Pat Dollard | Young Americans

US soldiers and Concerned Citizens in Arab Jabour. Photo by Bill Roggio.

MNFI

Sunday, 08 June 2008
By Sgt. Kevin Stabinsky
2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division

COMBAT OUTPOST MURRAY — The battlefield in Iraq has become a classroom for military analyst Steven Biddle and several associates, who visited 3rd Infantry Division Soldiers on June 4 to get a sense of progress in the area.

Biddle, a four-time visitor to Iraq and the author of two military-themed books entitled “Military Power: Explaining Victory and Defeat in Modern Battle” and “Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy,” said his visit was multi-purposed.

“Information in the (U.S.) is limited,” said Biddle, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Here, I get to see things with my own eyes. Nothing is filtered.”

To assess conditions in Arab Jabour, Biddle spoke with senior leaders in the U.S. and Iraqi Army, and prominent members of the Arab Jabour community.

Biddle spoke with key leaders, reviewed charts and maps documenting the decrease in attacks in the area.

He also spoke with key leaders such as Capt. Nassim, operations officer for the 6th battalion, 25th brigade, 6th IA division. The IA battalion will soon assume responsibility of the area it currently patrols alongside Soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment.

Before the 1-30th Inf. Regt. arrived, Nassim said, the area was an al-Qaida stronghold, with an estimated 1,500 fighters, 200 of whom were foreigners. Now, he said, thanks to the cooperation of coalition forces, Iraqi security forces and Sons of Iraq, the community is becoming secure, with most of the insurgents killed, captured or driven away.

Biddle’s observations were in line with Nassim’s assessment.

“It is definitely a lot safer,” Biddle said of the change he’s seen in Iraq since the implementation of the counterinsurgency policy. He said many places were once too dangerous to visit. Now, through the work of surge brigades like the 2nd BCT, Iraqis are able to live without fear.

The 2nd BCT was the last of the five surge brigades to arrive in country and elements of the brigade are scheduled to redeploy to Fort Stewart, Ga., beginning in late June, after completing a 14-month tour of duty.

Having spent more than a year in Iraq, the 2nd BCT’s mission has laid down the groundwork for ISF to build up and take control of the area. An Iraqi police company is scheduled to join the IA forces in securing the area; an IP station is currently being constructed.

“I’m impressed by what has been accomplished,” said Biddle, on his third trip to Iraq since the U.S. troop surge began 15 months ago.

The Arab Jabour region, just southeast of Baghdad, is believed to have been one of the most dangerous areas in all Iraq. The region, which is nearly all Sunni, was home to a car bomb factory and operated as a staging area for al Qaeda to launch attacks into Baghdad. US forces ignored this region for the past two years. Prior to the launch of Operation Marne Torch on June 16, there were no Iraq forces in the region, and US forces patrolling the farmlands of Arab Jabour were stretched and did not maintain a permanent presence in the region.

As part of General David Petraeus’ counterinsurgency plan, US forces left the larger camps and forward operating bases in and around Baghdad to control the regions know as the Baghdad Belts. In the Multinational Forces Central area of operations, the Army began building a series of combat outposts and patrol bases. From these bases, the US would reengage the local Iraqi populations, establish control of the routes into Baghdad and strike at al Qaeda cells and safe houses in the region. The counterinsurgency operation is in full swing in Arab Jabour.

Background of the area by LWJ last September