Posted By:
MAF Blogger Danny
Permalink

Sunday Dec 23
Somewhere in South Baghdad
1115 Hrs (Local Time)

According to my computer it’s about 1:00 in the morning Montana time, or just after midnight at headquarters in Sacramento. I can’t believe it’s actually the third day we’ve been at this base in southern Baghdad. Time seems to just blend together out here, just like it does when we are off touring the US, but here it is even more bizarre and disorienting. I wonder if the guys out here are just used to it or if it’s like that for them too.

Finding our Unit
When I last had a chance to post something up, we were in Baghdad waiting for a helicopter to take us to our next stop-off point. All reporters in Iraq have to go to this office in Baghdad called Central Press Information Center, or CPIC. The ‘helo’ we were waiting for, a Blackhawk, was VERY late coming to get us, and the last post I made we were all on ‘standby’ just waiting for the chopper to land. After making the last post, I walked back to the building we were sitting in with all our stuff and Debbie was telling me to grab it because we had to leave. So I just barely made it…in the military they don’t wait for people…unless you’re wearing four stars.

[[ From the tarmac...our Black Hawk eventually showed up ]]

[[ Mafblogger Danny strapped in and ready to fly ]]

We got on our ‘helo’ and taxied for a little bit…Blackhawks actually have wheels, and lifted off. It was MUCH smoother lifting off the ground than I had expected. I have never been in a helicopter before, but I had imagined it would be laborious to actually get off the ground. Sort of how it’s tough to get a truck moving when it is loaded up with a bunch of cargo, but once you get going momentum allows you to move it easier, it’s just that initial speed-up from a stationary position that’s tough. But lifting off in this chopper did not feel labored at all, it actually felt powerful, like we had been shot off from the ground by a spring or launched from a rocket…the engines that power these helo screws must be very capable. The flight on a Blackhawk was loud but amazing; I was very impressed with how smooth and agile these things are… I felt like we could have dodged a missile if we had to. Maybe that’s partially due to the skill of the pilots too. We were flying low over Baghdad and you could see everything very clearly.

[[ A view from the skies over Baghdad ]]

Baghdad, as later would be explained to me, is not what you might call a centrally planned city, it’s more of a conglomeration of smaller neighborhoods that all sprouted out around the fertile areas between the Tigris and Euphrates. As these little neighborhoods grew larger, the boundaries between them eventually disappeared and became one sprawling metropolis. Flying overhead does offer some stunning views of endless houses and apartments stretching way out, long bridges across the Tigris, and several huge palaces or compounds, I couldn’t really tell what they were from that high up.

We arrived at our landing pad which was not at CPIC but another location close by…we were somewhere in the Green Zone. Someone from CPIC came to pick us up in another unmarked SUV and drove us about five minutes, to CPIC which is also in the Green Zone, where we got our pictures taken and our press badges made. The guys there were all really nice and cooperated with us. We were trying to coordinate another ‘helo’ ride to our final destination (tentatively final) of a Forward Operating Base somewhere outside the Green Zone, in the south of Baghdad. We thought we’d have to spend the night at CPIC which didn’t actually sound bad because we were all exhausted, none of us had slept since we were in Kuwait. Then someone came in and said that just by chance there was a convoy of MRAPS that had been deployed from our embed unit into the area and if we could be ready in an hour, they could take us right to the FOB. So we packed our stuff and got into these huge vehicles, the latest and greatest that our military engineers have to offer.

Inside the MRAP it’s very roomy and you can actually walk around if you bend down a little. The vehicles ride way high up, and the hulls are shaped a certain way so that even if an IED does go off under the vehicle, most of the force of it is directed away from the passengers. Since they’re so much larger, I asked if the MRAPs are slow, but actually they are capable of reaching high speeds, faster than what the military normally operates them at. I have heard a lot about these things and there was some controversy, if I remember correctly, about the military wanting more funding to get more MRAPs and not getting what they asked for. I hope that whatever Congress is doing, they let the pentagon or DOD buy enough of these MRAPs because the guys over here really need them and want more.

We got to our embed unit’s FOB and were given our own private rooms in an actual building (nice!) with actual beds and heaters. Actually, I should note here that technically all the tents we have been in so far have been heated, and comfortable, which I was impressed by. The military is taking very good care of our guys out here, and our guys are taking good care of Move America Forward. We met some of our local contacts and people that we would need to know if we needed this or that. Then they told us to be ready for a ‘briefing’ at 0900 and they let us get to bed.

[[ The “Victory Tree” at our FOB ]]

The Briefing – How the 1/4 Cav is beating the enemy
The next morning, yesterday, was packed. At the 0900 briefing we had schedules the guys walked us through everything that had been going on in this unit’s AOR (area of responsibility) for the last several months. Basically, the unit based here is in charge of several large neighborhoods in the south of Baghdad, which were extremely dangerous in May when they were first given responsibility over the area. Now these areas are drastically improved over their previous conditions.

Attending the meeting were Lt. Col Crider, Major Baer, Major Callahan, Staff Sergeant New and St Lieutenants Satre, Micro, and Lee.  They took us through and Crider explained the timeline of their mission here. The unit we are embedded with got to Kuwait in February and finished moving into southern Baghdad in May, which is when their mission actually started. The mission they came with was to reduce violence, protect the local population and provide the peace and quiet necessary to allow political progress.

Lt. Col Crider talked a bit about the makeup of the unit and how many guys were in each squad, stuff like that, then First Lieutenant Lee, who is like an intelligence officer, walked us through the events of the last few months. When the 1/4 Cav first got to Iraq, the level of IED incidents and occurrences of violence per day was very high. In the first 30 days they were in charge of the region there were 52 events (an IED exploded, a murder, a shooting, a firefight, a kidnapping, ect.) in 30 days. IED attacks were almost 100% effective at that time, meaning that almost 100% of IED attacks resulted in a death. In that first 30 days only 16 enemies were captured or detained. The unit was getting no cooperation from the local community, had not informants and no sources. In short, the situation looked pretty bleak.

Lee showed us, on the projector, a map of the AOR (the area that the unit was in charge of) in May - when the unit first arrived - which had little red flags placed at every place where an IED had gone off, a person had been kidnapped or murdered, and everywhere that Al Qaeda had perpetrated something. The map was full of red flags, most of them concentrated along this one highway and these two neighborhood streets.

Then Lee switched to the same map, with flags similarly placed, that represented enemy events in September. It was vastly different, like night and day. The map had one red flag on it, an IED explosion that no one was even harmed in. Debbie Lee, Mary, and I were all very impressed, I mean right there you could see the progress was very apparent.

So how exactly is progress this drastic possible? How did this relatively small unit take one of Al Qaeda’s strongest neighborhoods and completely turn it around, and expel the terrorists from the neighborhoods? I asked Lt. Col Crider, and to answer me, he wanted to explain not just the solution, but the problem they had faced when they got to Baghdad.

To fight Al Qaeda, you have to know how they operate and what their strategy was. Basically, Al Qaeda was simply attempting to keep Baghdad as unsafe as possible and thus exacerbate sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia. These neighborhoods, which were largely Shia dominated, had seen their Sunni populations fleeing in huge numbers to Syria. Al Qaeda came in and began extorting the local population, intimidating them, threatening them into not cooperating with the US Military. Lt. Col Crider told me how Al Qaeda had beheaded several locals who had tried to cooperate and had been informants to the US. Early patrols had found the severed heads of these unfortunates on the sidewalks. Al Qaeda funded its operations through kidnapping and ransoming people, and extorting them by making people pay for protection. They also had a monopoly on black market fuel. Many people around here need gasoline or propane to power vehicles or generators for their houses, and Al Qaeda had made the streets so dangerous that it was far too risky to get in your vehicle and drive to a gas station, so the terrorists would come in and sell the fuel that locals needed at insane prices. They also went into houses and stole furniture or valuables to be sold for financing more terrorist activities. Al Qaeda was also trying to move their families into some of the abandoned houses in order to try and take over the neighborhoods.

Crider told me that their response came directly from the counterinsurgency textbook. In fact, before deployment here, he said, everyone had to actually read a textbook on counterinsurgency. The response itself is actually very simple, and that is to put soldiers on the ground on streets and neighborhoods 24 hours a day. We really had to make the soldiers a part of the community like they never had been before. One part of this strategy
was knocking on doors and asking to come into peoples houses to just sit and talk with them for a while, to ask who they are, what their lives are like and what the military could do to make things better. The locals just wanted to feel like someone was actually listening to their problems, which the current Iraqi government and National Police were not doing. The National Police was also taken off the streets because the locals did not trust them, and replaced by constant US military presence. We were also taking pictures of everyone we were talking to, and building a database on the local population.

Crider said that the overriding principle behind everything in the new strategy was to ‘care for the local people unconditionally’ that means even if there was an IED exploding somewhere or someone had been hit by sniper fire that day, not to get angry at the neighborhood but to understand that the locals themselves were victims just like the victims of sniper fire or a roadside bomb.

There was also a high level of humanitarian outreach. The military came in with soccer balls, blankets, electric heaters, and began selling gasoline, kerosene, and propane at market prices to undercut the black market. They also had engineers come in to replace the electrical systems, clean up the streets from the massive mounds of trash that littered everything and improve the sewer management system that were often overextended, causing disgusting sewage waste to empty out into the streets and causing sickness in the local population. The military upgraded several local medical clinics and build parks, new sidewalks, and put up new walls to stop Al Qaeda from entering the neighborhoods from outside.  All of the manpower to complete these projects came from the locals as the military wanted to keep all the money in the community and provide jobs for locals. They also provided small grants to foster businesses and delivered the money personally to the resident’s homes or businesses. On one street there were previously 11 stores and businesses where there are presently 150 on the same street. 

To control the population – and thus Al Qaeda’s access to the neighborhoods, they put up walls near the freeways so that terrorists could not easily cross in and out of the neighborhoods. That meant that it was harder for them to escape once they were identified as hostiles by our men, and it was harder for them to come in from neighboring rural areas to intimidate the locals. The walls themselves, while they started out as eyesores, are actually beautiful now, as the military hired a local resident to paint murals on them. To control the incidences of Al Qaeda moving families in and squatting on abandoned properties, they started putting locks on empty houses and asking for proof of ownership and asking locals about their neighbors. Crider said some people would say ‘yeah, I know that guy he’s been my neighbor for 14 years’ and others would say ‘no, I don’t know who that family is, they just came in one day and they don’t talk to anyone and keep to themselves’ so that gave our guys a lot of leads, and it was only through visiting Iraqis in their homes and gaining their trust that the locals started to open up with that kind of information.

Basically we won these neighborhoods back not by shooting the enemy and doing house to house clearing…although there were initially lots of firefights and IED explosions…these streets were paid for in blood, but that’s only because they were so dangerous to begin with. The neighborhoods were won over by winning the hearts and minds of the local residents, by being there for them, and being a compassionate provider. The US Army has basically been the only government out here it now administers everything from electricity to water, sewage, parks and recreating, everything. And they’re doing so very effectively. Now, the locals that our guys talk to are happy and cooperative, and when a stranger or someone up to no good moves into the neighborhood they get multiple reports of suspicious activity.

The last IED incident that occurred in this area of Baghdad was October 16th. There was a HUMMV driving along a road and they noticed some kids jumping up and down from a rooftop yelling “mister, no! mister no!” The truck stopped and the kids pointed down to the dirt road right in front of the HUMMV and said that they had seen three men come and bury something there. It turned out to be an IED which blew up several minutes later, no one harmed.

Crider said that last May, those same kids probably would have just stood there and watched the whole crew of that HUMMV get blown apart and laughed at the scene, but today the kids and the community know that working with the US Military is a winning solution, and a way to guarantee safety and stability for their communities.

So after that eye opening briefing, Crider said that we could go out on patrol and actually see the progress for ourselves. So he gave us an hour for chow and at 12:30 we were back with out Kevlar and our gear on, loaded up into four HUMMVs and we took off to go see these neighborhoods we had heard about earlier, one called Doura.

Visiting the Doura muahallah
Going down the freeways we passed several checkpoints operated by the Iraqi National Police. I was impressed with their swelling numbers…there were plenty around, and their nice blue uniforms. It seemed that before in all the pictures I had seen it looked like the Iraqis were all wearing US hand-me-downs from Operation Desert Storm. But the uniforms I saw the Iraqi NP were pretty snazzy. Crider said that after taking the NP out of the neighborhoods they were now in the process of re-integrating them. The people now are much more trusting of the NP.

One some of the streets, we drive on the wrong side of the road, I am not sure if this is for security purposes or because it gets us there faster, but the Iraqis pull over and wait for us to pass, then they are on their way. The streets are fairly busy.

[[ Debbie Lee meets an Iraqi citizen for the first time ]]

When we arrived at the first Doura neighborhood we pull over and they let us out of the HUMMVs already there are Iraqis coming over to us to talk and the kids are all around asking questions and seeing if we have soccer balls or candy for them. It was the final day of Eid, a three day holiday in the Muslim calendar, so all the kids were out of school for four days of vacation. Several little kids touched Debbie Lee’s hair and said “Blonde! Blonde!” These little kids are so cute, they all seem to say “Meesta, Meesta, what’s your name” and when I tell them they always respond with “My name, Mustafa or Muhammad” or whatever their name happens to be.

[[ Iraqi children meet us in the streets ]]

One guy came up to talk with Lt. Col Crider. Crider tells me that he says he was formerly an AP photographer and talks with Crider a lot, but he’s also just a little ‘off’ so who knows for sure.

A middle aged Iraqi gentleman in a black leather jacket came over to talk, his name is Barkat. I can’t be sure if that’s how it’s spelled, but it sounds like Barkat, and he talked at length with Crider and Debbie Lee through our interpreter. Debbie told Barkat about Marc, her son and Navy Seal who was killed in Ramadi, and Barkat expressed his condolences. He said, “God willing, there will be no more violence in the future.” Barkat actually knew about the changes that had taken place in Ramadi and said that, “we appreciate your sacrifice for our country, if you go to any resident they will say we appreciate what you did for our neighborhood, for our country.” That was awesome to hear from a real Iraqi.

I asked out interpreter if he would ask Barkat about Eid for me, to find out how they celebrated and if he had a good time. Barkat said that this was the first feast in several years that they had felt safe, where the kids were able to play and that there were good relations with coalition forces. If not for all the progress that had been made in recent months, there is no way the locals could have celebrated their Eid in peace.

We advanced down the street and another local, Hashem, came up to visit with our group. Hashem is sometimes introduced as Hadgi or Hadgi Hashem, hadgi meaning that he had completed a religious pilgrimage (called the hadge) the visit Mecca. Hadgi Hashem is the leader of the local neighborhood council and some sort of deputy chairman of this district of Baghdad. I could not exactly understand what his official role was, but he was basically the leader and spokesman of the neighborhood. I think he also owned several businesses on the street and offered us some meat kabobs for free. He said that many farmers drive from out of town just for his kabobs. That reminded me of the craze that Krispy Kreme doughnuts had started back home years ago. Hashem invited all of us to a soccer game, supposedly several neighborhoods got together and organized a tournament and the finals were going to be someday soon, I don’t remember when but he said they play at 3 o’clock. When Debbie told Hashem about Marc, he said, through the interpreter, that he wanted Debbie to know that Marc was going to heaven.

[[ Hadgi Hashem ]]

We went down several other streets, one of which was not in the same shape as the rest. In fact it was still identified as a ‘bad neighborhood.’ We could see the contrast. There were hardly any people out, and no shops open, but the soldiers were with told us that there was a time when they wouldn’t even drive down that street, let alone allow reporters to come in and walk around. In fact, the unit had lost 3 guys there in two incidents, but here we were walking around freely and giving candy to the kids. It was amazing that there were ANY people out. Crider said that previously the only time you would see an Iraqi was just the top of his or her head, from the eyes up and nothing more, peeking up over the wall and then back down. He also said that in May, the only time anyone would go in that street was if we had soldiers on the rooftops watching over. This street showed us that while immense progress had been made, there was still work to be done.

After the ‘not so good’ neighborhood, we went to one last neighborhood in the Doura region that was another stunning success story where we met Captain Cook, who was in charge of that area. I asked Cook what these neighborhoods were like during Saddam’s reign compared to what they were like in May and then today. He told me that this area had always been affluent before. When Saddam Hussein was in power these neighborhoods had been the homes for doctors, lawyers, Iraqi police and high ranking military officials. I asked if that was why they had become such bad areas, because they were Saddam loyalists, but Cook told me that even after Saddam had been ousted, these neighborhoods had remained affluent and peaceful for years and that it was only after the bombing of the Samara Mosque – which was a famous holy place for Shiite Muslims, which Al Qaeda bombed – that this neighborhood had gone downhill. After the Samara Mosque was bombed, many of the Shiites in the surrounding areas took their revenge upon the Sunnis who lived in these neighborhoods. That sectarian violence is what caused all the deterioration and allowed Al Qaeda to make Doura a terrorist stronghold.

Now the same Sunni families that had fled, due to Shiite aggression, were calling their friends who stayed behind because they heard about the progress on Syrian TV. Their friends back in Doura are telling them, “Yes, things ARE that much better, come, move back.”

After we left Doura, we headed to what Crider called a COP, which is basically like a mini-FOB that they establish out close to the neighborhoods. There, soldiers on patrol can come in and get hot food, hot showers and a clean bathroom while they are out patrolling the Doura markets or neighborhoods. I wondered why you would need to have a base like that out there, and I was told that there are about 3 patrols each day and each shift is 9 hours along. So the soldiers do need a place to take a break when they’re pulling such long shifts. Also having the COP so close to the neighborhood reinforces the military’s presence and tells the locals that ‘we are here for you, and accessible’

There is a tiny little house right by the COP, its all by itself and the family that lives there is very old, even though they are taking care of five children. So on our way out we took them five backpacks full of supplies and things for the kids. The old woman there, Ganema was her name I think, told the interpreter how the people posted at the COP always take good care of her and bring her stuff.  She said “God bless, and thank you” for the backpacks and the interpreter gave the kids 5,000 Dinar each. I don’t know how much money 5,000 Dinar is, but the kids were happy and smiling.

[[ Compassionate soldiers with Ganema and family ]]

After we got back to base, we were all pretty exhausted. It was a day packed full of new information, and we haven’t had much sleep at all since we were in Kuwait. It’s now Sunday and we’re sort of taking the day ‘off’ or slow, trying to rest up because I THINK we may be going out on another patrol, to see something else, tomorrow.

Thank you all for reading the blog...we also have a lot planned for the next few days so I hope that whatever pictures I can get up will be interesting to see.