An American Martyr
How life returned to the streets in a showpiece city that drove out al-Qaeda
An American ‘martyr’ is being hailed in the Sunni Triangle for restoring peace to a town where soldiers now fight only water leaks
Times of London:
The police station in Tameen, a district of Ramadi, occupies a wreck of a building – its roof shattered by shells, its windows blown out, its walls pockmarked by shrapnel. That is not unusual in Iraq. What makes this station extraordinary is that a city in the heart of the infamous Sunni Triangle, a city that once led the antiAmerican insurgency, has named it after a US soldier – Captain Travis Patriquin.
The honour is well-deserved. Captain Patriquin played a little-known but crucial role in one of the few American success stories of the Iraq war.
He helped to convert Ramadi from one of Iraq’s deadliest cities into arguably the safest outside the semi-autonomous Kurdish north. This graveyard for hundreds of American soldiers, which a Marine Corps intelligence report wrote off as a lost cause just a year ago, is where the US military now takes visiting senators, and journalists such as myself, to show the progress it is making. Ramadi will be Exhibit A when General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, appears before Congress in two weeks’ time to argue that the country as a whole should not be written off.
In Ramadi last weekend I did things unthinkable almost anywhere else in this violent country. I walked through the main souk without body armour, talking to ordinary Iraqis. Late one evening I strolled into the brightly lit Jamiah district of the city with Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Turner, the tobacco-chewing US marine in charge of central Ramadi, to buy kebabs from an outdoor restaurant – “It’s safer than London or New York,” Colonel Turner assured me.
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I listened incredulously as Latif Obaid Ayadah, Ramadi’s Mayor, told me of his desire to build an airport and tourist resort in Ramadi and talked – only half in jest – of twinning his city with Belfast and Oklahoma City. “I want it to be a small slice of heaven,” he declared.
I had met Captain Patriquin while embedded with US troops in Ramadi last November. He was a big man, moustachioed, ex-Special Forces, fluent in Arabic and engaged in what was then a revolutionary experiment for a US military renowned for busting doors down. He and a small group from the First Brigade Combat Team, part of the 1st Armoured Division, were assiduously courting the local sheikhs – tribal leaders – over endless cups of tea and cigarettes.
They were encouraging them to rise up against the hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters – Saudi, Jordanian, Syrian, Sudanese, Yemeni – who had arrived in Ramadi two years earlier, promising to lead the battle against the infidel Americans. What al-Qaeda actually did was recruit local thugs, seize control of the city, and impose a Taleban-style rule of terror. Mayor Latif said that they regularly beheaded “collaborators” in public and left the heads beside the corpses. Mischievous children would then put cigarettes in the mouths of the disembodied heads.
Captain Patriquin may have offered more than mere words. His main interlocutor, Sheikh Abdul Sittar Bezea al-Rishawi, told The Times that he gave them guns and ammunition too. The sheikhs did rise up. They formed a movement called the Anbar Awakening, led by Sheikh Sittar. They persuaded thousands of their tribesmen to join the Iraqi police, which was practically defunct thanks to al-Qaeda death threats, and to work with the reviled US troops. The US military built a string of combat outposts (COPs) throughout a city that had previously been a no-go area, and through a combination of Iraqi local knowledge and American firepower they gradually regained control of Ramadi, district by district, until the last al-Qaeda fighters were expelled in three pitched battles in March. What happened in Ramadi was later replicated throughout much of Anbar province.
Ramadi’s transformation is breathtaking. Shortly before I arrived last November masked al-Qaeda fighters had brazenly marched through the city centre, pronouncing it the capital of a new Islamic caliphate. The US military was still having to fight its way into the city through a gauntlet of snipers, rocket-propelled grenades, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Fifty US soldiers had been killed in the previous five months alone. I spent 24 hours huddled inside Eagles Nest, a tiny COP overlooking the derelict football stadium, listening to gunfire, explosions and the thump of mortars. The city was a ruin, with no water, electricity or functioning government. Those of its 400,000 terrified inhabitants who had not fled cowered indoors as fighting raged around them.
Today Ramadi is scarcely recognisable. Scores of shattered buildings testify to the fury of past battles, but those who fled the violence are now returning. Pedestrians, cars and motorbike rickshaws throng the streets. More than 700 shops and businesses have reopened. Restaurants stay open late into the evening. People sit outside smoking hookahs, listening to music, wearing shorts – practices that al-Qaeda banned. Women walk around with uncovered faces. Children wave at US Humvees. Eagles’ Nest, a heavily fortified warren of commandeered houses, is abandoned and the stadium hosts football matches.
“Al-Qaeda is gone. Everybody is happy,” said Mohammed Ramadan, 38, a stallholder in the souk who witnessed four executions. “It was fear, pure fear. Nobody wanted to help them but you had to do what they told you.”
On the night of June 30 a US patrol chanced upon two trucks laden with al-Qaeda fighters, weapons and explosives approaching Ramadi across the desert from the south, and two US soldiers were killed in what became known as the “Battle of Donkey Island”. But there has not been a US casualty, or major attack, since. No vehicles can enter the city without being checked for explosives, and any al-Qaeda fighter who returned would be swiftly handed over.
“We have an Iraqi saying: ‘If you’re bitten by a snake you’re scared of the smallest insect’. We’re not going to let that snake back any more,” said Ali Sami, 39, another stallholder who recently returned home after fleeing to Baghdad. Ramadi has gone from war zone to building site. US soldiers have become the nation-builders so derided by Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Defence Secretary. They are training Ramadi’s 7,000 new policemen (a year ago it had 200) and helping the Iraqis to rebuild their broken city.
They have set up 12 district councils and a city council. They have created 19,000 day labour jobs, paying locals $7 (£3.47) an hour to clear rubble, remove acres of garbage, repair cratered roads, paint shop fronts and replace underground pipes destroyed by IEDs. They have restored electricity, water, rubbish collections and a rudimentary bus service. They are erecting 1,000 solar-powered street lamps. The hospital – commandeered by al-Qaeda – and the fire station are back up and running. Criminal courts will reopen next month. So will Ramadi’s ceramics factory, one of its few real employers. Gunfire has become a sound of celebration.
The city council and US military broadcast daily progress reports, introduced by the national anthem and English football results, from giant loudspeakers above 19 police stations.
The 6,000 US soldiers are now dubbed “friendly forces”, and most are bemused by their new civil role. “I want to fight al-Qaeda, but f*** it – this is victory,” said Corporal Patrick Marzillo from Chicago.
“Instead of using my radio to summon support fire I’m calling to get a water leak mended,” said Colonel Turner. The soldiers’ biggest enemy now is the scorching heat – well over 110 degrees most days, which is no joke in body armour.
The al-Qaeda fighters driven from Ramadi have not left Iraq, of course. Indeed, they appear to be stepping up suicide bomb attacks elsewhere. But Colonel John Charlton, the US officer in overall charge of Ramadi, insists that al-Qaeda has suffered a major setback. “We’ve denied them a base of operations. I think it was a severe strategic blow to lose not only Ramadi, but all of Anbar province,” he said.
Iraqi Shias are also worried that the new US-trained police forces of Ramadi and Anbar province could eventually metamorphose into well-trained Sunni militias; the Sunni insurgency may be fading, but the Shia-Sunni civil war rages on.
But for now Ramadi’s citizens are enjoying their improbable peace, and remembering the American they call “Martyr Husham” – the brave and generous martyr.
Captain Patriquin, 32, a father of three young children, was killed by a roadside bomb days after I left Ramadi last winter. Sheikh Sittar wept when told the news. He and several tribal leaders attended his memorial service. Captain Patriquin “was an extraordinary man who played a very, very important role,” he told The Times.
He “showed Iraqis that Americans are real people and not an evil occupying force bent on destroying their land…He was a true hero who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” said Colonel Charlton.
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read the whole story… Last two paragraphs left me with goosebumps.
/says a prayer offered to Captain Patriquin
August 30th, 2007 at 8:09 pmThank you Pat. I will share this with others. God rest Captain Patriquin. God bless his family.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:14 pmThe world is better place because of people like Captain Patriquin, he was made of stuff Reid, Pelosi, Murtha et. al can’t even fathom.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:55 pmPat, my nephew is back from Ramadi and I just got back from attending his wedding. I didn’t ask him about his time with 1/6 there, but his father told me all about how he got his Navy/Marine medal with ‘V’ device. To say that Ramadi was hairy is to put it lightly. My nephew had some barley pops with me and we didn’t talk about anything but old times. He is not the little kid I remember, but an officer who has seen the white elephant, and one who was grateful that one of his uncles came all the way from the other side of the globe to see him hitched. I told him it was the least I could do for him going to the other side of the globe for the rest of us.
August 30th, 2007 at 8:58 pmCaptain Patriquin,thank you for your service
August 30th, 2007 at 9:01 pmFuck this article, who’s byline is this? which ‘times’ does the author refer too?
The last three lines of this article are the only ones that did not offend me. I pulled selected quotes to show how negative the fuck that wrote this is. He hides behind the shadow of Captain Travis Patriquin to snipe at and insult this countries’ efforts in Iraq.
How many read articles like this, taking in all the negative phrases without realizing the propaganda you are subjected too. This sounds like something nbc would run.
taken straight from above:
“one of the few American success stories of the Iraq war”
“unthinkable almost anywhere else in this violent country”
“I listened incredulously as Latif Obaid Ayadah, Ramadi’s Mayor, told me of his desire to build an airport and tourist resort in Ramadi”
“US military renowned for busting doors down”
“the reviled US troops”
“US soldiers have become the nation-builders so derided by Donald Rumsfeld”
“The al-Qaeda fighters driven from Ramadi have not left Iraq, of course. Indeed, they appear to be stepping up suicide bomb attacks elsewhere. But Colonel John Charlton, the US officer in overall charge of Ramadi, insists that al-Qaeda has suffered a major setback.”
“the Sunni insurgency may be fading, but the Shia-Sunni civil war rages on.”
“enjoying their improbable peace”
>The author is a bitch
August 30th, 2007 at 9:13 pmGreat story but the shit heads couldnt resist this….
“….in one of the few American success stories of the Iraq war.”
…could they. Sure Anbar is another amazing victory in US military history but what about the pacification of Mosul, the liberation of Falluja, the Blitz to Baghdad, the ejection of al Sadr from Najaf and Karbala etc, etc, etc.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:14 pma follow up
martin fletcher is his name,
and guess what that twat works for nbc! didn’t know that before I wrote my rant
shit always smells
August 30th, 2007 at 9:28 pmGood article but what a biased douchebag reporter. “One of the few success stories in Iraq” my ass. More like “one of the thousands of success stories in Anbar alone.” And just when you thought the article was over, you get another baseless cheapshot on Rummy.
August 30th, 2007 at 9:43 pmCaptain Travis Patriquin
R.I.P.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:11 pmUnfortunately Steve in NC is correct. All I can say is, take a deep breath and hope that things (in the msm) change for the better one day. I don’t expect it to happen in my life time but there is always hope thanks to Yon, Dollard, Black5, Jimbo, Roggio and the rest.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:21 pmwow , if the US military is winning the hearts of Sunnis then it would appear the ideological battle is being won - but this article leaves me with so many questions with respect to the local political and religious situation , but I suppose if that tourist center is opened I can , as God permits, find out myself…it is encouraging to hear of 1) the use of solar power - one would imagine that such could be a growth industry in the country - 2) the explosive growth of the local police and their apparent fidelity to the rule of law - 3) that thousands of relatively well paying jobs have been realized 4) soldiers are actively involved in reconstruction efforts , etc. startling news really - as the Shiite faction fighting during the Shiite religious pilgrimage demonstrates and the article hints at sectarian conflict may be the most imposing and lasting hurdle of all - it appears that Captain Patriquin’s success was based in no little part with his command of Arabic , humaneness based empathy and altruism - a city now built with American blood and the locals are appreciative - astonishing article much obliged
August 30th, 2007 at 11:22 pm“Great in the Woods” - Godspeed Captain Travis Patriquin
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/12/great_in_the_wo.html
And article originally in Blackfive. Just a lil background on this Great American Hero.
Many Prayers to his family.
August 30th, 2007 at 11:31 pmGreat story indeed but some phrases were offensive. Still it’s nice to see the MSM grudgingly admit that good news is happening in Iraq.
Unfortunately, they’re now touting that crazy report that says only 3 of the benchmarks were met. I rather wait for General Patreus’ report!
August 31st, 2007 at 12:27 ammsm story line: when there is good news, make sure people remember the bad. when there is bad news , put it on the front page.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:44 amI had read about him before-not much more to say than RIP
August 31st, 2007 at 3:41 amSteve
August 31st, 2007 at 7:02 amRight on brother!!! Thanks for the intel.
Fuck Martin Fletcher!!
God Bless Capt. Patriquin
Martin Fletcher is a LMSM puppet. Of couse he’s going to throw in his libnut bias. How else could he spin a great success story like this? What else is fucking new? Everybody in here(with a couple of exceptions) knows that the LMSM is full of its own bias.
Despite Fletcher’s bias even he can’t hide the truth any longer. As far as him hiding behind a great patriot like
Captain Travis Patriquin, Fletcher would first have to be a real man…and Fletcher is not.
However Biased this libnut is the last two paragraphs are great. Let me quote them:
“Captain Patriquin, 32, a father of three young children, was killed by a roadside bomb days after I left Ramadi last winter. Sheikh Sittar wept when told the news. He and several tribal leaders attended his memorial service. Captain Patriquin “was an extraordinary man who played a very, very important role,” he told The Times.
He “showed Iraqis that Americans are real people and not an evil occupying force bent on destroying their land…He was a true hero who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” said Colonel Charlton.”
Cowards die a thousand deaths. A Brave man, but once. Greater love hath no man than to give his life for a friend.
I drink a toast to the memory of this great man.
August 31st, 2007 at 11:26 amDamn shame that he died, we need more guys like him.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:10 pmCalling Martin Fletcher a piece of sh!t is an insult to pieces of sh!t. He’s a master at embedding anti-American agit-prop inside “supportive” news stories. And a big Israel-hater.
I wish he’d absorb an IED.
August 31st, 2007 at 8:04 pmTo Steve from NC and my other detractors. - This is Martin Fletcher from NBC. I’m sure there are many good reasons to insult me, but this isn’t one of them. I didn’t write the story from Ramadi - there’s another Martin Fletcher, who works for the London Times - he wrote it. As for the person who hopes I’ll get hit by an IED for something I didn’t write, well, let’s hope kinder thoughts prevail.
October 3rd, 2007 at 1:00 am