thedrifter
02-28-07, 05:35 AM
Analysis: Building security in Barwanah-1
By PAMELA HESS
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
BARWANAH, Iraq, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- First of two parts
If the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment is going to rid the town of Barwanah violent insurgents, it depends on 80 men from the Nimrawi tribe huddled in one dark room of a large house down the street. It is protected by concertina wire, tanks, Marines, soldiers, and one 19-year old Barwanah police officer who searched them when they came in. He is the only police officer on the entire force.
His name is Wahad. He wears a black ski mask to hide his face. His neighbors believe he was arrested and detained by the Americans; they don't know he joined the police force in December. He has only been home twice in two months, and then under cover of night and with a phalanx of Marines to protect him.
"They're scared all the time," said Buck, a police officer from Florida helping to organize the new force. "This is the time when they are hit, when they are killed, when there is a screening like this. This is the typical beginning of a police department in a hot area, just kind of going through the steps."
Local police are a non-negotiable component of any successful counter-insurgency campaign. They know the people, they know when someone does not belong, they know whom to go to for information, and they know when someone is lying. Military forces can clamp down on physical movement, but that restricts and ultimately alienates the innocent. Only police can burrow into the heart of an insurgency.
The 80 men have come at the bidding of their tribal leadership, at no small risk to them. That call came only after 10 weeks of fighting, clearing the town, building a berm around it and securing checkpoints in and out of it. Then the 2/4 had to unravel the tangled local social web, most of which wanted very little to do with the Americans initially.
"That was the search for local leadership. That's word of mouth, day-to-day engagement -- the question we asked was who do you go to when you have a problem?" said Lt. Col. James Glynn, battalion commander of the 2/4. "Chipping away at the paint we finally got to the base layer. We finally got to the leaders of the town, the sheiks."
Glynn has been meeting with the sheiks for two and a half months in this small town just above the Euphrates River, part of the critical Haditha Triad. This area is the cross-roads of western Iraq, linking Syria and Jordan to Ramadi, Mosul and the oil refinery at Bayji. Barwanah has one of the few bridges that cross the river; consequently, it is key terrain for foreign fighters, insurgents, and weapons and bomb smuggling.
"Immediately prior to our arrival they had freedom of movement that allowed them to transport their wares - IEDs, indirect fire, people -- in and around the area. There's no doubt that the river is used to transport stuff like that. So the daily fight was combating that," said Glynn.
Like much of Anbar province -- indeed, much of Iraq -- the Barwana area has suffered from a deficit of troops. Glynn's 2/4 is the first battalion exclusively assigned to Barwanah and this side of the river since the war started. The Triad -- Haditha, Haglaniyah, and Barwanah -- was until 11 weeks ago policed by just one battalion, about 800 Marines. The 2/4 was called forward in November from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the theater reserve force, to finally clamp down on the situation.
Next: Fighting for a moonscape
Ellie
By PAMELA HESS
UPI Pentagon Correspondent
BARWANAH, Iraq, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- First of two parts
If the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment is going to rid the town of Barwanah violent insurgents, it depends on 80 men from the Nimrawi tribe huddled in one dark room of a large house down the street. It is protected by concertina wire, tanks, Marines, soldiers, and one 19-year old Barwanah police officer who searched them when they came in. He is the only police officer on the entire force.
His name is Wahad. He wears a black ski mask to hide his face. His neighbors believe he was arrested and detained by the Americans; they don't know he joined the police force in December. He has only been home twice in two months, and then under cover of night and with a phalanx of Marines to protect him.
"They're scared all the time," said Buck, a police officer from Florida helping to organize the new force. "This is the time when they are hit, when they are killed, when there is a screening like this. This is the typical beginning of a police department in a hot area, just kind of going through the steps."
Local police are a non-negotiable component of any successful counter-insurgency campaign. They know the people, they know when someone does not belong, they know whom to go to for information, and they know when someone is lying. Military forces can clamp down on physical movement, but that restricts and ultimately alienates the innocent. Only police can burrow into the heart of an insurgency.
The 80 men have come at the bidding of their tribal leadership, at no small risk to them. That call came only after 10 weeks of fighting, clearing the town, building a berm around it and securing checkpoints in and out of it. Then the 2/4 had to unravel the tangled local social web, most of which wanted very little to do with the Americans initially.
"That was the search for local leadership. That's word of mouth, day-to-day engagement -- the question we asked was who do you go to when you have a problem?" said Lt. Col. James Glynn, battalion commander of the 2/4. "Chipping away at the paint we finally got to the base layer. We finally got to the leaders of the town, the sheiks."
Glynn has been meeting with the sheiks for two and a half months in this small town just above the Euphrates River, part of the critical Haditha Triad. This area is the cross-roads of western Iraq, linking Syria and Jordan to Ramadi, Mosul and the oil refinery at Bayji. Barwanah has one of the few bridges that cross the river; consequently, it is key terrain for foreign fighters, insurgents, and weapons and bomb smuggling.
"Immediately prior to our arrival they had freedom of movement that allowed them to transport their wares - IEDs, indirect fire, people -- in and around the area. There's no doubt that the river is used to transport stuff like that. So the daily fight was combating that," said Glynn.
Like much of Anbar province -- indeed, much of Iraq -- the Barwana area has suffered from a deficit of troops. Glynn's 2/4 is the first battalion exclusively assigned to Barwanah and this side of the river since the war started. The Triad -- Haditha, Haglaniyah, and Barwanah -- was until 11 weeks ago policed by just one battalion, about 800 Marines. The 2/4 was called forward in November from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, the theater reserve force, to finally clamp down on the situation.
Next: Fighting for a moonscape
Ellie