The "Battle of Basrah" from a Soldier on the Ground

Feel free to pass on to whomever -- I have Mike's approval. You can tell he was fired up. You may agree or disagree with this war, we all hate war and wish our boys weren't there, but how about some factual reporting. It's got me fired up!

Many of you have written over the last two weeks, and I appreciate it. A lot of you have asked questions, based on what you’ve seen or read in the news. Since so many of you have asked many of the same questions, I thought it was time to share my experiences (at least pertaining to the “failure” of this operation). We’ll call this a ‘preview’ of my upcoming ‘Update’ in which I’ll share a little more about my personal experiences, as well as everything else that’s happened since Groundhog Day, when I last wrote.

The “Charge of the Knights” was the official name of the operation. I wrote down the Arabic pronunciation of that at work; maybe I’ll share it with you next time I write. Yes, it’s true, Prime Minister Maliki flew in the night before, didn’t tell hardly anyone what they had planned (to include even the name of the operation) and the whole thing kicked off Tuesday morning, much to the surprise of the Iraqi Air Force and everyone else.

Here’s what virtual every media outlet (and half the senators that are currently grilling General Petraeus right now on Capital Hill) has said about the operation: ‘it was a failure, Sadr won, there were mass desertions, after five years the Iraqis proved they are incapable of fighting, Maliki was weakened, the Iraqis can’t do anything without the American’s help, there’s been a huge upsurge in violence as a result.’

Now, I think you all know how much I adore the high quality and journalistic integrity of our reporters back home. I seem to have a different perspective than them. I’ll qualify my remarks with the following credentials:

The Green Zone in Baghdad is exactly 276 miles away from the center of the city of Basrah. I was flying 3000’ overhead. That means I was exactly 275 miles, 2280 feet closer to the fighting than the next closest reporter to file a story on this fight!!! That’s right, there has not been a single news report that I’ve seen where the lead reporter wasn’t reporting from the Green Zone. There were some independent Iraqi journalists that took some stock video, and mailed it to the different networks for their use, but all the ‘reporters’ have filed their stories from either Baghdad or Washington.

I also work with about 120 Iraqis, 30 or so who live in Basrah. That means I personally know, by name, exactly 30 more residents of Basrah than any of the above said reporters (or senators for that matter).

I beg you to read the following article, written yesterday by a columnist for the New York Post. It is three pages, but they’re short (I promise). Yes, he is no more qualified than the reporters above, but somehow he seems to have extracted his head from his you-know-what and has actually objectively looked at the whole issue, what succeeded, and what didn’t.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/04072008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_iraqis_step_up_105417.htm

He pretty much nailed it, so I’ll just gloss over the highlights and add some fill-ins from a personal perspective.

Yes, the planning was poor, more troops should have been mobilized ahead of time; there should have been better integration of assets (to include airpower). Guess what, the US military still screws this one up… routinely! This is not unique to the ‘incompetent’ Iraqis. Yes, there were also about 1,000 deserters. This is out of the 30-40,000 army and police forces that participated. That’s between 2.5 and 3.3%. Not great, but to put in perspective, the desertion rate for the US Army in 1944, was 6.3%. The majority of the Iraqi deserters came from one single unit that had just competed training and probably shouldn’t have been thrown into the fight to begin with (again, reference the mediocre planning). The others came mostly from the Iraqi police. Now, it’s no secret that they are heavily infiltrated with militia. That was part of the point, to clean out the militia, to include those within the ranks of the police. Furthermore, imagine fighting a war where the enemy lives within your own neighborhood, knows who you are, and can walk up to your wife and threaten to kill her if you don’t immediately stop fighting. Can you really blame them for quitting? We as Americans can’t comprehend a scenario like this.

Now, here’s what I saw first-hand. On Tuesday morning the Iraqi government launched an initiative against the militia. The militia did not start this, forcing the government to get involved, the government took initiative completely on their own to clean up their country. In five whole years of being in charge down here the British did nothing. They took the most peaceful city in Iraq and allowed it to deteriorate into the most violent. On average, there were around 15 murders per day. Mostly doctors, teachers, and women. The British didn’t do a thing to stop it, they just sat back and tried to keep from getting involved. The Iraqis took it upon themselves to do what the British (supposedly the second most capable military in the world) refused to. Our guys who live downtown were stuck in their homes, under martial law. In the first hours of the operation and as fighting was erupting everywhere one of our troops took an old ambulance, thinking it would be able to pass through the fighting with the least amount of resistance, with the windshield blown out from a rocket attack earlier this year, and drove it into downtown and the middle of the fighting in order to pick up the Iraqi general who’s in charge of the air force here in Basrah and get him to work. The next two days, when the fighting was the most intense, our pilots who were trapped downtown tied white flags to their cars so the army wouldn’t accidentally shoot them, and drove as fast as they could, braving militia and IEDs that were littering the roads, in order to get to work so they could do their part. They left their families behind, not knowing what would happen to them, and not knowing when they would even be able to go home (they stayed at work here for several days). No, our pilots did not desert!

Yes, the US had to help, but most of the assistance came in the form of combat air support, and logistics. These are two pretty complicated areas, air support in general, and just plain too much for them to handle right now. This was a major battle that they undertook and it is unrealistic to think that they could handle an undertaking of this size with absolutely no help at all. One day, but not yet. That being said, they still did a lot. Within eight hours of the fighting four additional Iraqi helicopters had arrived from their base north of Baghdad and they began flying resupply and medical evacuation missions, under fire and taking battle damage in the process, almost immediately. The two Iraqi C-130 cargo aircraft started flying round-the-clock missions into Basrah, delivering thousands of troops to the fight, and evacuating the dead and wounded. Yes, the 97% of the Iraqis who didn’t desert fought, many of them to the acclaim even of the US special forces, and many of them died. They didn’t die for their religion, they didn’t die as Shiia, Sunni, or Kurds, they fought and died as Iraqis, for their country and for its security. Period.

As for the ‘failure’ part, this is what a ‘failed’ operation looks like. First of all, it is still ongoing, and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF which is an acronym that refers to both the army and the police) are clearly in control. Hundreds of militia have been killed. Dozens of the worst militia leaders have been captured. Sadr called for a cease fire,not the Iraqi government. The guys who live downtown say the crime rate has dropped to virtually zero. There are Iraqi military and police (the good ones, no longer infiltrated by militia) all over the streets, and people feel that they can go outside for the first time in a long time without worrying about running into militia. The day after the heavy fighting stopped more than 1,000 men showed up at the local army division headquarters wanting to join. They were motivated by the knowledge that their government was actually willing to do something, and heeding the (supposedly politically weakened) prime minister’s call for the sons of Iraq to step up and serve. We have pictures. Somehow, the journalists in Baghdad seem to have missed this.

Most important to me is this statistic. As of four hours ago we have not had a single attack against the base in 10 days now! That is unprecedented and hasn’t happened in well over a year. To put things in perspective about how ‘peaceful’ it was under the so-called ceasefire that Sadr had previously declared, in the last three days of January we were attacked nine separate times (yes, that’s once every eight hours) and we were attacked at least 25 different times in the month of March. Now, we’ve gone 244 hours without an attack! As for the ‘rise in violence’ this is a war. When you fight back, it gets violent. The violence did not intensify against the people, it intensified because the ISF started fighting back for once! You can’t capture or kill the bad guys if you’re not willing to accept the fact that they are probably going to fight back in the process!

I’ll leave with this parting observation. Some of you have called this a ‘religious war’. That’s the way the media portrays it. It is far more complex than that, but that would take too long to explain. Down here, this is more about Iran trying to take control of this region than anything else. Keep in mind, Sadr stayed in Iran throughout this whole fight. The media always refers to the militia as ‘Sunni’ or ‘Shiia’. This is about as relevant as the media labeling every single criminal, police officer, and murder victim in the US as ‘Catholic’ or ‘Protestant’ as if that is some how the reason why the crime happened. If crime in America was reported the way this war is you would think that the Catholics and Protestants must be running around killing each other over their religion too. It’s so absurd, and yet they keep doing it. Sure, religion factors in to some of the issues here, but this was a prime minister (who just happens to be Shiia), fighting against the militia (who also are predominately Shiia though really just fighting because they are thugs). The ISF troops doing the fighting aren’t organized into Sunni, Shiia, or Kurdish brigades, they’re organized into Iraqi brigades. This was not about religion, if anything, it shows that Maliki is willing to take action and stand up even to his own religious sect if necessary.

Okay, I hope that clarifies things. Like I’ve said before, you can’t get a straight answer in the news, yet we continue to make very critical decisions about the management of our country based on the crap that the media pumps out. This is the way I saw it. Take it for what it’s worth.

If they helped the Sadrists, yes, I blame them. Those who just did not fight to protect their families, I would see a point for leniency, but not complere exhonoration, and unlikely to see a reasomn worth reinstalling them in the police force. They can go sell CDs and ringtones.

Hello again.

Just to state: Mosul was comparatively peaceful under US watch (Petraeus cut his teeth there) for a time, but is now the main bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi forces are leading the fight in retaking that city. Presumably US forces there had ‘refused’ to help? (Of course not) Sadr city etc (in the US sector) is currently witnessing higher levels of violence than Basra. Iraqis are leading the fight there too. Has the US ‘failed’ there? Of course not. To be quite frank, why shouldnt the Iraqis (30,000 of them) take it upon themselves to stabilise a city in their own country?

Just as a side note, on top of Special Forces, Britain has sent 150 advisors back into Basra to help the Iraqi forces there

“They took the most peaceful city in Iraq and allowed it to deteriorate into the most violent.” Not even the biggest cynic of UK policy in Iraq could argue that Basra was/is Iraq’s most violent city. Michael Yon was there in January and said it was peaceful. The place had a packed university and night life for goodness sake. Of course there were underlying militias tensions (and tragic assissinations), but this wasn’t Mogadishu. The main reason Maliki launched his rushed assault was because he did not like the authority wielded there by a rival shiite faction. The city had a murder rate 50% that of Washington DC when British forces relocated to the airport.

“They were routinely humiliated in Basra” Care to give any example? Or is this just another case of you slandering Britain without evidence, then refusing to reply to legitimate requests for information to support your views. Please, you claim to have ‘routine’ examples of British ‘humilitaions’. Name one.

“and on the waters of the gulf by the Iranians and their allies.” You’re not still blathering on about the one incident from last year are you? You do realise that US personnel have also been captured by Iran without a fight in the Gulf in recent years? What do you say about the entire US convoy unit that mutinied a couple of years ago-refusing to go out on the roads in Iraq.

“Germany had the Italians, and we have the British”. From a person living a country with a high Italian immigrant population that is a hilarious comment.

By the way, your frequent comments that British forces will leave Iraq and Afghanistan ‘in a few months’, keep getting proved wrong. That must frustrate you terribly.

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