British Troops Have Made A Difference in Iraq

It was my great pleasure to serve with members of the British military during my tour in Iraq. I met very professional British naval officers, infantry officers and even a commando from the unit that was “Roger’s Rangers” during the French and Indian war.

As the protective service detail for our general, my team had the chance to meet troops from all the nations in the Coalition. As expected, we found the British to be highly disciplined warriors and we were proud to have them with us.

During one of our convoys along Baghdad's Route Irish, we were short-handed and couldn’t man the turret in one of our vehicles. As I casually mentioned this fact to my driver, a senior British officer offered to stand in the turret with his rifle. I said that such an offer was appreciated, but it wasn’t necessary that he put himself at risk. The officer stood up with his rifle anyway and added his potential firepower to our convoy.

As the following article discusses, our British friends will leave Iraq next year. On behalf of all of my fellow American troops, I thank them for their comradeship, their courage and their sacrifice. We will always value the extraordinary friendship between our two nations.

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Washington Post
December 11, 2008
Pg. 17

British To Begin Iraq Withdrawal In March

Reports Say U.S. Troops Will Take Over Positions in Basra

By Mary Jordan, Washington Post Foreign Service

LONDON, Dec. 10 -- Britain will withdraw nearly all of its troops from Iraq beginning in March and U.S. troops will take over their positions in Basra, according to several British newspapers citing military sources.

Britain currently has 4,100 troops in the country and is expected by June to have only about 400 remaining to help train the Iraqi army, the reports said.

The leaked timetable appeared to have been orchestrated by the Defense Ministry to cheer troops ahead of Christmas and to make good on a promise by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to end the nation's involvement in the unpopular war. Brown is expected to make an official announcement in the new year, but is widely seen as waiting to coordinate with the new administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

During the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Britain moved 46,000 troops into Iraq. In July, Brown, well aware of the political damage the war had caused his predecessor, Tony Blair, said most of Britain's troops would be withdrawn by early 2009.

The British drawdown signals an end for the second-largest force and America's strongest ally in the coalition in Iraq. The United States has about 150,000 troops in Iraq; Obama promised during the campaign to withdraw most combat troops within 16 months of taking office.

"Our whole country will breath a sigh of relief that an end to this illegal war is now in sight," said Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, referring to the British reports.

A Defense Ministry statement Wednesday, while not explicitly confirming the reports, said the ministry was "expecting to see a fundamental change of mission in early 2009."

"Final decisions on the timing of the drawdown will depend on the circumstances at the time," said a ministry spokesman who spoke on the customary rules of anonymity.

U.S. and British commanders have been in close contact on the timing of the long-expected British withdrawal. The British presence has been key in protecting main supply routes across southern Iraq.

The Guardian and other British newspapers said several thousand U.S. troops would move in to take over Basra airport, where British forces are now based, to protect convoys from Kuwait and support Iraqi forces in keeping the peace.

"This is far more significant for the British than it is for Iraq or the U.S.," said Gareth Stansfield, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Exeter. He said the British troops were "at such a low level, they were barely able to protect themselves, never mind enforce Basra." Still, he said, the pullout will boost Brown, who is expected to call an election next year, and "may make a difference in how many forces can be sent to Afghanistan."

Jock Stirrup, chief of the Defense Staff, said last month that British troops departing Iraq cannot be transferred "one for one" to Afghanistan, where there has been growing U.S. pressure on Britain to add troops.

Stirrup and other defense officials have said the two wars have put enormous strain on the army.

Britain already has a considerable presence in Afghanistan, with 7,800 troops, and the media reports said it would be moving some aerial surveillance drones and Merlin helicopters from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Stirrup indicated last week that any growing British presence in Afghanistan would include manpower and aid to rebuild the economy. "I and others have been saying for over two years now we have to get a grip on the civilian effort," he said.

Special correspondent Karla Adam contributed to this report.

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Our British friends will continue to stand by our side in the War on Terror and, for this, we are eternally grateful.

Charles M. Grist
www.TheCobraTeam.com
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com

Getting Better in Iraq – Notes from a Soldier Who’s Been There, Done That

The following article was written by a retired Army officer and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and he tells it like it is:

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Washington Post
September 14, 2008
Pg. B4

This Time, Things Are Looking Up

By John A. Nagl

BAGHDAD--When I retired from the Army in June, my comrades in arms laughed at my summer vacation plans: another August in Iraq.

But I had unfinished business here. When my unit left Iraq in September 2004, one of my battle captains presented us with coffee mugs to celebrate our return home. The sardonic inscription: "Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003-2004: We were winning when I left." We weren't, and we knew it. We had lost 22 men and more than 100 had been wounded during our combat tour. The decline of the U.S. project in Iraq over the following two years made it all too easy to believe that their sacrifices had been for naught.

I've played the history over and over in my mind. Early mistakes by U.S. officials -- disbanding the Iraqi army and firing almost all the civil servants needed to run a society -- provided tinder for the Sunni insurgency. Things worsened as U.S. commanders withdrew our forces from the cities to large, comfortable bases from which they commuted to war. By the time my unit left, the Sunni insurgency that had erupted in Fallujah in the summer of 2003 had spread to the heart of Baghdad. Sunni and Shiite militias were pushing Iraq to the brink of full-scale civil war. And the pages of Army Times magazine were filled with the faces of fallen friends.

But studding this bleak narrative were signs of hope. As early as 2003, some of Iraq's minority Sunnis came to understand that their future lay not in resisting U.S. forces but in working with them. After neglecting Sunni tribes for years, our military began paying some to break ranks with the radicals of al-Qaeda in Iraq, leading to the Anbar Awakening of late 2006.

Enter the "surge" and a new U.S. strategy: to protect Iraqis by living among them. Military units left the comfort of their bases and, with counterparts from the maturing Iraqi army and police, manned the smaller encampments that dotted the country's cities and provinces. U.S. casualties also surged as we cleared Baghdad and surrounding communities in the summer of 2007.

Then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki moved against Shiite militias -- first in Basra in March 2008, then in the massive Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad known as Sadr City. Operations continue in Mosul and Diyala, and so far the success is undeniable.

Route Irish, which runs from Baghdad International Airport to the International Zone, used to be the most dangerous road in the world. When I drove down it last month, I saw flowers being planted in newly rebuilt medians, a touch that would have made the late Lady Bird Johnson smile. Guard rails -- which we'd had to tear down to prevent IEDs from being hung behind them -- are being reinstalled.

Walking through the famous Dora market in Baghdad, I felt naked without a weapon. But then I reminded myself that I was safe, protected by the Sons (and Daughters) of Iraq. I visited a packed athletic club started by a Dora entrepreneur with a micro-loan from my West Point classmate, Lt. Col. Tim Watson. Festooned with posters of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, the gym has a waiting list for membership. The deputy manager of the bank in Dora, who was sporting gaudy costume jewelry rather than an abaya, was happy to see us but made it clear that she didn't have time to chat; the line of women waiting for pension payments stretched out the door.

Everyone I talked to, Iraqis and Americans alike, stressed that the security gains are fragile and reversible; there were two car bombs and a suicide vest attack in Mosul three days after our visit. But the improvements in Baghdad and Basra are striking, with increasingly competent Iraqi security forces on every street corner -- although they will continue to need our advice and assistance for some years to come.

I am no cheerleader for the war in Iraq. We've made horrible mistakes that cost the lives of too many of my friends, American and Iraqi. It took us too long to learn from our errors and adopt an effective counterinsurgency strategy, and even now the war is far from won.

But the way ahead is becoming clearer, with a road map provided by men such as Col. Dominic Caracillo, a brigade commander in the 101st Airborne whose men patrol a patch south of Baghdad that used to be called the Triangle of Death. The soldiers now laughingly refer to it as the "Triangle of Love." A year ago, there were as many as 50 attacks every week; now there are just a few. Caracillo is overseeing a drawdown of U.S. forces; his brigade of about 4,000 soldiers is shipping out, to be replaced by a task force of fewer than 1,000. This force will not conduct counterinsurgency operations, but will support the newly created 17th Division of the Iraqi army. Its commander, Maj. Gen. Ali Jassim Mohammed Hassen al-Frejee, faces his own challenges: He's short of helmets and body armor, and he'd sure like to have some heavy artillery of his own rather than having to rely on ours. Still, as Caracillo says, Ali's forces are "good enough for the enemy they have to face."

So they are -- as long as we continue to back them with air support, intelligence and U.S. combat units, whose numbers are steadily diminishing. Iraq will need American advisers for years to come. For starters, it takes five years to produce a competent fighter pilot or tank company commander. Moreover, Iraq faces significant external security threats, as well as the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Shiite militias and Sunni insurgent groups. But U.S. forces will increasingly be able to turn combat over to the Iraqis, allowing the United States to scale back its involvement significantly.

When I came home from Iraq in 2004, we weren't winning. Four years later, the situation has changed dramatically. I can scarcely bring myself to say it out loud, but this time, we were winning when I left.

John A. Nagl, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, was an operations officer in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. He helped write "The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual."

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We’re getting there, but we can’t ease up. The Obama “quitter” solution won’t work; the McCain way will allow us to leave Iraq in victory.

Charles M. Grist
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com

Muqtada al Sadr and The Mahdi Army

Today the Associated Press reported that Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army may have split into several different groups. This story said that as many as 3,000 of these militamen are now financed directly by Iran and not even loyal to al Sadr. (News photo above is from May, 2004.)

The article (written by Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul-Zahra of the AP) quoted two senior militia leaders who said that hundreds of these Iraqi fighters have crossed into Iran and are being trained by the elite Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. These same Iranian troops are believed to have directly trained Hezbollah in Lebanon and Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Afghanistan. This is further indication that the most dangerous foe in the war against terror continues to be Iran, a country with a long history of terror sponsorship.

In April, 2004, Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army conducted an uprising which resulted in the deaths of both American soldiers and Iraqis. I was in Baghdad at the time and I wrote the following as American military leaders began to realize the seriousness of the threat posed by the Mahdi Army:

“After the protesters marched across the Republican Bridge on April 3rd, the Stars and Stripes newspaper and the Washington Post reported that men from the Mahdi Army were in the crowd chanting “Just say the word, Muqtada, and we’ll resume the 1920 revolution”. They were referring to the uprising against British rule. The continued violence in Najaf was also associated with the Mahdi Army. Al Sadr’s remarks were interpreted by his followers as a call to arms and the violent members of his militia commenced their attacks on Coalition forces.

Remembering that some sixty per cent of Iraqis were Shiite, it was wise to note that Al Sadr and his followers were also Shiite. Although his father was a great ayatollah, Muqtada was just a low level cleric who didn’t even finish his formal religious training. With the family’s claimed lineage to the Prophet, Muqtada attracted a large number of highly fanatical and dedicated followers. Al Sadr appealed primarily to the younger Shiites who were less educated and easier to manipulate. As Americans later discovered, many of his followers were nothing more than common criminals who hitched their wagons to what they believed was a rising star.

An arrest warrant was issued for Muqtada al Sadr on April 5th. Some reports said there was military action in the area of his home. His venomous anti-Coalition rhetoric incited his Mahdi Army followers to engage in violence against us and he turned his militia members into nothing more than new branches of an increasingly vicious insurgent enemy. His speeches made him sound like a man who was laying the groundwork for a fundamentalist revolution like the one in Iran. If that ever happened, the streets would be filled with even more crazed Islamic fundamentalists looking to kill Americans.

By the 6th the news was filled with stories about the Sadr City-based violence. Three more soldiers were killed in that area and several Marines were lost in action in Fallujah. The Mahdi Army militiamen had their own uniform and they were usually dressed in black shirts and pants as well as green headbands with Arabic slogans on them. Their black outfits reminded some of us of the Viet Cong and their black “pajamas”. One of the running jokes was about hearing “gooks in the wire”, a comment left over from the Vietnam era which referred to the highly skilled Viet Cong sappers.

With only fifteen minutes notice on the 7th, we were ordered to escort one of our unit’s officers to BIAP (Baghdad International Airport). On our way back, about two miles from the gate to the Green Zone, we saw about fifty Shiite demonstrators in the median of Route Irish. They were headed east toward the gate and they carried flags and signs. Some of the people were beating themselves with chains. These civilians were being herded like cattle by members of the Mahdi Army who wore their trademark black uniforms and green headbands.

At our high rate of speed, we passed them quickly and we didn’t see any overt display of weapons. I notified the officer on duty at the gate that the protesters were on their way. We drove only a short distance into the Green Zone when the QRF (quick reaction force) passed us. They reacted quickly to our report. The QRF met the group of Shiites outside the Green Zone and engaged in a firefight with the Mahdi Army members, killing several of the militiamen.

Later that same day, I was handed a document that said the Mahdi Army was declared a hostile force at 2355 hours the previous night. Since the members of the Mahdi Army were now officially enemy soldiers, they could be engaged upon that status alone, without regard to any overt hostile intent. If we had been given this valuable intelligence in a timely manner, we could have engaged the Mahdi Army members ourselves. Their new status was probably why the QRF was so anxious to make contact with them.”

The average soldiers in Iraq in 2004 knew that the Mahdi Army was being trained and funded by the Iranians. Al Sadr routinely made trips to Iran along with other Shiite leaders and his militia should have been taken out at that time. The failure to disarm all the militias will be remembered as one of the biggest mistakes of the Iraq war.

America’s leaders must remember that we cannot fight “half-wars”. Once the fight has commenced, anyone who opposes us must be decisively engaged and defeated. If we are going to wage war, we must do so until our enemies are forced to surrender or until they are destroyed – just as our fundamentalist adversaries promise to do to us…


SFC Chuck Grist
www.AmericanRanger.blogspot.com

Call to Duty

After I was back in the good old USA for a few months, I still remembered those with whom I served in Iraq. Only those who have been to war would understand the feelings I wrote about in the following op-ed piece:

CALL TO DUTY
Where the soldier’s heart dwells
Special to the Orlando Sentinel
June 26, 2005

After spending most of last year on active duty with the Army Reserve, I am having a difficult time relating to a civilian world that is far away, physically and emotionally, from the turbulent life of Baghdad. This life is the illusion – the war is the reality.

Last year was my turn in the swirling sandstorm of the war on terror. I spent most of my time running hundreds of convoys in and around Baghdad, including the infamous airport road, Route Irish, the most dangerous stretch of road in the world.

I may be home, but many of my comrades are not. Some remained in Iraq and some have returned voluntarily for subsequent tours. A few were killed. My former lieutenant now works for the State Department at the U.S. Embassy in the Green Zone.

Doc, my medic, is now a private security contractor, doing the same protective service job we did, but for a bigger paycheck. He was almost killed recently when a car bomb exploded as his team passed a checkpoint.

When I try to explain to someone that I miss Baghdad, they look at me as if I just escaped from a mental hospital. What they don’t understand, and will never understand, is that there is an exciting, electric feeling when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death – and live. A soldier is never more alive, and his senses are never more in tune, than when his universe is immersed in war.

I must admit that I have thought about going back. What keeps me here is an important job that I must prepare to retire from in a few short years, a wife who went through hell once, and does not deserve to go through it again, and the reality that I am not a youngster any more and will, in fact, probably retire from the Army Reserve next year.

It is still hard to sit in a restaurant, walk through a mall or drive down the road without thinking that most of the people around me are clueless about what their fellow Americans are doing on their behalf.

They could not understand what it feels like to walk out of your granddaughter’s recital and hear the thump of mortars in the distance. Turning to the sound, the realization hits that the explosion is a fireworks display at nearby Disney World, and not incoming rounds.

It is said that soldiers will naturally feel the urge to march toward the sound of the guns. After all, that is where their comrades are. It does not feel natural to stay behind, in safety, when your brothers and sisters are still on the battlefield. I cannot deny that I feel that sense of urgency and call to arms, even now.

It took a long time for me to “return home” after my tour in Vietnam more than 30 years ago. That is why I understand the reason I feel the way I do about Iraq. I am home, and it feels good to be safely in the arms of my beloved America. Still, something is missing.

I know I left a part of me in the jungles of Vietnam, and now I have left another piece of my soul in the deserts of Iraq. My wife understands, and sometimes, when she is about to enter the room, she will stop.

Somehow she knows that I am not at home at that moment. I am an American warrior in a Humvee, traveling hell-bent down the most dangerous road in the world, and may God have mercy on the terrorist who takes me on.

SFC Chuck Grist

NOTE: Obviously, I did not retire in 2006. I have discussed my upcoming mobilization with my wife and, as always, she is supportive because she is the wife of an American soldier and she understands. Whether I serve here or abroad, she will stand by me as she always has. I am indeed a lucky man.