Getting belted in Baghdad

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, June 30, 2009 - 8:56 PM Share

General Raymond Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, gave a press conference Tuesday in which his most significant words might have been missed, because everyone is focusing on U.S. combat formations moving out of the cities. "We'll be operating in the belts around Baghdad," Odierno emphasized to reporters.

To those who watched the surge unfold, that's an interesting phrase, because it signals that the U.S. strategy in the coming months will be to try to protect Baghdad by cutting off insurgents and militias operating in the fields, towns and palm groves that surround much of the capital. And that was where some of the heaviest fighting took place during the spring and summer of 2007, as "the surge" began. Indeed, of the 21 battalions sent to Iraq as surge forces, about half were deployed in Baghdad and about half around it.

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EXPLORE:MIDDLE EAST, IRAQ, MILITARY, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

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NYGDAN

3:58 PM ET

July 1, 2009

WWSD

I beleive, Mr. Ricks, that this was referred to as "What Would Saddam Do" in your book, "The Gamble". If this works, it will perhaps be something like COIN operations in Columbia & Peru, no, with insurgents pushed out of the cities and into the jungles.
Of course it seems odd to call a withdrawl from the population centers population-centric.

WALKING WOUNDED

9:42 PM ET

July 1, 2009

MSA Baghdad

"Additional surrounding counties (known as outlying counties) can be included in the Metro Statistical Area if these counties have strong social and economic ties to the central counties... some areas within these outlying counties may actually be rural in nature."
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Isn't the 'oil spot' supposed to spread the combat component wider, expanding into contact with other 'stabilized' perimeters? Working with IA/IP against an attrited, diffuse and demoralized insurgency should become locally less complex, as the density drops, and the population units are no longer in RPG range of hostile competitors from the back porch.

The US force should be generally more rested/effective in July 09, with an average time in theater less than 6 mo., and relatively low tempo of combat contacts. Compare that to July 08, when the Army component was exhausted from 15 month deployments, and the high '08 tempo of ops and casualties. If the COIN' mentoring' is working, IA units should also be evening out, less starved for noncoms, less shuffling and dismissing of sectarian, corrupt or incompetent officers.

Studies of American PTSD, force exhaustion, and divorce show a dramatic increase with deployment time, part of why the Corps has defended their 7 month fleet tempo. Deploying borderline PTSD/TBI noncoms makes for sketchy stabilization forces. That also goes for ISFs, drawn from a deeply traumatized and prozac'd society.

The bad news on July 1 is that populations are left behind at somewhat renewed risk, and precious time must be invested developing new relationships, with each movement and deployment. In stark terms, population and military casualties would tend to balloon, even in a successful transition.