marinemom
03-13-04, 05:06 AM
Marines set to enter Iraqi trouble zone
By Marcus Stern
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
March 13, 2004
FALLUJAH, Iraq – With the rest of his Camp Pendleton battalion waiting back in Kuwait, Lt. Col. Gregg Olson flew ahead of his Marines to get an advance look at the troubled city they will police for the next seven months.
Olson, 40, commander of the 1,000 members of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton, toured their new base, met with local leaders and received detailed briefings from officers of the Army's departing 82nd Airborne Division.
The heart of his new base is a 100-acre, man-made lake stocked with striped bass and lined with stucco bungalows. When Saddam Hussein's son Odai used it as a desert playground, it was known as Dreamland. It had a disco that a U.S. bomb destroyed last year. The soldiers are rebuilding it as a chapel.
Today, Dreamland is called Camp Volturno, and it is the frequent target of mortar shells.
It lies on the outskirts of one of Iraq's most notorious hornet's nests, Fallujah, where the anti-coalition insurgency in recent months has mounted a brazen siege of the mayor's office and an audacious and deadly daytime jailbreak, and also continues to sow the roadsides with remotely detonated bombs.
The Marines will be driving to Camp Volturno in convoys from Kuwait over the next two weeks. They will work side by side with soldiers of the 82nd Airborne before taking full control later this month.
"There will be challenges," Olson said during a break in surveying his new post. "There are people who hold ill will toward a free and stable future Iraq, and some of those people are here in Fallujah.
"But with the cooperation of the Iraqis, with the cooperation of the Iraqi security forces and with the cooperation of just the run-of-the-mill Iraqi who wants a better future for his children, we're going to do a good job of being the worst enemy that the insurgents can imagine.
"We really have a tenet that we want to follow, and that's to be no better friend to those who support a free and stable future Iraq and no worse enemy to those who oppose that goal."
Bringing peace and stability to this economically distressed farm town of 250,000, surrounded by Sunni Arab hamlets with another 250,000 people, will require strength, finesse and a keen understanding of a complex social order led by tribal chieftains, religious leaders and a potentially helpful but undersized professional and business class.
"There are very few cities in Iraq as complex as Fallujah," said Army Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. "There is a very determined enemy here."
The handover in Fallujah is just a small part of the largest troop rotation since World War II. Across Iraq this month, tens of thousands of soldiers, National Guard members and reservists who have been there for months – in many cases a year – will be replaced by fresh forces.
The 82nd Airborne will turn over control of western Iraq, including the nettlesome Sunni Triangle, to the Marines.
Just as Olson's unit is about to take control of Fallujah, other Marine battalions, many of them also from Camp Pendleton, are beginning to take over in other areas.
The Marines will arrive in force during the next two weeks to begin a crash course on the challenges they will face as they try to simultaneously fight a guerrilla war and engage in nation-building at the local level.
They will arrive at bases that have been built from scratch over the past 11 months by units stationed in Iraq after the collapse of Hussein's Baath Party regime. During the past year, those primitive camps established on former Iraqi air bases or civilian compounds have been turned into U.S. military bases, complete with showers, bathrooms, barracks, gyms, chow halls, a PX and even Internet cafes.
The Army troops will coach their Marine replacements on safety tips: Change lanes while driving under overpasses to make it more difficult for insurgents to drop grenades on convoys. Watch for freshly turned dirt along the side of the road, which could be a telltale sign that a bomb has been buried there.
The Marines also will be briefed on military-run democracy and civil-affairs programs in the area. They will learn about school construction projects, the creation of local provisional authorities to act as city councils, the training and equipping of Iraqi police stations and the formation of local Iraqi civil defense forces.
The Marines will assume control of all of those programs before month's end. Most of the programs still are in their infancy.
"We've made great progress, but there's still a lot to do," Drinkwine said of the 82nd Airborne's efforts in Fallujah. "The Marines will be very busy, but they won't get it all done on their count, either."
Fallujah is called the City of Mosques. There are 50 in the city proper and at least 48 in surrounding communities. The area has 11 major tribes and as many as 250 subtribes. Tribal leaders called sheiks form the power base outside the city, while religious leaders known as imams exert greater influence in the city, Drinkwine said.
Farming is the region's economic mainstay. Fruits and vegetables grown in outlying areas are sold in the large markets that line Fallujah's dusty streets.
The sidewalk outside the mayor's office recently was crowded with scores of men looking for jobs as police officers. It is a dangerous, unpopular job in Fallujah, but it's also about the only work available in a city where most of the men are unemployed.
The men milled behind concrete blast walls designed to protect the mayor's office from car-bomb attacks. They grew agitated and began complaining to police that they had been waiting for weeks just for a chance to apply for an undesirable job that pays the equivalent of $250 a month.
"The people of Fallujah don't like the police, said Abdul Khaliq Mutlag, 24, who was applying for an officer's job nonetheless. "Some of them see the police as agents for the Americans. We don't want to be policemen, but we have no other choices."
Mutlag said the only jobs being created by U.S. money were police, military or civil defense. "We need reconstruction," he said. "We want construction jobs."
Amir Babakir, 62, a teacher, strolled along a street-side produce market in central Fallujah. The stalls were brimming with peppers, oranges, tomatoes and lettuce.
He tried to explain why the people of Fallujah have developed a reputation for violence despite what he described as a long tradition of hospitality to outsiders.
"The people here are very peaceful, dignified, honorable people," Babakir said. "But whenever the Americans commit violence against them, they must resist. They will take revenge."
A retired grocer and farmer, broke into the conversation: "The British and the Americans, they hit people without any reason," said Ahmad Zgair, 66. "Why do they do that?"
Hamad Abdul Aziz, 35, waved pictures of his battered 1986 Volkswagen.
He said a U.S. Humvee had smashed into it while it was parked on the side of the road. Despite continuing efforts on his part, he said he hasn't been compensated.
Many of the people of Fallujah declined to talk or be photographed.
A boy motioned menacingly at a visiting U.S. reporter and photographer, warning that if they stayed they would be attacked by the insurgents' weapon of choice – a rocket-propelled grenade.
It was a gesture repeated by others.
The 82nd Airborne named Camp Volturno after a bloody World War II river crossing made by their predecessors during the campaign in Italy.
Inside the canvas mess hall, Capt. Ryan Huston, 26, of Huntsville, Ala., explained his duties as liaison to the Fallujah Provisional Authority Council. When the military established the council, representation from the sheiks, imams and local professional class was carefully balanced.
"We're doing nation-building at the grass-roots level," Huston said.
He recounted their efforts to create, train and equip separate Iraqi police, civil defense and military forces. They have given out 4,000 soccer balls, and have used the commander's discretionary funds to create street-cleaning jobs, supply schools and restore mosques.
The troops are also working with the council to plan water, sanitation, electrical and irrigation systems. They are promoting careful budgeting and proper accounting in the city's administration.
Much of that work is done at the council's weekly Thursday meetings.
Olson, the commander of the incoming Marine battalion, attended a recent session.
"I was very impressed with the broad range of Iraqi interests," he said. "And the Iraqi council members understand that the coalition . . . (can help them achieve their) vision of the future Iraq: free, stable and secure for their children."
What he didn't mention was that the insurgents had apparently targeted that day's meeting with a mortar round, two roadside bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade. None of the attempts was successful.
"That was just a normal day of work in Fallujah," Drinkwine said.
The violence didn't daunt Olson.
"I'm very optimistic," he said. "I've got well-trained Marines."
By Marcus Stern
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
March 13, 2004
FALLUJAH, Iraq – With the rest of his Camp Pendleton battalion waiting back in Kuwait, Lt. Col. Gregg Olson flew ahead of his Marines to get an advance look at the troubled city they will police for the next seven months.
Olson, 40, commander of the 1,000 members of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment from Camp Pendleton, toured their new base, met with local leaders and received detailed briefings from officers of the Army's departing 82nd Airborne Division.
The heart of his new base is a 100-acre, man-made lake stocked with striped bass and lined with stucco bungalows. When Saddam Hussein's son Odai used it as a desert playground, it was known as Dreamland. It had a disco that a U.S. bomb destroyed last year. The soldiers are rebuilding it as a chapel.
Today, Dreamland is called Camp Volturno, and it is the frequent target of mortar shells.
It lies on the outskirts of one of Iraq's most notorious hornet's nests, Fallujah, where the anti-coalition insurgency in recent months has mounted a brazen siege of the mayor's office and an audacious and deadly daytime jailbreak, and also continues to sow the roadsides with remotely detonated bombs.
The Marines will be driving to Camp Volturno in convoys from Kuwait over the next two weeks. They will work side by side with soldiers of the 82nd Airborne before taking full control later this month.
"There will be challenges," Olson said during a break in surveying his new post. "There are people who hold ill will toward a free and stable future Iraq, and some of those people are here in Fallujah.
"But with the cooperation of the Iraqis, with the cooperation of the Iraqi security forces and with the cooperation of just the run-of-the-mill Iraqi who wants a better future for his children, we're going to do a good job of being the worst enemy that the insurgents can imagine.
"We really have a tenet that we want to follow, and that's to be no better friend to those who support a free and stable future Iraq and no worse enemy to those who oppose that goal."
Bringing peace and stability to this economically distressed farm town of 250,000, surrounded by Sunni Arab hamlets with another 250,000 people, will require strength, finesse and a keen understanding of a complex social order led by tribal chieftains, religious leaders and a potentially helpful but undersized professional and business class.
"There are very few cities in Iraq as complex as Fallujah," said Army Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. "There is a very determined enemy here."
The handover in Fallujah is just a small part of the largest troop rotation since World War II. Across Iraq this month, tens of thousands of soldiers, National Guard members and reservists who have been there for months – in many cases a year – will be replaced by fresh forces.
The 82nd Airborne will turn over control of western Iraq, including the nettlesome Sunni Triangle, to the Marines.
Just as Olson's unit is about to take control of Fallujah, other Marine battalions, many of them also from Camp Pendleton, are beginning to take over in other areas.
The Marines will arrive in force during the next two weeks to begin a crash course on the challenges they will face as they try to simultaneously fight a guerrilla war and engage in nation-building at the local level.
They will arrive at bases that have been built from scratch over the past 11 months by units stationed in Iraq after the collapse of Hussein's Baath Party regime. During the past year, those primitive camps established on former Iraqi air bases or civilian compounds have been turned into U.S. military bases, complete with showers, bathrooms, barracks, gyms, chow halls, a PX and even Internet cafes.
The Army troops will coach their Marine replacements on safety tips: Change lanes while driving under overpasses to make it more difficult for insurgents to drop grenades on convoys. Watch for freshly turned dirt along the side of the road, which could be a telltale sign that a bomb has been buried there.
The Marines also will be briefed on military-run democracy and civil-affairs programs in the area. They will learn about school construction projects, the creation of local provisional authorities to act as city councils, the training and equipping of Iraqi police stations and the formation of local Iraqi civil defense forces.
The Marines will assume control of all of those programs before month's end. Most of the programs still are in their infancy.
"We've made great progress, but there's still a lot to do," Drinkwine said of the 82nd Airborne's efforts in Fallujah. "The Marines will be very busy, but they won't get it all done on their count, either."
Fallujah is called the City of Mosques. There are 50 in the city proper and at least 48 in surrounding communities. The area has 11 major tribes and as many as 250 subtribes. Tribal leaders called sheiks form the power base outside the city, while religious leaders known as imams exert greater influence in the city, Drinkwine said.
Farming is the region's economic mainstay. Fruits and vegetables grown in outlying areas are sold in the large markets that line Fallujah's dusty streets.
The sidewalk outside the mayor's office recently was crowded with scores of men looking for jobs as police officers. It is a dangerous, unpopular job in Fallujah, but it's also about the only work available in a city where most of the men are unemployed.
The men milled behind concrete blast walls designed to protect the mayor's office from car-bomb attacks. They grew agitated and began complaining to police that they had been waiting for weeks just for a chance to apply for an undesirable job that pays the equivalent of $250 a month.
"The people of Fallujah don't like the police, said Abdul Khaliq Mutlag, 24, who was applying for an officer's job nonetheless. "Some of them see the police as agents for the Americans. We don't want to be policemen, but we have no other choices."
Mutlag said the only jobs being created by U.S. money were police, military or civil defense. "We need reconstruction," he said. "We want construction jobs."
Amir Babakir, 62, a teacher, strolled along a street-side produce market in central Fallujah. The stalls were brimming with peppers, oranges, tomatoes and lettuce.
He tried to explain why the people of Fallujah have developed a reputation for violence despite what he described as a long tradition of hospitality to outsiders.
"The people here are very peaceful, dignified, honorable people," Babakir said. "But whenever the Americans commit violence against them, they must resist. They will take revenge."
A retired grocer and farmer, broke into the conversation: "The British and the Americans, they hit people without any reason," said Ahmad Zgair, 66. "Why do they do that?"
Hamad Abdul Aziz, 35, waved pictures of his battered 1986 Volkswagen.
He said a U.S. Humvee had smashed into it while it was parked on the side of the road. Despite continuing efforts on his part, he said he hasn't been compensated.
Many of the people of Fallujah declined to talk or be photographed.
A boy motioned menacingly at a visiting U.S. reporter and photographer, warning that if they stayed they would be attacked by the insurgents' weapon of choice – a rocket-propelled grenade.
It was a gesture repeated by others.
The 82nd Airborne named Camp Volturno after a bloody World War II river crossing made by their predecessors during the campaign in Italy.
Inside the canvas mess hall, Capt. Ryan Huston, 26, of Huntsville, Ala., explained his duties as liaison to the Fallujah Provisional Authority Council. When the military established the council, representation from the sheiks, imams and local professional class was carefully balanced.
"We're doing nation-building at the grass-roots level," Huston said.
He recounted their efforts to create, train and equip separate Iraqi police, civil defense and military forces. They have given out 4,000 soccer balls, and have used the commander's discretionary funds to create street-cleaning jobs, supply schools and restore mosques.
The troops are also working with the council to plan water, sanitation, electrical and irrigation systems. They are promoting careful budgeting and proper accounting in the city's administration.
Much of that work is done at the council's weekly Thursday meetings.
Olson, the commander of the incoming Marine battalion, attended a recent session.
"I was very impressed with the broad range of Iraqi interests," he said. "And the Iraqi council members understand that the coalition . . . (can help them achieve their) vision of the future Iraq: free, stable and secure for their children."
What he didn't mention was that the insurgents had apparently targeted that day's meeting with a mortar round, two roadside bombs and a rocket-propelled grenade. None of the attempts was successful.
"That was just a normal day of work in Fallujah," Drinkwine said.
The violence didn't daunt Olson.
"I'm very optimistic," he said. "I've got well-trained Marines."