U.S. relearning painful lessons in Iraq
By JOHN YAUKEY, Gannett
News Service
Marine Cpl. Daniel Villalobos spent seven weeks in Afghanistan during the height of that conflict in 2001 before ending up in Iraq's infamous Sunni triangle, the heart of the nation's raging insurgency. "My combat action ribbon from Afghanistan came from one firefight in 48 days," said the 24-year-old from Santa Maria, Calif. "Over here, things are blowing up every day. It's a completely different story." It's what many Pentagon officials only recently have conceded is a full-blown "insurgency." This admission is meaningful, especially to Americans trying to understand Iraq and the importance of the upcoming elections there Jan. 30, because military commanders do not use the term "insurgency" indiscriminately or interchangeably. Insurgencies are more than rebellions by "dead-enders" or final gasps by defeated foes. They are a special type of conflict with deeply rooted military and political characteristics that make them excruciatingly difficult to defeat. Modern insurgents attack military, economic, social, political and religious targets to convince the enemy's decision-makers their cause is ultimately too costly in blood, money and political capital to pursue. Insurgency is the only form of warfare that has ever defeated a superpower, most notably the United States in Vietnam and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The insurgency in Iraq is rooted primarily in the nation's once ruling Sunni Arab minority, which now fears a massive power loss. American and Iraqi forces already are struggling with the military side of the conflict. If the elections go badly and the political side collapses into chaos, Americans will be facing a debacle that easily rivals Vietnam. Indeed, if the estimated 20,000 insurgents succeed in destabilizing Iraq they will send a powerful message to potential future enemies of the United States: Americans do not have the will to wage a successful counterinsurgency. "Much of the rest of the world has already decided that this is the way to fight because it plays to our weaknesses," said Marine Corps Col. Thomas X. Hammes, author of "The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century." "This is the kind of warfare we're going to be facing in the future." Despite its experience with insurgencies, the U.S. military has tended to minimize their importance in its collective institutional memory. Now a new generation of warriors must learn the lessons of insurgency warfare — on the fly in Iraq.
Insurgencies last
Perhaps the most daunting characteristic about insurgencies is their staying power. It typically takes a decade or longer to defeat one. Americans fought for 11 years in Vietnam before leaving. The French gave up an eight-year campaign in Algeria in 1962. The Soviets ended their futile decade in Afghanistan in 1989. A century ago, American troops in the Philippines succeeded in putting down an insurgency there, but the war and the subsequent "pacification" campaign took 15 years. While weapons have changed since then, tactics haven't. Insurgency warfare remains a test of will, not weapons. But the costs of the 22-monthlong Iraq campaign already are starting to wear on Americans. The price tag is approaching $200 billion, while the number of Americans killed recently passed 1,350, and shows no signs of slowing. Escalating violence recently prompted the Pentagon to raise the number of troops to 150,000 — the highest number since the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. Support for the war among Americans appears tenuous at best. A recent USA TODAY-CNN-Gallup Poll showed that almost 60 percent of Americans are unhappy with the way the campaign is being handled. The Bush administration's plan is to establish a large and competent-enough Iraqi force so that even if the insurgency has historical staying power, it won't be Americans fighting it. But so far, according to a handful of respected think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Iraqi troops will not be ready to handle the insurgency alone until the end of 2006 at the earliest. Combat
is brutal
Marines and Special Forces are the U.S. troops traditionally trained to fight insurgencies, although most forces bound for Iraq now get a crash course. "It's some of the most difficult, dangerous and physically intense kind of warfare," said Marine Capt. Lee Johnson of Clintonville, Wis. Johnson commanded Alpha Co., 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, through the bloody streets of Fallujah. Much of the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah had to be taken room by room, with some Marines using a counterinsurgency tactic called FISH, or "fighting in someone's house." This entails clearing each room with a hand grenade before searching it. Innocents often die in this kind of fighting, but that's what the insurgents want. Experts say they try to develop a cycle of futility that ultimately convinces the locals that the visiting troops cause more trouble than they prevent, and should leave. Some experts believe that's already happened in Iraq. "We're way past the antagonism phase of this thing," said Pat Lang, a Vietnam Green Beret who trained foreign troops in counterinsurgency.
Force alone can't win
History has shown insurgencies cannot be defeated by force alone because they inherently carry a level of popular support that must be won over. The support Iraq's insurgents get, if only from Iraqis who merely don't report them, is immeasurable. This is why all eyes are on the elections. They'll indicate whether the political side of the conflict can be won and the masses conclude that the insurgency is bound to fail, or the insurgents will be successful in turning a critical mass of Iraqis against the Americans and whatever government emerges under their protection. In Vietnam, the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese governments could never gain any real legitimacy among the masses. Consequently, that war was lost politically long before the U.S. troops were ordered to leave. The French suffered the same fate in Algeria despite the infusion of almost 400,000 troops. (Contributing: Army Time reporter Gordon Trowbridge)
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