The CSA era ends in Iraq

It was announced today by the commander of USD-N (US Division-North, the organization in charge of northern Iraq) that starting next month US forces will end its participation in the combined security areas (CSA) of the disputed Kurd/Arab regions that had been established in February 2010.

For those of you not in the know, during my last deployment with 1-14 Cav it was determined that something had to be done along the disputed "Green Line" between Kurdish and Arab security forces before events spiraled out of control. Violence all over Iraq had decreased dramatically in the past couple of years and the disputed areas in the Ninewa (Sinjar and northern Mosul area), Kirkuk (Kirkuk city obviously), and Diyala (Kifri-Khanaqin area) provinces had to be dealt with and became General Odierno's primary concern. It was decided that "combined units" of American army, Iraqi army, and Peshmerga militia would be utilized in these areas to do patrols, provide humanitarian relief, and conduct raids. Combed checkpoints were also established in spots where Iraqi checkpoints and Kurdish checkpoints were already co-located, in some cases only 100 meters apart.

1-14 Cav established 5 such checkpoints in our "combined security area" and by the end of the deployment each troop was conducted at least one combined mission a day. We were nicknamed the Hamrin Lions since we were in the Hamrin Mountain region and Iraqis area a bit obsessed with lions.

A lot of work went into the Hamrin CSA. Many, many hours wasted on PowerPoint slides and briefings; I'm pretty sure a couple of the assistant S3's gave up on sleep for awhile. I think the S4 went insane at one point trying to acquire and then distribute everything that went into making the checkpoints fully functional. I became increasingly frustrated attempting to conduct combined intelligence meetings between the Iraqi brigade intel officer and the Peshmerga brigade intel officer; I eventually just gave up and met with them seperately. The troops rotated platoons to man the checkpoints in the heat, dust, and miserableness of it all. We all thought it was insane, I didn't think it would work at all.

Only time will tell if the CSA's "worked". They haven't failed yet, and that's a small miracle in itself. With US forces pulling out of Iraq at the end of the year it was only a matter of time before US soldiers could no longer man checkpoints or conduct combined patrols but it's still a little sad to see the program you helped put and keep together end.

Congrats are in order to 2-14 Cav who took the shit sandwich we handed them and ran with it.