Five months into the U.S. troops surge, commanders have displayed new tactics not employed collectively in the Iraq war’s first four years.
But the question remains whether the new counter-insurgency is, or will, work. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, faces a September deadline for giving his first report to Congress on the offensive’s progress.
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“It’s laughable, this expectation we are going to know something in September that is going to tell us if it is a success,” said James J. Carafano, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and Heritage Foundation analyst. Carafano said his research shows that it takes a year or more for commanders to know if a counter-insurgency operation is successful.
He said the 1968 Tet Offensive appeared at the time to be a major North Vietnamese victory. But three years later, historians finally had the research material to show the U.S. inflicted huge casualties and turned back the offensive.
“It seems that even in the best case, you need a year or more from when people actually do something to when you know if it actually worked,” he said.
In the surge, joint American-Iraqi units are staying in neighborhoods, where in the past they would clear, and then leave.
A new offensive in the Baghdad suburbs, centered in the northern city of Baquba, featured simultaneous attacks on al Qaeda safe houses, instead of isolated raids.
“For the first time, we are attacking al Qaeda at once in different parts of Iraq,” said Frederick W. Kagan, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “This is a plan that puts pressure on virtually all al Qaeda bases at once and they are feeling the pressure.” The idea is to not let al Qaeda move operations to a new location, as in the past.
A major target this time are the factories that produce improvised explosive devices (IEDs). If the bombs cannot be made they cannot be planted along roads, fitted inside vehicles or strapped to a suicidal jihadists. Last Saturday, forces took down a large plant in Mosul that provided bombs for attackers in greater Baghdad.
“Our forces have launched operations throughout Baghdad’s suburbs to pinpoint and then destroy such factories before more innocent Iraqis and coalition forces fall victim,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis, a military analyst.
