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Part one of this series is here.
Major Smith and Colonel MacFarland's Military Review article can be found here, and should be read in its entirety.
The Guardian video can be viewed in full here.
A Stars and Stripes homecoming tribute (pdf) to the Ready First Combat Team can be found here.
Recent Mudville entries on this topic:
Earlier coverage cited in the video series:
Saluting the 3rd ACR (February, 2006)
Anbar Rising (September, 2006)
Close Air Support (November, 2006)
Links to most other reports cited in the video can be found in the above links, but additional links will be added to this post as time permits.
MilBlogs TV is funded by readers like you. Please help MilBlogs TV grow.
Script:
Colonel MacFarland did brief the media on September 29, 2006. Unfortunately, with congressional elections looming little news from Iraq beyond the death toll was provided to Americans at the time.
For example, Time magazine covers from the month following featured the looming war with Iran, a reporter wounded in Iraq, evolution, the end of the Republican Party, and a feature on "the next president". The New York Times front-page Iraq stories detailed a new book claiming that President Bush ignored warnings on Iraq on the 29th, and a story that the US might cut funding to the abusive Iraqi police on the 30th.
So with great pride we now present the world premier of Colonel MacFarland's September 29, 2006 briefing to the American media from Ramadi...
BREAK
Ignored by traditional western media, the story of the Anbar awakening was told only in Arab media and in American milblogs at the time
While Colonel MacFarland didn't use the term, as reported in part one of this series, The story of what would come to be known as the "Anbar Awakening" was first revealed in a little-noticed February, 2005 Time magazine article by Michael Ware.
A June, 2005 London Times report headlined "US in Talks with Iraq Rebels" would cause a bit more of a stir. (A follow-up story in the Washington Post would reveal the "insurgent outreach" program had been approved in August, 2004.)
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld answered questions about the effort on Fox News Sunday that week. The secretary announced that such meetings "go on all the time” and described efforts to "split local insurgents off from the al Qaeda/foreign fighters group."
He dismissed any need for additional US troops in Iraq, stating emphatically that Iraqis - not American troops, were going to win the battle against the insurgency in their country.
His confidence was based on expectations that the Iraqis would very soon reject the brutality practiced by the radical groups in their midst.
Reports of conflict between al Qaeda and Sunni groups would surface periodically thereafter, but would often blend into the emerging "civil war in Iraq" theme.
In June, the death of Abu Musab al Zarqawi in a coalition air attack would result in a new leader for the group, and within days of Colonel MacFarland's announcement of the Anbar sheik's movement (limited at the time to Ramadi but then known as the "Anbar salvation council") Abu Ayyub al Masri would offer "amnesty" to the sheiks if they would return to his control before the end of Ramadan.
"Return to your religion and homeland before we defeat you", the new al Qaeda leader commanded, "and you will have peace and security. We will not touch you but with kindness. You must first declare your sincere repentance in front of your tribes and families and inform us by whatever means, lest we make a mistake [and kill you]. You should put your hands in the hands of your brothers and sons, the mujahideen, for peace and security to return to our homes and expel the invader and to expel the occupier from our midst in this blessed month"
His response came from Sheik Sattar Abu-Risha. – Though little known outside Ramadi, the Sheik was in the process of turning the tide of the war in Iraq
"I do not know what kind of authority he enjoys.” The sheik stated, “Is he a prophet? Did he receive a messenger from God to give us a pardon? Are we criminals like him? Are we killers like him to be given a pardon? Or did we ask him for pardon? On the contrary, he should ask us for pardon, because he killed Iraqis, Sunnis and Shi'is. Who is he? He is only an inferior criminal. We should not grant him a pardon."
A profile of Sheik Sattar From an early 2007 BBC report...
BREAK
As Smith and MacFarland would relate in their 2008 review, Sattar was a dynamic figure willing to stand up to al Qada at a time when victory was far from certain. On 9 September he organized a tribal council attended by over 50 sheiks and the brigade commander, declaring the awakening underway and beginning a snowball effect that resulted in a growing number of tribes declaring open support for the movement or withdrawing support from al Qaeda in Iraq.
BREAK
The establishment of the Awakening was not spontaneous; it was an evolutionary movement developing over years in Iraq. But dramatic events along the way ensured its success. One of the most significant of these was the battle of Sufia, retold by Smith and MacFarland in Anbar Awakens...
BREAK
Once again,, other than milblogs readers, few would know of these events at the time. Coincidentally, the same milblogs story would include a report of Senator John McCain challenging General Casey on the need for additional troops in Baghdad and Anbar.
For while the Awakening movement was altering the course of the war in Ramadi, the terrorists fleeing that area were helping spread violence throughout Baghdad, Mosul, Baqubah, and other areas in Iraq.
In early 2007 the "surge" was announced. General David Petraeus was named commander of Multi-national force Iraq. Among his first agenda items on assuming command was a meeting with sheik Sattar.
BREAK
From the earliest days of the surge, efforts were underway to recreate the success of the Ramadi movement, and spread the awakening model throughout the country.
BREAK
General Petraeus' first press conference from Baghdad...
BREAK
AS Smith and MacFarland would later explain
"The Anbar Awakening was the result of a concerted plan executed by US forces in Ramadi.
And
Tactical victory became a strategic turning point when farsighted senior leaders, both Iraqi and American, replicated the Ramadi model throughout Anbar Province, in Baghdad, and other parts of the country, dramatically changing the Iraq security situation in the process."
The conclusion of their report sums their unit's key lesson's learned from Iraq
Accept risk in order to achieve results.
Once you gain the initiative, never give the enemy respite or refuge.
Never stop looking for another way to attack the enemy.
The tribes represent the people of Iraq, and the populace represents the “key terrain” of the conflict. The force that supports the population by taking the moral high ground has as sure an advantage in COIN as a maneuver commander who occupies dominant terrain in a conventional battle.
They close by noting,
In the end, probably the most important lesson we learned in Ramadi was that, as General Petraeus said,
“Hard is not hopeless.”
Epilogue:
The Ready First Combat Team returned to its home station in March 2007 as the first of the "surge" Units were positioned in Iraq. Over the course of about 14 months on the ground, 31 of the brigade’s soldiers were killed - among them, Capt Travis Patriquin, credited by Smith and MacFarland as the man responsible for the initial contacts and ultimate cementing of the American bond with the Ramadi Sheiks.
A police station in Ramadi is named in Capt Patriquin’s honor.
BREAK
Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed by a roadside bomb at the outset of Ramadan in the western calendar year 2007. Contrary to expectations at the time, his movement survived him.
In June, 2008 his brother and new awakening leader Sheik Ahmad al-Rishawi came to America, though his visits to President Bush and members of the US Congress received little media attention.
He told the New York Sun that his message to Congress was that American soldiers should stay in Iraq for at least as long as it takes to rebuild Iraq's national army – but also repeated his brother’s earlier offer to join the battle against al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
"Al Qaeda is an ideology," Sheik Ahmad told the Sun. "We can defeat them inside Iraq and we can defeat them in any country."
END
