Partnerships

I just finished reading Bing West's The Village; literally, I finished it, played a quick game of flight control, and then sat down to type this out. The book is the true story of a squad of Marines during the Vietnam War who were assigned as a CAP (combined action program). They partnered up with a group of Popular Forces (local security force) to help protect a series of villages that held about 6,000 people. The Marines lived with the local security forces, ate with them, spent time in the villages during the day, and conducted ambushes agains the local Viet Cong at night. 7 of the Marines would lose their lives but after 2 years the area was completely secure. The use of the CAP was, in my opinion, an outstanding technique for counterinsurgency and throughout reading the book I wondered if a similar program, done properly, could have been used in Iraq.

A CAP program may not have worked in the larger cities of Iraq like Baghdad, Mosul, and Basra, but I believe in many of the less populated areas where village areas are more common it would have worked. In my squadron's area of operations area I can think of 3, possibly 4, village areas where this idea could have potentially worked wonders had we implemented it. Finding NCOs and soldiers willing to live amongst the Iraqis and away from "the flagpole" would likely not be difficult as it would give these soldiers a great opportunity to prove themselves without all the garrison rules that come with being on a large base. There would be a cost, of course. 12-15 soldiers on their own with reinforcements several minutes or an hour away, would be too much of a high payoff target for insurgents to not attempt to attack. In 2006-2007 combat outposts and patrol bases were being attacked regularly. Several squads likely would have been lost throughout Iraq. The cost would be worth it because as long as CAPs were replaced the population would see the American and Iraqi soldiers standing up to the insurgents and fighting for the protection of the locals. Information and intelligence gathered would increase as would hostility towards the insurgency. Without a regular army to back them up, such as in Vietnam, the insurgency would have withered away much quicker than it has.

However, CAPs were not established and by the time 1-14 came back to Iraq we were not even allowed to establish combat outposts as we of course were in the beginning stages of a drawdown. The checkpoints we were eventually forced to man would have made COPs or even patrol bases impossible to maintain due to manpower limitations. There was some talk of keeping the occasion platoon at an Iraqi Army company headquarters, which could have been effective, but no commander made the decision to do it, even after the squadron commander mentioned this as a possibility. If we could have established 3 combat outposts and created 4 combined platoons...while I'm at it I should wish for a pony.

Tom Ricks links to an article from Army Magazine discussing another form of partnership that 4th BDE, 25th infantry conducted in Afghanistan. 4-25 conducted "embedded partnership" and established a combined tactical operations center with their Afghan Army partners. This enabled better communication and more comprehensive planning.

1-14 did a similar thing in Diyala. While it wasn't a completely combined TOC, we did at least have liason officers from the Iraqi Army brigade, the Peshmerga brigade, and the local police in the TOC. Only the IA LNO had a radio so communication between the police LNO and the Pesh LNO to their respective HQs was done through cell phone. Officers from the Iraqi Army would come to the TOC to discuss issues, the operations officers from all 3 sides could have planning meetings, and my partner came over frequently to see the UAV feed and recommend areas to overwatch. I had concerns about security since we were essentially showing our hand, or at least a good portion of it, to individuals whose loyalty was sometimes in question. My warrant officer still twitches in anger at some of the security violations we had to pretend we didn't see and several of my soldiers joked of inviting both AQI and JRTN to send LNOs to the TOC.

One last article to leave you with. This one has nothing to do with partnerships but instead the increasing gap that has been formed between the military and the average American we are sworn to protect. The country has been at war for nearly 10 years now but because of the all volunteer force only a very tiny portion of citizens has been to Iraq or Afghanistan, often 2, 3, or 4 times. Those of us who chose this find we sometimes have little in common with the average person who only does a 9-5. This blurb really stuck out for me:

It's even becoming more difficult for soldier and civilian to converse. Army
Capt. Stefan Hutnik, a company commander in Afghanistan, recalls being home from
a combat tour and being told by his wife, as they were headed out to a family
dinner, please don't talk about the Army or the war.
"But,'' he said sadly, "I don't have anything else to talk about.''

How many times have I been there before? Sitting in a room, desperately wanting to tell my story, but knowing nobody gives a damn.