IT MAY NOT BE the most dramatic operation going on to defeat the insurgency and weed out al Qaeda operatives in Iraq, and it may not grab the biggest headlines. But one Marine general is waging his counterinsurgency fight by attacking the battlefield of the mind, rather than kicking in doors and blowing up buildings.

In a corner of the sprawling Baghdad International Airport, just a harrowing armored bus ride from the Green Zone, Maj. Gen. Doug Stone is implementing a novel plan to undercut the insurgency by drying up its base of hardened fighters.