This Isn’t Civil War
WSJ:
We are winning this war. I write those words from my desk in the Red Zone in downtown Baghdad as hundreds of Iraqis working with my company — Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd — execute security, construction and logistics missions throughout the capital and Sunni Triangle. We have been here now over three years.
American-Iraqi Solutions Group, which I helped co-found in March 2004, has been intimately involved with creating the new Iraqi security services. Our principal business as a U.S. Department of Defense contractor is to build bases for the Iraqi army and police and then supply them with water, food, fuel and maintenance services. We are on the cutting edge of the exit strategy for the U.S. military: Stand up an effective Iraqi security structure and then we can bring our troops home.
We are not out of the Iraqi desert yet. But the primary problems we now face on the ground are controllable, given a strong American military presence through 2008. These problems include the involvement of Iran in fueling Shia militancy, the British failure to uphold their security obligations in the south and the tumultuous nature of a new democracy.
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker recently said the one word he would choose to describe the feelings of the Iraqi people was “fear.” A bad choice, from my observation.
That’s not the prevailing state of mind, except maybe for those sheltered souls in the Green Zone who are getting hit on a regular basis for the first time in more than a year by primarily Iranian-supplied rockets and mortars. What I see on the faces of the thousands of Iraqis working with us, including our subcontractors and suppliers as well as on the faces of the Iraqi army and police, patrolling and manning the checkpoints and assisting U.S. soldiers in searching for the insurgents is grim determination to get the job done.
I also see exhaustion — exhaustion with the insurgency, whether it be al Qaeda, neo-Saddamist, or Jaish al Mahdi (JAM), or the Shia militia of Moqtada al-Sadr. The exhaustion is real, and the evidence of the falling support among the Iraqi people for the insurgency in its various guises is inescapable — unless you are deliberately looking the other way.
A large proportion of our thousand-man work force — of which 90% are Iraqi citizens — comes from Sadr City, the Shia slum in east Baghdad. Many carry weapons. These Shia warriors have emphasized in the past several months that they and their neighbors are tired of conflict and only want to feed their families.
You only have to note the lack of U.S. casualties in the ongoing surge to clear JAM out of the highly dangerous urban terrain of Sadr City to realize that the people there do not want to fight us. They are sick of fighting.
As for Sunni resistance, I recently visited the boot camp we operate for the Iraqi army at Habbaniyah in Al Anbar, former heartland of the insurgency. For the first time we are seeing entire Sunni Arab recruiting cohorts at the camp, where before we only saw Shia from outside the province.
The Sunnis of Al Anbar — finally tired of al Qaeda assassinating their sheikhs when they disagreed with the terrorists — have committed their children to the security services of a government dominated by the majority Shias, and paid for and run by the Americans. With such a development, you have real progress in integrating the diverse elements in Iraq.
Slowly but surely, Iraqi security services are building up. You only have to travel outside the Green Zone to see them undertaking heroic risks as they work to control the streets in growing numbers and with growing professionalism. In the past couple of months, the Ministry of the Interior established an operations center for all of Baghdad that effectively coordinates nonmilitary logistics movements throughout the capital — a function previously only undertaken by a coalition contractor. From chaos has come order and in turn, step by step, the Iraqi military is becoming a truly national, not sectarian, force.
I see no civil war between the Shias and Sunnis as I travel practically every day on the roads of Iraq with my Arab and Kurdish security team. The potential for renewed internecine warfare faded earlier this year, when al Qaeda failed to reignite the waning sectarian struggle the second time around with another attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra.
The perfect storm at the beginning of 2007 created the necessity of reconciliation. The Sunni Arabs who had used al Qaeda as leverage in the political struggle to re-establish their minority rule faced genocide in Baghdad from the Shia death squads. With pressure from the new Democratic majority in Congress, the Shia government of Nouri al-Maliki realized that time was running out for a dominant American presence in Iraq and finally allowed the U.S. military to clean up Sadr City, thus alleviating the death-squad activities.
Both the Sunni and Shia Arab sides of the Iraqi political equation (the Kurds have sided with us from the beginning) now see that there is no alternative to American protection. As a result, Sadr’s people and the Sunnis have both returned to parliament. As always, democracy is messy, but it is working. We have to be patient, particularly because this nascent reconciliation has left al Qaeda as the odd man out.
Just as the rockets landing in the Green Zone are from a foreign source — Iran — the jihadis who destroy themselves in explosions aimed primarily at mass killings of Shia civilians are almost all foreigners. This is al Qaeda, not Iraq.
Even more to the point: The Iraqis basically ignore the al Qaeda car bombs, mourn the dead and then go to work, to school, join and continue to serve in the military and police — and life goes on. There is no terror if no one is terrorized.
Let us, the American people, not be terrorized into retreating before our enemy — al Qaeda — just when they have begun to stand alone, stripped of allies, in a country beginning to enjoy the fruits of a democracy we have sacrificed much blood to help create.
Mr. Andress, CEO and principal owner of American-Iraqi Solutions Group, is author of “Contractor Combatants: Tales of an Imbedded Capitalist” (Thomas Nelson, 2007).
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we are definetly turning things around…to be stedfast and patient is the key..sometimes i feel that the only good muslim is a dead muslim, the only way that we will ever win this war..but, we are all human beings and we want the same things (the good muslims anyway), to live in peace and raise our families…our military is doing a fantastic job in walking that line..its no wonder that America is the greatest country on this earth..God bless America
August 29th, 2007 at 4:24 amnow for a leftist response:
The author is getting rich as part of the war for profit ran by Bush inc. He wants this unjust war to continue just so he can line his pockets with blood money.
As for his “this is not a civil war”,; my ass, we created the civil war here, saddam was contained, but Bushy had to get his oil buddies in there to rape that country.
The surge is a failure and this war is lost, support the troop and redeploy them now!
…….
see now you do not have waste time to watch nbc or read the nytimes; just trying to keep US productivity up
August 29th, 2007 at 4:49 amI love the line,”There is no terror if no one is terrorized.” The Iraqis seemed to have had enough and are willing to fight back with the help of our Military Heroes.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:02 amI hope this keeps up until all the insurgents are dead and gone and are looking around the afterlife for the virgins they have been promised. What does a female insurgent get for martyrdom–chip n dale dancers?
Thanks Pat, and keep up the great work.
Three Points, Two Notes.
1. AQ and JAM are tired and getting their asses kicked:
“I also see exhaustion — exhaustion with the insurgency, whether it be al Qaeda, neo-Saddamist, or Jaish al Mahdi (JAM), or the Shia militia of Moqtada al-Sadr. The exhaustion is real, and the evidence of the falling support among the Iraqi people for the insurgency in its various guises is inescapable — unless you are deliberately looking the other way.”
2. The average Iraqi is like the average citizen of any country in the West: Work is dignity. Work puts food on the table and pays the bills.
“A large proportion of our thousand-man work force — of which 90% are Iraqi citizens — comes from Sadr City, the Shia slum in east Baghdad. Many carry weapons. These Shia warriors have emphasized in the past several months that they and their neighbors are tired of conflict and only want to feed their families.”
3. The Iraqi people are resilient. The take a licking and keep on ticking just like a timex does. Western irhabi propaganda is just that: Propaganda.
“Even more to the point: The Iraqis basically ignore the al Qaeda car bombs, mourn the dead and then go to work, to school, join and continue to serve in the military and police — and life goes on. There is no terror if no one is terrorized.”
Get used to it lefties: The surge is working…Note to Michael Ware and CNN: There is no civil war and “We are winning this war. I write those words from my desk in the Red Zone in downtown Baghdad as hundreds of Iraqis working with my company — Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd — execute security, construction and logistics missions throughout the capital and Sunni Triangle. We have been here now over three years.”
And note2 to Michael Ware:Why don’t you leave the whiskey behind, and leave your Green Zone hotel once in awhile, and you might actually be able to report facts instead of of the BS that your insurgent stringers are telling you.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:09 amHow prescient was Mr Andress talking about the “exhaustion” of al-Sadr’s militia…a day or two after he writes it, Mookie throws in the towel!!
Steve in NC, re your “leftist response”–Damn, boy, now you’re learning how to play this game!
August 29th, 2007 at 7:34 pm