Hello everyone,
I realize that I prematurely offered a wish for a Happy Thanksgiving in my last email. We’ll just count that as a practice run for the real thing.
This past week I participated in my final mission of this deployment as I ventured out with the local Police Transition Team (PTT) one final time. That was a good opportunity to see the progress, if any, that was being made with the Iraqi Police (IP). We went to two small towns during that patrol – Wynot and Owja. Both are south of Tikrit, and Owja is where Saddam Hussein was actually born and it is where he and his sons (or what was left of them) are buried today. As you can imagine, there is still some hard feelings towards Americans in those parts.
One lesson that all US transition team members have learned since they have been here is that the objective in training or mentoring the Iraqis should never be to get them to the point where they are operating just like we operate. Their culture is different than ours, and we are not going to change that. Their philosophy on life is also very different, and we won’t change that, either. The big goal is to help them reach a level of competence within their systems and to ensure that they can provide security to their country. It is important to count it as progress when they handle events on their own, even though their method of handling those events will make a US soldier cringe sometimes.
As we were heading to our first stop down in Wynot, we heard over the radio that the IP at a nearby check point had stopped a bus that appeared to have a bomb stuck on the undercarriage. The insurgents in these parts use what are called ‘sticky bombs.” They stick IEDs to the underside of vehicles and then detonate them when the victim drives away. We were heading towards the check point in question anyway, so the PTT asked if the IP required any assistance. They said that they did not require assistance. As we passed the check point, both IP and the Iraqi fire department were on scene with the bus. Imagine how US forces would have handled this. Everyone would have moved back a safe distance while awaiting Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel, traffic would be re-routed or stopped, and a robot would likely be sent up to disarm the bomb. The Iraqis handled it slightly differently. The fire truck pulled up literally right next to the bus, the firemen and IP were all standing around the bus, and traffic was flowing right past the scene. Is there room for criticism? Well, nobody got hurt, traffic was hardly interrupted, and the incident was handled completely by the Iraqis, so job well done.
We met with the assistant police chief and a couple other members of his staff when we arrived in Wynot. It is possible to get a feel for the level of love that particular Iraqis have for the Americans by their show of their traditional hospitality, or not. As I mentioned, the south side of Tikrit was Saddam’s neighborhood, so it is no surprise that no Chai tea is offered to the PTT in Wynot. Despite the cool reception, the chief and his officers wanted to talk US politics. They were very interested in the election outcome, and they wanted to know if US forces would immediately be withdrawn. The PTT squad leader asked the IP their opinion on the elections, and one of the Iraqis blurted out, “We’re fu#$%d.” (Sorry, but this is kid-friendly writing.). Remember, these are Sunni who are not exactly thrilled with Americans. The chief started to tell us the history of Iraq starting at 1958. He asked us how the US Presidential transfer of power will actually occur, and after hearing about how that works, he said that in Iraq, the transfer of power has always occurred by gunpoint. The new guy, he said, simply came in and killed the old guy, and the transfer was complete. He said that if the US forces leave right away, the next transfer of power in Iraq would once again occur at gunpoint. The IP captain in the room said that if anyone in the Iraqi Parliament refused to sign the new agreement between the US and Iraq, then the US forces should arrest those people. The PTT members explained that the US was actually trying to teach the Iraqis that this was no longer the correct way to settle political disputes (Henry Waxman notwithstanding), so they would just have to let it work itself out (that very afternoon, the agreement was approved by the Iraqi Parliament. No arrests necessary). The IP chief then explained to us that the Iraqi Parliament is run by Iran, and that he hoped this would change in the January Parliamentary elections in Iraq. As we were leaving, one of the IP captains, who spoke English, told me that he has come to learn over the past few years that no matter who is President of the US, the American people have good hearts. He said that he has learned by watching US soldiers that Americans are good people and that his hope is that the US and Iraq will continue to be friends for generations to come. I said sorry, but the lack of Chai tea made that statement seem insincere. Alright, I did not say that, but I was surprised at his comment since this was not one of the real “friendly” IP outfits.
During our visit in Wynot, the Wynot Mayor entered the IP station and expressed concern that the Iraqi Army (IA) and the Owja IP had conducted a raid the previous day in Wynot without informing him or the Wynot IP of their intentions beforehand. His concern was that he and his IP would have no legitimacy with the locals if other agencies could come in at will and arrest his citizens. The Mayor wanted us to order the IA to stop conducting raids in his town. While the PTT members agreed to find out what happened, they also told the Mayor that he and his IP chief needed to have a discussion with the IA and the Owja IP to work this out. The point is, they need to learn to handle these issues on their own, and sometimes they do not like to hear that.
We left Wynot and headed up to the Owja IP station for a short visit, and as we arrived, we heard another PTT squad report that they had just come across two IEDs in front of the main Tikrit IP headquarters. After departing the Owja station, we headed into Tikrit to assist the other PTT. This turns into another “their way” versus “our way” story.
The Tikrit IP had discovered two IEDs along a road in town a couple days earlier. Taking the initiative and apparently not wanting to wait for their EOD, the officers gathered up these two IEDs and brought them back to their station with them. They not only brought them back to the station, they brought them inside the station. On day two, someone inside felt that maybe it was not a great idea to have a couple IEDs sitting around the office, so he brought them outside and set them against the front wall of the IP headquarters, where the PTT found them as they came to visit. The Iraqi EOD was enroute to collect them, but there they were, sitting on the sidewalk in front of the station, one with wires still attached. A suspicious person might think that someone set these out there so that his buddies could take them and replant them somewhere. I tend to be a suspicious person in that regard. Anyway, probably not the best way to complete the mission, but it is obviously their way. I won’t say no harm/no foul because IP and IA have been killed by being too casual with explosives, but they have a very different attitude towards that.
The good news with the IP is that they are learning how to make their system work a little better than they had in the past. The leaders are beginning to demand support from higher headquarters, which is having a positive impact. The transition teams are making the IP do the work themselves instead of holding their hands too much, so the training wheels are coming off.
As I have mentioned previously, the 1st Armored Division is about to hand over the reigns to the 25th Infantry Division. Task Force Iron will soon hand control to Task Force Lightning. 1AD is heading home to Germany, and in the next couple years will relocate to Ft. Bliss, TX. TF Iron has done some great work in its long deployment in the most volatile region in Iraq right now, “volatile” being a relative term. TF Iron had to deal with the bulk of AQI as the terrorist group promised to never get pushed out of northern Iraq, and it dealt with Sunni fighters coming in from Syria and Shia fighters coming in from Iran; it dealt with the Kurds in their territorial disputes with the Government of Iraq (GoI) and with the Kurdish rebels inciting Turkish attacks into northern Iraq; TF Iron dealt with not only agricultural issues, but also industrial issues due to the oil refineries in the north, and it operated in urban centers, wide open desert, canal roads, and thick pine groves along the river valleys. It dealt with not just Sunni vs. Shia, but also with several different Sunni tribes squabbling with each other. TF Iron dealt with every version of the IED, plus massive mine fields to the east from the Iran/Iraq War. To top it off, every soldier had to be quick enough on the trigger to take enemy lives when the thugs slithered out from the population, but disciplined enough so as not to take innocent lives in the process.
1AD officially ends its deployment in a couple of weeks. It is impossible to measure all that has been accomplished in the time that this unit has been here, because the challenge of measuring economic or governmental progress is one that frustrates military types. The Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) deal in their own mysterious way with those types of issues, although I will still say that the military drives the train to a high degree even in those arenas. I can mention that more than 11,000 detainees were taken off the streets and over 2,200 weapons caches were found and cleared in the north since 1AD has been in charge. Within these caches were hundreds of thousands of weapons and ammunition, including anti-aircraft weapons, grenades, artillery rounds, you name it. Think of all of the IEDs that were NOT made as a result of these cache finds. Over 3,000 IEDs were found and cleared by the Task Force since their tour began. Finally, while the military does not usually publicize figures for enemy killed in action (KIA), I personally think that it makes it appear to the US public that our guys are simply sitting around and allowing themselves to be targets when only US casualties are mentioned. Having said that, the enemy suffered over 1300 KIA at the hands of TF Iron – those are 1300 insurgents who won’t be around to “fight” while hiding behind women and children anymore. It is not known how many more died of wounds or were seriously injured.
Obviously, numerous TF Iron soldiers also paid the ultimate price. 90 Task Force Iron soldiers lost their lives in combat since they arrived in October 2007. 14 others have died from non-combat related injuries. More than 800 soldiers were injured. Just inside Division Headquarters is an electronic bulletin board that continuously rotates through the names and faces of our colleagues from TF Iron who died on this deployment. It is a humbling reminder of those who will not be going home to their families in quite the same fashion that the rest of us will go home. When the TF chaplain has to announce the death of a soldier during the morning briefings, he displays this saying from Calvin Coolidge: “The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.” It goes without saying that the redeployment of the 1AD will be another tough time for the families of the dead soldiers, and they need to remain in our prayers.
I know everyone has heard of MRAPs, and the first picture is of the very common MRAP Caiman. American industry quickly developed this vehicle which has saved untold US lives. I rode in this particular machine on that final patrol. Note the new anti-RKG-3 grenade armor. The second picture is of the members of the 1AD Plans shop. I worked in this shop, but I was the lessons learned guy and they were the masterminds behind all the plans that led to the very successful operations conducted by Task Force Iron. It was an honor for me to have worked with them and all of the other soldiers of the Task Force with whom I served while I was here. The 3rd picture is the local Iraqi jail. It reminds me of one I saw in Cleveland once.
I will fire off one last note in the next week or so with some final thoughts, and then I will spend some time being a husband and a dad again when I get home. I will begin making my way out of Iraq and then out of theater in the coming days. In the mean time, and this time for real, have a great Thanksgiving. I will probably have mine in Kuwait.
Take care.
MAJ Craig Cox
1AD CALL LNO
COB Speicher
DSN: 318-849-0064
sVoip: 318-778-0176
1AD NIPR:
craig.w.cox@1ad.army.milSIPR:
craig.w.cox@1ad.army.smil.mil
