thedrifter
09-16-06, 11:35 AM
Anbar Province
By Kevin Horrigan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Sep. 17 2006
A few weeks back, a young man of my acquaintance fell under the spell of a
Marine recruiter, a gunnery sergeant who zeroed in on him. If the young man
wanted to join the Marines, I figured it was his business, but it ought to be a
fair fight. A mission-focused Marine E-7 vs. a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old
is not a fair fight.
I asked if the gunny had happened to mention Al Anbar province. "Al what?" came
the reply.
Al this:
Of the 2,905 coalition troops who have fallen in Iraq since the war started in
March 2003, more than a third of them -- 975 -- have fallen in one of Iraq's 18
provinces: Al Anbar. That's 300 more than Baghdad Province, which is the second
deadliest place to be deployed.
For most of the war, Anbar, a vast swath of sand from Baghdad west to the
Syrian border, has been patrolled by the Marine Corps, which has paid a
fearsome price.
Anbar is Sunni territory, and the Sunnis have been the backbone of the Iraq
insurgency. Anbar contains such vacation hotspots as Falluja, Ramadi, Haditha
and Hit. If you were planning to invade Iraq and depose a Sunni dictator like
Saddam Hussein, thereby exposing the Sunni minority to retribution from the
Shia majority, you might have paid special attention to Anbar province.
Instead, according to "Fiasco," Thomas Ricks' essential new book on the war in
Iraq, here is what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks
planned for Anbar province:
"(Paul) Van Riper, the retired Marine general . . . had seen the war plan in
October 2002, and noted that it included a division west of the 3rd Infantry
Division to control much of Anbar Province. But in January 2003, he was told,
that division was dropped from the plan. Instead, Anbar would be treated as an
'economy of force' area. . . . This last minute change was crucial, because it
left open the door northwest of Baghdad for Baathists and intelligence
officials to flee to the sanctuary of Syria, taking money, weapons and records
with them with which to establish a safe headquarters for the insurgency that
would begin that summer."
Well, sure. Mistakes were made in Iraq, and Anbar province, too. But General
Franks has retired with his Medal of Freedom, and Rummy's still got his job, so
let's just put Anbar province behind us, huh?
Can't do it. Anbar was back in the news last week, thanks to a
courageous Marine intelligence officer named Pete Devlin. Col. Devlin probably
put his career on the line last month by issuing a report saying, essentially,
that the war is over in Anbar Province, and the United States lost.
Unless America sends another division (about 16,000 troops) to Anbar, Devlin
wrote, "there is nothing (the Marines) can do to influence the motivation of
the Sunni to wage an insurgency."
Instead of sending more troops to Anbar, the Pentagon last month cannibalized
the U.S. force there, moving an Army brigade out of Anbar to Baghdad to deal
with sectarian violence. This only has reinforced the fears among the Sunni
population of Anbar that the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad doesn't care
much about them. Unlike the Kurdish north and the Shia south, western Iraq
doesn't have oil resources. All it has is violence.
Absent any functioning governmental institutions, Devlin's report said, the
people of Anbar have turned to the only entity capable of creating a semblance
of order: the terrorist organization Al-Qaida in Iraq.
The report caused an uproar at the Pentagon, particularly after Tom Ricks, the
Washington Post's Pentagon correspondent, reported its existence, and Michael
Gordon, The New York Times' military correspondent, quoted parts of it.
The White House's response was to invoke a weird kind of reverse mission creep.
Instead of defeating the insurgency, the goal has changed. "The key in Iraq is
not for the United States to go in and subdue every bad guy in the country,"
said press secretary Tony Snow. "That would be failure. That would mean that we
have to occupy Iraq forever. We don't want to do that."
Instead, he said, the goal in Anbar -- and the rest of Iraq -- is to train the
Iraqis to defeat the insurgency. How you do that in Anbar with two Iraqi Army
divisions that are plagued by desertions and, on a good day, are at no better
than 60 percent strength, is an interesting question.
Franks' and Rumsfeld's botched war plan created a hot zone for terrorism in Al
Anbar Province. The Iraqi government has responded, in large part, by ignoring
it. The Iraqi Army isn't particularly interested in fighting for it. The
Marines, hung out to dry, are supposed to fix it.
That hardly seems like a fair fight, either.
Ellie
By Kevin Horrigan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Sunday, Sep. 17 2006
A few weeks back, a young man of my acquaintance fell under the spell of a
Marine recruiter, a gunnery sergeant who zeroed in on him. If the young man
wanted to join the Marines, I figured it was his business, but it ought to be a
fair fight. A mission-focused Marine E-7 vs. a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old
is not a fair fight.
I asked if the gunny had happened to mention Al Anbar province. "Al what?" came
the reply.
Al this:
Of the 2,905 coalition troops who have fallen in Iraq since the war started in
March 2003, more than a third of them -- 975 -- have fallen in one of Iraq's 18
provinces: Al Anbar. That's 300 more than Baghdad Province, which is the second
deadliest place to be deployed.
For most of the war, Anbar, a vast swath of sand from Baghdad west to the
Syrian border, has been patrolled by the Marine Corps, which has paid a
fearsome price.
Anbar is Sunni territory, and the Sunnis have been the backbone of the Iraq
insurgency. Anbar contains such vacation hotspots as Falluja, Ramadi, Haditha
and Hit. If you were planning to invade Iraq and depose a Sunni dictator like
Saddam Hussein, thereby exposing the Sunni minority to retribution from the
Shia majority, you might have paid special attention to Anbar province.
Instead, according to "Fiasco," Thomas Ricks' essential new book on the war in
Iraq, here is what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks
planned for Anbar province:
"(Paul) Van Riper, the retired Marine general . . . had seen the war plan in
October 2002, and noted that it included a division west of the 3rd Infantry
Division to control much of Anbar Province. But in January 2003, he was told,
that division was dropped from the plan. Instead, Anbar would be treated as an
'economy of force' area. . . . This last minute change was crucial, because it
left open the door northwest of Baghdad for Baathists and intelligence
officials to flee to the sanctuary of Syria, taking money, weapons and records
with them with which to establish a safe headquarters for the insurgency that
would begin that summer."
Well, sure. Mistakes were made in Iraq, and Anbar province, too. But General
Franks has retired with his Medal of Freedom, and Rummy's still got his job, so
let's just put Anbar province behind us, huh?
Can't do it. Anbar was back in the news last week, thanks to a
courageous Marine intelligence officer named Pete Devlin. Col. Devlin probably
put his career on the line last month by issuing a report saying, essentially,
that the war is over in Anbar Province, and the United States lost.
Unless America sends another division (about 16,000 troops) to Anbar, Devlin
wrote, "there is nothing (the Marines) can do to influence the motivation of
the Sunni to wage an insurgency."
Instead of sending more troops to Anbar, the Pentagon last month cannibalized
the U.S. force there, moving an Army brigade out of Anbar to Baghdad to deal
with sectarian violence. This only has reinforced the fears among the Sunni
population of Anbar that the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad doesn't care
much about them. Unlike the Kurdish north and the Shia south, western Iraq
doesn't have oil resources. All it has is violence.
Absent any functioning governmental institutions, Devlin's report said, the
people of Anbar have turned to the only entity capable of creating a semblance
of order: the terrorist organization Al-Qaida in Iraq.
The report caused an uproar at the Pentagon, particularly after Tom Ricks, the
Washington Post's Pentagon correspondent, reported its existence, and Michael
Gordon, The New York Times' military correspondent, quoted parts of it.
The White House's response was to invoke a weird kind of reverse mission creep.
Instead of defeating the insurgency, the goal has changed. "The key in Iraq is
not for the United States to go in and subdue every bad guy in the country,"
said press secretary Tony Snow. "That would be failure. That would mean that we
have to occupy Iraq forever. We don't want to do that."
Instead, he said, the goal in Anbar -- and the rest of Iraq -- is to train the
Iraqis to defeat the insurgency. How you do that in Anbar with two Iraqi Army
divisions that are plagued by desertions and, on a good day, are at no better
than 60 percent strength, is an interesting question.
Franks' and Rumsfeld's botched war plan created a hot zone for terrorism in Al
Anbar Province. The Iraqi government has responded, in large part, by ignoring
it. The Iraqi Army isn't particularly interested in fighting for it. The
Marines, hung out to dry, are supposed to fix it.
That hardly seems like a fair fight, either.
Ellie