Positive trends in Iraq’s Anbar province are permanent, the commander of coalition forces in western Iraq said today. Iraqi security forces in the province are shouldering the security burden, and they are 19 months away from assuming full control in what was once the al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, Marine Maj. Gen. Walter E. Gaskin, commander of Multinational Force West, told Pentagon reporters. Violence in the Sunni-dominated province has dropped precipitously. November was the 10th month in a row of declining violence, Gaskin said during a video-teleconference from Baghdad. Put another way, this time last year, there were 460 enemy incidents each week. In the past week, there were 40, he said. “The Anbaris … have seen the brutal way in which al Qaeda operated,” Gaskin said. “They don’t want to return to that. In fact, they have what’s known as ‘blood feuds’ with al Qaeda, meaning it takes about six generations to eliminate that type of strife. The Anbaris are tired of violence.”
Aside from the fact that General Gaskin is saying that the Anbaris are ready to go all Hatfield and McCoy on AQI in one breath, and that they are “tired of violence” in the next, this is welcome news. In 2006, Anbar was such a mess, some Marines thought it was a lost cause. Remember this famous headline from Tom Ricks? Situation Called Dire in West Iraq. Anbar Is Lost Politically, Marine Analyst Says“:
The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country’s western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents.
What a difference a year makes. In fairness, this could be overly optimistic analysis from a Marine General itching to get out of the quiet Anbar Province and into Afghanistan. Just last week, Secretary Gates rejected a proposal from USMC leadership that would send Anbar’s idle Marines east to fight the Taliban.
The top Marine general said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has rejected his proposal to shift Marine forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, reflecting in part the Bush administration’s concern that recent security gains in Iraq are fragile and reversible. “After discussion with the secretary and with my colleagues on the Joint Staff, there is a determination that right now the timing is not right to provide additional Marine forces to Afghanistan,” Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, told reporters at the Pentagon. Conway’s proposal gives unusual insight into the thinking of the Marine Corps, which sees itself as offering unique capabilities, different in important ways than the Army, with which it has shared the bulk of the work in Iraq since a joint Army-Marine force invaded and toppled Baghdad in 2003.
