SURGING ALONG

"I won't believe a word of it until Mullah Hari al Reid issues a fatwa."

At the Washingon Post, they noted Harry Reid's unfortunate "we lost in Iraq" comments and asked a variety of thinkers and people involved in Iraq to say what they thought, are we losing? One of the answers was this from National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley:

No Many said Anbar province was "lost" six months ago. Today, local tribes are cooperating with us to fight al-Qaeda. Iraqis, with our help, are confronting the sectarian violence in Baghdad, seeking to take back their capital so they can pursue political reconciliation.

The Anbar Province is one of the four provinces in Iraq that was most troubled by terrorism, death squads, and violence - indeed the rest of Iraq, 14 provinces, were not particularly troubled; in the Kurdish north, Iraq is an amazing success. But Anbar was not, it was one of the areas most tortured by sectarian violence. Immediately bordering Syria, it was fed by terrorists and weapons through the border and was a constant source of trouble in Iraq. Just four months ago, here's what the reporting from the area was like:

Anbar residents say that ever since former president Saddam Hussein was overthrown, they have lived in constant fear.

“During Saddam Hussein’s rule ours was one of the most prosperous areas in Iraq and was developing fast. But after the US-led invasion, all that development was destroyed in a few months. As if that was not enough, we are also scared of the sectarian violence that is getting worse by the day in this area,” said Abu Mustafa, a 39-year-old resident of Ramadi, the province’s capital.

According to counter-insurgency experts, many young insurgent recruits were trained in six towns in Anbar: al-Qaim, Haditha, Anah, Hit, Fallujah and Ramadi. As a result, these five towns have witnessed particularly heavy clashes resulting in the deaths of hundreds of local citizens and the destruction of thousands of shops, schools, houses and government buildings.

“Today, the situation is spiralling out of control with the return of insurgents and the increase in the number of those displaced as a result of sectarian violence,” said Muhammad Rabia’a, media officer for Anbar province council in Ramadi, some 115km west of the capital, Baghdad.

Sounds pretty terrible, right? This is the heart of Saddam country, the triangle of towns he came from and thus his tribe lived in and which got the most benefit from his regime lay in this province. This is where Hussein was found in a spider hole.

Now, just four months later, here's what the reporting is like:

Anbar Province, long the lawless heartland of the tenacious Sunni Arab resistance, is undergoing a surprising transformation. Violence is ebbing in many areas, shops and schools are reopening, police forces are growing and the insurgency appears to be in retreat.

“Many people are challenging the insurgents,” said the governor of Anbar, Maamoon S. Rahid, though he quickly added, “We know we haven’t eliminated the threat 100 percent.”

Many Sunni tribal leaders, once openly hostile to the American presence, have formed a united front with American and Iraqi government forces against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. With the tribal leaders’ encouragement, thousands of local residents have joined the police force. About 10,000 police officers are now in Anbar, up from several thousand a year ago. During the same period, the police force here in Ramadi, the provincial capital, has grown from fewer than 200 to about 4,500, American military officials say.

There are two major changes here. First, the place is calming down and the people are happier. The second is the sudden appearance of a word that was missing in Iraq reporting for years: al`Qaeda. They've been there all this time, they've been behind the violence and strife, they've been fomenting civil war and arming, training, and assisting death squads and insurgents. The terrorist group has been active in Iraq since before President Bush was even elected. They just haven't been mentioned except tangentially with Zarqawi before he was sent to his just reward.

So what happened, what changed? Well there's two things missing in this report. First, this isn't a new development. Even as that IRIN report was filed and printed, things were getting better. Bill Roggio is one of the independent reporters like Michael Totten who has been in the area for years and reporting on what has been happening, good and bad, without any editors with a grudge or an agenda to hone. As Milblogger Major Chaz points out:

Take this quote from Roggio:

The establishment of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of tribal leaders who have vowed to hunt al-Qaeda, the beginnings of a political process in the region, and the latest recruiting drive that brought in 1,115 police recruits throughout Anbar could not take place without a U.S. military presence. While the Iraqi Army is making strides towards tactical independence, it still relies on the U.S. in this dangerous province. The tribal sheikhs and politicians understand this.

That quote almost looks like it could have come from the NYT story…..except for the fact that it was written in December of 2006. In fact, Roggio has been reporting on these developments since March of 2006.
...
While we should give reporter Kirk Semple kudos for actually traveling to Anbar to get the story, several bloggers have been on the ground consistently over the last year, and producing major stories to rival the quality of the NYT.

Make no mistake, things are still troubled there, it's just a lot better, and what's more, the Iraqi people are turning against the terrorists and death squads. They are assisting the Iraqi police, and the coalition soldiers. The reason? Primarily because of what is being called the "surge" although it has little to do with more troops on the ground. As I noted in my weekend essay on Iraq and Algiera, the "counterinsurgency" efforts are making the difference, a shift in tactics. The last sentence I quoted from the New York Times gives a hint: establishing Iraqi centers of control and civilization, working with locals for support, and turning Iraqi citizens against the bad guys. In addition, the coalition is
clearly defeating the enemy, showing strength, and demonstrating the weakness of the bad guys, as the Times continues on:

At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan.

This is all good, they are finally covering what they ought to have years ago and what you should have known if you were reading reporters on the ground in the area rather than writers who either get their tips from terrorist-paid informants in Baghdad hotels or in the US writing stories that terrorist-sympathizing local "stringers" send them. Commenters at JustOneMinute Typepad analyzed this story in the light of Tom MaGuire's analysis that one political party at least loses when things go well in Iraq (and they don't use an Elephant for their symbol):

The Times have to print something. More and more good news is coming out of this area. Of course, they have damned the surge with faint praise. They still have to print that we are still losing in Iraq even with these wins. They have to say the wins are fragile and shaky at best. But in order not to entirely lose their credibility they have to print something.
-by Barbara S


What is forgotten out in Anbar is that not all of the tribes were loyal to Ba'athists or Saddam, and were treated just like anyone else the tyrant didn't like: they were targeted for special treatment by the various secret police organizations. Last AUG-SEP the tribes formed their own coalition and shifted to government allegiance in Anbar and that winning over of the tribes (25 of 31 locally) started the influx of Sunni Arabs into local police and the New Iraqi Army. Additionally the tribes agreed to slowly integrate their existing militias until better forces could take over for them. Looking across the spectrum of Iraq one sees a mosaic theme arising of how little trust the local people have in *any* government due to the level of terror and death inflicted on them over the decades of Saddam and Ba'athist rule before him. Even under Saddam Falluja was considered to be a relatively lawless place and US Forces coming in saw that the most reliable, trustworthy unit of government was the *family* not necessarily the *tribe*. Any one who has lived in any Nation on the planet that has some basic government that is quasi-reliable will not see that. Even repressive regimes get a bit of tempering out in regions far from direct control across the Middle East and Africa. What it takes to so play tribes against each other that families inside them no longer give them full trust is a long-term attack on civil society.

Even where the tribes have remained in relatively good standing, like Ramadi, the MNF-I could not do more than basic garrison there for years and only late last year did that change. The slow turn of Ramadi and the day-in, day-out of retaking neighborhoods from al Qaeda is slow, but with help from Iraqi Army and Security Forces this has happened to the point where re-opening factories will start this year and actual *employment* begin. As factories depend upon supply chains and infrastructure for water, sewer and electrical services, that means they are also coming along. Still the distrust in places like Ramadi is one where they have actually trusted the Iraqi Army *more* than neighboring city's police forces. That, too, is a telling sign of long term social structure decay that was specifically done by the previous regime.

For those wondering why the older styles of counter-insurgency were not done, that single underlying reason of no *trust* in any government structure is it. The 'oil drop' concept, even in Nations that have a reliable government and some small amount of trust have problems, long term, with quelling insurgencies. To this day in South and Central America, parts of Africa and Asia there are still ongoing, low level insurgencies that have been going on for decades with the occasional bomb blast, assassination and general terror attack on governments and civil organs of government.

From two on-the-ground sources we get that direct view that the Ba'athist regime did not stay around to be held accountable but disintegrated. Both John Burns and Michael Ware have stated as much after spending years talking with folks on the ground in various parts of Iraq. As all the pre-war plans counted on there being something left of the Ba'athist regime they all failed in the non-presence of it post-conflict. The dismissal of the regime was not a sending home of anyone, but a recognition of there was no one there in power *to* send home. Even if we had more than a few weeks of reliable HUMINT, this would not have been expected as those Nations *with* reliable HUMINT did not warn us about the frailty of Iraqi society.

In the West we assume much about society, continuity of government and basic understanding of why even awful government needs to be kept around to prevent anarchy. Saddam's regime removed that as a viable basis for any post-war work and had spent decades at just that work attacking the next most reliable form of trustworthy government: the tribes.

How long does it take to establish that level of trust for basic services that are *not* used as a cudgel against people within a society? A decade? Two? A generation? Two? Three? That can and must be done, primarily by Iraqis, but they are pointing out that their indigenous forces are still only about half-strength at this point in time. Out of all the Provinces Iraqis completely control 3 of them, and the rest are held under Iraqi command but via MNF-I control, with a couple of them, like Anbar, still uncontrolled.

The tribes stepping up to the plate is a matter of their placing trust in their government and the MNF-I. They have had first-hand experience with an Iraqi Army that actually *helps them* and *defends them* and finds ways for society to be knit back together. Yes, Sunni tribes in Ramadi and Falluja trust Shia members of the IA and ISF! That is not a country heading towards sectarian 'civil war', but one with externally funded and employed insurgencies infiltrating men, arms and cash to undermine what is being built. This is a grave threat to extremist sectarian groups across the Middle East and is forcing them to coalesce to counter this.

That is what one party in the US wishes to abandon: common civil government held in common by a people of a Nation of all ethnicities and all religions. Run away from that and you run away from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648... the basis for Nation States to allow people within Nations to have separate outlooks in religion. It took hundreds of thousands, millions, dead in Europe due to religious wars to establish that. 15-20% of the population base in the 30 years war *separate* from plagues, although that sure did not help. That is Western Civilization having found accommodation of religion separate from Nation. Enemies who target that are striking at the underlying foundation of Nations to have democracy, to have liberty separate from religion of the State.

A very strange thing to retreat *from*.

Not protecting it can expect to see decades like the 30 years war on a global basis. If you think a car bomb or two a day is hard, imagine the scale of violence that will remove 15-20% of the present day global population over the next 30 to 100 years. And no assurances that Nation States as a concept will survive. Our Enemy opens up that pre-1648 world and is slowly taking out those old concepts and dusting them off. They like that idea of Religion over all of Mankind.

And it is no help that some folks want to prop the time vault door open and point out the best ways to bring down Nations or just cheer them on. A lacking in a basic survival instinct, that... how unfortunate that they are the woolly, gelatinous, spineless masses sitting Upon the Hill and at the levers of government.
-by ajacksonian




I think the real frustration here is the total lack of fight left in President Bush. He has many opportunities to take on his domestic enemies. For instance, after Pelosi's disastrous trip to Syria, he could have sent a team of diplomats to "repair the damage". Put those fools on the defensive for a change. He's just not in the game.

I hope he vetoes the bill with a group of Silver Star recipients in the background.

His communication skills have gotten worse, not better. Heck, even little Jessica Lynch has improved her communication skills. She performed well at Waxman's show trial.

Bush's performance last week with the Japanese Prime Minister was a disaster.
-by Kate


I'm not sure what the President can do to affect public perception. His use of the bully pulpit is obvioulsy less than optimal, but the media response (focusing on minutiae, airing opposing views after each event, and questioning every assertion) is far more effective at opinion shaping.

The media myths are more persistent than reality. For example, check out yesterday's Truth: first casualty of Iraq, which hits all the bases:

* No WMDs or programs were found;
* Wilson debunked the Nigieren forgeries;
* The forgeries formed the basis for the uranium claims;
* The WMD assessment was based almost entirely on "Curveball" and stovepiped intel from Chalabi.

If you look at the amount of Administration time and effort that went into debunking these contentions--including declassification of the NIE, public statements from the CIA chief that Wilson's report never mentioned documents at all--you can see it's a losing proposition. In fact, far from proving the main points that the consensus of the intel community supported Administration claims, minor caveats were trotted out as further evidence of duplicitousness. The bottom line is that the media runs the story, and if they insist on lying about it, they can.
-by Cecil Turner

The problem is with the NYT story, as encouraging as it is to see... there's almost no mention of the surge or the change in tactics at all in this report. Matthew at Live Journal explains:

Huh! Well, it's certainly nice that the Iraqis are starting to take an active interest in their own survival, that's for sure. But surely the 'surge' has played some role in it, right? A quick ctrl-F, search for 'surge', and we find...

...nothing. That's right, the surge doesn't exist. It's not that they claim it's had no effect, it doesn't exist. The closest the Times comes to acknowledging any effort by the United States to improve things is the barest of passing mentions:

At the same time, American and Iraqi forces have been conducting sweeps of insurgent strongholds, particularly in and around Ramadi, leaving behind a network of police stations and military garrisons, a strategy that is also being used in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, as part of its new security plan.

The legacy media is in kind of a bind. They want to keep portraying Iraq as a miserable failure and avoid the good stuff, but at the same time, if it keeps getting better there it might not end up so awful and the Democrats can't take credit for a win if they don't get media help. So what to do? Matthew believes he has the answer: pretend the Iraqis themselves did it, so the military surge was worthless and indeed it might have even gotten in the way.

That military wasn't the answer, and President Bush's cowboy rush to violence was the cause of, not the solution to the problems. I don't know, I doubt the media is that coordinated or thinks that far ahead. I believe they are primarily driven by a desire for money, and their present situation is bad and getting worse in terms of circulation and advertising dollars. I also think that people willing to get fresh news out of Iraq are met with interest by publishers because it's a story that has gone somewhat stale but sells papers.

We'll see how all this plays out but I suspect by 2008 we'll see yet another turnaround by many of the Democrats who are crying failure, loss, and surrender right now.

Iraq, Surge,News Media