan or Syria where prices were higher, netting $10,000 per shipment and antagonizing 30,000 shivering townspeople. No local cop dared to make an arrest. The tribal power structure, built over centuries, was shoved aside. Sheiks who objected were shot or blown up, while others fled.

In late 2005, acceptably-trained Iraqi battalions began to join the persistent Americans in Anbar. AQI resorted to suicide attacks and roadside bombs, and avoided direct fights. Sub-tribes began to kill AQI members in retaliation for individual crimes, and discovered that AQI was ruthless, but not tough. Near the Syrian border, an entire tribe joined forces with the Marines and drove AQI from the city of al Qaim.

By the fall of 2006 AQI had become the oppressor, careless in its destructive swath, while the American and Iraqi forces persisted with their mix of force of arms and civil engagement. When an AQI suicide car bomb attacked an Anbar market in November, killing a Marine and nine civilians, the Marine battalion commander and his Iraqi counterpart offered medical care at the local clinic for the entire town, including the first gynecological examinations many local women had seen. This was not an isolated event, and the people noticed.

With a war-weary population buoying them, 25 of the 31 Anbar sub-tribes have pledged to fight the insurgents over the past five months, sending thousands of tribesmen into the police and army. Led by Sheik Abu Sittar, who has called this an "awakening," the tribes believed they were joining the winners.

Politics in Baghdad have swirled around reinstating former Baathists to their prior jobs, thereby supposedly diminishing the insurgency. The central government, though, has given Anbar such paltry funds that jobs are scant, Baathist or not. In Anbar, reconciliation theories count far less than that eternal adage: Show me the money.

When the sheiks delivered thousands of police recruits, they consolidated their patrimonial power by providing jobs, plus pocketing a fee rumored at $400 paid by each recruit. The tribal police then provided security that permitted American civic action projects profitable to contractors connected, of course, to the sheiks. Our Congress has just appropriated an emergency supplemental for our troops that included millions to grow spinach and store peanuts; in Anbar, the sheiks are filling potholes that can conceal IEDs.

There remain problems that require military solutions, however. Neither the coalition nor the Iraqi government is prepared to imprison the sharp increase in killers like Abu Muslim who are being netted in the surge in Baghdad and the tribal awakening in Anbar. No one wants to take the heat from the mainstream press that would accompany the construction of prisons and the indefinite incarceration of several tens of thousands of insurgents.

In response to the 2003 abuses at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. military and the Iraqi government instituted a catch-and-release system that Sweden would find too liberal. Unlike uniformed prisoners who in past wars were held until the war was over, in Iraq most detainees are released within a few months. To some, this represents a scrupulous adherence to the rule of law, with every insurgent provided the right of habeas corpus.

To the sheiks, it is both naïve and deadly. The Iraqi judicial system in Anbar is nonexistent. Locals are quick to relate stories of killers who returned to murder those who snitched. So it's no surprise that while most insurgents are arrested, some simply disappear. The American command in Anbar has issued a clear order barring support to any unauthorized militia. But guidance from the Iraqi ministries has been vague. If the insurgents have a complaint, they can take it up with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

In recent weeks, al Qaeda has struck back with suicide bombers, blowing up a Sunni mosque in the young sheik's area, killing 40 worshipers, and then detonating a series of chlorine truck bombs in residential neighborhoods outside Fallujah. They hope that if they murder random groups of women and children, the tribes will fall back in line. These tactics have locked AQI in a fight to the death against the tribal leaders. It reflects an enemy who has lost popular support for his jihad, clinging to fear alone. Had any American analyst predicted AQI would attack local Sunnis with weaponized chemicals nine months ago, he would have been laughed at.

In itself, the tribal shift is significant but not decisive. The intensity of tribal loyalty varies across the province and is weakest in the cities. While perhaps only a quarter of the males in Anbar heed the orders of the sheiks, their cohesion gives them larger sway. Others will follow their lead, provide tips or stay out of their way. Numerical estimates aren't possible because there has been no systematic effort to identify via biometrics the military-age males in the Sunni Triangle, a gross military error in combating an insurgency. The tribes aren't trained fighters. They occasionally engage AQI in a melee, but they need American or Iraqi soldiers to destroy insurgent bands, especially when holed up in houses that serve as concrete pillboxes.

The real value of the tribes lies in providing specific information and recruits for the police and army. The tribes openly acknowledge that it has been the personal behavior, strength of arms and persistence of the American forces that convinced them to join the fight. "The American coalition is the only thing," Sheik Abureeshah of Ramadi said, "that makes the Iraqi government give anything to Anbar."

The tribes want their share of oil revenues, more power and a cut of the American contracts. With American combat forces likely to leave within a year or two, it is the Iraqi Government that must determine the modesty of the demands. But to put the state of the province in perspective, six months ago the head of Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, told the Congress that "Anbar was not under control." Last week the U.S. commander in Anbar, Maj. Gen. Walt Gaskin, said he was "very, very optimistic."

Gen. David Petraeus, the top general in Iraq, recently persuaded Mr. Maliki to visit Ramadi and meet with the tribes. That was the start of the bargaining. The Iraqi government faces a classic risk-versus-reward calculation. The reward is that the tribes will provide the information, recruits and local policing that shrinks the area where AQI operates. With less area to search, the Iraqi Army can concentrate wherever al Qaeda tries to rest or regroup, eventually drying up the swamp. The risk is that, if the Shiite-dominated government refuses reasonable terms, the tribes use their military muscle to reach a truce with AQI and the province reverts.

Baghdad is the critical battleground. But it is only in Anbar that the Congress agrees with the president that U.S. forces must combat the AQI terrorists. The tribes will learn to play that card to keep pressure on the central government not to neglect them.

Civil war between the Sunni tribes and the extremists has broken out in Anbar Province, the stronghold of the insurgency, and the U.S. and Iraqi government should support it. Anbar is like the American West in the 1870s. Security will come to towns in Anbar as it came to Tombstone--by the emergence of tough, local sheriffs with guns, local power and local laws.

Bing West, a correspondent for The Atlantic, is currently on his 12th trip in Anbar Province. Owen West, his son, is a managing director at a Wall Street bank and just returned from Anbar where he was a Marine adviser.