Baghdad
AS THE SAYING GOES: Necessity is the mother of invention. For the U.S. soldiers keeping the peace and routing out insurgents in central Iraq, it’s often a lesson in improvisation and learning “on the job.” From patrolling the busy streets in search of information on the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein and his loyalists, to arresting looters and thieves, to house-to-house raids and prisoner snatches, U.S. troops here are conducting operations for which many were ill-prepared before they arrived here. And in some cases it seems that the units are in over their heads.
But that hasn’t stopped the soldiers and their commanders from executing their day-to-day missions–sometimes at extreme risk to themselves and Iraqis caught in the crossfire. And from the looks of it, slowly but surely, the U.S. forces here are learning to get it right.
Baghdad is teeming with troops–most of them from units unaccustomed to peacekeeping work. The majority are newly deployed to Iraq.
“We’re doing stuff here that’s well beyond the realm of what we normally do,” said Capt. Brett Bair with the 3rd Squadron, 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, just before a pre-dawn raid on seven houses suspected of sheltering Baath party holdouts and Fedayeen organizers in the central city of Balad.
South of Baghdad, the Marines who control the area are in the same boat. After a month of heavy fighting to topple Hussein’s regime, they had to quickly change gears and focus on stabilization and security operations in their new area of responsibility. Unlike the soldiers deployed to the areas in and around Baghdad who are relatively green, these Marines had few problems adapting, owing to their combat-honed mental toughness and their improvisational ethos.
In a measure of their effectiveness adapting to their new peacekeeping mission, the Marines haven’t lost a single trooper to enemy fire since the end of the war. By contrast, Army forces in the Sunni Triangle–which encompasses the area from Ramadi in the west, to Baghdad in the east and Tikrit in the north–have suffered 56 deaths since the end of the war on May 1, most of those soldiers from newly deployed units.
Yet even as the forces improvise and learn, some operations are not without missteps.
On a July 1 predawn raid to capture Baath party leaders and resistance organizers during Operation Sidewinder, soldiers of the 3-7 Cav–soldiers who normally destroy enemy forces from the turrets of their Bradley fighting vehicles–at times seemed out of their element.
While troopers stacked against the retaining wall of a suspect’s compound, a Humvee crashed into the front gate to gain access. The soldiers streamed into the house, quickly pulling out the residents–many of them women and children–and flex-cuffed the men face-down on the tile driveway.
As the interpreters began interrogating the suspects, it was quickly learned that the target house was the one next door.
The raid was reorganized and executed once again, this time catching the Baath leader they’d been after. “Not exactly the smoothest operation in military history, but we got the job done,” said unit commander Bair with a shrug.
On the next raid, the cavalrymen milled around the streets looking for their target house down alleyways lit by dim street lamps. The power was supposed to have been cut to provide the cover of darkness, but hadn’t.
The troops moved nervously through the alleys, each a potential ambush spot. Some soldiers scanned the lighted windows for snipers, while others shuffled ahead disinterestedly.
Once the target house was found the soldiers stacked up against the outside wall, many nervously watching the man in front of them, following his every move. Some clutched fully equipped M-4 rifles, others the more bulky M-16, and still others were armed only with 9mm pistols–not exactly the image of men in their element.
But this mission, too, was successful and everyone arrived back to the base camp unhurt. A little rest, some chow, and they’d soon be off on another mission, practicing their new skills again, hoping that their on-the job training doesn’t end in bloodshed.
As these troops–both Marines and soldiers–continue to launch daring raids to knock out resistance, they’ll begin to find the ground under their feet, to harden to their new battle of securing the peace. But it will take more time and it will not be without cost.
Christian Lowe is a staff writer for Army Times Publishing and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.
