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The War in Iraq: Tactics
The Other War in Iraq
by James Dunnigan
February 23, 2004
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The war in Iraq has become largely a police operation against die hard Sunni Arabs (most of whom worked for Saddam), who do not accept defeat, or the prospect of a democratic Iraq ruled by the Shia majority. In addition, there are the Islamic radicals (al Qaeda Sunnis and Iranian backed Shias) trying to use terror attacks to destabilize Iraq. The defeat of Saddam also attracted hundreds of young Arab men who saw Saddam as an Arab hero. Disillusionment set in once these lads heard from Iraqis about what life with Saddam was really like.
A shortage of interpreters and unfamiliarity with Iraq put coalition troops at a disadvantage initially. But after nearly a year, networks of informants have been created, a new Iraqi police and detective force created and a lot more information obtained on who the enemy is.
In mid February, the coalition indicated the extent to which their intelligence work had uncovered the organization and leadership of the armed resistance when they announced a new list of rewards for information about people wanted for crimes against Iraqis and coalition forces. At the top of the list were the remaining ten members of the "55 Most Wanted" (the deck of cards.) This group is now called the "strategic blacklist." A top leader of the Sunni Arab resistance, Mohammed Yunis, has a million dollars on his head now. For another eleven former Saddam henchmen, $200,000 each. And for twenty resistance leaders, $50,000 each. This is in addition to the $10 million reward offered last week for key al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Ibrahim Izzat al-Douri and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Information is not given about Iraqis who have already collected rewards, in order to protect them from retaliation. It is known that an Iraqi collected a million dollar reward last month for turning in a senior Baath party leader. Every week, thousands of dollars in rewards are paid for tips.
Military intelligence training does include how to develop informant networks, for these are used even during conventional wars. The informant network in Iraq has grown in size and capability month by month. But there is a problem with sharing the coalition informants with the new Iraqi police force. Iraqi civilians don't trust their own police, so the new police force has to develop it's own informant networks. In doing this, they have the advantage of knowing the language and culture. But the police are six months behind the coalition troops and are just now catching up. But this is one reason the resistance (Baath Party, foreign Arabs and al Qaeda) are attacking the cops. The police can find the resistance members more quickly, often by noticing someone who speaks or acts differently in a particular neighborhood (there are many local pronunciations of words in Iraq which identify where you are from).
The pro-Saddam crowd are a minority among the Sunni Arabs. The 60 percent of Iraqis who are Shia, and the 20 percent who are Kurds, view the Sunni Arab resistance as a bunch of thieving butchers who want a return to the good old days of tormenting Shia and Kurds. Sunni Arab leaders, at great personal risk of assassination, have come out and publicly condemned the "resistance." But these Sunni Arab fighters have no where else to go. Syria, the only likely sanctuary, has not been hospitable to pro-Saddam refugees unless they bring a lot of money with them. That said, Saddam and his cronies stashed billions of dollars around the world, and some of that is flowing back into Iraq to support resistance to the new government. To what end? Well, some Arab nationalists believe that "the crusaders can be defeated" in Iraq. There are also some Sunni Arabs who believe that the centuries of Sunni Arab rule in Iraq can be won back. There are also the Islamic militants and al Qaeda types who see Iraq as a good place to find and kill infidels (non-Moslems).
The Sunni Arab resistance, while they make for good media headlines, have a poor understanding of history. For example, since World War II, must insurgencies have failed. Moreover, insurgencies have always failed when the insurgents did not represent (ethnically or religiously) the population they were fighting amongst. Worse yet, if the Sunni Arab resistance triggers a civil war and causes Iraqi to break up, it should be noted that all the oil is in Kurdish or Shia Arab areas. The Sunni Arabs would be left with mostly desert.
One reason Arab states have not had much luck with democracy is because of the tendency of dissidents to get violent and start killing people when their views are not satisfied or addressed. Many Arabs understand this, and accept that only a dictator, or strong monarch, can handle this violent tendency. Iraq, if nothing else, will be an experiment in how well a democratically elected government can do in dealing with violent dissent.
Apparently, al Qaeda (largely run by conservative Sunni Arabs and supported by wealthy Gulf Arabs) has refused to assist Ansar al Islam (largely run by Shia Arabs and supported by Iran). It's unclear exactly what the refusal means, as the information was picked up from various intelligence sources (intercepted messages, "heard on the street" and interrogations), not from the horses mouth. Individual Arab terrorists have been heading for Iraq, and there are several al Qaeda cells operating. But they are doing so in an increasingly hostile environment. Most members of Ansar al Islam are Kurds, and these are even easier to pick out down south around Baghdad and Basra. The fact that that Ansar is seen as a tool of the Iranians makes them even more unpopular with Iraqis. Meanwhile, the suicide bombings continue, or at least the attempts at it. The bombing teams have been increasingly frustrated by security measures, and forced to detonate their bombs among Iraqi civilians, or abandon attempts, because of this. The dead Iraqis have made Iraqi civilians more willing to turn in terrorists (and collect rewards for doing so.)
Al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam are both upset that they have not had more success in Iraq. But both groups have not given up. While the current split merely exposes long standing hostility between the two branches of Islam, it also shows that there is a unity of sorts against their common enemy; non-Moslems. As long as Moslems (mainly Arabs) are willing to volunteer for the cause of Islamic militancy, the violence will continue. It's not fashionable to report this as a religious war, but to the terrorists it is. Just because one side in this conflict downplays the religious angle, won't make it go away.
The Sunni Arab violence and Islamic terrorism will be Iraqi problems for a long time. But the coalition has increasingly made Iraqis a larger part of the solution. Iraqi police are increasingly the targets of Sunni and terrorist attacks. The reason is simple, the attackers realize that the Iraqi police are a bigger danger to them than the coalition troops. Out numbered, and now out gunned, the Sunni Arabs are fighting a losing battle. Most Sunni Arabs would prefer to negotiate their future, and eventually the armed Sunnis will either die, get captured or settle for negotiations on their future. The Islamic terrorists will be a more persistent problem, but that's why there's a war on terror.
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