Michael Yon continues his fine reporting. A lot of good pictures at the site.
"Battle for Mosul, Part III
Progress in Iraq
Mosul
In war as in politics, gerrymandering makes all the difference. In Iraq, which side of the line people find themselves on determines more than just what precinct they vote in. People residing north of the "green line" now live in peace and enjoy a prosperity unique in this country. Below that line, in the city of Mosul for instance, there is civil war.
Defining Civil War: Follow the Numbers
Accounting for people who die in armed conflicts has always been difficult; but in this instance, there is little room for errors in either direction. Not that this prevents people from all sides from accusing others of understating or exaggerating casualties. But there are several reasons why we can get an accurate fix on the number of people who are killed in this insurgency. Open media access is primary.
Last night, for instance, a homicide truck bomb detonated nearby, killing three policemen, wounding three others. The blast was massive; steaming flesh, shredded from the attacker, was flung into nearby concertina wire where it dried in the rising sun the next day. There was no cover-up on the casualty count. Military reports confirmed what witnesses to the attack experienced. No attempts were made to stop me from reporting the attack, though I did not bother because the media had picked it up from military press releases. The United States is the only country in the world that allows journalists this level of access to the battlefield, a practice that renders any kind of wide-scale cover-up tantamount to impossible.
Morning After: Terrorists and their car bombs
All that remains: parts of bomber caught in wire
Reporters who can't get behind the scenes at Disneyland without an entourage of Marketing and Communication handlers trailing their every move can have unfettered access to the battlefield here in Iraq. The few journalists who are here have an astonishing array of options for how they might cover combat operations. A reporter for a major magazine might "embed" with insurgents, and then with US forces, and then back again with insurgents, and so on, until they have enough points of view to add dimension to their perspective.
A journalist not wishing to embed with US forces is free to apply for an Iraqi visa, fly to Baghdad, and hire a car and an interpreter who can drive them around town. They can knock on doors and talk directly with people; visit hospitals, talk with doctors; stop by the side of the road and talk with shepherds; or even hang out in a village and help make the goat cheese. Iraqi people are generally polite and usually more than willing to offer opinions about what's happening in their neighborhood.
Of course, the major problem with eschewing a close military presence is the enemy's proclivity to kidnap and behead journalists whose reports portray insurgents in a negative or violent way. This puts ethical journalists in a tight spot where they have the freedom to roam but not to report the truth; whereas journalists who embed with US forces often report very negatively. I recall the stories of one magazine writer in Baquba who spent days looking for disgruntled soldiers—of course she found them—and wrote negatively. The same writer came to Mosul. The soldiers may not like people who do this, but they certainly will not behead them. Whether reporters elect to travel with the military or to go it alone, the fact is that any journalist who wants battlefield access will find it in Iraq.
If media access is the first reason for confidence in casualty reports, communication capacity is a close second. Iraq is no black hole. Contrary to most war zones, Iraq is more like a quasar, radiating information at an unprecedented rate. Most city-dwelling Iraqis have Internet access, and maintain chat-partners and websites. Wireless Internet is widely available and cell phones are both cheap and plentiful. My Iraqi cell number works fine. I did radio and newspaper interviews on it yesterday. Any resourceful schoolkid in Mosul could find someone's telephone number on the Internet, grab his dad's phone and call Germany, Japan or San Diego, just as easily as calling across town.
Given this incredible access to Iraq—and Iraq's access to the world—the probability of hiding large numbers of casualties, or of making them up, is minuscule. From the Coalition side, the Americans I've seen injured or killed were all reported by mainstream media, sometimes before everyone on base learned about it.
There is chaos and confusion in combat. But apart from that, the casualty reports printed in most newspapers or scrolled across most television or monitor screens accurately reflect what's happening on the ground here in Iraq. A "reasonable estimate" for the month of May, 2005, put war-deaths of Iraqis at about 700, with an additional 90 Coalition members killed in action. That’s roughly 800 people killed in May.
The terrorists target anyone
Blast Impact: Iraqi man after children are killed by car bomb in Mosul
Iraq has a population approaching that of California; but in the region most under siege by insurgents, it's closer to that of Florida. Imagine if Florida had 800 deaths in one month caused mostly by bombings, shootings, and beheadings. We would call that civil war. Calling it that is the easy part. Stopping a civil war takes a lot more—more determination, more skill, more ammunition and armor, and more faith in the value of a future that is drastically different from the present. Mostly, stopping the civil war in the Sunni Triangle will take time.
It wasn't always this way in Mosul. After the invasion, it was quiet. Soldiers freely roamed downtown without armor, enjoying local restaurants, drinking tea with locals, shopping in the markets. Looking back, it's easy to spot signs of tensions between segments of the population that were like shadows on the walls in the weeks after Hussein's government was toppled. Locals who welcomed the Coalition presence were branded with the insulting label "white chickens" by those who viewed any occupying authority as illegitimate.
My previous post, The Battle for Mosul (posted May 14, 2005), described in detail how the fighting came to Mosul. As bloody as May has been, it's important to see it in the proper historical context. In November and December, as the elections approached, Mosul erupted in violence. The Iraqi police were killed or run off, literally abandoning stations, weapons and all, to insurgent thugs. The US forces were suddenly fighting through ambushes, complex attacks threatening their lives, launched by an organized and equipped enemy who fully intended to chase the American "occupiers" away.
The enemy fired thousands of mortar rounds, seeded roads with innumerable bombs so that IEDs were like light poles, and fired tons of ammunition. Bases were attacked with mortars, rockets and small arms, and the moment the Americans launched off in response, it was full-on firefights. Dozens of American soldiers died, and hundreds were wounded. The enemy gained their dwindling victories largely through audacity and determination, but audacity goes both ways, and determination is never enough.
The Enemy's Signature Weapon: Car Bomb
In each engagement, the Americans were decimating the enemy, chiseling off chunks of combatants, and seizing and destroying their weapons and explosives. The harder the enemy fought the more fighters they lost; they were facing a foe that was better equipped, more resilient, and a lot harder than the enemy expected. After months of intense fighting, Coalition forces changed the ground conditions dramatically. The Coalition now owns the open roads, while the enemy scrambles to hiding places in the alleys. The challenge has always been to hold Mosul without destroying the city. It remains the order of the day.
Combat-Ready: US and Iraqi forces are taking control of Mosul
And yet, despite the clear progress, May came to a bloody close, with US and Iraqi casualties higher than in recent months. Although the enemy attacks were both less frequent and less grand, they were more deadly. With the supply of people willing to use their exploding skeletons as shrapnel to maim innocent women and children diminishing daily, not even hardliners count on the jihadist drive of the person strapped behind the wheel. The enemy has had to shift from high-casualty firefights to remotely detonated car bombs.
The Best Laid Plans....
Somewhere deep in a dumpster in DC are the shredded remnants of an optimistic military plan for Iraq that had three steps: topple the government, replace it, and go home. With or without the throngs of liberated Iraqis tossing roses at the tanks, the plan did not work. The insurgency launched, and a Plan B—or C or D—has evolved to recruit and train Iraqis to secure and protect their own people, so that our people can go home. Getting our soldiers back home remains the primary end, and this latest articulation of the plan clearly is working. The example of the Iraqi police illustrates this best.
Mosul started the new year with almost no police. Today, police stations are being built “like a westward expansion of forts,” according to LTC Erik Kurilla, commander of 1-24th Infantry, who has seen much of the hardest fighting in Mosul. “As we get one police station going, we are already working on the next.” The enemy is no longer free to congregate on street corners, smoking cigarettes and intimidating citizens.
Allies: Iraqi Security Force Members
To support this expansion, the Coalition divided Mosul into three Areas of Operations (AOs), which are the responsibilities of the 1-24th Infantry (Deuce Four), 3-21, and 1-5 Infantry. These units, and others, coordinate training and equipping of Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) with an emphasis on skill development through supervised deployment, in this case, conducting joint operations. By continuing to build the ISF, with American forces conducting ever fewer operations, the security reaches a level where our troops step back into something of a Quick Reaction Force for the Iraqis. Eventually, even the QRF will no longer be needed.
How long this might take is anyone's guess. Progress is made every day, but it always takes more time and effort to build than to destroy. One positive sign is that the three AOs that were previously divided among the US Army in Mosul have been cleaved so that the Iraqis have primary responsibility for a fourth AO, where they already operate independently with only US Marine and Army advisors.
Hazardous Duty: Terrorists beware. A storm is brewing.
This new plan for peace, like so many war plans, has multiple fronts. So while the main mission is training Iraqi police and soldiers, there are two other fronts: logistics and combat operations. When it comes to logistics, day after day, the Coalition faces the kinds of challenges that in a stable country would be handled by civilians through municipal authorities and agencies. The Army dedicates a significant amount of manpower, time and material resources to work through challenges of food distribution, electrical generation and similar quality of life issues.
Critics who claim that the army has no expertise in these areas have obviously never been anywhere near an army base. There is no more experienced organization for handling issues of supplies and logistics, engineering and operations, than the US military. In Mosul, these city-building projects would be business as usual for the army, if not for the enemy burning tankers in the streets and setting off bombs in downtown markets. And so, the unit I am with, the Deuce-Four still engages on the third front in the peace plan: combat operations.
This seeming contradiction is a key to success on the two other fronts. Even the ways in which combat operations are planned and executed has evolved in the first half of this year. Instead of leveling the enemy with outright combat like they did in November and December when they were openly fighting in the streets, Deuce Four uses every intelligence apparatus available to aid in capturing the enemy, because the enemy, once captured, usually sells out the cell members who've squeezed themselves into cracks in the back alleys of Mosul. The change in operations is also because the enemy no longer presents the targets that they did in November and December when they massed and tried to fight Deuce Four head to head.
Capturing the enemy creates a cascading effect through the insurgency. A dead enemy is just dead. Game over. But every singing captive leads to another and another and another, and Deuce Four can hardly keep pace with the flow of information. As sobering as the casualty numbers are for May, the number of insurgents captured and in custody in that same month—133—are a strong indicator of the success that is mounting. The success comes with a high price: it's always more dangerous to capture an enemy than to kill him.
Don’t get me wrong, if they see an enemy with a weapon he is dead, no questions asked, nor will they shoot an unarmed man, but Deuce Four goes through detailed planning and considerable effort to capture the enemy wherever he operates -- when he is sleeping at night, when he is eating at his favorite restaurant, or when he is meeting in the darkest corners of the dirtiest alleys. The enemy never knows when the door to his house will be blown off its hinges late at night and men wearing night vision will come storming into the room to snatch him out of his bed.
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