[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
to a level in which the political reconciliation identi9 ed by Baker-Hamil-
ton could take place. Moreover, Kagan and Keane emphasized that this
was not a quick 9 x strategy: due to the high level of violence and the
logistical requirements to move new forces to theater and reposition
them out among the population, it would require at least 18 months be-
fore the results materialized.37 Finally, General David Petraeus, the
charismatic leader who had written his dissertation on counterinsur-
gency and had just completed the redrafting of the new counterinsur-
gency doctrine, was given the command.
Doctrinal Foundation for Implementation of the Surge
In the fall of 2005, over two and a half years into the struggle to stabilize
Iraq, General Petraeus had partnered with Marine Corps general James
35. Baker and Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report.
36. Baker and Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report, 51.
37. Fred Kagan and Jack Keane, The Right Type of Surge : Any Troop Increase Must
Be Large and Lasting, Washington Post, December 27, 2007.
178 " lifting the fog of peace
Mattis to lead a yearlong effort to rewrite the Army and Marine Corps
counterinsurgency 9 eld manual (FM 3-24). This new doctrine drew
heavily on their own experiences and on historical case studies and
best practices of past counterinsurgencies. The 9 nal draft of the man-
ual was published in the fall of 2006, but previous drafts had been dis-
tributed liberally via email throughout the writing and editing process,
contributing to the bottom-up learning process among troops at various
levels.38
The manual s popularity resulted in the University of Chicago Press
publishing it in the spring of 2007 with a new introduction by Sarah Se-
wall, the director for the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard s
Kennedy School and a Clinton-era former deputy assistant secretary of
defense for humanitarian operations and peacekeeping. In this thought-
provoking essay, the human rights expert discussed how much of a radi-
cal departure this new doctrine is for the conventional military: The
counterinsurgency 9 eld manual challenges all that is holy about the
American way of war . . . Those who fail to see the manual as radical prob-
ably don t understand it, or at least don t understand what it is up
against. 39
To help him implement this radical approach during the Surge,
General Petraeus deployed with an inner circle of advisers comprised of
key military and civilian COIN experts from government as well as aca-
demia.40 This group included Ambassador Robert Ford from the State
Department; Derek Harvey, a civilian intelligence analyst and former
Army of9 cer; Dr. David Kilcullen, a civilian counterterrorism of9 cial and
former Australian Army infantry of9 cer; Colonel Peter Mansoor, a for-
mer brigade commander and military historian; Colonel H. R. McMas-
ter, whose record as a brigade commander in Tal Afar, Iraq, the previous
year was considered a model for counterinsurgency in practice; and
Colonel Mike Meese, a professor at West Point who served with Petraeus
in Mosul.41 In addition, scholars such as Dr. Steve Biddle from the Coun-
cil on Foreign Relations and Toby Dodge from King s College were also
invited to participate in the initial assessment. Many of these scholars,
38. John Nagl, foreword to University of Chicago Press edition, The U.S. Army/Marine
Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007).
39. Sarah Sewall, introduction to University of Chicago Press edition, The U.S.
Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2007).
40. Thomas Ricks, Of9 cers with PhDs Advising War Effort, Washington Post, February
5, 2007.
41. Packer, The Lesson of Tal Afar.
Learning to Surge in Iraq " 179
soldiers, and civilian practitioners had also helped craft the COIN man-
ual the previous year and shared General Petraeus s frustration with the
Iraq strategy to date. Together they turned a 50-page idea from a think
tank into a real operational strategy, including new tactics and com-
mander s guidance.42
The Surge strategy meant a signi9 cant shift in focus for coalition
troops on the ground. As the letter titled Counterinsurgency Guidance
issued by the American ground commander Lieutenant General Ray-
mond Odierno (and also published and distributed in Arabic) made
perfectly clear, their primary role would now be to secure the people
where they sleep. 43 Instead of retreating into a smaller and smaller
number of large forward operating bases (FOBs) in order to reduce the
U.S. footprint and turn the task of security over to inexperienced Iraqi
security forces, U.S. troops would now be moved off of these uber-
FOBs (as they had come to be called) into numerous smaller outposts
deployed among the residential population all over Baghdad. General
Petraeus s chief counterinsurgency advisor, Dr. David Kilcullen, ex-
plained the rationale for the shift in strategy in a popular online blog
post in January 2007.
The new strategy re: ects counterinsurgency best practice as demon-
strated over dozens of campaigns in the last several decades: enemy-
centric approaches that focus on the enemy, assuming that killing in-
surgents is the key task, rarely succeed. Population-centric approaches,
that center on protecting local people and gaining their support, suc-
ceed more often. The extra forces are needed because a residential,
population-centric strategy demands enough troops per city block to
provide real and immediate security.44
This best practice was also re: ected clearly, and not incidentally, in
the counterinsurgency 9 eld manual (FM 3-24) discussed above. Thus
the choice of General Petraeus to lead the Surge was signi9 cant, as he
represented a group of military of9 cers and academics who had been
pushing for a new, more counterinsurgency-focused approach to the
42. Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a
Way Out of Iraq (Public Affairs, 2008).
43. Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, Commander, Multi-National Corps, Iraq,
Counterinsurgency Guidance (letter issued to Coalition troops in Baghdad, Multina-
tional Corps Iraq [MNC-I], June 16, 2007).
44. David Kilcullen, Don t Confuse the Surge with the Strategy, Small Wars Journal
blog, January 19, 2007, http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/01/dont-confuse-the-
surge-with-th/.
180 " lifting the fog of peace
con: ict in Iraq.45 The question was, would it work, or was it simply too
late politically and otherwise to make these changes? Had time run out
on the Washington clock, or would Congress and the American people
give Petraeus a chance?
Assessing the Surge
The primary objective of the Surge was to get the skyrocketing violence
under control so that the Iraqis could focus on the political process. Vi-
olence in this context meant not only attacks on coalition forces, which
heretofore had been the primary metric routinely tracked by U.S. forces,
but also violence among the Iraqi population, which had reached alarm-
ing rates and included gruesome acts of slaughter and torture by the
summer of 2006. The fact that U.S. commanders had begun to recog-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
