Rutbah, reclaimed: Residents say peace, normalcy have returned to a former al-Qaida haven

By Ashley Rowland, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, February 26, 2009

Ashley Rowland/S&S

Children play soccer at an empty lot in Rutbah, Iraq, an area that until recently U.S. Marines say was like the Wild West in terms of lawlessness and violence.

Ashley Rowland/S&S

Two men sit at a food stand in the market in downtown Rutbah, which U.S. Marines say used to be full of insurgents. The city is mostly calm now, with little insurgent violence.

Ashley Rowland/S&S

Disc jockey Salih Ahmah Hasoon listens to the radio on Friday, inside Rutbah Today, a radio station that U.S. forces helped start in December. The radio station broadcasts city council meetings, and Hasoon, the only DJ, interviews city officials, using questions that he gathers from people on the street.

Ashley Rowland/S&S

Storeowner Waid al Jyburi says his neighborhood is safe, even though a bomb was found around the corner in front of an Iraqi policeman’s house in November. The bomb was defused, but nobody knows who planted it, al Jyburi said. He uses a crutch because he injured his leg during the Iran-Iraq war.

RUTBAH, Iraq — It was midday on a Friday when police found a box, packed with cookies and a bomb, in a dirt alley across the street from the neighborhood mosque around the corner from Waid al Jyburi’s tiny snack shop.

Planted in front of an Iraqi policeman’s house, the bomb was designed to blow up as soon as someone — maybe one of the many children playing in the streets — reached in for a cookie.

Three months later, the bomb is a distant memory to al Jyburi. He doesn’t know who set it up, and doesn’t worry about it. He believes the insurgents are gone from Rutbah, in western Anbar province.

“Our city is clean, not like before,” he said.

Compared to the first four years of the war, when Rutbah was a haven for al-Qaida in Iraq and foreign fighters, it is.

U.S. troops periodically cleared the city of terrorists, but residents describe it as a war zone where city leaders were assassinated and people were randomly killed on the streets.

“The only coalition presence was leaflets that were dropped out of helicopters,” said Lt. Col. Geoff Rollins, commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment. “This was like the Wild, Wild West in the late 1800s in the United States.”

Today, war-weary Rutbah has largely returned to normal. The market bustles with fruit and vegetable vendors. The fledgling city council that once met in secret, if at all, holds regular meetings that are broadcast on the city’s new radio station. And the 5-foot-high berm set up around the city to keep insurgents from leaving now keeps them from coming in, Rollins said.

“The biggest thing you have to do in a counterinsurgency is separate the population from the counterinsurgency, and the coalition did that,” he said. “It’s not just tracking down the bad guys.”

The Marines, who haven’t traded a shot with insurgents since last summer, began the “disengagement” phase of their combat operations in Rutbah on Feb. 15.

Today, there’s a grudging acceptance of the American presence among the 20,000 residents of this lonely desert city. They welcome the calm.

“They just want to be safe. They are tired because of the bombs and killings,” said Dr. Dhea Mijwal, director of the city’s hospital, which was bombed in the first days of the U.S. invasion.

Tiny Rutbah and the 4,000 square miles of sand around it are critical to maintaining security in the rest of the country. The region borders three countries — Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia — and is crisscrossed by centuries-old trade routes now used for smuggling oil and drugs.

The religiously conservative area, about the size of South Carolina and heavily Sunni, is also a pathway for insurgents entering the country.

“That’s one of the reasons why we’re out here, to keep an eye on foreign fighters crossing the border,” Rollins said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say most of the al-Qaida fighters who used to operate inside the city have fled into the desert, though they occasionally find bombs and weapons caches scattered throughout the region.

In November, U.S. and Iraqi forces tracked down and killed four insurgents, all but one from outside Iraq, after they stole a valuable flock of 1,500 sheep. They caught the insurgents by following the trail of sheep droppings across the desert.

“I think they are finished,” Attallah al Kaybasi, a carpet salesman in downtown Rutbah, said of al-Qaida.

Residents say the turnaround in security started in the summer of 2007, when the Marines at Camp Korean Village and a handful of nearby outposts began stepping up their presence in the city. Today, only a trace of the insurgency remains, and their targets are usually those trying to rebuild the city — Iraqi police and city workers.

Mohammed Nori, the city’s engineering director, said his car was covered in gasoline and burned in front of his house about a month ago. He blames insurgents, though police say they don’t know who did it.

“No one can stop me from doing my work,” Nori said.

Much of the Marines’ work now focuses on strengthening the Iraqi security forces and Rutbah’s young city council, a mix of 20 university-educated and illiterate men who were appointed by the government.

Rutbah will hold its first city council elections this summer. Three of the ten slots will be reserved for women, who, in this conservative Sunni region, rarely speak to men outside their family. The town’s spotty electricity and running water are expected to be hot-button issues.

Many here have mixed feelings about the Americans. They don’t think the region’s police and army are strong enough to protect the region on their own, and they want the added security that the U.S. troops provide. But they see the Americans as an occupying force and want them to leave.

“The coalition forces did bad things before. They broke in houses and arrested some people. Therefore they hate the coalition forces now,” Mayor Qasim Marai Awwad said through an interpreter.

But the insurgents fell out of favor with residents because they were too aggressive, Awwad said.

Opinions about the Americans have improved dramatically in the past six months, as security improved and Iraqis began visibly taking control of the city, said Awwad, who was a lieutenant colonel and helicopter pilot in the Iraqi army when the U.S. invaded Iraq.

He didn’t fight in the war — the Iraqis destroyed some of their aircraft before the Americans could — and said he works with the Americans because he is loyal to Iraq, and they want to improve the country, unlike Hussein.

“We cannot have any progress for our country without your help,” he said.

The goal is to root out al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents from the area

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi forces have begun a new military offensive in northern Iraq aimed at rooting out al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents, American and Iraqi officials said Sunday.

The offensive — dubbed Operation New Hope — has netted 84 suspects in the provincial capital of Mosul and surrounding towns, said Iraqi Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed al-Jubouri. Most of the arrests occurred in Tal Abta, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Mosul.

Claims by Sunni Arabs and Kurds over disputed territory in the northern Ninevah province have fueled significant violence in the area around Mosul, which U.S. officials have called Iraq’s last major urban battleground in the war against insurgents.

Violence remains high in Mosul
U.S. and Iraqi forces have staged many operations in Mosul and other areas north of Baghdad where levels of violence remain high even as they have significantly dropped elsewhere in the country.

The offensive comes more than a year after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised a “decisive” battle in Mosul against al-Qaida in Iraq.

But Iraq’s third-largest city has continued to face violence, particularly against Iraqi security forces.

A roadside bomb struck an Iraq army patrol Sunday in Mosul, killing two soldiers, including a lieutenant, and wounding three others, said a police official at the Nineveh military command center. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information.

Soldiers killed in house raid
Five other soldiers were killed and five were wounded when they stormed a booby-trapped house in the city late Saturday, al-Jubouri said.

The U.S. military said in a statement that the aim of the joint operation was to allow the government to restore essential services in Mosul.

“The ultimate goal of this operation is to eradicate al-Qaida and other extremist groups,” it said.

Al-Jubouri said American troops were only providing support, if needed. He said the operation was being led by Iraqi security forces, and that all police and army units in the province were participating in the operation.

Some of the U.S. forces likely to remain in Iraq after President Obama fulfills his pledge to withdraw combat troops would still have a combat role fighting suspected terrorists, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

Obama plans to announce his withdrawal strategy as early as Friday. He is expected to choose a compromise 19-month withdrawal plan that leaves behind as many as 50,000 troops for cleanup and protection operations.

Although most of the fighting forces would be withdrawn within 18 months, some of those units could be in Iraq for years to come. A prior agreement forged by the Bush administration with Iraqi officials requires removal of all U.S. forces by 2012.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that a holdover, or “residual,” force would number in the tens of thousands.

His spokesman said Wednesday that assuming there is such a force, it would have three primary functions: Training and helping Iraqi forces; protecting Americans and U.S. assets in Iraq and limited counterterrorism operations in which Iraqi forces would take the lead.

“I think a limited number of those that remain will conduct combat operations against terrorists, assisting Iraqi security forces,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. “By and large you’re talking about people who we would classify as enablers, support troops.”

Obama campaigned on ending the Iraq war, and pledged to do so in 16 months. The withdrawal timetable he is expected to approve would stretch over 19 months, counting from Inauguration Day. That means more than 100,000 troops would leave over the coming 18 months.

The pullout would free up troops and resources for the war in Afghanistan, where Obama has said the threat to national security remains high.

“We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war,” Obama said in his address to Congress on Tuesday.

Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and others met with Obama at the White House on Wednesday. There was no announcement afterward.

“The president has not made a final decision about our force structure in Iraq going forward,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday. “I don’t think it would be a surprise, though, to anybody in this room that the president since his first full day in office has been working toward a solution that would responsibly draw down our troops in Iraq.”

Morrell said he anticipates an announcement this week.

The role and makeup of residual forces has been unclear throughout last year’s negotiations between the United States and Iraq, and during Obama’s planning for an exit strategy.

Plans became only slightly clearer Wednesday. Morrell said many troops would be long-term advisers in such areas as intelligence, or would help the Iraqi military fill in gaps in equipment such as helicopters.

Although he said Iraq would still be considered a “war zone,” Morrell said most remaining forces would not do anything that resembles fighting.

“But just because these troops would carry a sidearm, as all U.S. troops do in theater, that should not be confused with them having a combat mission,” Morrell said.

“For example, U.S. personnel assigned to the Ministry of Finance may have a sidearm, but I doubt they’d consider themselves a combat force, and certainly wouldn’t be equipped in that fashion to perform combat operations.”

February 09, 2009, 4:00 a.m.

Planning Victory in Afghanistan
Nine principles the Obama administration should follow.

By Frederick W. Kagan

President Obama has said many times that America must succeed in Afghanistan. He is right, and he deserves our full support in that effort.

Afghanistan is in many respects harder to understand than Iraq was. Even with a good strategy and sufficient resources, success will almost certainly come much more slowly. But as a great man said two years ago, hard is not hopeless.

The keys to finding the right approach lie in nine fundamental principles.

1. UNDERSTAND WHY WE’RE THERE
Afghanistan is not now a sanctuary for al-Qaeda, but it would likely become one again if we abandoned it. Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban government we removed in 2001, is alive and well in Pakistan. He maintains contacts with Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the other key al-Qaeda leaders, who are also based in Pakistan (although in a different area). Mullah Omar supports Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan from his Pakistani havens, while al-Qaeda and its affiliates support insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. Allowing Afghanistan to fail would mean allowing these determined enemies of the United States to regain the freedom they had before 9/11.

Pakistan itself is another reason Afghanistan is vitally important to America. It’s a country with 170 million people, nuclear weapons, and numerous terrorist groups. As long as Afghanistan is unstable, Pakistan will be unable to bring order to its own tribal areas, where many terrorist sanctuaries persist. It will also be distracted from addressing the more fundamental problems of Islamic radicalism that threaten its very survival as a state. Further, Afghan instability makes the U.S. dependent on Pakistan logistically—there is no way to replace completely the land route from Karachi with another route through Central Asia. This dependence in turn reduces our ability to influence Islamabad on other matters of great importance, such as stabilizing civilian rule in Pakistan and stopping support for terrorist groups like the one that attacked Bombay.

2. KNOW WHAT WE HAVE TO ACHIEVE
Success in Afghanistan does not require creating a paradise in one of the poorest countries on earth, but we cannot define victory down. Preventing Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for terrorists again, helping Pakistan fight its own terrorist problems, and liberating ourselves from dependence on Pakistan will require building an Afghan state with a representative government.

Afghanistan has a longer tradition of such political organization than Iraq has. It has been independent since 1747, and had a functioning constitutional and parliamentary monarchy in the middle of the 20th century. Centrifugal forces in Afghanistan have always been powerful, making the prospects for a strong centralized government in Kabul poor, but the country is neither ungovernable nor artificial. It cannot be stable at this point in history, however, without a representative system. Its multiethnic makeup and decades of internal war mean that any attempt to impose a strongman or to break the country up into effectively independent, warlord-ruled fiefdoms will lead to perpetual violence.

3. UNDERSTAND OUR ENEMIES AND FRIENDS
There is no such thing as “the Taliban” today. Many different groups with different leaders and aims call themselves “Taliban,” and many more are called “Taliban” by their enemies. In addition to Mullah Omar’s Taliban based in Pakistan and indigenous Taliban forces in Afghanistan, there is an indigenous Pakistani Taliban controlled by Baitullah Mehsud (this group is thought to have been responsible for assassinating Benazir Bhutto). Both are linked with al-Qaeda, and both are dangerous and determined. In other areas, however, “Taliban” groups are primarily disaffected tribesmen who find it more convenient to get help from the Taliban than from other sources.

In general terms, any group that calls itself “Taliban” is identifying itself as against the government in Kabul, the U.S., and U.S. allies. Our job is to understand which groups are truly dangerous, which are irreconcilable with our goals for Afghanistan—and which can be fractured or persuaded to rejoin the Afghan polity. We can’t fight them all, and we can’t negotiate with them all. Dropping the term “Taliban” and referring to specific groups instead would be a good way to start understanding who is really causing problems.

Recognizing the limitations of the current government is a good next step. That government is ineffective and deeply corrupt. Provincial governors and district leaders were not elected, but appointed by Pres. Hamid Karzai, often with an eye toward marginalizing potential rivals and consolidating his power. Karzai’s popularity is dwindling, and the postponement of Afghanistan’s presidential elections from May to August allows his opponents to paint him as illegitimate. It is possible that even if Karzai wins the August election, many Afghans will continue to view him as illegitimate.

The U.S. cannot, however, turn away from the central government and seek solutions only at the local level. For one thing, important local leaders are Karzai’s appointees. For another, building local solutions that do not connect with the central government is the path toward renewed warlordism and instability. The key, therefore, is to develop local solutions that are connected to the central government but not necessarily completely controlled by it.

Local governments—possibly at the level of individual villages—will have to play a role in selecting individuals to help maintain security once it has been established. Afghan villages often have representative bodies, or at least local elders who can identify needs and priorities while balancing tribal concerns. Local and provincial governments connected to Kabul will have to provide weapons and compensation to local security forces and will therefore acquire a certain limited control over them.

Similar approaches are likely to be required on the economic front—local groups and leaders, in some cases supported initially with funding from the U.S. Commander’s Emergency Response Program, can get economic projects going, but they will have to connect those projects to central-government representatives for long-term funding and integration into regional and national economic systems. The bottom line is that we must work hard to develop local solutions to local problems, but always with the goal of integrating those solutions into a loose but real central support-and-control system.

4. COMMIT TO THE EFFORT
The consistent unwillingness of the U.S. government to commit to the success of its endeavors in Afghanistan (and Iraq) over the long term is a serious obstacle to progress. The Pakistani leadership appears convinced that America will abandon its efforts in South Asia sooner rather than later, and this conviction fuels Pakistan’s determination to retain support for (and therefore control of) Afghan Taliban groups based in its territory. It also contributes to instability within Pakistan, because Pakistani leaders are tentative about committing to the fight against their internal foes as long as they are unsure of our determination to do our part.

At the local level within Afghanistan, people who are not convinced that coalition forces will stay to support them if they oppose the terrorists are unlikely to risk retaliation by committing to us. When U.S. forces moved into insurgent strongholds in Iraq in 2007, the first thing they were asked was: “Are you going to stay this time?” When the answer was yes (and we proved it by really staying and living among them), the floodgates of local opposition to the insurgents opened. The people of Afghanistan need the same reassurance. Until it is widely believe that the U.S. will remain in the fight until the insurgency is defeated, doubt about our commitment will continue to fuel the insurgency. If we are going to fight this war, as our interests require, we must make it clear that we will do what it takes to win.

Our history is very much against us in this effort. Islamists point to our retreat following the Marine-barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983, the “Blackhawk Down” incident in 1993, our abandonment of Afghanistan following the defeat of the Soviet Union in 1989, and our abandonment of Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis to Saddam Hussein’s retribution in 1991 and 1992. At the end of 2006, our enemies in Iraq were already declaring victory, convinced that the pattern would repeat itself. The question they are now asking is: Was the surge an aberration in U.S. policy or a new pattern?

Our friends have the same question. We are asking them to put their lives on the line in support of shared goals, and they need to know we will stand by them. More rides on the outcome of our effort in Afghanistan than the particular interests we have there. American security would benefit greatly if we changed the global perception that the U.S. does not have the stomach to finish what it starts.

5. LEARN AND ADAPT THE RIGHT LESSONS
We cannot dismiss our extensive and painful experiences in Iraq, but we must recognize the differences between that country and Afghanistan.

Perhaps the most important lesson of Iraq that is transportable to Afghanistan is this: It is impossible to conduct effective counterterrorism operations (i.e., targeting terrorist networks with precise attacks on key leadership nodes) in a fragile state without conducting effective counterinsurgency operations (i.e., protecting the population and using economic and political programs to build support for the government and resistance to insurgents and terrorists). We will never have a better scenario in which to test the limitations of the counterterrorism model than we had in Iraq in 2006. U.S. Special Forces teams had complete freedom to act against al-Qaeda in Iraq, supported by around 150,000 regular U.S. troops, Iraqi military and police forces of several hundred thousand, and liberal airpower. We killed scores of key terrorist leaders, including the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, in June 2006. But terrorist strength, violence, and control only increased over the course of that year. It was not until units already on the ground applied a new approach—a counterinsurgency approach—and received reinforcements that we were able to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq (even without killing its new leader).

In Afghanistan, we have nothing like the freedom of movement we had in Iraq in 2006, and nothing like the force levels. We have, furthermore, been targeting leadership nodes within terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan for seven years now, yet the groups are not defeated. Absent a counterinsurgency and nation-building strategy that leads the population to reject the terrorists, killing bad guys will not defeat well-organized and determined terrorist networks.

Enthusiasm has been growing for some time over the idea of generating “awakenings” in Afghanistan similar to the Anbar Awakening that helped turn the tide in Iraq in 2007. Conceptually, this enthusiasm is sound. As noted above, success will require developing local solutions that are integrated in some way with the central government—the most abstract rendering of the “awakening” phenomenon in Iraq.

But we must be very careful about trying to apply Iraq “lessons” of greater specificity. For one thing, what happened in Iraq was not a single phenomenon. The Sunni-Arab rejection of al-Qaeda and turn to the coalition consisted of myriad local developments rather than being a coordinated movement. The coalition response to and support of those local developments was coordinated—we coined the term “Sons of Iraq” and treated SOIs as though they were a coherent group for certain funding and bureaucratic purposes—but each group remained independent. The SOIs never developed a corporate identity, and the local movements transformed their local political contexts rather than evolving into a country-wide movement.

The same will be true in Afghanistan. Local groups in Konar will not identify with local groups in Helmand, nor should they. There is no “Sons of Afghanistan” program that can be centrally defined and directed during its formation. As in Iraq, we must allow and encourage local movements to grow organically—in accordance with local conditions and traditions, but moderated by Afghan and coalition forces that understand the local area. It should go without saying that any effort to develop local security forces in areas that have not been cleared of insurgents will fail, either exposing the locals to vicious retribution or helping the insurgents co-opt new fighters.

6. CONSIDER THE HUMAN TERRAIN
Pashtuns are not Arabs. They have different traditions, different tribal structures, different ways of resolving differences. One of the most important (and least remarked-upon) differences is that Iraqis fight in their cities and villages while Pashtuns, on the whole, do not.

Saddam Hussein planned his defenses against U.S. attack with the intention of drawing us into urban fights he thought we would fear. Indigenous Iraqi insurgents dug into villages and cities and blended into the population. So did the external terror groups.

Coalition forces fought their way through Iraqi cities and villages, sometimes doing fearful damage to the cities and local populations. We devastated Fallujah and Ramadi, for example. But local grievances did not focus on the collateral damage. Considering the scale of the destruction, Iraqi complaints about it were very mild. In 2007, victorious coalition troops who had fought their way through insurgent and terrorist sanctuaries in Baghdad were more popular at the end of the fight than at the beginning. Iraqis generally recognize that their wars are fought in their cities, horrible though that is, so they have a fairly high tolerance for collateral damage and even for the presence of foreign forces in their urban areas and villages. They are generally more interested in who is going to win.

Pashtuns don’t work that way. The Soviets invaded Afghanistan at the end of 1979 and quickly occupied all of the major urban areas. The insurgents, for the most part, did not contest that occupation. They focused instead on cutting off communications between the cities, on ambushing Soviet troops moving outside urban areas and villages, and on attacking isolated Soviet outposts. The Soviets did not know how to respond—they had no context for thinking about a rural insurgency. They had fought the Second World War city by city, and had suppressed rebellions in their Eastern European satellites by fighting through their capitals. They tried to subdue the Pashtuns with ferocious and indiscriminate bombing of Afghan villages, generating 5 million refugees and strengthening the resistance rather than breaking it.

Today’s situation is similar. The major urban centers are not insurgent sanctuaries, and most insurgent attacks occur not only beyond the city limits but outside of the villages as well. American troops accustomed to setting up positions within Iraqi cities and towns may find that the same procedures in Afghanistan incense the population rather than reassure it. That does not mean the problem lies with our overall “footprint” in Afghanistan, but rather that we should rethink where to put our feet. We must also remember that Afghan tolerance for attacks within villages and cities is much lower than Iraqi tolerance, which is why complaints about collateral damage in Afghanistan are much louder than Iraqi complaints were, even though the damage is milder.

Understanding this principle is vital, because if we misinterpret the nature of the “footprint” problem we might come to the erroneous conclusion that success requires fewer forces rather than more—or, as some senior leaders are increasingly suggesting, that our presence is the problem. In fact, to solve the problems in Afghanistan we must have a deep understanding of local dynamics in many different areas. In the current security environment, only American and allied military forces can understand those dynamics, and they can do so only by living among the people in a way that is mutually acceptable to our forces and the Afghans. Pulling back to bases may reduce local resentment of us, but it will also deprive us of any ability to interact with Afghans and their leaders at the level necessary for success. As General Petraeus is fond of saying, you can’t kill your way out of an insurgency. Neither can you defeat one long-distance. Success in Iraq required finding the right way to deploy American forces among the Iraqi population. Success in Afghanistan will require finding the right way for Afghanistan, which will almost certainly be different from the right way in Iraq.

7. UNDERSTAND WHAT WE MUST DO, CAN DO, AND CAN’T DO
The Afghan National Army consists of perhaps 70,000 troops (on paper). This number will rise gradually to 134,000—itself an arbitrary sum, based on assumptions about what the fifth-poorest country in the world can afford to pay for an army that is certainly too small to establish and maintain security. The Afghan National Police are ineffective when not actively part of the problem. Afghanistan is significantly larger than Iraq, its terrain is far more daunting, and its population is greater. The Iraqi Security Forces that defeated the insurgency (with our help) in 2007 and 2008 numbered over 500,000 by the end. There is simply no way that Afghan Security Forces can defeat the insurgents on their own, with or without large numbers of coalition advisers.

Breaking the insurgency will have to be a real team effort. Coalition units must partner with Afghan army units to clear critical areas, and then work with local leaders to develop local security solutions that smaller numbers of residual U.S. and Afghan troops can support while other areas are cleared.

It is better, in general, for Afghans to take the lead in moving into or through Afghan towns, but this is not always as desirable as we might think. In many regions, Afghan villagers are highly localized. Iraqis were accustomed to traveling across their country, maintained active links with and made frequent visits to relatives in various regions, and were willing to see the Iraqi army as their army even when its units were drawn from other parts of the country. Many rural Afghans are not nearly as mobile, particularly after decades of fighting in which the insurgents worked studiously to disrupt communications. In some areas, any outside forces—even Afghan forces—are seen simply as outsiders.

We can observe this phenomenon clearly in Pakistan today, as Pakistani soldiers (largely Punjabis) move into Pashtun areas and are attacked as foreigners. It is not remotely in our interest to generate a similar situation in Afghanistan. We must also remember an important lesson from our efforts to transition security responsibilities prematurely in Iraq in 2005 and 2006: It does not matter much if the local population resents us; it does matter if they resent and mistrust their own security forces. Some counterinsurgency operations are better conducted by outside forces simply because the resentment they generate will leave with them rather than stick to the indigenous government.

8. HAVE A GOOD PLAN
Adding more troops to a failing strategy rarely works. Current military and political leaders recognize this, which is why reviews are underway in CENTCOM, the Joint Staff, and the White House to develop a new strategy for Afghanistan. At the end of the day, however, the detailed campaign plan for implementing a new strategy has to come from the commander in the theater. That commander, Gen. David McKiernan, suffers from a number of significant handicaps that Generals Petraeus and Odierno did not face in Iraq in 2007.

Developing a detailed campaign plan requires a large military staff. Coordinating the use of force with political, economic, and social projects also requires a large staff, on both the military side and the civilian side. In Iraq in 2007, General Petraeus had a large staff (Multinational Force–Iraq). He had a terrific civilian partner in Amb. Ryan Crocker, who headed the largest U.S. embassy in the world and had the power to coordinate most of the non-military efforts in Iraq. Petraeus also had the support of Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno and the large and excellent staff of the III Corps. Odierno and his staff did most of the work developing the military plans to defeat the insurgents, working through five division-level (two-star) commands and as many as 22 combat brigades. Every part of that command structure was necessary to understanding the problem and developing plans to respond to it that were truly integrated at every level.

General McKiernan has no such resources. His staff is too small and is a hodgepodge of U.S. and allied officers whose main function, when the staff was formed, was the coordination of an allied reconstruction effort. The much larger number of allies in Afghanistan, and the fact that NATO took control of the operation in 2006, places an enormous burden on McKiernan and his staff that Petraeus did not face. There is no corps headquarters in Afghanistan, moreover—no equivalent to Odierno’s III Corps and the staff that actually developed the war plan in Iraq. There are five subordinate headquarters (regional commands), but some have few troops and only one has the resources that the five division staffs in Iraq provided. Current plans may put as many as six U.S. brigades on the ground by the end of this year. The U.S. mission in Afghanistan has nothing like the authority that Ambassador Crocker had; on the contrary, the proliferation of allies and international aid efforts has frustrated attempts to unite them in a coherent civil-military campaign plan.

The situation in Afghanistan requires a significant augmentation of McKiernan’s staff: the addition of a corps headquarters under him and at least one division headquarters in the south. It also requires a body that can coordinate international efforts and mesh them with military planning, either through the U.S. mission in Afghanistan or through the U.N.’s special envoy. Without such an increase in headquarters and planning capabilities, even the best work by our commanders can mitigate only a portion of the problems. The solutions that emerge will likely be suboptimal.

Before it departed, the Bush administration decided to send reinforcements to Afghanistan, and the new administration has supported that decision. Rightly so—Afghanistan needs more U.S. troops. But until a thorough and detailed joint campaign plan has been developed in the theater—with buy-in from the overall military commander, our allies, and the civilian organizations that will have to help execute it—it will not be possible to know exactly how many troops are needed, what exactly they should be doing, or what resources they will require. Developing such a plan and evaluating the resource requirements should be an urgent priority—more urgent even than getting more troops into the theater.

Developing a coherent plan for the entire country requires the involvement of our many allies. That involvement, in turn, requires coming to a common understanding of the situation, the tasks to be performed, and the challenges we face. When Afghanistan became a NATO mission, the presumption was that it was primarily a nation-building exercise. Many allied countries committed troops without intending to participate in counterinsurgency efforts. Although it is natural to complain about the national caveats that restrict some (but by no means all) allied troops from leaving their bases or fighting, we must recognize that many of our allies never signed up for this kind of war. They have therefore been reluctant to admit that we now face a full-fledged insurgency. The Obama administration and its newly appointed envoy, Amb. Richard Holbrooke, have a real opportunity for constructive diplomatic engagement here. It should be their priority to help our allies accept the reality in Afghanistan, at the same time making it clear that we do not expect them to engage in combat operations they never intended to undertake. As in Iraq, we should accept whatever contributions they are willing and able to make, but avoid allowing tensions over those contributions to distort the overall understanding of the fight.

9. PRIORITIZE EFFORTS
While the situation in Afghanistan is indeed deteriorating, it would be wrong to rush forces out of Iraq this year in response. Most important, as detailed above, we have not yet established the conditions in Afghanistan that would allow a surge to be decisive. Also, the theater cannot absorb too many reinforcements too quickly. The surge in Iraq brought U.S. troop levels up to something over 160,000 soldiers—about the same number we had had there at the end of 2005. By contrast, coalition force levels in Afghanistan are already at their highest levels. The logistical base that supports them is very sparse. In Iraq there was enough reserve logistical and infrastructure capacity to integrate five additional brigades and two battalions in the space of six months. Because similar resources are lacking, it would be much harder to accomplish such a feat in Afghanistan at this point.

It would also be wrong from the standpoint of U.S. global interests and grand strategy. The dramatic improvement in the situation in Iraq has already increased our options and flexibility—forces are moving from Iraq to Afghanistan this year without imposing unacceptable risks on our position in Iraq. General Odierno has identified 2009 as a critical year for Iraq, starting with the successful Iraqi provincial elections that just occurred and ending with the election of a new central government.

Maintaining American presence in Iraq in support of this effort is essential. Every estimate suggests that, if we maintain such a presence this year, the requirement for continued U.S. forces in Iraq after 2009 will drop dramatically. We can surge troops into Afghanistan, in other words, in 2010 without compromising success in Iraq, and after we have developed the command and logistical structures—and, above all, the plan-to support them in Afghanistan. Therefore, sound grand strategy means using 2009 to set the conditions for decisive operations in Afghanistan while ensuring that Iraq remains stable enough to permit dramatic force reductions.

The key problem with this approach is that Afghanistan must elect a new president this year, and many areas of the country are not secure enough for a legitimate election. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do to address this problem through troop redeployments. Two additional combat brigades are already on the way and will arrive in time to make a difference. Redirecting other combat brigades now meant for deployment to Iraq requires a good six months of advanced warning—among other things, the troops have to train for an entirely different climate, culture, and situation. Any additional brigades would therefore be arriving shortly before the elections. Considering that it takes a unit anywhere from 30 to 60 days on the ground to get deployed and gain enough situational awareness to develop reasonable plans and methods, it is already too late to get more troops to Afghanistan (at least in any prepared and orderly fashion) in time to make much of a difference to the elections.

The theater commander might be able to mitigate the problem to some extent by committing the theater reserve to help; our European allies might be able to help a little with a mini-surge of their own. But rushing out of Iraq now is far more likely to ensure that we are distracted by problems in Mesopotamia in 2010 than to turn the tide in South Asia.

PROLEGOMENON TO A PLAN FOR WINNING IN AFGHANISTAN
This essay does not provide a plan or a strategy for success in Afghanistan. It provides, rather, a set of guidelines for thinking about how to develop one, and for evaluating plans articulated by the administration, its generals, and outsiders. Ultimately, a plan for winning in Afghanistan has to be developed in Afghanistan, just as the plan for winning in Iraq was developed in Iraq. It is a truism that any plan must involve not only the U.S. and allied militaries, but all relevant civilian and international agencies, and must deeply involve the Afghans themselves at every level. Our military and civilian leaders understand that truism. We have failed to date in accomplishing the objective not because we haven’t known that we must, but because it is very hard to do.

But hard is not hopeless in Afghanistan any more than it was in Iraq. The stakes are high, as they always are when America puts its brave young men and women in harm’s way. President Obama has an opportunity in the difficult challenge he faces. So far, he appears determined to try to do the right thing. He deserves the active support and encouragement of every American in that attempt.

— Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Analysis: Obama faces split opinion on Iraq future

By ROBERT BURNS – 1 day ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama faces split opinions within the military on whether to make the speedy withdrawal from Iraq he championed as a candidate.

Obama’s top generals in Baghdad are pressing for an elongated timetable. Some influential senior advisers inside the Pentagon are more amenable to a quicker pullout.

Obama has yet to decide the matter. But his recent announcement that he is sending thousands more combat troops to Afghanistan implies a drawdown of at least two brigades from Iraq by summer.

That does not answer the question whether Obama will stick to his stated goal of a 16-month pullout or opt for a slower, less risky approach.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Baghdad, favors a longer timetable for leaving Iraq. He sees 2009 as a pivotal year, with parliamentary elections set to be held in December; he doesn’t want to lose more than two of the 14 combat brigades that are now in Iraq before the end of the year. And he believes the U.S. military will need to remain engaged in Iraq, to some degree, for years to come.

Odierno’s boss at U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, leans toward Odierno’s view.

Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has steered clear of the debate over withdrawing from Iraq. But he sees his battlefield as an increasingly urgent priority, not just for additional combat troops but also for Iraq-focused surveillance aircraft and more civilian support.

There are now about 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, compared with 38,000 in Afghanistan. Obama has directed 17,000 more to head to Afghanistan, including Marines and soldiers who had been in line for Iraq duty.

At the Pentagon, a more mixed view prevails.

The uniformed service chiefs see Iraq as a strain on their troops and, more broadly, a drain on their resources. The Marines, in particular, are in the tough position of having a foothold in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a relatively small service, they would prefer to concentrate more fully on Afghanistan, if only they could get out of Iraq.

Neither Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nor Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said publicly whether he supports a 16-month withdrawal timeline. But they have an obligation to consider the full spectrum of threats and potential threats to U.S. national security.

“There’s a very clear understanding of what is at stake here,” Mullen said Feb. 10. “And it’s very natural for Gen. Odierno to want to go slower and to hang onto capability as long as possible,” he added. “That’s not unusual. It’s very natural for Gen. McKiernan to say, ‘I need more.’ And so that’s the tension. We don’t have an infinite pot (of resources and deployable forces). We have to make hard decisions about where to accept risk.”

In internal discussions, the emphasis appears to be on getting out responsibly rather than quickly, several officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made.

Obama must weigh an array of hard-to-figure trade-offs in security and politics. And he must reconcile his conviction that the combat phase of U.S. involvement in Iraq must end with his commanders’ concern in Baghdad that hard-fought gains could be squandered.

It boils down to this: How much more effort is the Iraq war worth? What is the risk of leaving too soon?

Is the 16-month timetable too short, given the uncertain state of stability and political reconciliation in Iraq and the potential cost of seeing the country slide back into widespread sectarian war?

And is anything substantially beyond 16 months too long, given the call for still more troops in Afghanistan, where Obama himself has said the battle against extremists is going in the wrong direction?

Obama is still considering his options, which officials say includes a less hurried, 23-month withdrawal. The deadline he inherited from the Bush administration is Dec. 31, 2011, the date set in a security agreement with Baghdad that says all U.S. troops, not just combat forces, must be gone by then.

One clue to some of the thinking inside the White House might lie with the views of Obama’s national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones. Jones co-chaired a study published in January 2008 on the way ahead in Afghanistan. The group endorsed the idea of providing more military support for Afghanistan, including resources that become available as combat forces are withdrawn from Iraq.

The president has an additional factor to weigh: the political cost of backing off the 16-month pullout timetable that was a prominent feature of his campaign. Although he has said he thinks 16 months is a reasonable timetable, he also has assured military leaders that he will consider their advice.

Notably absent, at least so far, is even a whiff of public pressure from fellow Democrats to stick to a 16-month timeline. That suggests Obama’s party might be satisfied so long as he makes early and clear steps in the direction of ending U.S. combat involvement in Iraq, even if on a somewhat longer timeline.

Obama campaigned for the White House on a promise that he would end the war and get U.S. commanders moving immediately on a transition to Iraqi control of their own security. He said military experts believe combat troops can be pulled out safely at a rate of one to two brigades a month, meaning all 14 combat brigades there now could be gone within 16 months, which equates to mid-2010.

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who was the executive officer for Petraeus when the general was in Baghdad overseeing the “surge” of U.S. forces in 2007-08, said he thinks it likely that Obama will pull at least four combat brigades out of Iraq by the end of this year. But he hopes the president does not insist on getting all 14 brigades out within 16 months.

“If the president orders it, the military can do it, but whether it’s advisable or not is a different story,” he said in a telephone interview. “Quite frankly, I don’t think it is, given the risk you would incur to potentially upsetting the political situation” inside Iraq.

EDITOR’S NOTE _ Robert Burns has covered national security affairs for The Associated Press since 1990. Associated Press writers Robert Reid, Jennifer Loven, Pam Hess and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.