A Year at War

In the upcoming days here at Mudville we're going to look back at the past year of combat in Iraq in hopes of answering the fundamental questions: Are we winning, and if so, why are so few people aware of it? The introduction to this series is here. This entry will provide brief background information on the situation on the ground in Iraq at this time last year.

The situation:

In March 2004 a convoy approaching Fallujah was attacked. The remains of four contractors killed in the ambush and displayed on a bridge were the first stunningly gruesome images to catch the public's attention from Iraq.

Marines rolled into Fallujah in April and engaged the enemy, but leading Sunni's protested and the battle ended as suddenly as it began. US forces withdrew and the city was turned over to Iraqi security forces - the "Fallujah Brigade". This hopeful attempt at "Iraqification" proved premature, and by mid June the situation was being described as a failure.

But the situation in Fallujah was just one part of a growing problem. That same April Muqtada al Sadr led a group of Shiite rebels in an uprising against coalition forces. By May skirmishes between Sadr's militia and US forces were common occurrence in Najaf. (The linked AP story also noted the increasingly widespread violence throughout Iraq.)

And as the BBC report on Fallujah also noted:

Meanwhile, a new opinion poll for the New York Times and CBS News suggested dwindling support among Americans for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Only 47% of 1,042 Americans questioned believed invading Iraq was the right thing to do, the lowest support recorded in the polls since the war began.

The "insurgency"

The elements that comprise the Iraqi insurgency are varied in composition, motivation, and determination. At this time last year they could be grouped as follows:

1. "Former regime loyalists" or "ex-Baathist elements" At the end of the initial US invasion the Iraqi regular army units had been issued weapons and ammunition and ordered to merge with the civilian population of Baghdad and fight the Americans*. The fall of Baghdad, collapse of the government, and loss of their command and control structure occurred much more quickly than anyone thought possible, but left thousands of armed soldiers to melt back in to the general population. An argument can be made that the US air war, focusing on destroying the enemy's ability to resist (communications, infrastructure, and command and control elements) rather than on enemy soldiers, led to this large pool of fighters being left intact. With time, what remained of their original command elements were able to establish some sort of order within these groups, leading to many "cells" of various size, sophistication, and inter-connectivity - with varying levels of ability and purpose. Additionally they would recruit more "soldiers" in the months after the fall of Baghdad. After this period of regrouping the "former regime loyalists" or "ex-Baathist elements" would begin to make their presence known - primarily in the Sunni triangle area of Iraq.

2. Al-Qaeda and the "foreign fighters". Abu Musab al Zarqawi rose from obscurity to lead the al Qaeda Jihad in Iraq. The influx of foreign fighters began before the fall of Baghdad.** Taking advantage of the long and porous border with Syria the invasion has continued since. Connections and interactivity between this group and the former government/military forces are subject to speculation, but it's reasonable to assume there is a high degree of cooperation and coordination between the two.

3. Muqtada al Sadr's Shiite militia. Comprised mostly of residents of the "Sadr city" area of Baghdad - a neighborhood that suferred greatly under the Hussein regime. Sadr has ties to Iran, and just as it's reasonable to assume the first two groups are united it's also evident that Sadr's group maintains independence from either.

4. Others without political motivations. Common criminals, kidnappers for profit, etc. Some elements of all previous groups probably are better described in this category. However, their crimes are often reported as work of the "insurgents". Other acts of violence in Iraq can also be attributed to long standing tribal feuds, and the motivation behind many attacks, killings, and kidnappings is often never truly determined.

An equally important and frequently overlooked group is the 80% - 90% of Iraqis who want to be left alone to get on with their lives in peace.

More to follow.

Notes:

*This tactic was designed to sow confusion and maximize civilian casualties. The comments of Information Minister Mohammed Said al-Sahaf at the time seemed humorous to many Americans, but his point was to deceive the citizens of Baghdad into believing they would be safe in the streets when in reality US Army forces were striking at the capitol. It worked. The resulting mix of armed combatants (often transported in small white trucks - or even ambulances) and civilians who were on the streets minding their own business resulted in numerous civilian casualties. The plan was likely to have resulted in accusations of atrocities being leveled at the Americans, but the fall of Baghdad happened much faster than Saddam anticipated. The quick thrust with armor, coming instead of the anticipated infantry attack and extended, house-to-house combat, caught the enemy off guard and the city fell not in a number of weeks, but hours. An excellent account of the situation, drawing on interviews with survivors of all sides of the battle can be found in the book "Thunder Run".

From the book:

Colonel Raaed Faik was riding with fellow Republican Guard officers on a civilian bus thirty-two kilometers northeast of Baghdad that morning, trying to obey an order to rush to Baghdad to join in the defense of the city. They were to help keep Highway 8 open for a counterattack. Faik was a senior signal officer in the Republican Guard, but he was dressed now in civilian clothes. The chief of staff had radioed an order for this division to fight without uniforms in hopes of mounting an effective guerilla war against the American forces on the streets of Baghdad. But some officers had not received the order, and they were still in their uniforms. They bickered with the plainclothes officers over how to dress for the battle.

Faik was disgusted. He took pride in being a member of an elite unit, but now they were like women trying to decide what outfits to wear. They were fools led by imbeciles.

Now, riding on the bus toward Baghdad on the morning of April 7, Faik was convinced he was being sent into the city to be slaughtered. For weeks, the military command had been preparing for a siege of the capital. Faik and other commanders had been told to prepare to fight street by street against American infantry units they expected to parachute in or unload from helicopters. They even named the units - the 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division. Iraqi forces would fight them from bunkers and rooftops and alleyways, taking advantage of the familiar urban terrain. A long siege would produce steady American casualties and the United States would be forced by American public opinion to negotiate a truce.

**Another passage from Thunder Run:

Just south of the spaghetti junction, beyond the row of greenhouses on the west side of the highway, Yusef Taha and his brother Ziad were huddled in the rear downstairs room of their two-story stucco home in the shade of the nursery awnings. The Taha brothers owned one of the greenhouses, which had been shredded by coax from the Rogue Bradleys two days earlier. They had stayed in the war zone to protect their house - not from the Americans but from the Syrian mercenaries who had arrived several days earlier to seize control of the entire greenhouse complex. The brothers knew that if they fled, the Syrians would have set up sniper's nests on their roof, drawing tank rounds that would have flattened their modest little home. So now they were hunkered down inside with twelve family members - aunts and uncles, in-laws and children - praying that the Americans would pass by quickly and leave their house intact.

Yusef was a heavyset forty-two-rear-old, with a thick mustache and the beginnings of a beard. Ziad was twenty-six, thin and handsome and had a trimmed mustache. The brothers had pleaded with the Syrians, begging them to find some other place to fight the Americans. But the Syrians said the greenhouses and nurseries occupied a strategic stretch of territory along the Hillah Highway - Highway 8 - controlling access to the airport and to the government palace complex downtown. They set up RPG teams inside the greenhouses, joined by Republican Guard troops in their dark green uniforms with distinctive maroon insignias. It seemed to the Taha brothers that the Syrians were in charge. They were certainly more fanatic and energized than the Republican Guards. They spoke often of jihad, of dying while killing American infidels. Some of them strapped packs of explosives to their chests and spoke of ramming suicide cars into the tanks and Bradleys. Some of them brandished swords, like Saladin, the Arab conqueror. The brothers did not particularly welcome the American invasion - and certainly not the devastating firepower brought to bear on their nursery business - but they resented the Syrians, who were invaders in their own right.