Category: Victory in Iraq

This post draws on and fleshes out some my earlier more random thoughts.   It represents only my personal opinion.  Call it my blog editorial.  

Above is the TOA (Transfer of Authority) ceremony, where Regimental Combat Team 2 (RCT2) transfered responsibility to RCT5.   

We are on the verge of achieving the impossible: defeating an Islamic terrorist movement in the heart of the Middle East on a battlefield of their choosing.  Tens of thousands of Takfiri streamed into Iraq for the opportunity to become martyrs and coalition and Iraqi forces obliged them.  Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been essentially annihilated in Al Anbar, the center of what they boldly declared as their new caliphate eighteen months ago.  Tribal leaders who once fought us are now on our side and former insurgents are giving up and reconciling.

It may take a while for the magnitude of this to sink in.  I can walk around in the same places where heavily armed American & Iraqi forces could not safely walk only months ago.  Here the debate has shifted to providing everyday services such as sewer, water and electricity.  Marketplaces where insurgents dumped headless bodies last year are now crowded with shoppers.  Children are returning to school instead of being abused by terrorists and coerced into deadly activities.  What a difference a year makes!

Sometimes you just have to win. Some conflicts just need to run their courses and some bad guys just need killing.  Nazi ideology was not discredited UNTIL it was defeated on the battlefield.  No amount of peaceful persuasion or appeasement worked.  People thought communism was a viable alternative to the free market UNTIL it ignominiously collapsed.  Massive economic evidence and even the presence of a very large and deadly wall running down the middle of Berlin did not convince the believers to abandon their failed ideology.  Earlier forms of terrorism from the Barbary Pirates to the Bader-Meinhof didn’t go away until they were defeated.  We tried appeasement in the 1930s and we tried ignorance in the 1990s.   These things did not work.  

Ideology is weakened AFTER its defeat.  That is often the direction of causality.  In our recent case, more people are drawn to be takfiri when being takfiri is easier and more beneficial.  People are attracted to success and avoid losers.

The war against terrorism is not won since a final victory is not possible.  This is one of those “eternal vigilance” propositions.   Our nation’s first foray into foreign policy involved fighting the Barbary Pirates; whose behavior – adjusted for the technologies of the times – closely resembled those of today’s territorially based terrorists.  That was in 1804 and obviously the job is never done.  But terrorism can be contained.  As with the Nazis and communists, their ideology is compromised by setbacks and real world defeats.

Media coverage of events in Iraq has moved inversely to our success here and so many American’s perception of Iraq is based on events of 2006.   Journalists like to cover carnage and many of them absent mindedly wander away when the mundane work of reconstruction takes over.  Nevertheless, my brave colleagues’ efforts will be supplying a victory in Iraq and even the media and the chattering classes will soon come to recognize it.  Let’s nor squander it.

There is something joyful and appealing about water, especially when you live in a desert.  I had the great fun on one of  the USN boats that patrols Lake Qadisiya above the Haditha dam.  The Navy patrols the Euphrates River and its reservoirs.  This allows us to catch bad guys trying to cross the river or hide supplies on the islands.  It is kind of funny to find the Navy this far inland and in a desert, but I guess water is water.

Coalition forces from Azerbaijan guard the dam, along with the USMC.  This is appropriate, as I understand Azeris were among those who originally helped build the dam.   It was built about thirty years ago and not maintained very well, so it needs lots of work.  It was built primarily for irrigation, but it also generates power.  I will not vouch for the exact figures and I am not good at technical things, but I understand the power plant currently produces around 440 mw.  This was enough to power most of Anbar and give some to Baghdad.  But now people have bought a lot of electronic devices like computers or durables like washers and refrigerators, so demand for electricity is rising.  The dam could produce 660 mw if all the equipment was updated & working and the reservoir was full.  Watching the water spill over is very pretty, but a lot of energy can go down the river.  One expert says that in an eight hour period he had watched enough water “over the dam” to make the energy equivalent of 33 tanker trucks each holding 5000 gallons of diesel.  I am not sure how he figured it out, but he was an expert.

Water levels are currently low, but that will soon change when winter rain and snow falls upstream and dams in Turkey and Syria release water to send it flowing down the Euphrates.  Low water creates problems for the Navy since weeds and rocks that they could normally sail over are near or above the surface.  Since I was not driving the boat, I was happy with the lower water levels, since they revealed more of the landscape.  What surprises me is how LITTLE grows along the lake shore.  My guess is that the shore of the expanding lake extended into the rocky desert and there is not enough soil to support plants, but I really do not know.  I noticed the same thing along Lake Mead in back of Hoover Dam, which seems to have a similar climate and disposition.  on the other hand, along the river below the dam it is green (as you see in the first picture), which lends credence to the soil theory.

The boats can go pretty fast and ours did, as you might guess from the picture.  I got a good seat near the back, hung on and thoroughly enjoyed the experience of having the water spray past me.  The back of the boat was below the surface, but the wake formed a depression around us.  I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing flowing water.  The best time was when we crossed the wake of the other boat and really bounced.  The water of the Euphrates and the water of the lake is a beautiful aquamarine color and very clear.  You can see fish swimming around below.  The Marines landed on one of the islands, actually more of a peninsula with the low water, took the high ground and checked things out.  Nobody was there.  I stayed on the boat.  Civilians have to be safe.  Actually, I think I just did not get up fast enough, although they clearly didn’t need me, and my boat pulled away to let the other one land troops before I knew it.  After a little while, we picked everybody up and headed back to the shore.

As I looked toward the dam, I noticed something strange in the sky – clouds.  I had not seen significant cloud cover since I arrived in Iraq.  The clouds were back again today in Al Asad.  Those who know tell me that they are the harbingers of winter when we will get some rain and cool weather.  When I said that I looked forward to it, they told me that I would change my mind when I saw and felt the mud.  I figure it is better to be too cold than too hot.  Right now the weather is perfect and I will enjoy it while I can.

Today I did not go anywhere.  Travel is arduous, so I am glad to stick  around.   It was not a nice day, however.  It was a bit humid AND dusty.  I kinda thought those two things would not go together.  We are also getting some bugs and, although I have not yet seen any,  it is snake & scorpion season.  Evidently in summer it gets too hot even for those nasty cold-blooded creatures.  So now with the advent of the cool (the term is relative) weather, they begin to slither or crawl around more energetically.

I had my medical briefing.  The doctor wondered how I could have left the U.S. w/o all the shots.  He was also surprised at my relative lack of medical history.  I told him that my father had been to the doctor in 1945, the early 1970s and when he died a quarter century later.  I am not sure that last one counts, seeing as he was already dead.  Anyway, that was enough for him. I had already been much more often.  I had to get an anthrax shot today.  It stings for about ten minutes.  I have to get three more.    I also need tetanus, smallpox and yellow fever.   The doctor says those things are not really around here very much, but it is a requirement.  He warned about the scorpions, however.  Three of the local species can be deadly.  They are rarely really a problem, he says.  Just a nuisance.  In our “cans” they are not found.  I guess they eradicate them periodically.  I do not feel sorry for them.

Marine culture is interesting, very different from State Dept but I find much to admire.  They have lots of meetings, but people are very well prepared and nobody wanders off topic.  They are also very aggressive and they DO seem to believe all that stuff they talk about.  When they are attacked, they respond.  I can see how it can cause trouble in some PC circles.  If a Marine gets killed or even shot at, they all want to go out and catch the bad guys.

The Marines treat me with respect.  I think I am doing okay with them, but we are very different in our worldviews. My tolerance of ambiguity is something strange among them.  They like plans and they like to make specific progress against those plans.  But, they seem to recognize my particular skills and the need for some ambiguity in what we are planning.  They are coming around and talking to me one-on-one.  I guess it is the same for me.  I recognize the need for their skills and outlook.  I think we can work together well.  I got some mileage for being physically fit, not as good as they are of course, but they can recognize it. It is really a big deal for them.

One guy told me that the way they see it Marines are carnivores and State Department is made up of vegetarians.  I do not want to eat nothing but red meat, but I want to show I am not a “tofudobeast” either.

I talked to the base commander.  Everybody assumes he will make general after this, and he deserves it.  I told him that my job was to make his job easier in development, public diplomacy and peace building.  He liked that.  We agreed on almost all the priorities.  The thing I like about the Marines is that they are very truthful – maybe blunt.   I used to think I was like that, but now I see I am not.  He showed me all the operations on a big map.  He knows it all in great detail. He was proud of what his Marines had accomplished and it is a grand accomplishment.  The new strategy worked.  They take the ground and then they send some Marines to go live there and hold it.  After that comes the building stage, where I hope to make contributions. Conditions at these forward bases are atrocious.  The Marines consider our situation at Al Asad the height of luxury, and I guess it is.  We have AC and hot food.  At these little forward bases, the snakes and scorpions are not eradicated.

Speaking of luxury, I moved into my predecessor’s can.  It is a double wide, literally twice as big. I like to have a little extra space, but that was not a big problem for me before.  What I miss is being able to go out among the trees, even things like sitting on the deck and enjoying the green.  It is also noisy all the time.  Helicopters fly around.   We have the sound and smell of generators.  Trucks roll by.  I am adapting.  The conditions are bad, but the work is good. 

Now comes the time of paperwork and bureaucracy.  I have a bunch of projects to approve, or not.  I can approve up to $25K.  After that, up to $200K we need to have Baghdad approve.  In some of the projects I am afraid that we are getting ripped off.  I really do not mind if that is a cost of doing local business and influencing people,  but I do not want us to be seen as weak or stupid negotiators.  I am asking to go back and get better deals.  I think that will cause of bit of consternation among our guys, but I think we will get more respect from the locals if we do it AND we will get a better deal for the taxpayer.  Nobody likes a cheapskate, but nobody respects a wimp.  I think we have to play the local negotiation game.  That is why we have local specialist and making sure it gets done is where I add value. 

I am also trying to get alternative energy considered.  When we do local power generation, I always ask about solar.   The sun stares unremittingly on this land anyway and shines the most when people want air conditioning; we may as well make some that hot light into electricity.   I think it will work. Even in this land of hydrocarbon, actually getting fuel to remote places is difficult and expensive.  Solar works here.  I hope to make it work more. 

Although riding in helicopters is more dramatic, I have to admit that I have more of the pencil necked bureaucrat than the warrior in me, a talker, not a fighter.  My sort is needed here too.

That is the term when private communications on the base – phone & Internet – are shut down.  When I saw the message on my office computer, I knew that it usually lasts 12-48 hours and usually it means that someone has been killed.  That is what it means this time.  I do not know other details, but I know someone died in Al Qaim.  Communications will be restored when the military has notified the next of kin.  If you are reading this communications are open again because the loved ones know that they have lost a son, daughter, husband or wife.   

Although I was in Al Qaim the day before yesterday, I doubt if I met the guy who died.  Still I feel a profound sadness.  I remember the young faces and the energy of all the Marines I met and talked with.   They are the ages of my kids.  It is more personal now.  The Marines take it hard when any of their own is killed.  I cannot feel their sense of family but even in my very short time here I begin to feel closer now that I have slept next to their cots, heard their stories, and rode with them in helicopters & humvees.  

The Marines never forget.  They set a place in the chow halls for the missing and I have observed how they treat these places with reverence.  Next to my office stands a helmet on a rifle hung with dog-tags of the fallen.  The Marines have a strong culture that can be very hard for a career civilian like me to understand.  They never forget, but they go on.  They never forget, but they do not dwell on the loss.  They take it personally, however. 

River City Charlie is becoming less common here in western Al Anbar.  I am grateful for that.  I am starting to take it personally too.  Like the Marines I live with, I want to get this job done and I want all of us to come home safely.