The Surge: The Whole Story (2009) - full transcript

- I think in December 2006,
we were losing the war

and there's no great need to
paper over that assessment

and people knew we were
losing and the question,

really, was whether
it was salvageable.

Not whether it was headed
in the right direction,

everyone knew it was not.

- The strategy was really
simply to hang on, hold on,

it wasn't really to win, it
wasn't to protect the people

it was just to kind of keep
a lid on the situation.

And gradually improve the
quality of the Iraqi's.

The way this got expressed in
Washington by the president



and the White House is as
they build up, we build down.

- The strategy we were
operating under of transitioning

security responsibilities
to Iraqi forces was a path

to failure.

- Maliki as a mid-2006 prime
minster so you're foming

a government, you're learning
how to bring a government

together, you're fighting
a very tough conservancy

that is well organized,
well financed, very complex,

from internal generated,
some external generated.

The neighbors are not helping.

You're trying to do that at
the same time raise an army

and train an army.

This is not an easy thing to do.

- The troops were pretty much
positioned on large bases



on the periphery
of Iraqi cities.

They would conduct patrols
into the areas to try to

secure them, but they bedded
down at night back at those

big bases and I don't think
they understood the kind of

sectarian violence and
sectarian cleansing that was

going on once they
left the neighborhoods.

- The level of violence
went up to a degree that we

were unable to cope with.

- There was an ethno-sectarian
nature to the violence,

I was unsure what would happen
if we continued to reduce

our presence like
the current plan was.

So I was trying to think
through ways of what can we do

to affect this?

What are the things we
need to do in order to make

this successful?

- General Odierno was
in a difficult position.

What he wanted to do was
do a significant surge,

a substantial surge and
really get into doing counter

insurgency in a significant way.

The problem is, he was a
subordinate of another general,

General Casey, who didn't
favor this approach.

- We started, then, working
options with the potential

of using additional forces.

I then contacted the Army,
had my staff contact the Army

and ask, what would be the
max amount of forces that

would be available?

And they came up with five
brigades over extended period

of time.

- General Odierno was stuck
with this and operating

within this.

He had no direct communication
with the White House.

He had no way to, you know,
tell the president or his

national security adviser,
"Hey, I've got a different

"approach, I think we need
to go to more of a counter

"insurgency approach where
we protect the population.

"A more offensive approach
where we go after Al Qaeda

"and the Baghdad Belts
and approach that and more

"American assets."

There was no way for him
directly to communicate that.

However, he was in regular
touch with General (mumbles)

retired Army advise chief of
staff and Keen got that message

across to the White House.

- Staying the course was
gone so you could either try

to do proper counter insurgency,

which we now call the
surge for shorthand,

or you could try to do a
plan B like sort partition.

But that would've been hard
'cause Iraqi's couldn't

agree on what plan B should
be and it would've had

it's own implementation issues.

Or you could accept
defeat and leave.

- In the early part of
December, the president has made

the decision and principle
that there should be a surge.

And to try to rectify
the situation in Baghdad.

But just what the
surge was wasn't clear.

And there were different,
kind of, perspectives as to

what it might be.

- When you talk about a
counter insurgency you add

a whole 'nother layer of
functions that military officers

aren't used to dealing with.

Governance, economics,
politics, diplomacy, culture.

And all these kind of things
go in to making a counter

insurgency campaign
really really complex.

- It was a change of the
paradigm is what it was.

Wasn't simply the matter
of same number of forces.

If we had sent additional
brigades to carry out the

old strategy of transitioning,
it would've have worked

so well.

- Patraeus was the one
who was best positioned by

his experience and by his
expertise in this area

and it was somewhat
encouraging so it made me think

that we had the full 25%
probability of possible

partial success, which was
about I would've ascribed

to the surge under any command.

- I think anybody who's
honest with them self

and with others will clearly
acknowledge that folks

who had the responsibilities
that we had would have

plenty of worries.

There has to be a
greater emphasis on
the task of security,

in particular security
into the population.

You have to keep in mind,
again, that when the level of

violence is as high as it
was, there's just no way that

anyone is doing anything
other than surviving.

- The situation was actually
much worse than anyone

had let on.

I don't think we were purposely
given misleading data,

I just think we didn't know.

- I actually put my head
down on the desk for a second

and wondered why in the world
I had agreed to do this.

- I took command in June of
2006 and the brigade at the

time was told that it would
be on a "prepare to deploy"

status, in other words it was
kind of a strategic reserve

force with the focus,
obviously, being on Iraq,

but not a definite
deployment order or date.

That changed very quickly.

Around the September time
frame we found out that

we were going to Al
Anbar, to Ramadi.

- The Dagger Brigade combat
team suspect that we were

going to Iraq as early as
June of 2005, when I took

command of the brigade.

We were ultimately notified
that we would take over

responsibility for
northwest Baghdad.

- I received my mission to
take responsibility of the

Rasheed security district,
the east and the west side.

It's the southern half of
Baghdad and it stretches from,

my portion stretched from
the Baghdad airport over to

the Tigris River.

- My mission was to enable
the government of Diyala

to provide services and
security to it's people.

- We deployed in June of
2006, arrived in Iraq in July

of 2006.

The bulk of the brigade,
our mission was to conduct

counter insurgency operations
in Mosul and Nineweh

province.

Later, we moved to Baghdad
we became the multi national

division Baghdad strike
force, a very mobile mission.

And we also, also the core
commander, General Odierno's

operational reserve.

So he would call on us when
there were problems in some

far flung corner of Iraq.

- Ramadi was
essentially destroyed.

I don't think you could find
a single building in that

city that had not suffered
some sort of damage,

and some of them were
completely destroyed.

The center part of the city
near the government center

was essentially a
large pile of rubble.

It reminded me of pictures
I'd seen from World War II

and places like Stalingrad
or Berlin or, you know,

that level of destruction.

- Let's talk about fresh
water, let's talk about sewage,

banking, food, food
distribution points, schools,

hospitals, medical clinics,
what we found when you looked

at just those simple templates
in the Shia areas those

systems, those services were
either fully functioning

or moderately functioning.

In Sunni areas they were
primarily failing or were

no longer in effect.

- It was literally a gray
dark scary neighborhood.

And that was what
you were walking.

You know, I'd put a gun truck
in front, a gun truck in back,

and you'd walk an entire street.

- The level of violence
in Ramadi was higher than

just about any other place
in Iraq, so it was one of

the most, if not the most
violent place in Iraq,

and thus, in the world.

I don't think you could go
more than 25 meters without

finding a hole in the
street from where an IED had

gone off.

- The enemies principle
weapon was the improvised

explosive device, or the IED.

That particular weapon
and the enemy's use of it

accounted for the vast
majority of US casualties.

- We saw significant
murders, kidnappings, IEDs,

and vehicle born IEDs
focused against the local

nations first, the Iraqi
security forces second,

and coalition forces third.

- 90% of the time in the first
four or five months there

you'd get ambushed from the
left or right by somebody.

Either they're shooting at
you or they're shooting at

each other and you just
happened to get caught

in the middle.

- Sectarian violence
was starting to spike,

specifically in Baghdad.

Sunni and Shia, it was
spiraling out of control.

AQI conducted an attack
on a Shia neighborhood

using car bombs or just
plain complex attacks.

And then there'd be Shia
death squads that would

respond back in
Sunni neighborhood,

then Sunni's would respond
back and the escalation

kept going.

- There were certain combat
zones between Shia and

Sunni sects where we would
find upwards of 275 bodies

a week and sometimes more
piled up in spots as a message

to members of other sects
that this is your fate.

- We were tracking numbers
as high as 500 and 50-

something deaths in the
first month we were there.

500, I mean, that's an Iraqi
citizen in my neighborhood

that was executed
with his hands tied,

him or her or kid, hands
tied behind their back,

blind folded, either
beheaded or shot in the back

of the head.

- Al Qaeda was enemy number one.

So my main effort was Dora.

- What you had was Al
Qaeda in very large numbers

and very determined
to hold Ramadi.

- Al Qaeda in Iraq
is an organization
that is predominantly

Iraqi, but has traditionally
been lead by foreign

extremists who have very
clear links to Al Qaeda senior

leadership in the federally
administered tribal areas,

or perhaps the lower
northwest frontier province of

Pakistan.

And who do get direction,
some resources,

reinforcements in the
form of foreign fighters,

especially suicide
bombers, from outside.

- They didn't care
who they killed,

they don't care who they kill.

To say they're merciless
indicates that at some point

they had mercy.

The Al Qaeda members that we
fought against had no mercy,

they never had.

- Al Qaeda was made up of a
handful of hardcore extremists.

I mean, these were the
people that you had to kill

or capture, there
was no way around it.

You were not gonna
convert these people.

The vast majority of what
I found were people who

were disenfranchised
with the government,

they didn't' have any money,
they didn't have a job,

and they had large
families to take care of.

- High level Al Qaeda
leaders had to be taken out,

but you have to understand
that many of the lower level

guys who actually conducted
the direct action,

these are people who were
coerced into attacking us.

It wasn't uncommon at all
to find out that a man that

attacked us did so because
one of the Al Qaeda leaders

would go into their house
and hold their wife and kids

at gunpoint and say, "I have
a friend who's watching the

"intersection, if you
don't do it, they're dead."

- The car bomb, or
vehicle born IED,

was the enemy's most
important weapon.

It was the one weapon that
could be used with great

precision.

It's very very difficult
to protect yourself against

that type of a weapon.

The enemy like to attack
heavily populated markets,

schools, gas stations
where people may be queuing

up for fuel.

- Al Qaeda is primarily
a psychological
operations machine.

Their purpose is to conduct
attacks that are visible.

- They would hope to communicate
to the world at large,

to the region, and to the
people or Iraq that they had

the capacity to kill at will.

And gain dominance over
the population, thereby,

and to show these same
people that their government

in Baghdad was not capable
of protecting them,

nor was the American military.

- Rasheed was a
microcosm of all of Iraq.

I had on the east side in
east Rasheed the predominant

threat I had was Al
Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq.

On the west side I had
predominantly Jaish al Mahdi,

Jaish al Mahdi specil groups.

- There were special groups
fighting for the Jaish al Mahdi,

or army of the Mahdi that
Muqtada al-Sadr claimed

leadership over.

Many of whom were supported
by nefarious elements

from Iran.

- John had an idea of, like,
Al Qaeda wanted to take

Iraq, (mumbles) wanted to
take back and take over.

- Most of the east side was
Shia and then on the west

side you had Koda Mela, which
was mostly Shia and they

were driving the Sunni's
out toward the south down

into Dora and Rasheed.

You could definitely see that
there was a plan to drive

the Sunni population
out of Baghdad.

- What had happened, of
course, in the wake of the

Samarra Mosque bombing
in February 2006,

was that the Jaisha al
Mahdi was unleashed,

the Shia militias started
rampaging through Sunni

neighborhood killing the
young men, for the most part,

and forcing families to
evict and they were well on

their way to cleansing
Baghdad of Sunni residents.

It was, I think, a very
organized campaign.

I'm not unconvinced that
some political figures were

involved.

- You had a Jaish al Mahdi
organization who really

stood in for the government.

Which is what gave
them power, I mean,

they understood that they
needed to please the people

to some degree in order
to remain anonymous and

to remain safe and their
tentacles ran pretty deep.

- They had transitioned
form this militia aspect

to organized crime because
they saw the benefits of

crime and crime based
enterprise in an area that was

relatively lawless,
or really lawless.

- They might go up and
down to businesses and say,

"Hey," just like the mob
in this country in the 20s

or 30s and they would say,
"Hey, if you want to keep

"your store open, I need a
little money every month."

- The Shia did use
IEDs of various types.

Not always clear if they
were involved in the use of

car bombs.

Their signature weapon
was the explosively formed

projectile, or EFP.

Controlled items, the
components of which would come

from Iran.

Most of these weapons were
attributed to special groups

of the Jaish al Mahdi.

It was out opinion many of
these groups had received

training in Iran.

- At the time I don't think
we realized how much Iran

had in fact begun to
influence the Shia militias.

And we started, as we
continued to conduct operations

and learn more and more
about those individuals

we picked up, we really
started to learn about how much

Iranian influence was in there.

Originally we thought it was
weapons only then we realized

they were conducting training,
they were providing money,

they were providing support
and so we knew now we had

another problem we had
to deal with and that was

countering Iranian influence.

Which we knew it, we just
didn't know the scope of

the problem.

- We new Al Qaeda's aim was
to win in and around Baghdad.

That is, reduce the legitimacy
of the Iraqi government

in the eyes of the Iraqi
people, show the people of

Baghdad and Iraq and
around the region that the

Iraqi military and other
security forces and the

American military could not
secure the population of

Baghdad.

We knew that's where
they wanted to win.

- A raid was done by first
brigade, first cav up in Taj

and they uncovered an
Al Qaeda command control

center which had their plans,
which basically was control

the belts and then create
sectarian violence inside

of Baghdad.

- There were a lot of
ungoverned spaces in Iraq and

Al Qaeda Iraq, you know,
embedded themselves in these

sanctuaries close
to the capital.

They created their car
bomb factories and their

torture mills.

- We also had a very clear
understanding of how they

divided up the battle field.

Between the areas that they
wanted to attack in Baghdad

and the areas where they
sought sanctuary outside

of Baghdad.

So, in essence, we saw and
understood where the enemy

aimed on achieving tactical
effect within certain

neighborhoods and where he
supported his operations

from outside of the city.

- You have easy access of
whatever you needed from

the outside, don't have
to keep it in Baghdad,

keep it outside and whenever
you need it bring it in

and take it out.

- Ground matters to Al Qaeda.

They're not some amorphous
force that lives in the

cyber space and flits
from here to there and,

you know, shadowy figures.

They're human beings that
need what every human being

needs.

Shelter, food, sustenance,
they need access to

communications, road
network and whatnot,

and they found these areas
around Baghdad in the so-called

Baghdad belts that they
used as sanctuary and then

they would inject violence
into Baghdad and then retreat

again to their safe havens.

- When you go after it's
about going after a whole

network and you gotta go
after it in a variety of ways.

And so you have to go after
their ability so they can't

have support zones and
safe havens where they can

do whatever they need to
do in order to feed the

insurgency.

So we had to cut out, we
had to cut the feeding tube

to the insurgency.

- You have to take these away.

This is not just about
decapitating an organization

that's as large as
that, we killed Zarqawi,

who was a charismatic, very
operationally savvy leader

and yet the level of
violence when up, not down.

And the reason was because
someone else stepped into

his shoes, there were lots
of other candidates for these

positions.

- General Odierno made the
decision that we were gonna win

in and around Baghdad.

In effect, we were going to
mass all of our capabilities,

both our physical forces, the
attention of our commanders,

the positioning of
our command posts,

the focus of our intelligence,
and our focus on Al Qaeda

was gonna be in and around
Baghdad because we had

to win there.

We had to secure the
population there.

Now, to do that, to
mass those capabilities,

you have to accept
risk in other areas.

- Risk is a hugely important
concept and it's obviously

how much you are
jeopardizing, if you will,

to what degree are you
placing in jeopardy some

particularly important
task or mission.

And all of this is about risk.

You never have all the
resources you would like.

- A lot of the brigades
went into the areas around

Baghdad, which made a
lot of commentators and

politicians puzzle and
shake their head going,

"I thought we were
gonna secure Baghdad,

"why are you going
into Arab Jibor?"

Or, "Why are you going into
Kallis, why are you going

"into Taji, why are you
going into Abu Ghraib?"

Well, that's what you needed
to do to secure Baghdad

and that piece of the strategy
wasn't well understood

outside of those within
multi-national force Iraq

and multi-national core Iraq.

- One of the things that's
a bit ironic about the surge

is it was really a misnomer.

Because it was really
more like a trickle.

And even though there were
to be five Army combat

brigades and a couple
battalions for Arm Bar,

the process was such that
you had a brigade arriving

really once a month.

So it wasn't this dramatic
kind of coup de main

that overnight
changed the situation.

- So as the first troop
brigades came in I allocated

them directly to Baghdad.

When the third one came in,
I allocated it partially

to Baghdad, the other
part around the belt,

and then when the fourth and
fifth I did the same thing,

partially to Baghdad and
around into the belt.

- General Odierno, I think
in his mind, had a very clear

idea how this would
eventually evolve.

And we had to start with
Baghdad, secure the belts,

and then pursue the enemy.

I think he and I, actually in
February in one of our last

meetings I laid out for him
in a map where I thought

this thing might play out,
if we could win the fight

in Baghdad it would shift
to Diyala and eventually

up to Mosul.

- The absolute fundamental
prerequisite of countering

an insurgency is to either
control the population or to

earn their support.

- You've gotta deny the
fundamentalist, the extremist,

on both sides access to
that moderate population.

You have to demonstrate
to the moderate population

that there is an opportunity
to influence their own futures.

- We knew we would need
more US forces in Baghdad,

but it wasn't just about
forces, it was about our

procedures.

And it was really focused on
protecting the population.

- In order to protect the
population you have to form

a relationship with
the population.

That's the real key
fundamental, I think, difference

in the way we approach
counter insurgency in 2007 was

we acknowledged the fact
that we had to develop a very

close relationship
with the Iraqi people.

- Somehow we had to stop this
cycle of violence and the

only way we were gonna do
it was to get off the FOB,

live out there amongst
the Iraqi people,

partner up with the Iraqi
security forces and fight

these guys and demonstrate
to the Iraqi people

we were on their side.

- As part of the transition
plan we had moved back into

the bases, we had to push
our forces back out into

the communities so we
were there 24 hours,

seven days a week.

- The idea is to get every
capable American soldier off

his base and out with the
population where he can do good.

- I think that's about the
time we started putting

out these COPs, the combat
outposts so that joint security

stations all throughout Baghdad.

- Which, essentially, is a
company of about 100 to 150

soldiers living in the
neighborhoods throughout

the district.

You put the COP up in 24 hours.

It was fully functioning
in about 30 days.

First step was find the
fault line, where is the most

violence occurring?

And then you go into
the neighborhood,

fight your way into
the neighborhood,
and based on terrain

analysis, fight yourself,
your unit to a particular

piece of terrain and
you'd take that building.

You'd drive right into it, guns
blazing, take the building,

you own it, and then
you would build it out.

That gave you height to look
down into your neighborhood

and fields of fire to shoot.

Every neighborhood
was different.

One that we occupied
was an old gymnasium,

it was ideal.

- When the sun comes
up in the morning,

the enemy is confronted
with a small outpost of ours

controlled by our forces
with good force protection

from which we would then
conduct subsequent operations.

- And this became a bit of
a template for us that we'd

clear an area to assist
arriving surge unit to get into

their battle space unimpeded.

To ease their transition
into the fight and allow them

to establish their
joint security stations,

their combat outpost like that.

- Over time, as you held
this thing and hardened it,

then you gave a 24 hour
constant presence out here

chasing bad guys where you
knew they were shooting

at you from.

So you'd raid that site, kill
or capture or chase them off,

and eventually it got smart.

They wouldn't come in close
'cause we'd put snipers up

around the building that
could shoot you a mile away.

The first 30 days
was contentious
because the bad guys,

the Al Qaeda or the Jaish
al Mahdi tried to overrun

the COPs.

Each and every one of them
would get a barrage of mortars,

RPGs and machine guns
and a wave of attack of,

you know, 10 or 15 guys
to try to overrun it.

And that went on for
the first 30 days.

After that, we'd get an
occasional sniper shot,

an occasional RPG,
an occasional mortar,

but they couldn't
risk attacking.

- The division commander,
with his planners and his

operations officer and
his intelligence officer

decided where the operations
would go in succession.

Normally we knew for sure
what we were gonna do next

and maybe the thing after
next, the operation after next.

And they would have a running
list of bad places that

they wanted us to work in.

And, essentially, where
ever there was a bad place

in Baghdad, they drew a circle
around it and eventually

it was on our list
of things to do.

- When they saw our forces
come in and go in the

neighborhood, when they saw
the striker vehicles one day,

the next day the
striker's there again,

the next day the strikers
were there again.

They found out that we
were sticking around.

- Generally what we did
in Baghdad day to day was

kind of grinding
hard physical labor.

Soldiers wearing 50 to
60 pounds of body armor,

water ammunition, weapons,
moving through houses,

multiple floors, clearing
sky scrapers for eight or 10

hours a day.

We did this, really,
for two reasons.

One, to disrupt enemy activity
and the other one was to

clear the enemy.

- In March of 2007 we had
a great opportunity to

partner up with the airhead
brigade combat team and

Steve Townson and his
great striker troopers.

- Colonel Burton's brigade
laid about five or six hundred

meters of concrete
barriers every night.

This notion of safe
neighborhoods had arisen in

multi-national division Baghdad
and it was a way to keep

out the car bombs.

And also to keep
out the insurgents,

to keep them from moving
about freely we would barrier

in with concrete a
neighborhood that we wantd

to be a safe neighborhood
and we'd establish

entry control points.

So if you lived or worked
in that neighborhood,

you could come in
and out freely,

but if you didn't live or
work in that neighborhood,

you had to pass through an
Iraqi security checkpoint

just to get in.

- When we went out and one
weekend put in a series

of barriers, regular Jersey
barriers three foot high,

between north and south
Ghazaliya dividing where

the sects were, we saw the
murders in Ghazaliya drop

by 50% because the death
squads couldn't come in.

- What's so interesting
about this Iraq war is

it's high tech.

There's, you know, precision
weapons and satellite guided

munitions and (mumbling)
communications intercepts

and all sorts of mechanisms,
and then it's also as simple

as building a concrete wall.

It's like the most primitive
thing you could possibly

imagine.

Sometimes it comes down to that.

- You can only look
down range, if you will,

so many months.

You can have a broad concept
in mind that you're gonna

focus in Baghdad then you're
gonna have to do some,

pay attention to the belts,
northern and southern,

and certainly the effort in
the dagger that's pointed

at the heart of Baghdad,
which is the Euphrates River

Valley.

But you recognize that
the enemy gets a vote and

the enemy will react to
what we're doing and we have

to have the flexibility
to react, as well.

- As we went through
November to March,

I believe that the enemy was
in a reconnaissance effort.

They were kind of side stepping.

I mean, you got 2.1 million
people, it's pretty easy

to hide amongst a population
that wants to hide you.

So you can just kind of
step out, and it's the old

they're not wearing uniforms,
they don't have a big

bright neon sign to say,
"Hey, I'm a bad guy,

"come kill me."

They fade into the crowds.

So they watched us.

They watched us put
in our barriers,

they watched us put
in the checkpoints,

they watched us put in our
combat outposts and our

joint security stations,
they watched our patrols,

they watched our patrol routes,
they watched our routine,

they watched our rhythm.

They watched where we watched
and they watched where

we didn't' watch and they came
up with a plan to kill us.

- In January, February,
March, the car bombs were just

terrible, the suicide
VBIEDs, the vehicle born IEDs

were just awful in Baghdad.

Tremendous casualties causing
every day and also this

atmosphere of instability
and chaos because of the

car bombs that, seemingly,
could not be stopped.

- We went through that March,
April, May time period,

you remember what it
was like here in April.

You know, the Shorja
Market bombing,

the Sarafiya Bridge
bombing in Baghdad.

I mean, it was about a major
car bomb every other day.

- They came at us hard
and they came at us in

Shula and Kadimiya, and
Hurriya with explosive form

penetraters from Iran and
they killed a lot of our

soldiers.

And they hurt a lot
of our soldiers.

And they came at us in the
Sunni areas with home made

explosives in very large
quantities and extremely large

buried IEDs.

And they came at us on
known patrol routes,

and they came at us
with a vengeance.

- Of course, the enemy's gonna
fight to get back into it.

He's gonna fight to
reestablish himself.

So this takes active work
to keep the enemy out.

- About the May time
frame is when we peaked,

I think the number was 550,
or 980 something lethal

attacks, whether it be
mortars, IEDs, small arms fire,

rockets, in that month of
May there were 900 lethal

attacks in my area
of operations.

- You could, as an outsider,
point to that and go,

"See, the strategy's failing."

But in fact, that was a
sign that the strategy was

succeeding because we had
begun the operation needed to

gain control of the battle
space and eventually secure

the Iraqi people.

- By the time the last surge
brigade combat team arrived

in June, we had as many
troops as we were gonna have.

Whether we thought they
were enough or not,

we knew there were no
more in store for us.

The strategic well was
emptied and so it was then

a matter of doing what
we could with what we had

at our disposal.

- The theory was by
simultaneously taking action

in a variety of areas, they
would make it more difficult

for this Al Qaeda of Iraq
elements to move from,

you know, simply to move
from one area to another

and avoid the sort of
whack-a-mole phenomenon where

all you did was chase the
enemy from one neighborhood

to another neighborhood, but
never decisively engage them.

- This was really General
Odierno and multi-national core

Iraq's doing.

They created an operational
concept beginning with

Operation Phantom Thunder
that really knocked

the enemy back on his
heels, ejected him from his

sanctuaries and
put him on the run.

And once he was on the run,
they kept him on the run

until they were cornered
in their last piece of Iraq

up in Mosul.

- Around June and July we
were starting to see success

in the belts.

The violence was starting
to go down in Baghdad,

except we continued to have
one significant problem,

and that was Baquba.

- My sergeant major and
I traveled up to Baquba,

started frequently, after the
first week we were travelling

up there weekly to attend
memorial services for our fallen

soldiers from 520.

And so I would see Dave at
these memorial services,

or the hero flights, the
flights where the fallen warrior

was flown out of Baquba and
off to the United States.

And as this advances
along through March,

hero flights, memorial
services, April hero flights,

memorial services, some
time in April we're standing

next to the helicopter where
the helicopter had just

left from and it's dark and
we look at each other and I

can't remember who said
it first, but I said,

"You need some help, I
think you need help Dave,"

or Dave said, "I think
I could use some help."

- I looked at Steve and said,
"I'll work for you if you

"will come up here, if we
could get you up here to help

"seize control of Baquba."

- General Odierno comes
to my headquarters,

he said, "What would
you do if you were me?"

Well, my executive officer,
Joe Davidson, and my S3,

Adam Rock, S2 John Clawson,
we're all standing there

debriefing him and they were
a little hesitant to brief

him because in Baghdad
we'd agreed the day before

we were gonna table discussions
about going to Baquba,

about those ideas.

And General Odierno
looks at him and says,

"Hey, we're in a war, I want
to win, you want to win,

"tell me what's on your mind."

They said, "Okay, sir, here's
what we do about Baquba."

They presented the
briefing to him.

"We propose that as soon
as we get done clearing in

"Rasheed you send us to
Baquba, we go join the regulars

"up there and we help the Gray
Wolf brigade sort that out."

Within 24 hours we had a
warning order to go to Baquba.

- I decided to allocate a
striker brigade to Baquba

to first eliminate the safe
haven and sanctuary which

had been created in Baquba.

- General Odierno decided to
conduct an operation called

Phantom Thunder, of which head
ripper was a part of that.

That was our
operations in Baquba.

- He was able to bring his
entire brigade plus part

of my brigade working
for him into the city,

dominating the terrain of
Baquba overwhelming any

Al Qaeda elements that
may have been in there.

- Operation Phantom Thunder
succeeded fabulously and

I don't know if it was
beyond anyone's expectations,

but it was certainly at
the high end of the range.

From the time it began in
June until the next really

critical event, which was
of course the testimony to

Congress in September, you
could see the enemy was taking

a severe hit and
violence was dropping.

Especially among the key
indicators of violence,

which was ethno-sectarian
violence and civilian deaths.

- Once we were finished in
Baquba I knew I had to go out

further into Diyala.

And then as we had success
in MNF west I knew we

had to go further
out into the desert,

out in MNF west.

I knew we had to go
further to Lake Tharthar.

And then as we had success,
I knew we had to go to

Tarmiyah and Taji to the north.

Then as we had success
we kept pushing them away

from us further north and
then I knew we'd have to

finally go north, which
is where we're at today.

- I'll be honest with you,
those first eight weeks,

I wasn't sure that
this was gonna happen.

I mean, I didn't see, every
time we talked to someone,

or interacted with someone,
"I don't know anything,

"don't talk to me, those
were people from outside."

And we must've heard that
answer a thousand times and

what I didn't know exactly
how to do was how do we

make that connection?

I mean, how do we do this?

- They hadn't seen American
forces there in quite

a long time.

Not in significant number.

So they were afraid.

They were afraid, "Well
the Americans will come,

"we'll align ourselves with
them, the Americans will

"leave and we'll be wiped out."

And it took a while for these
Iraqi's (mumbles) to say,

"Wait the American's have
come, this time they're not

"leaving right away.

"They're at least gonna
be here for some sustained

"period of time and we can
gain control over our own

"area by aligning
ourselves with them."

- We had to have a place for
the Iraqi citizens to gain

a 24 hour touch point with
somebody they could trust.

Because they didn't trust us.

Remember, we were leaving.

They didn't trust the Iraqi
security forces because

they were all Shia.

So what are you gonna do?

Well you're gonna go out there
and show them that you're

gonna be part of the solution.

- We made two decisions, I
believe, that really started

to turn the corner for us.

The first one was that we
decided to remain in the

neighborhoods 24 hours
a day seven days a week.

And I don't mean, this is in
addition to a combat outpost

and a joint security station.

We had a platoon at each
one of those in Dora and we

maintained two additional
platoons on the ground.

Three o'clock in the morning,
three in the afternoon,

there were our Hum V's and
soldiers out there and we

never leave.

The second thing that we
did was an operation called

Close Encounters.

- And that was an attempt
to find out all of the

information about every
single person in the entire

area that we were
responsible for.

- We would literally, when
it was really violent,

block off a street, put
security up on the roofs of

the houses so we were
safe, knock on the gate,

as to come in and say,
"What's your name?"

And, "How long have
you lived here?"

And, "By the way, do
you know your neighbor?"

And, "How long has
he lived here?"

And, "What do you
do for a living?"

Or, "What did you used to do?

"What are you biggest concerns?"

When you sit in their house
and you not only visit

that person on a personal
level, but you go to every house

on the street, then if
you're an insurgent you don't

know who's talking because
these Americans are going

into everybody's house.

They can't target anybody.

- When they show that we
were serious about what

we were doing and we were
mixing with the people

and so they're coming to
use with more information

and more information
meant more targets.

More targets meant more
information, more targets.

So, I think the interaction
between the people and the

our forces and the
coalition forces was key to

get the ball rolling and
continue this process.

- It was important we
detain the right people,

you have to attain
actual bad guys.

'Cause if you detain
somebody who's a local son,

if you will, and he is not bad
then you set yourself back,

your credibility drops,
just like it would with the

police force here if they
detained somebody who we know

is innocent then our
credibility's gonna go down.

- We managed to knockout
every single one of the five

major stones that we're
operating in our Mahala in the

course of about 72 hours.

On the 20th of June 2007
one of the most effective

and best planned complex
attacks I've ever seen or

heard of was conducted
by Al Qaeda against our

third platoon.

Within that first hour
after the bomb detonated,

I was back on the FOB doing
intel work and our phone

was ringing off the hook.

Not with people telling
us who did it or even,

which had happened very
early in the deployment,

laughing at us because we
had successfully been hit,

but by people calling and
saying, "We are so sorry

"and we are ashamed of this
and we want to ashore our

"sympathy to the men who died."

And it was, that wasn't
the turning point,

the turning point had
obviously happened earlier,

but that was the first
indication that I had,

unequivocally that we had
changed the perception

of the coalition forces and
correlated to that is the

perception of Al Qaeda.

- The Iraqi vision of
American forces morphed from

liberator to occupier
to despised occupier to

some sort of impartial
benign tribe that could hold

things together because the
Iraqi's were fighting amongst

themselves.

- What kind of began our
successful engagement with

the Sheikhs was this police
recruiting requirement.

Over the years, a number
of people had been trained

to be Iraqi police,
recruited and trained,

but then when they got back
from training they just

went home, they never
reported for duty.

These were guys we didn't
have to go out and recruit,

they were already recruited
and trained they just started

showing up to work every day.

As soon as every Sheikh
saw what was going on,

they all wanted a police
station in their neighborhood,

preferably across the
street form their own house.

- The Sheikhs of Anbar
will tell you this started

in different and that one
group was fighting long before

the other group, but what
we experienced in Ramadi and

central Anbar was that
it kind of started in the

western tribes and the
emerging leader was

Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha.

- This guy was right
out of central casting.

He was flamboyant,
he was courageous,

he was good looking,
he spoke well,

he was very pro-American
'cause he realized that we

were absolutely necessary
to the tribe's ability to

eject Al Qaeda from Al Anbar.

- He talked to one of my
battalion commanders who

he knew from various small
level engagements and said,

"We want to meet with
your brigade commander,

"we want to get something
going here with the coalition."

- He wasn't really seen
initially as being anybody of

any significance 'cause he
wasn't part of the big tribes

and he wasn't part of the
old tribal hierarchy that

a lot of the analysts
had been studying.

He was kind of the
new breed coming in.

- I went up and sat down
with Sheikh Sattar and, uh,

they said, "We have an 11
point declaration that we

"want to read to you."

These people had pledged their
lives and their fortunes,

you know, to stand up
against the tyranny of

Al Qaeda and say, "No more
and we're not gonna hide

"and we're not gonna be
afraid, we're going to fight

"for our own liberty."

- General Petraeus met him,
evaluated what was going on

in Al Anbar and how it came
about and realized that

this was something
that could be expanded.

(indistinct talking)

- I think it was something
that he probably had in his

mind all along, part of the
counter insurgency doctrine

is you don't want to fight
every insurgent in existence,

you want to bring as many
of them into the political

process as possible.

You want to provide
amnesty to a large number.

- When I was in Hurrijab
talking to Sheikh,

it was pretty interesting.

He told me, he said, "You
know, when I was talking to

"Sheikh Sattar," I said,
"What do you mean talking

"to Sheikh Sattar?"

These people were all talking
to each other and they

were all sharing their kind
of lessons learned about

how you can work
with the Americans,

how you can benefit
from this relationship.

- The tribal leaders saw
that as things were getting

better, if they
didn't participate
they'd be left behind.

And so they became very
aggressive at working

reconciliation and getting
their young men to participate

with the security forces and
process as either sons of

Iraq or CLCs.

- Once the tribes were
able to defend themselves,

then it became the AQ
and the JTJ people's turn

to be afraid of the tribes.

And tribal justice, make
no mistake, is pretty rough

and ready.

- So this whole thing was
just an absolute complete

failure for Al Qaeda.

They went back to the very
specific targeted operations

to take out key personalities,
which was, you know,

what they did regarding
Sheikh Sattar when they killed

him in September of '07.

- I remember I could see
the smoke plume from the IED

from my trailer on Camp
Ramadi and I couldn't

immediately tell that it
was on Sheikh Sattar's

compound, but then I
quickly got a phone call and

it was just kind of a, you
know, you get this sinking

feeling and you think, "Oh my
goodness, what's happened?"

And I went over there
immediately and it was amazing.

He had hit an IED probably
100 feet behind his own house.

- We were brothers, you know?

And I'll tell you,
when he was killed,

it was as though I'd lost
one of my own and it was

incredible to me.

And my wife and my kids got
upset about it, too, even,

you know?

'Cause they knew
how close we were,

even though they'd
never met him.

- While it certainly is
the case that the tribal

awakening in Anbar predated by
some months the announcement

of the surge, the infusion
of additional forces and the

new tactics and strategy
reinforced this tribal

awakening and
encouraged it to spread.

And it encouraged it to
spread in Diyala and when

Steve Townson's brigade
arrived and cleared out

Baquba, this further
reinforced the effort and this

tribal awakening thin really
began to grow significantly

in the Diyala province.

So, that was an off shoot
of the clearing of Baquba.

Might not have been fully
anticipated by anyone,

but it was a change in the
situation that the military

took advantage of.

- The system that we
call the Sons of Iraq,

that program grew out of
what we were doing in Anbar

in Ramadi the situation I
faced was I needed to grow

a police force really really
fast to hold these areas

that we had worked so hard
to clear with the Iraqi army.

And it's not easy
to do that in Iraq.

- It is certainly the case
that a high quality policeman

takes three years to build.

You hire a person, you
send them to an academy for

eight, nine, 10, 12 months,
you put them in a probation

period with a partner
for a year or two,

and then you have a
real good policeman.

It is also the case that
if we did that in Iraq we'd

have lost the war.

- We started out with what we
call police auxiliary forces

concern local citizens.

In some cases these were
guys that volunteers to stand

on a street corner and
make sure that nobody

entered that neighborhood
that didn't belong there.

- We called it the
neighborhood watch program.

By allowing them to guard
their neighborhoods and

protect their families and
stand against Al Qaeda,

then that's what they
did, they protected their

neighborhood.

They would not conduct
offensive operations,

they were protecting
their families and
their neighborhoods.

- These were people,
sometimes former insurgents,

sometimes not.

But these were people from
the local area who were

able to say, "Enough.

"I live in this town, I live
in this district and I've had

"enough of this."

- These guys were
already created, they
were already armed,

they were already fighting.

It's just better to have
them fight someone else

rather than us.

- I watched this process
where these guys came in,

they administered
kind of bi-metric IDs,

they took their retina
scans, they gave them kind of

traffic guard vests, these
kind of orange fluorescent

vests, which was the primitive
kind of friend or foe

kind of thing so you at
least could know who was

on our side.

- They came forward, they
would protect the local areas

'cause there was no police
or Iraqi army there and then

we'd be able to
continue our operation.

- We ended up being able to
transition several thousand

of these neighborhood
watch guys into real,

no kidding, Iraqi police.

Drawing a paycheck from
the Ministry of Interiors.

So that was a huge
success story for us.

- For me to think when we
first got there they would

actually have Iraqi's in
uniform standing up in their

neighborhoods was a fantasy.

There was no way that ever
entered my mind as any

time of realistic
part of the fight.

- 103,000 Sons of Iraq
later, here we are.

- This is a big turning point
in the counter insurgency

because now you have the
population turning against

the insurgents.

- The question was always,
really, when will it turn,

if you will?

When will we see a down turn
in violence that is sustained?

And, of course, the answer
was about a month or so after

the launching of the
surge of offensives.

And thankfully, again, it
came before the September

testimony.

- I knew in late September
it was really turning

and in October I was very
hopeful and about December

I thought, "This place is
safer than the green zone

"right now."

The first time I went up
to the international zone

to pick up an Iraqi reporter,
we were supposed to pick two

and one of them was a
cameraman and the other guy

was gonna do interviews and
it was gonna be on one of

the Iraqi networks for
their evening news.

We went up there to get
them and there was only

one guy there, he was
the camera guy, the mic,

I said, "Where's the other guy?"

And he said, "He
didn't show up."

Said, "I'll bet he was scared."

This reporter began to talk
to my interpreter, you know,

in Arabic and I could see my
interpreter who was a good

friend of mine, after
all that time, say,

"Hey, this guy's terrified."

And we would go into
Dora and he'd say,

"Dora's safer than
you are right now,

"there's no rockets
coming into Dora."

And the guys just couldn't
believe it and so he is

visibly fumbling with his
chin strap on his helmet

and he's in my Hum V and
I'm trying to explain to him

what's going on and we get
there and he's holding the

camera and he's doing the
interview and he's talking

to people and after 10
minutes we couldn't keep up

with him.

We were walking down, he'd
say, "I want to go in this

"school," and he'd go in
the school and talk to kids

and teachers and he'd
say, "Let's go down here."

And he was so excited
from what he was seeing,

it was nothing like what
he thought and he was

a reporter.

- The progress just became
absolutely undeniable when

you reduce the number of
attacks by 80% or whatever it is

when deaths from violence
are reduced by 80%,

when our casualties began
to go down and so forth,

again, those are facts.

- The surge was
always predicated on
the assumption that

if we improved security
that political progress

would follow.

- Toward the end of 2007 there
started to be some agreement

on some pretty important
pieces of legislation.

And eventually, by early
2008, in February you have the

three major laws all passed
in one legislative session,

one day.

The budget for 2008, which
distributed the oil income

equitably, provincial powers
law and the amnesty law.

It was the so-called hat
trick day, or trifecta.

And it was a very
important day for Iraq.

- Politics in Iraq, for
whatever you can say,

they're not at a stand-still.

There's a lot of
politics going on.

They're not frozen.

They're highly dynamic.

But what we wanted to do
was keep them talking rather

than fighting.

- Lots of contention, lots
of noise, lots of dissonance,

in the legislative
system, but you know,

that's what democracy
is all about.

It isn't about consensus and
everybody agreed on everything,

it's about fighting it out.

And yet they've shown an
ability to do that in a sense

of compromise.

- That was always against
a backdrop of friction,

substantial emotions,
discord, drama, and always,

always 11th hour
and beyond deals.

But, to some degree,
that is democracy,

or at least it's Iraq-racy,
and it has representative

features to it that
are, again, encouraging.

- In our last few days I
went around and talked to

a lot of the friends
that I had in the area.

We all did that.

I went out with third
platoon Lieutenant Gross

and we saw some of the
people that had helped us

early on when nobody else
would talk to us and we

said goodbye to them.

There was one particular
family that had this girl who

was, I don't know, six or
seven or something and she

really liked Lieutenant Gross
a lot and she was crying

and crying and crying and
when he left and it was very

touching how many
people were sorry to go.

We had men in their 50s
who would, you know,

give us these hugs that
would last uncomfortably

long periods of time saying,
"You've changed everything

"here, thank you."

- I still stay in touch
with the governor.

I still stay in touch with
member of the provincial

counsel, I still get emails
from tribal leaders inside

the province and
security force leaders.

You can't go through a 15
month experience like that

and not with shared experiences
with these individuals

and just walk away.

We will forever be connected.

And my goal is some day that
I go there back to Diyala

with my sons and they're
able to play soccer with the

governors son.

- I went back in October
when I was on the join staff.

I was chief of the Iraq division
there so I had an excuse.

And I got to see a lot of
my old friends that are

Arab and even some of
the military forces,

the US forces that were
there had fought under my

command, as well.

And walk around Ramadi
without any body armor on

and see how the seeds of
reconstruction that we had

planted had blossomed over
the intervening months

under the very able
leadership of John Charlton

and his brigade.

And I felt like a World War
II vet going back to liberated

France after the war.

I was mobbed by little kids
and the streets were thronged

with taxi cabs and
commerce of all sorts.

I had very little protective
security around me.

Most of the security was
provided by Iraqi police,

who were mostly concerned
with keeping the traffic

flowing on these very
busy vibrant streets.

Most of the scars of
war had been removed,

the remaining concrete
barriers had been painted over

with floral murals.

And I wish that I'd had a
video camera with me to video

tape and send it to all the
families of all the soldiers

who had been killed or
seriously wounded to show them

what it is that their
sacrifice had achieved.

It was probably the
highest moment of my life.

- There are a lot of
enduring qualities about war.

You know, we had a number of
savants in uniform and out

who said, "Well, there was
this military revolution

"going on in the 1990s and in
the future with our high tech

"sensors and weapons we'll
be able to see everything,

"know everything, kill
everything and therefore wars

"will be short, sharp,
fought at extended distances,

"and will be relatively
bloodless on our part."

And I think Iraq has showed
us that that's wrong,

that was is a very
human endeavor.

That fog and friction will
always exist in war and that

whatever military revolution
the invention of the

computer, micro-processor,
and precision weaponry brought

to use was probably
consummated in the Gulf War

and that the question
now is what's next?

- We have many dialogues
about the loss of savvy

in our military and about
our ability to fight

a conventional war.

We had a lot of discussions
about our unpreparedness

for this type of war.

I think if anything this war
has proven is the resilience

of the American service
member, his and her tremendous

ability to adapt to
the conditions that
they're confronted

with, and if empowered, if
empowered to make decisions

appropriate to the situation,
that they can deliver

this thing consistent with
our national objectives.

But when we constrain them
through misunderstandings

of the tactical operation
strategic environment on the

part of decision makers,
then we run at great risk

to accomplishing what
we set out to do.

- What lessons have the
Iraqi officials drawn

from this operation?

And have they drawn the correct
lessons as they negotiate

this sofa?

Have the political leaders
drawn the lesson that they

could do this on their own?

If they have, they've
drawn the wrong lesson.

I think the Iraqi
military knows better.

They're increasingly taking
on more responsibility,

and that's all to the good,
but they're not at the point

where they can do
operations like that against

entrenched resistance without
some significant American

support.

- What you re-learn, really,
because it's something that

we should know from our
study of counter insurgency

in the past is that every
situation is unique,

that what's required of
the counter insurgent isn't

a very nuanced understanding
of each specific situation.

- Sometimes you can have a
political solution that solve

your problem,
sometimes you don't.

You have factions that
require military solutions

or a combination of
military solutions,

political solutions.

And who you deal with and
how you deal with a problem

is very different.

So, there is not one solution.

There is a basic concept
that you can use.

But how you use that
concept had to be adapted

to the environment that
you're operating in and

that's really the key.

- Now we see the potential here
in Iraq for a fundamentally

different relationship between
Iraq and it's neighbors

and Iraq and
international community.

That's the opportunity
the Arabs have.

They know what Iraq used to
be like so they have a major

interest in contributing
to the development of an

Iraq that is
fundamentally different.

a source of stability and
security, not of violence

and subversion.

And that's where
Iraq wants to go.

- The whole concept
of democracy is, uh,

it's the forces of good.

Of humanitarian
rule, rule of flow.

You know, the army should be
a tool that would do good.

- This requires engagement.

This is not something,
"Hey, over to you.

"You got it now, you
can fire this gun.

"You can fly an airplane,
you can fly helicopters now.

"Great, we're out of here.

"Let us know how this goes
'cause we'll be watching it

"on the news."

- It takes work to
maintain momentum,

it's pure physics.

If you don't do more work,
the momentum, ultimately,

stops, goes to rest.

And we went through
this once before.

We had the momentum
in 2003 and 2004,

we lost the momentum,
the insurgents seized the

momentum by 2005, 2006,
we took it back in 2007.

This is what war is all
about, it's not over yet.

The momentum is in our
direction, we should be happy

with that, we should take care
in our strategic decisions

not to lose the momentum
that cost us so many lives

to gain.