Securing Iraq

...Kidnapping and hijacking and selling construction equipment pay for a lot...

...This is the seed of a nationhood that can grow out of the sectarian, religious, and tribal loyalties that keep Iraq, and most of the Arab world, in their own dark ages...

...The war against the foreign jihadists didn't begin in 2003 or even 2001, but in about 1918...

...Every time democracy sinks another root in Iraqi soil, Islamofascism suffers another visible failure...

...FEBRUARY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 23 SECURING IRAQ Why not pay those living near the Iraqi oil fields and pipelines a small incentive to keep watch...

...They will change how the nation thinks...

...That is a possibility the Sunni leaders should be taking more seriously as time passes...

...A S D1VERSE AS THE ENEMY IS, o u r friends a r e even more so...

...The two men teach small-unit tactics, and the Iraqis are good students...

...Though both Johnson and Vines, and the other people I spoke to in Iraq, denied firmly that we had taken any action on Syrian soil, there seems to be no other plausible explanation for the success we are having against the terrorist infiltration routes from that country...

...Some of them-including the "Iraqi Islamic Army," "The Victorious Sect Army," and the "Mujahideen Army"--trace their history to the 1920s resistance to British occupation...

...The second war is for Iraqi democracy and nationhood...

...commander of the school, shares his command with Brigadier Mousa...

...But that's wrong...

...Substitute al Qaeda for al-Ikhwan, add the other foreign terrorists to the mix, and you have the same war Glubb fought on a larger scale, with higher stakes: In its modern continuation, it is the Iraqi campaign in the global war against terrorism...

...Thanks to the emphasis on manhunting, Vines said, about 90 percent of the known al Qaeda forces in 22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 JE_9 BABBIN Iraq have been captured or killed...

...In short, there is little reason for the Sunnis to cooperate with the central government, and every reason for them to distrust the Shia, who were oppressed by the Sunnis under Saddam...

...This is the Unblinking Eye...

...There is no incentive for private Iraqi citizens to help protect the oil fields, pipelines, and port facilities...

...Suicide bomber attacks, alas, are cheap to mount...

...One military commander expressed a significant worry that the radical Shia SCIRI group would, by receiving high government appointments after the December election, especially in the Iraqi military, become another tank of fuel poured on the Sunni fire...

...He predicted that if the December election went well--and it manifestly d i d - American forces could be substantially reduced this y e a r . HAT REMAINS IN QUESTION is the ability of the raqis to form a coalition government in hich the three major factions can all have confidence...

...This struggle is one the Iraqis have resolve themselves...

...I raised the issue of Syrian sanctuaries pointedly with Marine Major General Johnson...

...Al-Ikhwan were modern terrorists, killing Iraqi tribesmen because they were weak, and because they weren't adherents to the Wahhabi brand of radical Islam...

...They now try to come in groups no larger than three or four, and many are caught...

...The Iraqis like making and following plans, and will-if they're allowed-stick to them unto death...

...AS his intelligence chieftain had explained before we met the boss, we're using all the usual methods of intel-satellites Csigint"), spies ("humint"), and so on...

...As Major General William Webster, commander of the 3rd I.D., told us, the typical Iraqi's loyalty is not inherently to his nation...

...AS fast as the enemy is adapting we're mostly staying ahead of the power curve...

...Jamie Fowler explained it best...

...If anyone talks, 'I am Kurd or Shia or Sunni,' I kick them outside the first day...

...My usual tailor, Burberry's, makes nothing as comfortable...

...Every time Iraqis by the millions flock to the polls, the terrorist insurgency suffers another body blow...

...Though the effectiveness of the attacks has been vastly reduced (only about 18 percent succeed in injuring people or damaging vehicles), those that take lives often take them in bunches...

...But postinvasion Iraq is different...

...We're using intelligence as never done before," anythinI less t, ha o a I s l a m i c c a , = w , , = : , ~ o o ~ ,., , , . in'"l aq , " I , . . . . . . r . o l e world~ Vines said...

...Mousa is the Iraqi commandant, a former colonel in Saddam's air force who understands how his country must be united...

...The students gather around their sandy rectangles and place and move the objects representing people and weapons to plan attacks and defense of positions their instructors devise...

...Vines...

...The second layer of protection met our helo as it touched down at Camp Victory in Baghdad...

...They make good plans, but have to be taught what comes next...

...Can they pull together for the first time in their history...

...Although their loyalties aren't to the central Iraqi government, they are proving effective because of their willingness to cooperate with Coalition and other Iraqi units...

...In the early days, even before Baghdad fell, terrorists and their suppliers moved with impunity along those routes...

...Vines has the forces he wants, and he uses them without hesitation...

...As one commander pointed out, every citizen of Maska gets an oil bonus...

...And there is no lack of money to fund terrorism...

...Some eight layers of terrorist leaders, he added, have been caught or killed...

...And the oil assets are regularly attacked with considerable success...

...He insisted that there were no cross-border engagements or any other fights against Syrian forces...

...Fowler is a short, solid guywhose ancestors probably wielded broadsword and axes at Agincourt...

...He's the boss of all operations, reporting to the overall commander, General George Casey...

...Vines commands both the 18th Airborne Corps and the Multinational Corps, Iraq...

...In short, Coalition forces under Vines are choking off the terrorist infiltration routes, hunting down the terrorists, and reducing tremendously their ability to influence Iraq's future...

...AS Vines said, "We're doing a manhunt now...

...It costs only about $600 to $800 to pay a suicider's way into Iraq, fit him out with an explosive vest, and send him off to kill...

...There is little we can ultimately do to bind them together as a nation...

...F IRST, WE ARE AT WAR with a small and shrinking number of non-Iraqi jihadists, who have chosen to make a stand in Iraq...

...The Iraqi political process lags badly behind the military counterpart...

...Perhaps the best indication of that success was in the December parliamentary election...

...Before they can, two of the three wars have to be won...

...Fowler and the other instructors are teaching the unhesitating use of initiative, changing plans under fire, and adapting to the fight...

...But over the last year or more, according to one of Vines's intel chiefs, it has become much harder for terrorists to get into Iraq...

...One Marine officer I spoke with told me there was "a thriving insurgent economy in Iraq...

...Our people and the Iraqis watch along these "rat lines," the routes from Syria as well as from Iran and from Saudi Arabia...

...As Vines explained it, the "desert protector" units are the (very) rough equivalent of scout platoons...

...As the "rat lines" are choked down, so is the flow of money to the terrorists...

...They and the foreign fighters (really suicide bombers coming to do their chosen work, not to fight) won't settle for anything less than a radical Islamic caliphate in Iraq, the Middle East, and the whole world...

...Iraqis have, for centuries, been loyal to their town, tribe, family, religious sect, or ethnic group...

...When we find the enemy, or they find us, it's what Marine Major General Steve Johnson labeled "total war...

...What is being taught at A1-Rustimayah is also new to the whole nation...

...It's tempting to say that the Apaches protecting us were a metaphor for this war: an overpowering American answer that solves only part of the problem...

...In most places it would, but not Iraq...

...That Army went into Iraq engaging large enemy formations, focusing our method of network-centric warfare on an enemy unprepared to deal with it...

...B UT WHAT ABOUT SYRIA, and its open support for the terrorists...

...Only the top candidates are chosen in a blind selection that precludes the favoritism that dominated the Iraqi military under Saddam...

...I'd also bet that his name is not familiar to most readers-and for a very good reason...

...last December, as far out as Fallujah, our convoy of two Blackhawk helicopters never got much above treetop level...

...As a young British officer, John Bagot Glubb entered Iraq in 1920 after the new nation, freed from Turkish rule, was beset by rebellion among its tribes...

...Flexibility in thinking, after years of Soviet-style rigidity under Saddam, is all new to the Iraqi military...

...But pass it did, with only minor disturbances...

...Brigadier General Dan Bolger, U.S...

...About 80 percent of the terrorist attacks in Iraq last year were aimed at U.S...

...My stateside sources had insisted for months that we knew-with precision--where Syria was providing sanctuaries for terrorists across the border from Iraq...

...But there, at the Iraqi Military Academy--think of it as Sandhurst South-the future leaders of Iraq's military are learning democracy and Western thinking from the usual suspects...

...Selection for the 42-week officers' course is rigid...

...In order for Sunni rejectionist terrorism to end, ,....iI~=~= ";..I...

...Mousa also weeds out those officer candidates who display loyalty to their sect or religion instead of the nation...

...As General Vines put it, "We have to draw down to win...

...In my earlier conversations with senior Defense Department officials, they did not deny that fact, and told me only that "there are certain countries we don't want to go to war with...

...The Iraqis are most comfortable in drill...

...So far, the Iraqi government rejects the idea, not wanting to reward Sunni blackmail...

...Diplomacy is the means of persuading both the Sunni rejectionists in Iraq to accept the elected government, and to keep Iraq's neighbors from making more trouble than they'd like to make...

...They are not trying to make proper British gentlemen out of their ferociously motivated students...

...And there is money coming in from Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia that arrives in small, $300-$1,500 increments...

...Even the distinctive Apache silhouette wouldn't deter a terrorist eager to pay the price of admission to his heaven with our lives...

...In the Baghdad area alone, 11 of 21 Iraqi units had complete responsibility for everything that happ e n s - o r doesn't happen-in their battle space...

...We are actually fighting-and winning-more than one war in Iraq...

...Iraqis believe more in driving foreigners from their land than they do in 1Mng in peace with each other...

...Even more importantly, the local intel is paying off...

...A spent force, the Saddamists, hang on in the faint hope that their leader may survive his trial...

...One example of the lack of political acumen among the Shia and Kurd arises from the problem of terrorist disruption of Iraqi oil exports...

...Terrorist Iraqis are highly active in places such as Ar-Ramadi, west of Baghdad...

...Mousa is serious about uniting his nation...

...No one whose grasp of reality exceeds Howard Dean's would bet that diplomacy alone will win the wars in Iraq...

...Since Turkish rule ended with the First World War, I r a q - a post-colonial British construct-has been struggling periodically, both internally among ancient feuding tribes and sects and externally against its neighbors, to find a binding nationalism...

...Captains Jamie Fowler of the Royal Tank Regiment and Duncan Forbes of the Royal Marines are transplanted from Sandhurst...

...A L-RUSTIMAYAH, WEST OF BAGHDAD, is a place where few blades of grass poke through the rock and sand...

...If only the war were that simple and not the complicated and often delicate engagement it has turned out to be...

...As recently as September 2005, there were 14 or 15 vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attacks every day...

...That election-the third in Iraq last year-culminated a long effort to gather Iraqi Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds together in a cooperative government...

...By these criteria, Lieutenant General 3ohn R. Vines is as pure a warrior as you're likely to find...

...These first two wars are being won by the odd Coalition-led combination of military might and applied goodwill that manages to kill the enemy while at the same time nurturing a new Iraqi identity and democratic ideal...

...Were the Shia not able to get their way by voting, the Badr Brigade, forces connected to SClRI (Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq), and others would certainly be as active in terrorism as their Sunni counterparts...

...Moreover, Vines said, the efforts along the Euphrates River Valley have robbed the terrorists of sanctuaries...

...The foreign fighters and the tools of war for them and the Iraqi rejectionists are coming into Iraq along for several routes, mostly through the Euphrates Valley in northwest Iraq that stretches into Syria...

...Mousa said that he gets some heat from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense because of this, but so far he has held on...

...Forbes is living proof that the Brits and Americans-especially Marines--are divided by a common language and precious little else...

...Give them the chance and they'll march all day...

...And as their political swamp resists draining...

...In addition to U.S., British, and other intelligence assets, Vines is working with his Iraqi counterparts to command effectively the "desert protectors," bands of tribesmen operating close to their homes...

...This is the war against the predominantly Sunni Iraqi rejectionist groups...

...If the general is shedding the enemy's blood, achieving tactical and strategic goals, and not preening in front of television cameras, that's a warrior...

...He'd get his first shot with a shoulder-fired missile or rocket-propelled grenade, and if he missed we'd live to see the Apaches turn him into a smoking hole in the ground...

...The AH-64 Apache is our baddest bad boy in the 20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006 attack helo business...

...We have moved an awesome array of military and diplomatic talent into Iraq...

...Vines has his hands full on every front: the foreign jihadists coming into Iraq along the so-called rat lines, the Sunni rejectionists and insurgents, and the Iraqis themselves-who seem FEBRUARY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 21 SICIIINQ IRAQ to argue one another into and out of problems over and over again, sometimes more than once a day...

...He grew up in an Army that was, as he said, looking for "[Soviet] tanks rolling through the Fulda Gap" into West Germany...

...Bin Laden's decision-which he later declared publicly-had been to make Iraq a major battleground in the global war between Islamic terrorists and civilization...

...A third war, the ideological war against Islamic terrorism, is being won by the Iraqis themselves...

...BY J E D BA B B I N LYING IN AND OUT of Baghdad's "Green Zone" Since leaving the States, we'd acquired three layers of protection...

...Vines explained how the Iraq war has changed the waywe fight...

...It's like a stakeout...

...Fowler and Forbes are also trying to teach their charges flexibility and initiative...

...But they are trying to do something that, if it succeeds, will change not only Iraq's military but eventually the entire Iraqi nation...

...We have given them the opportunity, but we can't force unity or compromise...

...VVhile the Iraqi military is taking more and more responsibility for its own battle space, the politicals seem hung up on the most basic issues...

...Major Rick Moon's detail of shooters was at our front and back wherever we went...

...Rick and his gunslingers were loaded for bear and exuded the quiet confidence of guys who could walk into a gunfight and settle in comfortably for as long as it might take for the cavalry to arrive...

...forces...

...It carries such a big punch-Hellfire missiles and a 30mm chain gun among other weapons-its mere presence should keep the bad guys' heads down...

...As of December, 60 percent of Iraq was secure...

...In the air the third layer of protection--two AH-64 Apache gunships--flew alongside at 4 and 8 o'clock, in a standard combat spread...

...The lower you are, the less time anyone on the ground has to see you (and shoot at you) as you roar past...

...Which left open the question of why we weren't destroying terrorist forces that were killing Americans in Iraq...

...One general said that Kuwaitis were among the infiltrators, in surprising and apparently growing numbers...

...Among the Shia, some with clear connections to Iran, are other equally powerful groups that have been relatively peaceful because of Shia dominance at the ballot box...

...And now there's "snitchint": Iraqi informants in increasing numbers who risk their lives to provide critical information that's stopping terrorist attacks...

...I I I the radical Sunnis need to be persuaded that the political process is more likely to deliver their goals...

...What happens, as Fowler asks them, when you come into contact with the enemy and your plan falls apart...

...Jed Babbin, an American Spectator contributing editor, is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (Begnery 2004...

...And some of the school staff-most of them drawn from the British Royal Military College at Sandhurst-are taking that one step further...

...For Zarqawi and al Qaeda in Iraq, it was an event they could not let pass without massive attacks intended to disrupt and discredit the election...

...We listen and watch...

...Johnson is commander of the II Marine Expeditionary Force and of the Multinational Force--West, which means he and his Marines are working in the toughest spots...

...On the other side of the equation is the possibility of a brutal repression of Sunnis if the other Iraqi factions lose patience with the political process...

...The December voting showed a growing Sunni pragmatism, but if the Shia and Kurdish factions continue to refuse the Sunni (so far unreasonable) demands for disproportionate power and control of significant oil revenues, why should the Sunnis tire of their efforts to resist the central government...

...Osama bin Laden didn't send Abu Musab al-Zarqawi into Iraq in September 2002 on a whim...

...As the intel chief said, "It's all about manhunting...

...And more than 90 percent of the detainees we captured were native Iraqis...

...First came the body armor and Kevlar helmets issued as we climbed on the C-130 taking us from Kuwait City to Baghdad...

...Though polar bears vastly outnumber terrorists up there, every Maskan has an incentive to keep an eye on whatever section of the Maskan pipeline he can see, and report any problems...

...Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of foreigners came in...

...The regimentation, and lack of independent thought, is something the staff at A1-Rustimayah are trying to break them of...

...24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 2006...

...They can't be talked to: you have to capture them or kill them...

...There are many kinds of generals-technocrats, bureaucrats, diplomats, and politicians-but only a very few qualify as warriors...

...In one spot in particular, though, a seed is being planted that may grow Iraq by changing the mindset of its people...

...I I !'=i i"~.I !t.JWWI I = ="= !I . . . . . ' = ' ~ = ~ . , i i ~ , ~ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ' . . . . . . = II@ , 1"~163 I I ~-" !.3 f ]~ i f ' . = l=<L...

...And we're doing it in an absolutely aggressive manner...

...We're not playing the body count game, as we did in Vietnam, but it's pretty clear that at least 2,000 terrorists have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion and an equal number captured...

...Levying intense pressure on terrorists operating in the Euphrates Valley and getting local cooperation reduced that rate by November to one or two a day...

...If the cadets who graduate from there grasp this new way of thinking and carry it with them into the future, they will change not only how the Iraqi military fights...

...Glubb fought for years trying to protect Iraq from the predations of its neighbors, principally al-Ikhwan--"the b r e t h r e n " - Wahhabi raiders based in what is now Saudi Arabia...

...On the other hand, we can bet the ranch on 3.R...

...Improvised explosive devices aren't expensive, except for the sophisticated EFP's (explosively-formed projectile weapons) that British Prime Minister Tony Blair described in an October 2005 statement and linked "either to Iranian elements or Hezbollah," the Iranian-backed terrorist group...