“They’re gonna see us going out, and know that we have to come back this way,” Captain Glenn Helberg cautioned his men. We were walking out of combat outpost Courage, northwest of Baghdad, just before nightfall. The message was simple: the enemy studies habits, trends, and patterns just as any other military outfit does; so as the platoon left the base, Helberg wanted to make sure that his men were not complacent on the way back in.
It was a hell of a way to walk to a neighbor’s house for dinner, but that was just what we were doing on this cold, clear January night. Sheik Munder, a prominent Shia in the area, had invited the captain over for dinner, and despite the fact that his house was less than a mile from the patrol base, we would be walking across open road, with flat, open land on either side, so every precaution would be taken. This rural area had been an al Qaeda stronghold until just a few months ago, before the Sons of Iraq—groups of local men paid $300 a month to man checkpoints and keep security in their area—came out in force. Given that some of these men are the same ones who were planting IEDs last year, American commanders are taking nothing for granted.
There is still plenty of daily combat going on—especially in the major remaining al Qaeda strongholds up north near Mosul, in the central “breadbasket” of Diyala, and south of Baghdad in Arab Jabour—but peaceful meetings like this are just as common. COIN strategy places a premium on what has been called the “strategic corporal,” soldiers who have to think like a infantryman, act like a diplomat, and be able to change from one to the other on the fly. This is how the game is being played in the new, relative quiet of Iraq—especially in areas where despite the lull in daily violence, the war is still far from over.
In 1999, Marine general Charles C. Krulak wrote of the “three-block war” where soldiers in irregular conflicts “will be confronted by the entire spectrum of tactical challenges in the span of a few hours and, potentially, within the space of three contiguous city blocks.” Most importantly for regions like the area around COP Courage, where the Iraqi national government is little more than a rumor, “the individual [American service member] will be the most conspicuous symbol of American foreign policy. His or her actions may not only influence the immediate tactical situation, but have operational and strategic implications as well.”
At heart, much of this work is done by cultivating relationships—showing the Iraqis that American soldiers are strong, but fair, and that they’re an honest broker in a country rife with corruption, double-dealing, and a government seen by most Sunnis as being sectarian at best, a tool of Shia Iran bent on violently subjugating the Sunni minority at worst.
Part of this relationship building is figuring out who the power players are in any given region. The term “sheik,” I discovered, has become one of the more overused terms in Iraq. Once the “awakening” movement started in Anbar in 2006, and then moved through different parts of the country in 2007, Iraqis began popping up, assuring the Americans that they were “sheiks.” Add the fact that Charlie company is new to the area, and “a lot of guys are coming out of the woodwork trying to assert themselves saying, ‘hey I’m a sheik, I’m in charge of this whole town,’ so you have to weigh that with what the old units told us about that guy operates,” Helberg told me as we walked to Munder’s house. Apparently, sheik Munder made the cut.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post - From the Front: 02/22/2008 - News and Personal dispatches from the front lines.
http://thunderrun.blogspot.com/2008/02/from-front-02222008.html
Posted by: David M | February 22, 2008 at 08:58 AM