The Surge – 6

[Vulture6]

The author is an independent combat correspondant and author (as well as a friend of mine and father of a Marine). As usual, some pretty astute reporting that will never make it to the main stream media.



The Surge – 6
09-28-2007, 12:37 PM • by ON Point

Andrew Lubin

With all the excitement, recriminations, and bombast of the recent Petraeus – Crocker Hearings, there was a simple question that many of the Congressmen and Senators neglected to ask: Is the military aspect of The Surge actually working?

To answer this question, OnPoint talked with three of the senior officers leading the action on the ground, and will be presenting their answers in today’s and Monday’s Features. BrigGen Mick Bednarik is the Deputy Commanding General for MNFI – North, which has the responsibility for Diyala Province. This area, north of Baghdad, includes the city of Baquoba and the surrounding agrarian Diyala River Valley. Monday’s feature will present reports from LTC Ken Adgie, MND-Central, and Col Ricky Gibbs, MNFI – Baghdad.

---------

BG Mick Bednarik: I am the deputy commanding general for Operations, so I get out and about on the battlefield most every day.

We kicked off Arrowhead Ripper in June, followed quickly by Lightning Hammer I and II. Those operations in Baqubah, specifically in Diyala province, focused on the al Qaeda stronghold support zone and safe haven targeted directly at the alleged caliphate that they established as their stronghold in Diyala.

Those division-level operations were focused principally on continuing our attack based on intel-driven operations on additional strongholds and areas where we had been able to track mid- and senior-level al Qaeda leadership across other provinces in Multinational Division-North; It’s a big battle-space, you know, about the size the Pennsylvania, and has plenty of sanctuary areas where al Qaeda leadership and the Takfiriyin have been able to hole up until we get requisite combat power, Operations in Lightning Hammer II are ongoing, not only in the Upper Diyala River Valley of Diyala province, but also in Salahuddin area and in the Hamrin Mountains in Za'ab triangle up close to Mosul.

Q – Your area has been relatively quiet the past couple weeks. But when we were speaking to the PRT leader, John Jones, about two weeks ago, he mentioned that electricity was available 2-4 hours daily, and it's making his job of getting things economically rebuilt very difficult. Can you tell us what's happening on the essential services up in your area?

A - Yeah, Andrew, great question. And we struggle with that, quite honestly, every day. John Jones, the PRT, is spot-on with his assessment. There are areas in Diyala that have very little electrical power generation. There are other areas, also in Diyala -- just one over or two to the left or two to the north -- that would have anywhere from 12 to 16 hours of power every day.

Part of it, unfortunately, is that some areas have pretty good power, but it is not the appropriate output or clean voltage that they need to run some of the larger equipment. As an example, right across from the government center in Baqubah are vendors that run Xerox machines so people coming out of the government center can Xerox documents, titles, land grants, etc. Well, they need good, clean electricity and appropriate voltage to run that to run their business.

Our assessment, as John Jones perhaps shared with you, Andrew, is ensuring that the province and the mayors of the cities there understand the capacity that they have, get the workers back to the job from a municipalities and essential services perspective, to provide that in the midterm.

Iraq’s got plenty of money to fix it, but getting contracts let and skills sets, et cetera, to re-erect electrical towers, get generators back in place, et cetera, will be the key for the future.

Q - I want to try and suck you back into Washington politics. But what you've accomplished in Baqubah sounds a lot like what the Marines have accomplished in Anbar, like Ramadi. And a lot of critics of the surge say that those kinds of flips, like the formation of the Baqubah Guardians and also Anbar Awakening, was not a result of the surge. They occurred despite the surge, that it was that the U.S. was unable to provide security, so these folks took matters into their own hands to kick al Qaeda out of their own neighborhoods. To what extent do you think the surge and your efforts there have helped create this movement in Baqubah, specifically in Diyala as well? Or did they do this on their own?

A - Great question, and that's an easy answer. I 100% disagree. We would not have been able to accomplish our tasks in Arrowhead Ripper, what occurred in Baqubah and the successes from that combat action without the surge -- bottom line, upfront, hands down. But here's probably again the deeper question -- or the deeper answer to your question is it just -- Arrow gets down to the task and boots on the ground.

We had an entire heavy brigade combat team, heavy brigade with tanks and Brads, cavalries, infantry, but the bottom line was, just flat: not enough boots on the ground to get out with the population, conduct our patrols and then hold the terrain.

The surge allowed us to provide and put additional combat power on the ground to clear in detail -- and we're talking house to house, street to street, sewer to sewer, utility to utility, block to block not only across the entire city systematically and hold it with the Iraqi security forces that partnered with us.
So in my view we would not have been able to achieve it successfully without the additional capacity that the surge provided us.

Q - So are you saying that you kind of tilled the soil for these community groups like the Baqubah Guardians, to form up and take a stronger stand?

GEN. BEDNAREK: Yeah, that would be -- that would be a way to put it. Because, you know, and it's a good comment in a think piece, is that concerned local nationals, concerned local groups, the Baqubah Guardians; they were just flat not strong enough to fight against an adversary; a despicable, horrific enemy that would intimidate families. They would go in to either, A, kill everybody in a house or, B, line all the women and children up and take the head of household or middle-aged males and either kill them right in front of their wives and children or march them all out in backyard or in the courtyard and execute them.

So you have that level of intimidation, and people being able to stand up and fight against that without assistance from Iraqi security forces and coalition forces -- in many cases, it was just too hard. So yeah, it was the seed I would highlight, to provide the opportunity for them to hold what has been cleared.

Q - There's no doubt that the surge is working at a local level in Diyala and Baqubah and your whole AO, but are your gains on the ground followed up by Government-of-Iraq action? The “clear and hold” is working fine, but the Iraqi government's is dropping the ball on the “build.” Can you comment?

A - Yeah, Andrew, I can. The answer is they're not moving fast enough. You're exactly right, and I won't sugarcoat it for you. I mentioned one, which is near and dear to my heart, is the one having to do with authorizations to hire people in the police and the army. It is just flat too slow. But essential services, you know I mentioned upfront: food from the Ministry of Trade; getting truckloads of usable grain to the silos to mill for flour to make flour for the people, and then get it out to the food agents and the mukhtars, etc. Electricity repair crews. The Ministry of Electricity has got to get more repair crews out to fix infrastructure.

Water, canal work, pumps that need to be replaced, repaired or just yanked out and new ones put in. Canals need to be dredged in many areas. There's so much junk and crap that are floating in the canals that they clog up the small little locks. I mean, Diyala province is an example; 70 percent agricultural. You’ve got to have -- water is their life blood, besides the oil, that irrigates their crops, the date palms in the provinces. So, yeah, bottom line, Andrew, the central government with the ministries -- Ministry of Trade, Commerce, Finance, pick one –is absolutely not moving fast enough.

General Odierno works this extremely hard within his spheres of influence, as does General Petraeus. A lot of people are working this extremely hard, working with the ministries in Baghdad to assist the provinces in what they need. Over.

ON POINT: Thank you for your time, BrigGen Bednarik.


Link to article: U.S. Cavalry ON Point

[Brad]

Thanks for posting this Vulture