To wear a mask or not to wear a mask- Iraqi police conundrum

Adwar, Iraq-

Here in Saddam's old town police are everywhere. Checkpoints are set up at traffic circles and they ride around in distinctive white and blue pick ups with machine guns mounted on the back. But you don't see many walking through the community, and many are wearing masks, which doesn't seem to make sense.

At the Adwar Iraqi Police station, Staff Sgt. Virgil Langford, a reserve MP from Lake City, FL had that problem.

Langford asked the station's commander- Lieutenant Colonel Samir why one of Samir's men insisted on wearing a mask while he was out on city patrol with Lanford's team of 320th MPs from St. Petersburg, FL. Apparently the officer refused to go on patrol in his own neighborhood without wearing a mask.

"That's the thing," Lanford said, "police need to be seen, so people recognize to go to him as police."

The lieutenant colonel nodded politely.

(Staff Sgt. Langford talks to Lt. Col Samir in his office.)

"In the U.S. police aren't allowed to wear masks," said police advisor, Jeremy Austin, 33, of Rogers, AR, entering the conversation. "When the officer wears a mask it creates a barrier. It also scares people in the community because police shouldn't be afraid."

The Lt. Col. nodded his head again. All Iraqis wear masks, he said, even the terrorists.

This comment provided a knowing look from Austin. "But if IPs (Iraqi Police) wear a mask and terrorists wear a mask how are we to tell them apart?"

"But the IPs wear a uniform," the Lt. Col. retorted.

"What if the terrorists got a hold of police uniforms?"

"The IPs coming from Tikrit for the mission wore masks," the Lt. Col. said.

"When we have a big mission then it's ok to wear a mask," Langford said, "not when patrolling your own streets."

"We (Police Training Teams) are trying to get IPs across Iraq to take off their masks," Austin said, "so they'll be a part of the community and the community will tell them where the bad guys are so they won't have to wear a mask."

Lt. Col. Sammir seemed to agree, but there was no sense that anything would change immediately. He then moved on to asking about more fuel for his police patrols and a tire on his truck that needed to be fixed.

Staff Sgt. Langford promised to help if he submitted the paper work. More of the same give and take in Iraq. "You need to have a solution, or they don't listen to your problem," said Austin, who's been an officer for seven years and training the IP in Iraq for six months.

The police like other institutions suffer from a lack of supplies and are slowed by cultural norms that lie just below the surface. The MPs and PTT teams control the distribution of salaries to Iraqi police officers in their district as a way to root out "ghost" police contracts, but they don't have full visibility, and with the language barriers, probably never will.

Not that things aren't improving. The now peaceful village of Abu Dalaf a few miles from Adwar, had its police station entirely destroyed by a vehicle-born IED a few rotations back. Now the police major even had the time to hand paint the top of the town's mosque.

As for the mask problem, Sgt. Langford, who's an officer in Lake City said, "They're afraid to be seen with the coalition. Bad guys will see their face and kill them or threaten their family."

"Back in the states you don't have to worry about guys coming to kill their families," Austin added, "but if these guys were proactive as officers it wouldn't happen."

Sergeant Brett Livingston, 27, of the 320th MPs said that an Iraqi Police major asked him if he would take off his body armor and leave his rifle to walk around the streets of a nearby apartment community of Mujama with him.

Think what it would mean to the community, the major told Livingston. You would be wearing the same as I wear. Livingston thought it was a good idea, of course his higher command did not and prohibited it.

But the point is the wearing of "masks" goes both ways. U.S. soldiers practically look like armored robots in all their gear.

Livingston said the MPs who are almost all cops back in the states, understand their job is at least 50 percent counselor and community outreach. But this isn't their community.

They then realized that instead of giving candy to kids in the streets, they should give the candy to the Iraqi Police to give to the kids.

You should have seen the smiles, Livingston said.

Of the kids?

No, of the Iraqi Policemen after they gave it out.

Local task force trained by 1/327th infantry kicks in doors on insurgents in Adwar

Adwar, Iraq-

The Iraqis just got their uniforms fresh out of the bag. They tried on their new boots and their Marine surplus uniforms. By the time they received their almost full AK-47 magazines, yesterday's rag tag group was transformed into something resembling a cohesive force.

"This should give them the confidence that they've been trained by the best Army in the world," said Spc. Mark Mahurin, commenting they only had 60 days to mold the force.

Now it was test time.

Soldiers from 2nd Platoon of Charlie Co. led them out to an Iraqi Police checkpoint where they quickly integrated with the blue-uniformed police and began searching cars- basically checking for weapons and comparing male IDs with a list of wanted insurgents in the area.

Hetham Salim Nada, Captain of the new task force said the joint patrols are good for his new soldiers. Salim Nada said he understands the Iraqis, they need a strong man and that he has a lot of experience.

"Yeah, like shooting at us last time?" Staff Sgt. Timothy Griffin asked, half joking.

But Staff Sgt. Griffin wanted to make sure the new soldiers learned his way. He demanded that the U.S.-trained force stop every car. There has been problems with the Iraqi Police only stopping who they want to stop, and letting those with the same tribal loyalties go through unchecked.

Then it was onto the city of Adwar, which had been relatively quiet in recent weeks, but as Spc. Matt Groover, 20, of Knoxville TN, said, "We try not to stay in Adwar too long on patrols." Groover who just returned from his R-n-R leave a few days ago said before he left they had found some propane tanks rigged for bombs.

Groover's warning proved prescient. As soon as the police trucks and accompanying U.S. vehicles hit the city a pineapple grenade was tossed over a courtyard and exploded. Thankfully it was wildly off target. It takes a lot more accuracy and firepower to put a dent in a U.S. MRAP. But now the Iraqis had a prime opportunity to put into action their "stack training" which they practiced the day before at Patrol Base Woodcock.

"I want to see how they do this," said Staff Sgt. Griffin laying down a challenge, "I'll tell you what, the CLCs (Concerned Local Citizens), your trainings over with if you get this guy today."

Intelligence began coming in over the radios that a known cell leader may have recently passed through a checkpoint. The Americans gave the Iraqis his name. Fortunately, as locals they knew right where his house was.

Or thought they knew. Or maybe he had a few safe houses. As soon as they dismounted from the backs of their pick up trucks they were running through alleyways and lining up against the cinderblock walls better than they looked during training. Probably because it was real.

"Bam", several courtyard gates caved in to the force of their new boots and the Iraqis were through, while their partners rushed in from another side. They cleared about 30 houses, according to Staff Sgt. Griffin and couldn't find the cell leader. Typical, since the known insurgent probably has plenty of signs that the armored calvary was looking for him. An "early warning network," Capt. Gacheru, commander of 1st/327th, called it. Kind of like look outs for dealers in the hood, although a poor analogy.

They didn't catch anyone, but chalk it up to a passing grade. "That's why we're trying to bring in a small group we can trust, cause you can't do the whole (Iraqi Police) force," Gacheru said. "It's too corrupted. That's why they're a combat multiplier for us."

Small force, but multiplied by good training and even more, the potential for loyalty. At the end of the day Staff Sgt. Griffin told Captain Salim Nada, call me when you get any word on this guy.

"It'll take a couple of days to find out who did it," Griffin said.

"I love being over here man," 'Cold Steel' making a difference

(Spc. Matt Heckman (left), of Rochester NY, on his third tour and Spc. Mike Brown, of Penn Valley, CA, on his second tour with an Iraqi Policemen before the joint sweep through the eastern desert.)

Patrol Base Woodcock-
They live inside the serpentine halls of an old factory that used to make communications equipment for the Iraqi Army. The Soldiers of Charlie 1st/327th Infantry Regiment of the 1st/101st Airborne are so used to the power going off, every 20 minutes or so, they don't flinch when the lights go dead.

Their area of operation, the city of Adwar, ten minutes south of Tikrit is famous for being the town where Saddam was pulled from his spider hole without firing a shot.

Now Charlie company of the 1st/327th, or 'Cold Steel' as they call themselves do more work to boost local Iraqi police and CLC checkpoints than shooting it out with the Ba'athists who used to control this area and lived in opulent houses along the Tigris.

On Monday night, 39 soldiers from 2nd platoon rolled out into the early morning darkness as part of a larger Iraqi Police mission to search the vast tracts of eastern desert where insurgents are reported to be hiding out.

"I love being over here man," Specialist Mark Mahurin, 21, of Fayetteville NC, said while gearing up for his 12-hour job as an MRAP turret gunner, "I mean it sucks, but I love it."

That's pretty much how the mission went. After the excitement of seeing scores of the white and blue Iraqi Police pickups and possibly 150 coalition and Iraqi forces, including other elements of 1st brigade of the 101st stationed in Tikrit, coming together, the drive into the desert and the night and early morning hours turned into a long waiting game, as the Iraqis zoomed ahead with their sources who were providing specific locations on insurgents.

It was their mission, that was the word. Probably the first mission in which Charlie company wasn't called to dismount to support the police in clearing houses. But there might have been other reasons. One, the Iraqi police chiefs tend to deviate from the set plan. Instead of performing a combined sweep of the whole area, they went to a series of houses where the source said there were insurgents.

Also, the Iraqi Police tend to be a little trigger happy out in the open, and U.S. commanders were wary of their soldiers getting clipped, said Staff Sgt. Timothy Griffin of Way Cross, GA.

"These missions are us acting as enablers and support," said Captain Michael Gacheru, 30, of Evanston, IL, Cold Steel commander, who admitted that seven suspects were detained but some were relatives of the targets. "It was a good plan, but the intelligence wasn't that good," Gacheru said.
(Capt. Gacheru modeling the correct push up for the new Iraqi force.)

That's how it goes sometimes. Two days later Capt. Gacheru and Staff Sgt. Griffin were out training a group of Iraqi Police to form a special unit that will be doing similar operations to the one two nights before. But this time the 1st/327th will train them.

The rag-tag group, a mix of veterans and extremely young looking guys in patch work soccer warm ups, didn't lack for effort. They went through the runs and chin ups albeit awkwardly and they responded to Sgt. Griffin's teams exact modeling on how to do a four-man stack to enter a room on a raid. "The hardest thing is to get them to work as a team," he said.

"They pick up real quick, but sometimes they have problems," Spc. Mahurin said, "They like to argue. But it's a good thing we're training them. Maybe it will pick up their confidence a little bit, move us closer to pulling out."

Staff Sgt. Griffin made a speech to the Iraqi group, "Clearing rooms will be your mission from now on." He warned that in the eastern desert Al Qaeda is known for detonating their suicide vests when they surrender.

More than anything Griffin emphasized how to treat detainees. Apparently on the big clearing mission two nights before, one of the Iraqi Police was caught roughing up an insurgent suspect.

"If you beat someon in Adwar and he doesn't have a weapon, you're setting a bad example to the people. You have to start winning their respect," Griffin said. "If I see it, that individual will be arrested by the Iraqi Police. You're just as wrong as the ones you were shooting at."

Chicken feed and city council, working civil affairs in Iraq

Tikrit, Iraq-
From checking in on chicken farmers to city councilmen, it takes a lot of patience to work on a Civil Affairs team in Iraq these days, more so because there are signs of progress.

Captain Carlstein Lutchmedial, originally from Trinidad, asks a ton of questions. When the village catfish farmer tells him he only has a thousand fish in his pond at one time, Lutchmedial asks why he can’t breed more. When the water plant operator says he needs more gas to keep the generators going, Lutchmedial asks how much more he needs. When Tikrit city council members say they want a new clinic, Lutchmedial asks them to recall what happened to the last clinic. He asks about rent, cost of living, fuel and jots their answers down in his green book.

The Captain has learned that Iraqis have to invest their own time and money to keep things working here. It's easy for Iraqis to view US forces as a free bank that can shell out endless amounts of money for projects, and US officers are wary of creating a culture of dependency and waste, which probably already existed under Saddam.

The locals always seem to say they need more, understandable when unemployment hovers at 20-30 percent across the country and GDP lies somewhere under $3,600 per person. The larger US bases must seem like lifestyles of the rich and famous to Iraqis who never venture inside. But Iraqis are far from helpless.

After a farmer told Lutchmedial he couldn’t raise more than a 1,000 fish at a time because of feed costs, he admitted that he had 5,000 chickens out back. A man who runs a power plant, said he needed more gas, but admitted he also gets an allotment from the Iraqi government, Lutchmedial said. “Sometimes they hoard gas.”

At Tikrit city council, Lutchmedial tells me that the Americans role is to observe the Iraqi process. “But as you can tell everyone runs up to us for project claims.” He is immediately swarmed by men looking for contracts. Civil affairs recently invested $100,000 in a water project.

“We were there and the sheiks said it needs more work,” Lutchmedial said. “To us it was pretty good. We need to verify.”

(Capt Lutchmedial listening at Tikrit city council.)

“Whatever we come up with, we submit to higher (command), and whatever we do, Iraqis have to come in on,” said Sergeant First Class Dan Benedict, who also worked a Civil Affairs mission during his previous deployment to Iraq. “Now Iraqis are more receptive,” Benedict said. “There was a lot of running and gunning back then.”

At city council on Sunday, several sheik-looking councilmen began the ad-hoc session with long speeches exhorting the Americans for more help to build an outlying clinic. “We desperately need a clinic and there are too many checkpoints, a person is already dead by the time he gets to Tikrit,” one of the men said.

“Is this a complaint session or we’re her to observe?” Lutchmedial asked.

“Before we can help, we need to see work through the Iraqi system,” said Lisa Bachiller who works on the State Department-funded Provincial Reconstruction Team.

“You are the masters of the world here…”another council member said to the Americans, and began again on the clinic.

(Sgt. 1st Class Dan Benedict aims a sling shot an Iraqi boy presented to him in an outlying village.)

Sgt. First Class Benedict is suspicious. “They have the money, they just want us to spend it.” He said that two years ago the US funded a good-sized clinic, but months later the Iraqis said they still didn’t know how to use the X-ray machine. When US forces went out there to help, they saw the machine’s components hadn’t been unpacked yet. “They don’t maintain their stuff,” Benedict said, “They expect us to do it.”

“There’s 20-something city council members,” Capt Lutchmedial said across the smoky room, “There’s only a couple here. Where’s the health council, so we can have a meaningful discussion? There needs to be a commitment of all city council members. This is their show.”

“We think maybe they’re having that meeting just for us,” said Lt. Matthew Podolack of the 1st/101st STB, who works with Capt. Lutchmedial, implying that the meeting might be a way for Iraqis to funnel their bids for American funds and that the actual "Tikrit city council" meeting might take place behind closed doors.

If you take the chairman aside and talk to him one-on-one, he’s usually more open, said Captain John Gabriel, also of the 1st/101st STB who helped train Iraqi Army officers on his last deployment. You try not to poke them in front of others, or they might say yes or no to any decision.

Still for all the frustrations and spinning of wheels, Lt. Podolack said that Civil Affairs is making ground in this area which seats the provinicial capital.

“Capt. Lutchmedial, he’s got the contracts going. He turned the water project around. The brick and trash project are 75 percent there. He’s got contractors emailing him their reports. He stays on them. A lot of times it’s the follow up, so we don’t spend money on the same project,” Podolack said.

To Indiana Guardsmen and families,

Dear Hoosiers,

I've appreciated the tremendous oppotunity to cover your soldiers. They've been nothing but professional and courageous, as well as extremely media-friendly.

I'll be covering other field units for the next month or so, in order to get a broader view of the situation on the ground in Iraq. Exciting changes are happening that may very well change the course of America's five-year investment here.

I'll be traveling through areas of Tikrit, Bayji, Samarra- key cities with long histories of Sunni insurgency, but through improvements in Iraqi security forces and innovation in how the US forces work with local government and everyday Iraqis, the corner may be turning.

I plan on doing the best I can to cover Indiana soldiers along the way. It should be a good ride.

best,
Jim Foley

Over 140 Iraqis lay down arms in Balad

(Men waiting to reconcile outside the doors of Forward Operating base Palawoda, near the city of Balad.)

Balad, Iraq-

Key tribal leaders ended their standoff with U.S. and Iraqi forces by bringing in men from their areas who have insurgent histories.

The commander of 1st Squad/32nd Cavalry Regiment of 1st/101st ABN, who control security around Balad, had previously set deadlines for known insurgents to reconcile by. Reconciliation is a process in which insurgents meet with US and Iraqi forces to officially lay down their arms in exchange for some amnesty.

Much of this is based on relationships. Local sheiks and militia spread the word that time is running out. Of course, when the Airborne backs up the "or else" with raids that kill or capture high-value targets, that could be called an incentive.

Thursday at a small base just outside of Balad, there must have been plenty of incentives.

Apparently, operations conducted by 1st Squad/32nd Calvary Regiment recently killed three key insurgents in the area. The next day seven "high value individuals" with close ties to the insurgents volunteered to turn themsevles in. Over the next two days 140 men came pouring in to surrender.

"We are tired of fighting and want peace," one sheik taking part said, according to a military press release.

(Iraqis line up to receive refreshments while they wait to meet with coalition and Iraqi forces.)

According to the Army, the reconciliation process begins with the wanted man contacting coalition and Iraqi security forces to enter the process; a meeting is then scheduled. The individual who is reconciling is informed of his status depending on his record.

Each individual is informed up front of the conditions associated with their reconciliation, Army sources said. They have to sign a cease-fire agreement. If the man has an outstanding warrant, a court date is scheduled through the Joint Command Center to face an Iraqi Judge.

If he misses the court date, he forfeits his status and is put back on the active target list for detainment.

"People who reconcile must be treated fairly. If others see that those reconciling are treated fairly, then they will come in, the process will work, and reconciliation will have been responsible for bringing peace for this Qada (County)", said Lt. Col Richard McCarthy of 1st Squadron/32nd Cavalry Regiment of the 1st/101st Airborne Division.

Balad, a city of 120,000 up the Tigris River from Baghdad, lies less than 15 miles from Logistics Support Area Anaconda, the largest U.S. military base in Iraq. Balad was the site of well-publicized sectarian bloodshed in 2006. More than 100 Sunni and Shia killed each other here after the Samarra mosque bombing.

"The place used to be a flashpoint for Sunni and Shite," said Major Tussey of the 1st Brigade/ 101st Airborne Division. "The relationships the 32nd Cav developed over two to three months, starting in January to this point is a great success story."

"We gave them the opportunity," Tussey said. "Day one, day two, day three, hundreds. The (1st/32nd Cav) had the relationship with the leaders. They made the sheiks part of the solution," Tussey said, confirming it was the largest mass reconciliation since the 1st/101st has been in theater, which is a little over eight months.

But the deadly effectiveness of air assault operations on black listed targets, including one that led to 22 detainees last month, also must have influenced the Balad reconciliations. This latest is significant for its size, and the number of high-value targets. Perhaps it is the turning point here.

This is cordon and knock in Tikrit

Tikrit, Iraq-
This is a cordon-and-knock in Tikrit, Sadaam’s old hometown and ironically the same kind of technique that led to his capture some miles away.

Also known as cordon-and-search, soldiers enter houses in urban areas to search for weapon caches or high-value targets. But the typical cordon-and-knock operation seems to have adapted as the violence here has lulled. It's a far cry from the bang-down, drag-out it was even a few months ago, even though raids still happen.

But tonight it's more like the Army’s version of meet and greet. Alpha Company STB of the 1/101st are old hands at this.

They strolled out of their armored Humvees into the tight city streets and greeted neighborhood men smoking and chatting on corners. Interpreters offered greetings and the party was let in like it was a normal house visit.

Clearly the locals are used to seeing US soldiers acting in this capacity- a combination of cop and community organizer.

Just last week Alpha company of Special Troops Battalion, 1st BCT of the 101st ABN, captured three targeted insurgents, and yesterday there was an IED blast a few streets over, but tonight they've started their mission early, knocking politely and more often than not, the teams are invited inside to sit down. The “talkfest” begins.

The operation has more than one purpose as almost every aspect of working with civilians here does- to search the house for weapons, (Iraqis are allowed one AK-47 per household), to register military aged males using a biometrics scanner and to talk about upcoming elections and municipal services, said Staff Sgt. Zach Semsik, 30, from Blairsville, PN.

This unit made up of ex-communication, engineer and military police soldiers has been so successful that they have recently been reassigned to focus solely on Tikrit, according to some inside and outside their unit.

“That’s 35 soldiers for a city of 1.2 million,” Sergeant First Class Bill Ferguson, 30, said. There are three other units assigned to the city, but STB probably has the most experience. The 101st Airborne soldiers have spent over seven months patrolling here.

(Biometrics including taking a picture of the iris, a thumb print and entering other relevant data of Iraqi males while soldiers explain that it will make them easier to identify.)

In one of the friendlier houses, teaming with children and at least four generations of family, Platoon leader Ferguson announced he wanted to talk about the upcoming provincial elections scheduled for October 1st.

"As long as he takes care of Iraq, we don’t care about his religion," the matriarch of the house said quickly. Ayad Allawi is a strong guy, she added. Allawi, the former interim prime minister, seems to have a lot of support in this middle class enclave, but there may have been some confusion, Allawi, as a Shia, is probably running for national office, whereas the upcoming elections are provincial and Tikrit is solidly Sunni.

But electricity and water were more on the minds of these residents than an election that’s still months away. Most say they get one hour of power for every four off, supplemented by generators if they can afford it. The Americans are careful to note how much they pay for electricity and ask who their muktar (neighborhood boss) is.

(Sgt. 1st Class Bill Ferguson, 30, records vital information on males in the family. After he offers his card and availability for any security concerns.)

The woman says local water makes her kids sick. She added it would be better if the soldiers patrolled the neighborhood with no weapons. We are tired of the fight, she said.

Ferguson smiled. Tell her it's just in case, he said through the interpreter. His rifle looked oddly out of place amidst the chai glasses and living room furniture.

“When we first got here we’d cordon-and-knock 50 houses a night starting at 11pm and ending around 5 in the morning,” Staff Sgt. Semsik said, “scaring the s--- out of everyone,” implying it was a show of force they felt necessary at the time.

“Now we’re moving to the non-lethal,” he said, but added that they’re still called to do house raids in the middle of walk-throughs like this.

As with the IED explosion on Wednesday, violence can happen at any time.

Neither did Ferguson shy from the tough questions. He asked men in each of the ten or so households if they saw anyone planting the IED. Few claimed to know anything.

It's hard to imagine what the U.S. soldiers could have done differently, they aren't Iraqis, but they tried to direct confidence toward the Iraqi police who are being targeted by insurgents more as security improves.

The conversations again shifted to lights and water. Ferguson said they had to make sure everyone was getting some power in Tikrit, as little as it was, before they could increase the offering.

But, “It’s not our right to fix everything, we have to walk with your government side by side,” he said holding his hands parallel.
(Staff Sgt. Semsik gets made fun of by a neighborhood boy who wouldn't leave him alone.)

Working with Iraqi Army- slow progress and cultural challenges

(Capt. Canning on a joint patrol with the Iraqi Army.)

FOB O’Ryan-
Captain Jeff Canning, 30, of Anchorage AK, thought he was leaving a war zone. After a year serving in Northern Iraq he waited at an Army air terminal. He waited a day, then another, no big deal for a soldier used to the variables of air travel here.

When we saw our connex boxes (storage trailers) coming back, Canning said, we knew something was wrong.

Instead of going home, Canning and his 172nd Stryker Brigade were sent down to Baghdad to quell the surge in violence there. They stayed four extra months.

Canning’s story of being extended is nothing new, but his volunteering to come back to Iraq to help train the Iraqi Army is unique.

He was enticed by the challenge of working for a MiTT (Military in Transition Team)- U.S. soldiers who embed with the Iraqi Army to help bring them up to speed so they can eventually take over for their US counterparts.

After five months Canning said there are still a lot of challenges, beginning with the cultural and language differences. “It’s like being on the outside looking in,” Canning said. If an interpreter isn’t around, U.S. soldiers won’t even know if a military document written in Arabic is actually the one the officers say it is.

Still there has to be a certain level of trust for the partnership to work. “You can’t put our system on their army,” Canning said.

But the Iraqi Army, while not lacking for bravery or experience, is top-heavy and often lacks logistical systems to take care of its own soldiers. According to a cultural interpreter, the Iraqi military has more of a severe pecking order than the U.S. military, and Iraqi officers are not accustomed to delegating as many responsibilities.

Lt. Col. John Dunleavy of the 2nd battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment said in contrast the US Army is very “NCO-centric”, meaning sergeants run the bulk of day-to-day soldier operations. But the Iraqis often lack a strong core of sergeant leadership to build upon.

Command Sergeant Major, Edward Estep said it’s about delegation. Officers need to delegate their authority to sergeants to build an effective core of non-commissioned officers. In turn, the Iraqi sergeants have to take their roles seriously.

“Some of them are just drawing a pay check,” Estep said, observing how a group of Iraqi sergeants were having difficulty getting information to their troops because they weren’t used to attending regular meetings or taking notes to pass on to their counterparts.

Whereas Iraqi officers eat separately from their enlisted soldiers in the mess hall, Dunleavy said they want to instill a culture in which officers sit and eat with their soldiers as they do in US dining facilities.

One of the biggest problems, Dunleavy said is the Iraqi Army lacks good logistical systems, so somewhere down the chain soldiers don’t get fed at outlying checkpoints, or they get only one bottle of drinkable water when they should be getting six a day. In some areas their Humvees break down from using recycled motor oil.

Obviously some of these supply problems are caused by corruption.

The Iraqi system has long been based on a power hierarchy, said Captain Jim Markham, another MiTT team advisor. There's a skimming off the top of the budget before the supplies get down to the soldiers.

The US Army tries to deal with problems in Iraq at the level at which the money is distributed- from budget officers dealing with their counterparts to US generals dealing with local governors to counteract corruption, but it’s a slow process compounded by cultural differences.

(An Iraqi Lt. Col. speaks with a U.S. captain through an interpreter at a security checkpoint they were patrolling together.)

The most important work is at the individual soldier level, Canning said, perhaps because it is where bad habits can most immediately be corrected. “The mindset and skills. What you don’t know in this job can kill you,” Canning said.

On a strategic level, “You need to get them preparing for the COIN (counter insurgency) fight,” Canning said. “It’s the PhD of warfare.” Just think of the years it’s taken the US Army to understand how to get local Iraqis to cooperate with the coalition.

And they need time to put methods into practice, which was why Canning and other MiTT officers go out with their Iraqi components on patrols to help coach them on interacting and supporting the Concerned Local Citizen checkpoints.

Recent meetings at these checkpoints ended with an Iraqi Lieutenant Colonel exchanging cell phone numbers with the CLCs, something U.S. Army patrols often do. This is integral to the process of getting the local intelligence gathering to flow through the Iraqi Army to create multiple sources of information on insurgent activity.

Admittedly the Iraqi foot soldiers lack some discipline and technique, but they also make up for these deficiencies in cultural awareness. And this is the key to the counter-insurgency fight.

It may still be years before US forces leaving the country for good, but there is progress. Canning said there’s been a 200 percent drop in IEDs in the southern part of this Iraqi Army brigade's area of operation.

As for Canning, he said it would be hard to settle into a desk job after two tours in Iraq. He likes taking pictures, and is thinking about learning to become a photo journalist. Something about being over here builds individuals who thrive on challenge.

(A girl runs to look at a 2/320th soldier on patrol in Al Dujayl.)

On patrol in Yathreeb

Lt. Col. Dunleavy, two long-time interpreters and cultural advisor Sue Roffee interact with locals and speak on recent improvements here.

Transformation of Yathreeb

Yathreeb, Iraqi-
The town children call him “Mister John”. He kneels to talk to them and they ask him when he’s bringing soccer balls. The local armed citizens know his face. Lt. Col. John Dunleavy and his Personal Security Detail regularly patrol these streets. They smile and wave. It wasn’t like this several months ago.

“It’s all happening right now,” Dunleavy, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 320th Field Artillery Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division said. “Lots of folks are moving here, (Yathreeb area) because it’s a good area now.”

It’s hard not to believe a commander who patrols the same streets with his soldiers.

“I told my guys this is the year that changes the world,” Dunleavy said. "Even the Iraqis are saying this."

It’s the slow momentum that's been building for years and months into what some might call a tipping point. Yathreeb Central, a town of 6,000 and a larger area of 100,000 mostly local farmers, used to be a dangerous place.

The city council which began operating as a functioning government office in January is now busy five-days a week with local citizens popping in and out to get official paperwork signed. Last year the mayor’s office next door was bombed by insurgents. Its crumpled shell is to be one of the mayor’s first reconstruction projects.

The foundation to all of these improvements is security. Concerned Local Citizen (or Sons of Iraq) checkpoints began being set up here last August. Immediately insurgents attacked the new local force. There were several big battles between insurgents and the CLCs, said Yathreeb Mayor, Shauket Ahmed.

“We captured the big names, killed some,” Ahmed said, “We still have few bad guys, but we’ve achieved a big success. It was unexpected to all of us, even U.S. forces.”
(Lt. Col. Dunleavy talks with Yathreeb mayor, Shauket Ahmed outside the city council office.)

Mr. Ahmed, who has an excellent command of English and has been mayor since 2003, said before August the insurgents dominated the area. But “we were serious. We picked the right guys and after five years people are tired of chaos.”

“We faced many obstacles,” Ahmed said. “What we achieved, we deserved based on sacrifices.” They didn’t receive much support from the central government, which acted very slowly, Ahmed said. But they were supported by coalition forces. “Now we have the governor coming and he hasn’t been here before.”

This week local forces captured 30 insurgents, some of whom may have recently attacked an Iraqi Police checkpoint. Nine insurgents were sent to a terrorist court in Tikrit.

With the security in place, Mr. Ahmed is planning six new projects including a new school, rebuilding the mayoral office, a shopping center. A new water purification plan serving 20,000 people will be finished in three months and housing projects are planned for 2009, he said.

Lt. Col. Dunleavy, who regularly sits in on the Yathreeb city council and the local council in Shia-dominated Al Dujayl, is looking ahead to provincial elections. He said whereas before Sunnis refused to participate or were afraid to, citizens now have a legitimate channel to funnel their grievances

Dunleavy tells a story of a nearby Shiite town where the locals were complaining that their representative never came around to hear about their problems. We had a representative show up, Dunleavy said and the representative said that the locals didn’t vote, which some later admitted.

“What’s good about that story is they wanted a city council rep,” Dunleavy said. “When city government is informed, things improve. Look at our (U.S.) government's history. The state and provincial governments developed much quicker than the central one.”

(Children crowd around a cultural advisor (center) who lines them up to distribute clothes and toys.)

The 2/320th's philosophy for the past seven months has been to get out and walk the local streets to meet Iraqis and hear their grievances. "Some hadn't ever seen a coalition force soldier and talked to him (face-to-face) because everything here is based on a hierachy of power," said Command Sergeant Major Edward Estep, who Wednesday visited a Bank in Al Dujayl and encouraged the manager to bring his problems back to city council.

"We get out and walk around," the Sergeant Major said. "That's probably been the biggest return on our investment- ask people what they need and bring in back to city council."

But it's a delicate balance. "We need to find their way and influence their way through an Iraqi face," Estep said, meaning if soldiers do a large humanitarian drop they prefer to bring an Iraqi powerbroker along to represent the goodwill rather than it always coming from the Americans.

The next big challenge is economics. Dunleavy said the new Iraqi Business Zone initiative headed by the 76th Indiana National Guard, though in its infant stages, is important because of perception. “But we have to produce, which is why Col. Carr (of the 76th) is focused on injecting things now.”

Things are far from perfect. Some CLC checkpoints are still regularly attacked when insurgents come in from the orchards under the cover of darkness. Local intelligence gathering can be confusing when some CLCs say that an insurgent attacked them and the coalition forces believe that same insurgent had already been arrested. Still most Iraqis agree the bigger-time insurgents have mostly all been apprehended in this area.

(A CLC explaining how their checkpoint in Al Zour gets attacked at night.)

Perhaps the most telling sign is the anti-coalition graffiti has been replaced by scrawls against Al Qaida. Whereas children used to yell insults at soldiers and run into their houses, they now smile and crowd around looking for gifts.

“Two months ago we couldn’t walk down these streets,” said ‘Rommel’ a long-time interpreter, who seemed to be smiling at all the changes.

But this is a very poor rural area supported mostly by subsistence farming. Some farmers have opted to work on the LSA base because they can’t afford seed or to pay for the generators that pump water to their crops. And they still have difficulty getting to the market in Balad because of security. (Two children who help run their parents convenience shop in Yathreeb said that their customers can't pay them until the end of the month when they get paid.)

“Everywhere I go people ask me for a job,” said an Iraqi-American cultural advisor originally from Baghdad. “Some families tell me they haven’t eaten in days. There are a lot of orphans. Mothers tell me they have to keep their children out of school because they need them to work.”

Lt. Col. Dunleavy said what he and his soldiers do is not unique. It's what every line unit is now doing in Iraq. "You see them checking in on city government, partnering with the Iraqi Army. Sergeants are doing jobs more common to the state department and tonight we're conducting an air assault," he said. Checking in on all these areas in a day, Dunleavy said, "that's what's unique about this fight."

Checking in on the 'Sons' in the dark

(Soldiers of truck #1-7- from left to right- Sgt. Vernon Prewitt, 42, of Williamsburg, KY; Spc. Joshua Brokaw, 24, of St. Louis, Mo; Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Player, 40, of Los Angeles, CA; Pvt. Marc Scott, 22, of Chicago, IL; Pvt. Antonio Castro, 21, of Seattle, WA.)

FOB O’Ryan-
They don’t have the cavernous dining facilities or fast food establishments of their gigantic neighbor- LSA Anaconda. Food is trucked in in plastic bins. At night they don’t even have outside lights, but what Alpha Battery of the 2/320th Field Artillery Regiment do have is good conversation.

Inside the moving vehicle, the two Sergeants were from basically as far apart as could be imagined- "Doc" from rural Appalachia and "Smoke" from inner-city LA. The discussion jumped from religion to race to region. If I thought I understod the Army before, I was wrong.

As they drove over sandy berms and under too-low wires the talk hinged around the negativity in rap music and the futility of reparations. Of the five inside, some tuned in, some tuned out, and some took off their headsets. Smoke led the dialogue and tried to entertain each point of view.

Finally Doc spoke. He told exactly how he grew up, and if anyone wanted 5 percent or reparations for that, they could have it.

The vehicle teetered for a moment on the side of a berm.

“When was the last time we were on a road?” asked Spc. Joshua Brokaw.

A recent news article claimed that soldiers serving 15-months were happy the Army moved back to 12-month deployments even though they wouldn't be leaving early.

“Who were they interviewing?” Doc wondered.

Which effectively ended the conversation. It was time to disembark from the MRAP into darkness. The route, more desert than village, was known for recent trouble, which is why Alpha Battery was out to support several new SOI (Sons of Iraq) checkpoints that had been staked down with little more than a tent and some AK-47s.

“The reason we’re coming out here is to show the good and bad guys that we support this checkpoint," said Lt. Brian Reynolds, 24, to the armed citizens who gathered around him.

The Iraqis nodded in agreement. Then he asked them if they’ve tested their AK-47s recently. The Iraqis began to complain that they didn’t have enough ammunition to test fire. Lt. Reynolds asked one of them to shoot off a few rounds anyway. On the first try, the gun jammed. Finally the Iraqi got off a few rounds.
(Lt. Brian Reynolds (facing center) asks a local if he's familiar with any of the names on the Army's blacklist.)

See, that’s why you need to test fire, Reynolds said. We always test fire our weapons before we go on a mission.

The Iraqis asked about when the Hesco fortifications and bigger weapons were coming. They said they wouldn’t be able to hold off an attack on this stretch of deserted road. Reynolds made notes and asked if they’ve been paid by the sheik yet. They hadn’t. Reynolds assured them that payday was coming.

Then the dismounted soldiers popped a few flares which quickly fizzled in the darkness. There were no street lights or even house lights around.

This is just a show of force, Brokaw said. Next time we’ll bring out the Howitzers to show how we can light up the sky.

Maj. Tim Frambes of 2/320 said the Iraqis named the Howitzer rounds that they call in, “Light Bombs". The Field Artillery Regiment, now mostly on infantry patrol, are only to happy to provide this support since artillery was what they were originally trained to do.

But not tonight. Alpha Battery got back into their vehicles and rolled off. It was only eight o’clock but it seemed like midnight. The conversation was over. There would be more stops.

(Spc. Brokaw pulls perimeter security using his night vision.)

Joint patrol finds detonation switches, command wire

(Capt. Jonathan Gregory of 2/320th FSC holding up some of the recovered command wire.)

FOB O’Ryan-
The joint patrol was the first to arrive at the site of an IED attack from the night before. With ruble still strewn over the road from the blast, the soldiers fanned out in search of other improvised explosives.

On Tuesday morning soldiers of 2/320th Force Support Company joined with a platoon from the 17th Brigade, 4th Division of the Iraqi Army to help secure this dangerous stretch of road off of main supply route Tampa.

Also, the Army was looking for the Iraqis to start taking over here. “To get I.A.s (Iraqi Army) familiar with Concerned Local Citizen checkpoints,” said Lt. Jeff Sowecke of Cleveland, OH. The idea is that once the Iraqis get familiar with the job of supporting these checkpoints, the I.A.s can do it better because they know their own culture, Sowecke said.

(The Iraqi Army 17th Brigade's Lieutenant Colonel(left, holding book) and Command Sergeant(far right) ask the checkpoint guards about local insurgent activity.)

The Iraqi foot soldiers don't seem as well trained as their U.S. counterparts. Last time they were on a joint patrol, Captain Jonathan Gregory said two Iraqi soldiers accidentally discharged their AK-47s. This is a huge issue to U.S. soldiers who are constantly drilled on weapons safety and “muzzle awareness.”

‘DJ’ the U.S. interpreter who is from a local village said of the Iraqi Army, “they’re not as focused” as U.S. soldiers, who he admittedly lives and works with everyday.

But, “they’re not short on bravery,” said First Sergeant Jeremy Shiffer.

One found a new copper wire running from the road into a marsh area and the Iraqis quickly drove off in their Humvees to search for an insurgent command post where these types of bombs are often detonated from.

Although they didn’t find any insurgents or bomb caches, the Iraqis recovered hundreds of yards of wire, part of a bomb-making in progress.

(The IA Lt. Col. (center) asks about recent attacks at another checkpoint while U.S. officers listen through an interpreter.)

After a few practice runs, the Iraqis began to conduct their own roadblocks and recovered several unregistered weapons.

For one day's patrol, these are small but measurable gains. The 17th Brigade of the 4th Division has been charged with protecting main supply route Tampa from Baghdad up to Samarra in an effort to rebuild the Golden Mosque in Samarra that was bombed in 2006 and touched off one of the bloodiest rounds of sectarian violence. The Iraqis have been using these same skills in setting up and policing their own security.

“It was a mission I volunteered for,” said Sgt. Alfredo Hernandez, 30, of Brownsville, TX, explaining the patrol is a new mission for their company who had been running security and supply convoys for the first seven months of their 15-month deployment.

Missions like these help soldiers see progress in their day-to-day actions. “People from the states don’t realize we can’t just get out, or this whole thing was for nothing,” Hernandez said.

Like parole officers, but with better 'intelligence'

Shehabi, a town in Salah Ad Din province, used to be crawling with insurgent activity but this week soldiers of Archangel Platoon of the 2/320th battalion rode in with boxes of school supplies instead of battering rams.

(Soldiers talk to the son of one of the city councilmen.)

The platoon visited the home of former insurgents, but instead of kicking in doors, they greet the brothers and a neighbor who were just released from the infamous Buka prison with a hand shake and the word, “Salam”.

Staff Sgt. Jacob Murphy, 28, of San Francisco and Sgt. First Class Jonathan Mudgett, 33, began by asking whether the men were having any problems on their farm.
With the small talk over, the two sergeants took each of the men out of earshot of their wives and children to question them on their activities since they’d been released.

(A little girl looks up at the Sergeant and interpreter as they speak with one of the former insurgents.)

“We try to hit anyone released from Buka,” Staff Sgt. Murphy said. “We make it a point to stop in, say hey we know you’re out, kind of like a parole officer.”

“We’ve been chasing those people for three years,” said ‘Tom’ the interpreter, incredulous to see the former insurgents standing around and talking to U.S. soldiers. “They were ghosts. Now I see them face-to-face.”

Murphy acknowledged that a lot of the bigger time insurgents have been detained and since then violence has died down around Shehabi, but now that some insurgents are being released there is always the risk violence might increase again.
(Pvt. William Ingram, 22, of West Plains, MO pulls guard duty on the edge of the former insurgents' farm.)

That’s where the quality of intelligence comes in. Lt. Mike Handlan of the 2/320th said, “We’ve been successful in the Southern part (of our area) because we’ve started understanding the COIN (counterinsurgency) fight,” which he said includes giving jobs and gathering local intelligence.

"Smart intelligence,” Major Timothy Frambes calls it, is listening to the Sons of Iraq, who are from the local communities and paid by Army contracts. The SOI often give the Army information on new insurgents in the area and have even conducted their own patrols, Sgt. Murphy said.

Much of the mistrust of whether these guys are giving us information to settle old scores has washed away with the constant Army presence in the local communities, Frambes said.

Tom the interpreter said he has been with coalition forces since 2003 and not without risk. He puts himself in danger every time he visits his old Baghdad neighborhood, he said.

It’s hard to imagine much being accomplished without these native speakers who are embedded with almost every platoon that goes outside the wire. In turn the U.S. soldiers treat them like friends and brothers.

Many of the interpreters, whose uniforms are a patchwork of past Army units they’ve worked for, wholeheartedly believe in the mission, even the rougher ones. But as Tom said, "It's a good area right now."
(Local children clearly enjoying the attention of the visitors.)

Navigating Army laws to do right by locals

LSA Anaconda, Iraq-

A farmer claims Army mortars burned his crop field and killed one of his cows. Major Harold Johnston, of Terre Haute, IN, listens patiently. He’s heard this story before. The Major is chief of claims and operational law at the Civilian Military Operations Center.

According to the farmer, last week insurgents unknown to him used his field to launch mortars at LSA Anaconda, a major supply base north of Baghdad. U.S. forces returned fire and destroyed part of the farmer’s field.

Now it’s up to Maj. Johnston to decide whether the man deserves a payment for accidental damages. To do so he must wade through archaic Iraqi civil law and a collection of phone-book-thick U.S. military codes on engagements and foreign claims.

In this valley of the Tigris river humans have been farming since 10,000 B.C., but to decide any land disputes, Johnston must navigate Iraqi Civil Code dating from 1953 and an ancient system in which Sheiks weigh in on most disputes.

Still, Johnston seems to almost enjoy the complexity of it. He says he gets to work with real Iraqis and says the process is integral to COIN (counter-insurgency). “Everyone will come away with an impression of Americans,” Johnston said, whether good or bad.


Maj. Johnston, who’s a state prosecutor back in Indiana and arbitrated civilian claims for the Judge Advocate General Corps during his last deployment to Afghanistan, can also draw funds from the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP).

The seed money for CERP came from the billions Sadaam had squirreled away. In 2