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"When you go into bad neighborhoods, you'll have more attacks."
By Lt Col P
News from Iraq looks grim. Casualties are high; lawlessness appears to have the upper hand.
An article in today's Washington Post makes all of these points, and were one to skim the text only, one would might be left with the impression, again, that the situation is hopeless and not worth one more life.
If one reads the article, the picture becomes somewhat more clear. Yes, it's ugly; any American casualty is a horror. But what we see is essential warfare-- the violent and chaotic clash of two opposing wills. The quote above, "When you go into bad neighborhoods, you'll have more attacks," illustrates what is happening on the ground. We are coming to grips with a violent and dedicated foe. Clashes will rise, and casualties unfortunately will occur. The question for America as a nation is, do we have the will to fight it out? The men (and women) in uniform do.
(Update... for some reason, this next section didn't get posted.)
We have to have the will to fight it out, to get into the population-- the "key terrain" of a counterinsurgency-- to root out the evil-doers and set the conditions for basic law and order to return. Again, this kind of fighting is ugly, but it's necessary to win. Where the Iraqi forces can't set the conditions, we have to help them, and then we have to support them. And if they prove to be corrupt, as one police unit apparently has, I say they need to be punished. The good ones need to be supported, absolutely and unequivocally; the bad one need to be eliminated, publicly and swiftly. Again, the question for America is, do we have the will?
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Comments
A long time ago, in some USMC training I received, I was led to believe that if you cut the head of the snake off, then the problem dissolves rather rapidly. For instance, if one were to attack command and control sites, than certain surface to air sites were rendered useless. It seems to me that our government has allowed the people/nations/states that have funded, financed, fed, trained and directed the jihadis the ability to do so without any viable or actual threat (excepting Saddam), while our military is going house to house in cities throughout Iraq, essentially taking small bites of the snake, while the head (financing from certain Saudi's/al-Sadr/Iran/Syria, et al) is not even threatened by us. Maybe I am wrong, but the only thing I see beneficial with this strategy is improved MOUT training, at the cost of American lives. Killing lots of violent and dedicated foes without destroying their support, their command and control and those financing them is worthless.
Pat: Good points. The article mentioned nothing about other fronts in the war, and in the commentary neither did I.
The problem with the Iraqi National Police is a lot deeper than just the 8-2 (8th BDE-2d NP Div). The MoI is Shi'ia dominated and is involved in some pretty nasty stuff in Iraq.
I worked with NP units in east Baghdad during my time there and became good friends with the SPTT advisors, as many of them were IRR guys who were cops in civilian life. Their stories, along with my experiences, paint a pretty grim picture in my mind of the police forces of Iraq.
On the flip side of that, I have heard fairly good things about the Iraqi Army. Granted, I had NO contact with them during my tour, but all I've heard has been good. This makes me hopeful.
However, a democracy CAN survive without an army. All it needs is for someone to be there to defend it. What a democracy CANNOT live without is a good, professional, and fair police force. This is something that Iraq LACKS and not in the "hey, we can tweak it a little here and there" or "get rid of some bad apples" sort of way. We must dismantle the ENTIRE organization and start from scratch.
Unfortunately, we don't have the time for that.
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