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| Iraq | ||
| Taking Lead, Iraqis Hope U.S. Special Operations Commandos Stay | ||
| 2011-07-04 | ||
The Americans, having spent years taking the lead on such missions, waited outside until the house was secure. The important thing, an American sergeant said after the raid was completed, is that the Iraqis took the lead on this mission. He spoke on the condition that he be identified only by rank to comply with the ground rules allowing a reporter access to an Army Special Forces unit. “They are the ones doing the dirty work,” he said. But Iraqi and American commanders worry that this crucial military legacy of the war may be at risk now that American forces are withdrawing this year under an agreement between the countries. Americans say the Iraqi special operations force, which was deliberately balanced with the country’s main sects and ethnicities, is more capable than the Iraqi Army and may be critical in preventing a resilient insurgency from exploding into a sectarian civil war. Even as few Iraqi politicians are willing to admit publicly that they need American help, Iraqi soldiers say that American troops must stay longer to continue training and advising. “The Americans need to stay because we don’t have control over our borders,” said Maj. Gen. Fadhel al-Barwari, commander of the Iraq Special Operations Force. The commandos make up a tightknit community where relationships between Iraqis and Americans are especially strong, having been nurtured over multiple deployments. In some cases the Americans here are on their eighth or ninth rotation. “Would we hope after spending eight years in this country, sharing blood, sweat and tears, dying side by side, working with each other, that we would maintain a relationship?” Col. Scott E. Brower, commander of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Arabian Peninsula, said in an interview at a base north of Baghdad. “Of course we would.” The senior Iraqi military leaders have advised Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki that some troops should stay. American officials have said they would agree to a such a request.
“Yeah, anytime a guy’s got a loaded gun and he’s going out at midnight in a helicopter, you’ve got to treat it that way,” said an American Special Forces major. Even so, he said, the risks of such work have diminished greatly. “It’s been awhile since we’ve gotten in a good firefight,” he said. As the major spoke at a picnic table in Victory Base Complex, the vast American complex near the Baghdad airport, several American helicopters took off nearby, ferrying a team of Iraqi and American Special Forces troops on their way to capture a Shiite militiaman suspected of firing rockets at an American base. On the recent nighttime raid organized to seize the two brothers, the commandos did not get their men, but they said that a vast majority of their raids ended with the capture of suspects. Shots are rarely fired. There were about six Iraqis on the mission for each American, who were dressed in the same black fatigues the Iraqis wore. After the house was secured, several team members went to the roof, where an Iraqi commando rooted through a storage bin looking for explosives, repeatedly kicking a plastic cassette player that turned out not to be an improvised explosive device. Others monitored rooftops next door for threats. Eleven family members were in the house, but not the suspects. As the relatives were questioned, several versions of the brothers’ whereabouts emerged. According to one version, they had left that afternoon. In another, they had not been in the home for a year and a half. “No bad guys tonight,” said one American soldier, a chief warrant officer. No weapons caches or explosives were found either. “Usually they don’t keep the materials in the house,” said the American chief warrant officer, who explained that they were often stored with a neighbor. “With the laws, we can’t search the neighbor’s house,” he said. American Special Operations units have been training and equipping an Iraqi counterterrorism force almost from the beginning of the war in 2003. General Barwari was made to do push-ups eight years ago by some of the Americans who still advise his unit. Today he lives in a palace once owned by Saddam Hussein, where he shares living space with peacocks, ostriches, pigeons, an alligator and two monkeys. From the palace, he directs near-nightly raids with the help of the Americans. General Barwari, whose relationship with the American military began in 1991 in northern Iraq, benefited greatly from America’s war here, and in its closing days he frets about what will become of his country without the American troops. If Americans stay, he said, “He won’t be fighting beside me, but he will give us air support.” “There are many things we don’t have knowledge about,” he added. Some of the Iraqi units remain outside the regular military chain of command, and report directly to Mr. Maliki. This has proved to be fodder for the prime minister’s critics who believe he has amassed too much power, and removing the units from his direct control was part of an American-backed power-sharing agreement last year that ended months of political stalemate after parliamentary elections. But that agreement has never been completed and is now threatening to come apart amid political discord. Mr. Maliki has yet to name ministers of defense and the interior, and the counterterrorist units remain under his control. The American Special Operations advisers worry about what will happen to their Iraqi counterparts without their American relationships — and largess, evident in the Special Operations headquarters on Victory Base. The complex, paid for with $32 million of American money, includes $2 million for an indoor training ground the commandos refer to as the “shoot house.” They note that many of the nighttime missions are carried out with American helicopters. The American government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars training and arming these forces, yet the exact amount is unknown because the military has not fully accounted for it, according to a report late last year by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which reported that only $237 million had been directly attributed to support for the Iraqi special forces. The future of the American military here is a political decision in the hands of the government of Iraq, which must formally ask to modify the security agreement to allow some troops to stay. The American “S.F. guys always believe we’ll be back,” said the American major. | ||
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 US SPECOPS "MIDNIGHT AT THE OASIS" ... versus * TOPIX, DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > TURKEY + IRAN VIE FOR CONTROL OF IRAQ. * OTOH WAFF > [US] FEMALE SPECIAL OPERATORS NOW IN COMBAT. Actually, more correct to say in rear = safe area "Cultural Support Teams" [CSTS] vee Muslim Babes, albeit in combat theater. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2011-07-04 21:58 |
| #1 an Iraqi commando rooted through a storage bin looking for explosives, repeatedly kicking a plastic cassette player that turned out not to be an improvised explosive device. Favorable conjecture is that it scared the beejezus out of him and when it turned out to be harmless he commenced smashing it.... I can dig that. but: Unfavorable Conjecture: They got a long way to go in minesweeping skillz. |
| Posted by: S 2011-07-04 07:01 |