So What is the Ground Truth in Iraq?
By Larry Johnson on September 6, 2008 at 2:35 PM in Current Affairs
There is a fascinating debate underway about the effectiveness and relevance of “Special Operations” forces. An article in the Washington Post today pulls back the curtain a slight bit on the behind the scenes hunt for Al Qaeda in Iraq.
By the time he was captured last month, the man known among Iraqi insurgents as “the Tiger” had lost much of his bite. Abu Uthman, whose fierce attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians in Fallujah had earned him a top spot on Iraq’s most-wanted list, had been reduced to shuttling between hideouts in a Baghdad slum, hiding by day for fear neighbors might recognize him.
In the end, a former associate-turned-informant showed local authorities the house where Uthman was sleeping. On Aug. 11, U.S. troops kicked in the door and handcuffed him. They quietly ended the career of a man Pentagon officials describe as the kidnapper of American journalist Jill Carroll and also as one of a dwindling number of veteran commanders of the Sunni insurgent group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
Uthman, whose given name is Salim Abdallah Ashur al-Shujayri, was one of the bigger fish to be landed recently in a novel anti-insurgent operation that plays out nightly in Baghdad and throughout much of Iraq. U.S. intelligence and defense officials credit the operation and its unusual tactics — involving small, hybrid teams of special forces and intelligence officers — with the capture of hundreds of suspected terrorists and their supporters in recent months. . . .
The “fusion cells” are being described as a major factor behind the declining violence in Iraq in recent months. Defense officials say they have been particularly effective against AQI, which has lost 10 senior commanders since June in Baghdad alone, including Uthman. . . .
The rapid strikes are coordinated by the Joint Task Force, a military-led team that includes intelligence and forensic professionals, political analysts, mapping experts, computer specialists piloting unmanned aircraft, and Special Operations troops. After decades of agency rivalries that have undermined coordination on counterterrorism, the task force is enjoying new success in Iraq with its blending of diverse military and intelligence assets to speed up counterterrorism missions.
For starters this piece is likely to launch an investigation of a security breach. The article discloses some highly classified information. I will not tell you what, but whoever talked to the authors of this piece are likely to be in some hot water.
There is a major, but little understood difference, between Special Operations forces and Special Forces aka “Green Beret.” The average layperson, and even many military folks, assume that Special Operations forces and Green Beret forces are one and the same. You can see an example of this with Pat Lang, who has a piece up today riffing off of the article above. Pat writes:
There are now effectively five US military services; Army, Marine Corps; Navy, Air Force and Special Operations Forces (SOF).
The SOF “service” is still somewhat dependent on the older services for personnel and other residual support, but increasingly the money is contained in their own appropriations, their equipment is procured in their own channels and the people think of themselves as SOF “operators,” rather than soldiers, a breed apart from the common herd. The marines have finally been pressured into creating a marine component of the SOF, but are trying hard to keep their men from being absorbed into this new thing. I wish them luck. The process of the SOF service absorption of those parts and people that are wanted from US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) has been underway for some time. There is little doubt as to what the outcome will be in that process.
The SOF “service” had its origins in the creation of anti-terrorist commando forces in the ’70s. At about the same time, Congress created “Special Operations Command,” a headquarters built to advocate the cause of those same anti-terrorist commandos. That heaquarters has now become a center of operational control. This “pairing” remained a small and little employed creation until 9/11. That event caused the sunlight to shine on these “plants,” and they have grown enormously ever since.
The SOF forces operate on a largely stove-piped (vertically integrated) basis around the world with a single minded mandate to hunt down and kill terrorists and terrorist leaders and that is very largely all they do. They have no other function. War is more than that, but they seem blind to that fact. “Special Operations” used to encompass a whole panoply of sophisticated approaches to conflict. There seems to be little left of that other than lip service. Think about that before you “sound off.”
Pat makes some valid points but is wrong in claiming the SOF forces “have no other function” than to “hunt down and kill terrorists.” In fact, SOF has and does perform other missions outside of hunting and killing terrorists but they are classified. Pat is right in raising a question about whether SOF ops in Iraq have turned the tide and made the difference. As detailed in the Washington Post article there appears to be no argument that SOF has killed and captured key Al Qaeda personnel. But has this been the key to reducing most of the violence in Iraq?
That is the point Pat makes implicitly that should be emphasized. While SOF has done some terrific work it is not the reason we are seeing a major decline in attacks. Most of the violence over the last three years was carried out by Sunni insurgent groups operating independently of the Al Qaeda folks and Shia groups retaliating against those Sunni groups. The reduction in violence that we are witnessing in Iraq is more a consequence of a Special Forces (aka Green Beret) strategy rather than a SOF strategy. Both are necessary and both have achieved success.
What is a Green Beret approach? It involves integrating with local communities, living with those communities, training personnel from those communities, and enabling those forces to conduct the operations required to protect and defend their home territory. And that is what has happened. It was not the “Surge” per say that saved the day. In fact, Pat Laing deserves a lot of credit for producing a study of Iraq tribes three years ago that became a foundation for refocusing the U.S. military mission in Iraq to a Green Beret counter insurgency operation.
But all of the military activity does not fix the political problems of who holds power in Iraq. Our military activities have created an opening. While we can rightly celebrate a decline in violence we should not kid ourselves that the Government of Prime Minister Maliki represents a point of view that is sympathetic to U.S. strategic goals in the Middle East. In fact, Maliki’s Iraq is closely aligned with Iran and will continue to be so for the forseeable future.
The questions both McCain and Obama need to answer is where do we go next in Iraq to achieve strategic objectives such as preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, containing radical Islamists, and ensuring a free, unfettered flow of oil from the region. Those are the issues that will be on our plate as a country over the next four years.
by Ronald Scott
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