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| Iraq |
| Bing West: Iraq Trip Report: 2 – 29 April 2007 |
| 2007-05-04 |
| Do take some time this weekend to read this report. Conclusion: 18. Standing back. From this trip, five variables struck me. 1. The sense of momentum that the surge strategy and leadership have infused into the effort. 2. The biggest challenge is at the top level of the Iraqi government, to include the National Assembly. It is very uncertain whether the higher ranks of the Iraqis can rise above the concept that seniority means privilege and can compromise with the Sunnis, when past oppression has been so real and pervasive. If the top persists in passive or active anti-Sunni manifestations, the effort is doomed. 3. The persistence of the murder and intimidation campaign. An increase in the number and the certainty of imprisonments is needed. More broadly, given that in Fallujah and elsewhere the numbers of Iraqi forces have not been enough in themselves, a police-based strategy is needed for rooting out the assassins. The root of the dilemma is the American insistence upon strict rules of law that are foreign to the Iraqi culture and have not been supplemented by American detective methods as a substitute for the old Iraqi way of doing business. 4. The vast distances versus the modest mobility and sustainability of Iraqi forces favor the mobile insurgent. An identification system - not episodic gestures - is imperative. That way, the mobility and anonymity of the insurgents are limited. Identification, though, also means trust in the ministries of government - a problematic assumption. 5. AQI must be beaten psychologically. Both JAM and AQI prey on the weak. They don't fight each other or the Iraqi army. The Iraqis in Special Forces units scorn the AQI and literally chase them down during night raids. The jundi don't express any particular fear of them. Yet AQI has a mystique of ferocity among the people, too many of whom believe AQI zealotry will overwhelm the Iraqi security forces. The Iraqi Army must break that mystique by picking fights, by venturing into areas like the Zidon, by publicly mocking and humiliating the AQI and by smashing it. |
| Posted by:Sherry |
| #4 they don't get it |
| Posted by: sinse 2007-05-04 18:53 |
| #3 Well CA, your linked piece taps right into Bing's point #2. Will the leadership get it or not? We are giving them the opportunity. I sure hope that they take it. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2007-05-04 18:33 |
| #2 This won't help matters |
| Posted by: Captain America 2007-05-04 17:29 |
| #1 The Iraqi Army must break that mystique by picking fights ! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2007-05-04 17:28 |