Two days after the last of 28,000 American reinforcements had arrived in Iraq, the independent war correspondent Michael Yon e-mailed a brief dispatch, observing, "This is a very serious offensive kicking off in Iraq. ... Nobody that I am seeing realizes just how big this is." Five days later, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno explained, "We are beyond a surge of forces, and we are now into a surge of operations."
No-one would guess it from the war coverage or the pronouncements of U.S. congressmen, but what is underway is the largest Coalition offensive since the end of major combat operations in 2003. The 11th-hour operational surge, officially named Phantom Thunder, was launched without notice or fanfare, on the same day as the U.S. Armed Forces announced the troop surge complete: June 15.
Iraq being the dominant issue in American public life, the biggest offensive in four years might at least be known to the American people, not just to obsessive followers of military matters. But Phantom Thunder has had less coverage and discussion than the "DC Madam" case. War coverage reliably recounts Coalition and civilian casualties, but not enemy body counts; and whatever explosion the insurgents intended for the evening news that day, but not Coalition operations, much less Coalition successes.
Phantom Thunder is a sort of re-invasion of nearly all Iraq's trouble areas, the insurgent strongholds in Baghdad and the "Baghdad belts" stretching into four surrounding provinces. The objective is to kill, capture, or scare off the insurgents -- mainly al Qaeda in Iraq and the Shiite "Mahdi Army" militia -- and occupy their territory long after, denying them the opportunity to return. This supported by new efforts to strangle insurgent supply lines, as by closing traffic on the Tigris River and policing a double-cordon around Baghdad itself.
In past, when the Coalition has moved in, many insurgents have simply moved on. So these attacks are simultaneous, to help end the unwinnable game of insurgent "whack-a-mole," and the Iraqi Army has occupied some of the more likely destinations for insurgents on the lam.
The cutting edge in Congressional critiques of the war is the "withdraw and fight" school, which declares the policy begun in earnest only weeks ago a failure, and advances an alternative which ironically is precisely the pre-surge policy associated with former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The critics recall that policy as "gross mismanagement of the war," but proceed to endorse its principles: a "small footprint," or minimal American presence, an emphasis on training Iraqi troops, and shepherding American soldiers on bases isolated in safe areas, with limited excursions into trouble spots.
That happens to be the story of the first four years in Iraq. It made good sense as a way of limiting Western involvement and promptly passing power to the new government and Iraqi people, and it may even be a fine idea again if Iraq is successfully pacified. But four years of that very policy did not pacify Iraq, and the surge policy is a recognition of that.
Calling for training the locals at this point is a bit like saying Microsoft ought to try making operating systems. The president made training for Iraqi forces a staple of his re-election campaign three years ago, and the Coalition has done quite a lot of it, to the point that the Iraqi Army is today as large as Britain's.
And as for holding down troop levels and holing up on safe bases, that left territory effectively unoccupied, so that blocks and quarters and cities fell to the insurgents. The new policy puts American soldiers on the streets, and in greater force, to take back and hold territory, and to make the GIs a fixture in the communities.
This is Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency philosophy, drawn from French Algerian Lt. Col. David Galula, that the civilian population can never be an ally -- giving life-saving information or war-winning intelligence -- if they live in fear of the enemy. Once the people are convinced that the Coalition is serious about driving out, and keeping out, the insurgents, then the good information pours in.
There will be a draw down, both in numbers and in mission. There will have to be. The idea was never to run a protracted policing operation on sweltering foreign city streets, but to hand off to a democratic Iraqi government. All sides want a draw down, including the Administration that ordered the increased deployments and expanded operations. It was in part the Administration's desire for a homecoming once the initial mission was complete that wound up enabling the insurgency, as street-level occupation was forgone, allowing insurgents an opening.
The issue now is what is to be done before that inevitable draw down: Complete the first concerted effort to pacify Iraq in four years, or call the whole thing off before the results are even in, and let the chips fall where they may.
It just might be that the soldiers win on the ground, in one almighty push, while the press and politcal class oppose not only their deployment but their cause, and deny any prospect of victory.
Andrew W. Smith, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia
Published in The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia
No-one would guess it from the war coverage or the pronouncements of U.S. congressmen, but what is underway is the largest Coalition offensive since the end of major combat operations in 2003. The 11th-hour operational surge, officially named Phantom Thunder, was launched without notice or fanfare, on the same day as the U.S. Armed Forces announced the troop surge complete: June 15.
Iraq being the dominant issue in American public life, the biggest offensive in four years might at least be known to the American people, not just to obsessive followers of military matters. But Phantom Thunder has had less coverage and discussion than the "DC Madam" case. War coverage reliably recounts Coalition and civilian casualties, but not enemy body counts; and whatever explosion the insurgents intended for the evening news that day, but not Coalition operations, much less Coalition successes.
Phantom Thunder is a sort of re-invasion of nearly all Iraq's trouble areas, the insurgent strongholds in Baghdad and the "Baghdad belts" stretching into four surrounding provinces. The objective is to kill, capture, or scare off the insurgents -- mainly al Qaeda in Iraq and the Shiite "Mahdi Army" militia -- and occupy their territory long after, denying them the opportunity to return. This supported by new efforts to strangle insurgent supply lines, as by closing traffic on the Tigris River and policing a double-cordon around Baghdad itself.
In past, when the Coalition has moved in, many insurgents have simply moved on. So these attacks are simultaneous, to help end the unwinnable game of insurgent "whack-a-mole," and the Iraqi Army has occupied some of the more likely destinations for insurgents on the lam.
The cutting edge in Congressional critiques of the war is the "withdraw and fight" school, which declares the policy begun in earnest only weeks ago a failure, and advances an alternative which ironically is precisely the pre-surge policy associated with former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The critics recall that policy as "gross mismanagement of the war," but proceed to endorse its principles: a "small footprint," or minimal American presence, an emphasis on training Iraqi troops, and shepherding American soldiers on bases isolated in safe areas, with limited excursions into trouble spots.
That happens to be the story of the first four years in Iraq. It made good sense as a way of limiting Western involvement and promptly passing power to the new government and Iraqi people, and it may even be a fine idea again if Iraq is successfully pacified. But four years of that very policy did not pacify Iraq, and the surge policy is a recognition of that.
Calling for training the locals at this point is a bit like saying Microsoft ought to try making operating systems. The president made training for Iraqi forces a staple of his re-election campaign three years ago, and the Coalition has done quite a lot of it, to the point that the Iraqi Army is today as large as Britain's.
And as for holding down troop levels and holing up on safe bases, that left territory effectively unoccupied, so that blocks and quarters and cities fell to the insurgents. The new policy puts American soldiers on the streets, and in greater force, to take back and hold territory, and to make the GIs a fixture in the communities.
This is Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency philosophy, drawn from French Algerian Lt. Col. David Galula, that the civilian population can never be an ally -- giving life-saving information or war-winning intelligence -- if they live in fear of the enemy. Once the people are convinced that the Coalition is serious about driving out, and keeping out, the insurgents, then the good information pours in.
There will be a draw down, both in numbers and in mission. There will have to be. The idea was never to run a protracted policing operation on sweltering foreign city streets, but to hand off to a democratic Iraqi government. All sides want a draw down, including the Administration that ordered the increased deployments and expanded operations. It was in part the Administration's desire for a homecoming once the initial mission was complete that wound up enabling the insurgency, as street-level occupation was forgone, allowing insurgents an opening.
The issue now is what is to be done before that inevitable draw down: Complete the first concerted effort to pacify Iraq in four years, or call the whole thing off before the results are even in, and let the chips fall where they may.
It just might be that the soldiers win on the ground, in one almighty push, while the press and politcal class oppose not only their deployment but their cause, and deny any prospect of victory.
Andrew W. Smith, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia
Published in The Chronicle-Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia
