Beyond the Surge, The Strategy

(A companion piece to this entry can be read here: Slaughter)

More University Killings?

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed 12 people outside a Baghdad take-away shop on Thursday, one day after 190 people died in a bombing blitz that brought into question the US-backed security plan for the capital.

The latest bomber blew up his car in the central Jadriyah district -- a majority Shiite area -- killing 12 and wounding 28 and also setting ablaze a nearby truck loaded with gas cylinders, a security official said.

The force of the blast ripped through civilians outside the popular Hassan take-away eatery, where university students had stopped to buy lunch, said a police colonel scrambled to the scene.

But for reasons as inexplicable as the motives behind suicide attacks on university students, most reporters are content to do just that.

Kudos to the New York Times (yes, the New York Times) for not leaving that gap in their report on this week's atrocities:

American commanders have said that the Baghdad security effort has reduced the kinds of sectarian killings associated with Shiite death squads, in part because of the decision by many militia fighters to lay low. But the plan has failed to curb the spectacular attacks, many of them suicide bombings, that have become a gruesome hallmark of the Sunni Arab-led insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. As a result, commanders say, overall civilian casualty rates are actually higher now than they were before the plan was initiated.

“As we’ve said before, it’s going to be a tough fight,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, an American military spokesman. But, he added, “The plan is not even fully implemented yet.”

Two American brigades — a total of about 7,000 soldiers — are still scheduled to arrive in Iraq and join three other brigades that have poured into the capital and surrounding areas, he said. American commanders say their strategy to prevent these sorts of attacks focuses on rooting out insurgent redoubts in predominantly Sunni towns and villages on the capital’s periphery, or what they call “the Baghdad belts.”

Before the surge of forces, the 1st Cavalry Division headquarters was commanding the Multi-National Division-Baghdad (MND-B). Major General Joseph Fil Jr had responsibility for all the forces in Iraq’s capitol city, a city the size of Los Angeles with a population of more than 6 million. With the addition of several new brigades, it was painfully obvious that the 1st CAV HQ would need some assistance. A new command was established called the Multi-National Division-Central (MND-C) and this command was given responsibility for the brigades on Baghdad’s outskirts.

“A high-priority mission is finding these car bomb factories and getting rid of them, and capturing and killing the terrorists who make the bombs,” Colonel Garver said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. Because of the complexity of building a car bomb — the process can require a near-complete dismantling of the vehicle — most are probably made in sparsely populated areas where the work can be more easily concealed, the American commanders say.

Side note: Joe Biden, perhaps through lack of knowledge of the situation, recently attempted to point to the belts as a failure of the strategy:

While violence against Iraqis is down in some Baghdad neighborhoods where we have "surged" forces, it is up dramatically in the belt ringing Baghdad. The civilian death toll increased 15 percent from February to March. Essentially, when we squeeze the water balloon in one place, it bulges somewhere else.

Take a look at a map and the strategy becomes clear. Multi-National Division - Baghdad (MND-B), Multi-National Division-Central (MND-C), and Multi-National Force - West (the Marines and Soldiers in Anbar) divide responsibility for three connected geographic regions that are the focus of the strategy for Iraq. All, along with coalition forces in other areas of Iraq, are under the command of General Petraeus, Commanding General, Mutli-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I).

While Iraqi Army troops are also a significant factor in the surge - these will be the last areas for which security authority will be transferred. (And by the way - the American goal is to leave Iraq. The difference in American political Party views is the definition of victory and their vision of the land left behind.)

Meanwhile, back to the New York Times:

The Baghdad security plan calls for 28,000 additional American troops, as well as thousands of Iraqi soldiers, most of whom will be deployed in the streets of the violent capital in an attempt to pacify it. But Mr. Maliki said the gradual transfer to Iraqi authority would continue, with three provinces in the relatively tranquil region of Kurdistan the next to come under Iraqi security authority, followed by Karbala and Wasit Provinces in the south.

“In this way, province by province, we will reach the end of the line before the end of the year,” the prime minister said in a speech delivered by Mowaffak al-Rubaie, his national security adviser. The speech observed the transfer of the southern province of Maysan from British to Iraqi control. Maysan is the fourth of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be handed to Iraqi security forces.

For now, with the surge as yet incomplete, Baghdad violence increases - but Anbar is heading in another direction altogether. This is not amazing coincidence. The bad guys have "limited resources" too - they are not as invincible or unbeatable as Joe Biden (or anyone else) would have you believe - and they are feeling "the squeeze".

It's an early effort in a long war, but for a look at the implementation of the "belt" strategy thus far, here's Bill Roggio.

And for some finer details on the strategy, read this.