Army Chief Warrant Officer Chris tells Iraq like it really is. (Do yourself a favor)

HH: Pleased to welcome Chief Warrant Officer Chris to the program. Chris has completed three tours in Iraq. Thank you for your service, Chris. What’s on your mind?

Chris. Thank you, sir. Well, I wanted to comment on your last, and a number of other callers. His first point, to keep the soldiers in the Green Zone, and your counter, keep them on other bases, not an option. As soldiers, we know that it’s not a safe job. If we wanted a safe job, we’d do a checkout at a grocery store or some similar job. We know it’s a dangerous job.

HH: I just don’t want…don’t misunderstand me. I was dismissive of the second option as well. It will not work.

Chris: Number two, his separation idea really…it’s ludicrous, not to be mean to him or anything. But in a lot of instances, well, as you pointed out, number one, is the diversity of the city, but number two, there’s a lot of relations, marriages, between Sunni and Shia, Kurd and Sunni, Kurd and Shia, interrelations between the different groups. So that would be another reason that you could not take that option.

HH: And Baghdad itself is a network of warrens that sometimes overlap, but are often…you just can’t separate them.

Chris: But we don’t see it in mainstream media, because it’s not popular, it doesn’t sell news. So those are the things that would like to be seen more by us. Another thing, two of my tours were in Baghdad, one was up in Tal Afar, up in north..west of Mosul. And…

Chris: I certainly was, with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Col. McMaster, just a brilliant guy.

HH: You guys have set the standard from which a lot of this is pivoting. My hat’s off to you. Tell people what happened in Tal Afar, and you Col. McMaster is.

Chris: Col. McMaster originally became known to the public as a hero in the first Gulf War, when his battalion defeated an entire Iraqi Army brigade, tank brigade. He’s gone on to write a book, he’s contemplating another book, based on our experiences in Tal Afar. What happened in Tal Afar was we were…we inherited that problem after we got to Iraq. We initially were in Southern Iraq, we got there, the command decided you know what? We can better utilize you up north, because Tal Afar’s a huge problem, primarily Kurd and Sunni, however there was a lot of Shia being moved up there, increasing the ethnic strife between the different groups. Col. McMaster came in and number one, he realized before we even left the States that in order to resolve the issues in Iraq, we had to train the Iraqis. So he put his focus, his main focus, on training the military and the police forces within the Tal Afar area, primarily, and embedding his forces with those Iraqi forces, living with them, sleeping with them, eating with them. We were side by side with the Iraqis. And those guys, after Col. McMaster’s emphasis, became almost as good as American troops. I say almost as good, because I am a little biased, but I think we’ve got the best troops in the military anywhere in the world.

HH: But after you departed, did they not maintain the peace, more or less, in Tal Afar?

Chris: After we departed, and once again, based…he’s a brilliant guy, I can’t say enough good things about him. Because he had pumped a lot of money into training, recruiting and building up the infrastructure in that area, so that it was able to number one, get a foothold for security, and then because of the infrastructure he had built, to maintain that security within the region. And it’s still extremely safe, extremely secure, and the 3rd Iraqi Army division is in control of that area, and they’ve taken over from the Americans for the responsibility of the security in that area.

HH: Now I’m talking with Chief Warrant Officer Chris. Which branch are you in? Are you in the Army then, Chris?

HH: All right. Let me ask you this. This is sort of an emotional reaction. Do you like the Iraqi people?

HH: When you hear people talk about withdrawing and let the chips fall, does that strike you…

Chris: Because just as in America, Iraq has their bad seeds, their bad eggs, whatever you want to call them. But it’s a minority. It’s a very small percentage, but just like anywhere else, that very small percentage makes the most noise, and therefore, they’re the most noticeable. Most of the Iraqi people that I’ve dealt with would give you the shirt off their back if you ask for it, not even needed it, not wanted it. If you just ask for it, it’s yours. You show interest in something of theirs, it’s yours. They’re very giving, they’re very kind, they’re very smart, and they just, just like us, they want a chance. I’m biased, because I have spent one heck of a lot of time with the Iraqi people. And by and large, they are one heck of a good group of people.

Chris: We can, but it’s going to take some resolve, and we know…like I said from the beginning, we know it’s a dangerous job, but we accept it. There’s going to be deaths. We know that. Everyone in the military, just about, knows someone that’s been killed over there. But it’s a volunteer army. We can do it, we can…it won’t be easy, it won’t be quick. But with support from the American people, we can do it.

HH: Chris, I think you’ve done more in the media war than 20 other guests, and I appreciate it. I hope you’ll send me an e-mail, hugh@hughhewitt.com, on how I can send you a note and stay and touch, as well as contact info for Col. McMaster, as I would love to have him on the program as well.

HH: I’ll be right back, America. You know, there are tens of thousands of Chris’. Not often do they get through, or are as articulate, or as energized as Chris, but they exist, they are real. Listen to them. Listen to them.

Col McMaster describing Tal Afar:

"I'd like just to briefly characterize the enemy, describe who we're fighting here. This is an enemy, who when they came in, they removed all the imams from the mosques, and they replaced them with Islamic extremist laymen. They removed all the teachers from the schools and replaced them with people who had a fifth-grade education and who preached hatred and intolerance. They murdered people. In each of their cells that they have within the city has a direct action cell of about 100 or so fighters. They have a kidnapping and murder cell; they have a propaganda cell, a mortar cell, a sniper cell -- a very high degree of organization here. And what the enemy did is to keep the population from performing other activities. To keep the population afraid, they kidnapped and murdered large numbers of the people here, and it was across the spectrum. A Sunni Turkmen imam was kidnapped and murdered. A very fine man, a city councilman, Councilman Suliman (sp), was pulled out of his car in front of his children and his wife and gunned down with about 30 gunshot wounds to his head. The enemy conducted indiscriminate mortar attacks against populated areas and wounded scores of children and killed many others. The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine, in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child's body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents. Beheadings and so forth."

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2005/tr20050913-3901.html

And then he goes on to describe how they beat the enemy:

(snip...)"And we were able to gain access to intelligence here by a very good relationship with the people, who recognized this enemy for who they are and were very forthcoming with human intelligence. In one raid in the beginning of June, for example, we were able to capture 26 targeted individuals, some of the worst people here in Tall Afar, within a 30-minute period. And the enemy began to realize this isn't working either, they can't hide in plain sight anymore.

So what the enemy did in response -- and this was part of this continuous interaction we've had with them since our arrival in this area -- is they intensified their campaign of intimidation over the people. They conducted more sniper attacks against innocent civilians, more mortar attacks.

And in response, we targeted their mortar teams. We killed four of their mortar teams and captured two. We killed about 12 of their sniper teams. And we relentlessly pursued the enemy until the enemy realized that a lot of our power was building now toward Tall Afar because we wanted -- as we were figuring this enemy out, we were preparing for operations to destroy their safe haven in a particular neighborhood of the city.

So as the specter of coalition operations became apparent to the enemy, as we isolated the city, as we improved the effectiveness of our traffic control points to limit their movement, as we continued to pursue the enemy, the enemy responded by sending their fighters, many of them, into the outlying communities to hide in the outlying communities until the operation was over.

But what we did is we conducted effective operations in the outlying areas. Simultaneous with our operations in Tall Afar, we were establishing a permanent security capability along the Syrian border in Rabiya, south of Sinjar Mountain and the town of Sinjar. We took over the town of Bosh (phonetic) from the insurgents and established -- reestablished the police force and the Iraqi army there. We went to the town of Afgani (phonetic) about 12 kilometers north of here. We captured, just out of that one town, one small town of Afgani (phonetic), about 116 of the enemy in three separate operations."...(snip)

Quite a bit more at above link.

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