Posted on Wed, Jul. 21, 2004
Among soldiers, growing doubts about mission
By Tom Lasseter
Inquirer Foreign Staff
RAMADI, Iraq - Scaling back the military and political goals in Iraq's Anbar province has hurt morale among U.S. soldiers stationed there, and some have begun to question openly not only their mission but also the leaders who sent them to Iraq in the first place.
It is not just buck privates. Several sergeants - the backbone of the enlisted military - said they felt the same way.
Instead of neighborhood patrols, most of the convoys these days that leave the bases in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, are on their way to guard main roads and the government building downtown. There are also observation posts throughout the city, where soldiers sit and watch, waiting for something to happen.
To carry food from one base to the next, a matter of a few blocks, takes four vehicles - armored humvees and trucks - all with .50-caliber machine guns mounted on top.
"I'm tired of every time we go out the gate, someone tries to kill me," Staff Sgt. Sheldon Rivers said.
Asked whether most Americans had an idea of how bad the security situation was in Ramadi, Sgt. Maj. John Jones said recently that he was annoyed every time he heard analysis about Iraq from politicians and journalists on TV.
"When people come over here, where do they stay? In the Green Zone. I call it the Safe Zone," he said, referring to the secure area in Baghdad where the government is housed. "They miss the full picture."
What is the full picture?
"It's just like the West," Jones said, "when we were trying to settle it with the Indians."
He would not elaborate.
"It means that we have to kill all of them," said a captain standing nearby, half-joking.
Jones shrugged.
Sgt. First Class James Tilley was on patrol on the road outside Ramadi later that afternoon, sitting in his humvee for an hour or two in one spot - sweating profusely in the 105-degree heat - before moving a few hundred yards down the road to another place. The patrol is designed to prevent insurgents from putting bombs in the road.
,b>"A lot of times, I look at this place and wonder what have we really done," Tilley said. "... What the hell am I here for?"
Staff Sgt. A.J. Dean was on the same stretch of road a few nights later, and his tone echoed Tilley's.
"I don't have any idea of what we're trying to do out here," he said, "... and I don't think our commanders do either. I feel deceived personally. I don't trust anything Rumsfeld says, and I think Wolfowitz is even dirtier."
Dean motioned down the road to a bridge.
About two weeks ago, he said, a buddy of his was on a patrol that stopped to look at a possible bomb. As he walked around the device, it detonated, sending shrapnel through one side of his face and out the other. The soldier, whose arm also was mangled in the explosion, survived, but the word came down that the bridge was now off-limits for patrols.
"To me it's a month and a half of patrols wasted because we've given them back that bridge," Dean said. "It makes me question the whole mission."
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