Stand and Fight: Lessons for the Transition Mission in Iraq

In October 2006, sectarian violence in the northern Iraqi city of Balad escalated to new heights. Sunni farmers outside the city attempted, through a series of attacks, to block Shiite urbanites from Highway 1, the major route. During the latest incident of violence, eleven Shiite construction workers were found dead with holes drilled through their skulls. The Iraqi government reacted to the problem by sending more troops to the area. Hours later, the National Police Quick Reaction Force (NPQRF) Battalion, accompanied by its U. S. advisors, the Spartans, was summoned from Baghdad. No mission, no intent — just go to Balad and make things better. Initial Engagements and Impressions On day two in Balad, the NPQRF commander discussed the situation with the local police and Balad-based Iraqi army leadership. Simultaneously, the Spartans met with the local transition teams, Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (SFOD-A), and the U. S. battlespace owner. During the meeting, the Iraqis decided they would conduct a joint reconnaissance and show-of-force in the area with the NPQRF, the local police special weapons and tactics (SWAT) personnel, and the Spartans. While stopped at a checkpoint on Highway 1, the patrol received mortar and small-arms fire. The element had an idea from where the mortar fire was originating. The U. S. team chief, Spartan 6, asked the NPQRF commander if he wanted to pursue the mortarmen with his two NPQRF companies. The NPQRF commander refused, so the Spartans, with U. S. aviation support, went after the mortarmen without any assistance from the Iraqis. The patrol made a second enemy contact later that day, but this time, the enemy was armed with PKC machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The NPQRF gave a similar reaction to the situation. The Spartans confirmed five enemy combatants killed, while the NPQRF bottled up, refusing to engage the enemy. Low-level intelligence sources painted a grim picture of how the local populace viewed the NPQRF. One report portrayed the NPQRF as a militia, stating that Jaysh Al-Mahdi (a popular Shiite militia) was in the area, sent from Baghdad to Balad. Another report told of two “Iranian battalions” wearing digital uniforms that traveled up Highway 1 to kill all of the Sunnis in Balad. The enemy, who was dominated by al Qaeda friendly tribes, was winning the propaganda war. The Spartans found themselves in an open-ended mission; their counterparts — the NPQRF — had no mission and did not want to fight. Further, segments of the local populace believed that the NPQRF were the Iranian army, an idea that would, no doubt, lead to an escalation of the sectarian violence. Peeling Back the Onion by Rapport Building Spartan 6, the team chief, was a Special Forces officer who spent multiple tours in Afghanistan working with indigenous forces. Most of the advisors on his team had already spent 6 months in country working with another Iraqi battalion. Spartan 6 reiterated what most of them already knew: don’t get confrontational with the Iraqi leaders about what happened dur ing the patrol. Directly confronting an Iraqi was something they had heard other teams practiced, which led to further problems as it alienated Iraqi leaders and caused friction. Spartan 6 was emphatic about treating the Iraqi leaders with respect; the team followed his lead. The Spartans had one advantage as a basis for rapport building — they proved themselves to the NPQRF during the first patrol in Balad. There was a noticeable difference in how the Spartans were treated by the Iraqi NPQRF after their performance that day. NPQRF leaders opened up more to the Spartans during normal meetings. Even the NPQRF policemen showed a marked change; no longer did young NPQRF policemen mob the Spartans to beg for candy and uniform items, and after the patrol incident, as the Spar-tan’s HMMWVs approached a NPQRF checkpoint, the NPQRF policemen began cheering. Therefore, rather than confront their counterparts, the advisors tried a different approach — building on the rapport won during the recent combat, while learning as much as possible about the local area and the unit; specifically, problems that led to the NPQRF’s inaction. Before rapport building with the NPQRF could begin, the Spartans had to build a rapport with their interpreters. Many teams would treat their interpreters as a nuisance — apiece of equipment requiring food and bed space. The interpreters were key to the mission. The Spartans had worked on rapport building with their interpreters several months before the Balad mission, which took a variety of forms. Without violating security requirements, interpreters were included in nearly every team function. Nearly every training event, including medical and crew drills, involved interpreters. When team meetings were held, the interpreters were included. The Spartans treated their interpreters as team members as much as possible, which greatly benefited the team. Not only did the interpreters have an improved working relationship with the NPQRF, but also performed better under fire. Proper rapport building with the NPQRF was an involved process that required a lot of time and effort. The best way to build rapport is to engage the enemy in combat alongside your counterparts — combat builds an inseparable bond between men. However, if the Spartans had ignored their counterparts after the engagement at the checkpoint, a lot of good rapport would have been lost. Countless meetings with Iraqi leaders occurred during the Balad mission; we drank tea, we ate lamb, we talked of wives and children, God, Saddam, America, and how Iraq used to be. Every so often, the advisors would learn something from their counterparts relating to the mission, or get them to make a good decision in between meals and talks of family. With the Iraqis, there are no “meetings” with friends; everything should be enjoyable — work will get done intermittently throughout long discourses about other topics, which can often last for hours. The Spartans wanted their counterparts to view them as friends; it is easier to go to combat with your “friends” as opposed to your “advisors.” Logistics Support and Rapport Building with the Locals As the Spartans talked to the Iraqis and local U. S. forces, they began painting a picture of the area surrounding Balad, and tribalism was the underlying theme. Everything occurring in the area could be distilled in terms of tribalism: where were the borders between tribal areas; who were the tribal leaders; and what were their motivations? The answers to these questions would help the Spartans understand their situation. Rapport building with the NPQRF allowed the advisors to better understand the unit and its internal problems. The main problem was logistics support. Although the Spartans could provide basic needs through the local U. S. unit (water and fuel), food and shelter were problematic — particularly as it became apparent that this short mission would become an extended operation. The local Iraqi army unit cut off all support within a week of the operation. The NPQRF was planning to rotate troops to Baghdad about every 2 weeks; their headquarters in Baghdad could then provide funds. In the meantime, the Iraqi NPQRF leaders used its tribal relationships with the locals in Balad to provide food for its soldiers. They also arranged to use a local fire station as a patrol base. Other Iraqi units refused to support the NPQRF, which was an eye-opener for the Spartans; without close over- “Low-level intelligence sources painted a grim picture of how the local populace viewed the NPQRF. One report portrayed the NPQRF as a militia, stating that Jaysh Al-Mahdi (a popular Shiite militia) was in the area, sent from Baghdad to Balad. Another report told of two “Iranian battalions” wearing digital uniforms that traveled up Highway 1 to kill all of the Sunnis in Balad. The enemy, who was dominated by al Qaeda friendly tribes, was win ning the propaganda war.” — 11 sight, the NPQRF could have easily been forced into a relationship with a local militia. Again, establishing rapport and spending a good deal of time with the Iraqi leaders were essential — this enabled the Spartans to monitor NPQRF activities. Armor was another issue for the NPQRF; most vehicles in the entire Iraqi National Police (as of late 2006) were unarmored civilian-type pickup trucks. To get the vehicles armored was a difficult task, at best. The NPQRF in Balad had some South African REVAs, mine-protected armored personnel carriers; however, maintenance was an issue as this vehicle was not used by Iraqi army units in the area. Luckily, the Spartans arranged maintenance support of the vehicles through the local U. S. unit. Once this was arranged, Iraqi leaders became more receptive to deploying the REVAs. A few weeks later, one of the NPQRF REVAs was destroyed by a pressure-plate improvised explosive device (IED). However, the squad-sized element inside the vehicle survived the incident with only very minor wounds; such an IED would have caused catastrophic damage if it had detonated on a pickup truck. Support, such as REVA maintenance, that the Spartans provided their counterparts, also helped greatly in the rapport-building process — it gave the NPQRF commanders less to worry about and drew them closer to the Spartans. The simple provisions of water, fuel, the occasional terrain product, and access to recovery assets went along way toward establishing a lasting relationship. These items were relatively simple to resource once a relationship was established with the U. S. battlespace owner. These relationships paid dividends throughout the Balad mission. Combat Operations The Spartans conducted daily missions with their NPQRF counterparts. In ad dition to offensive operations, the NPQRF maintained three checkpoints on major roads. The Spartans observed their NPQRF leaders in action, they stopped younger policemen from playing Muktadah Sadr’s (a national militia leader) propaganda music at checkpoints, they settled a fuel dispute between the NPQRF and the local SWAT, and they ordered subordinates to camouflage the REVAs, which were painted police colors of blue and white, with the local mud. If they needed guidance, the Iraqi leaders would discuss an issue with the Spartans quietly in the trucks. Also, standing back and observing how their various NPQRF field-grade officers settled issues was instrumental in monitoring the leadership attributes of various officers in the battalion. The Spartans did not call these operations “checkpoint assessments,” they used the term “armed reconnaissance;” the name change elevated the seriousness of the mission. The Spartans conducted other armed reconnaissance missions with the NPQRF, particularly during the first few weeks. The goal of these missions was to examine trafficability of routes and identify blocked roads, as well as observe the reactions of the local populace. The Spartans and the NPQRF also purposely planned armed reconnaissance missions that crossed tribal boundaries. Doing so would allow the element to gauge the reaction of the locals to the NPQRF, become familiar with neighborhoods that may contain future targets, and conduct reconnaissance in areas susceptible to a largescale sectarian attack. Perhaps the most dangerous part of the Balad contingency was the biweekly rotation of NPQRF troops. A convoy of more than 20 vehicles, most of which were pickup trucks, telegraphed the movement to the enemy. The Spartans accompanied their counterparts on all of these missions and received enemy contact on more than half. On one occasion, another NPQRF unit traveled the same route, heading even further north to Samarra, but received no enemy contact. The NPQRF commander told Spartan 6 that the unit traveled without their advisors. He claimed that this absence caused the unit commander to make deals en route with local insurgents. During one relaxed conversation, the NPQRF battalion commander stated, “Traveling with you allows me to remain honest. I know you will fight with us and bring in the helicopters.” Although the NPQRF was extremely grateful for their advisors, who would accompany them on these trips to and from Baghdad, there were still problems. The long patrol had three major enemy contacts during movement from Baghdad to Balad on 11 November 2006. During contact, the NPQRF would stop their vehicles in the kill zone and dismount, which exposed clusters of dismounted NPQRF policemen in open terrain to heavy enemy gunfire. To avoid mass amounts of NPQRF casualties, the U. S. translators started yelling “Yala!” (move) over the loudspeaker to the NPQRF. These actions became so problematic, that following an IED explosion, Spartan 6 threw a Gatorade bottle at the NPQRF trucks to get them to remount their vehicles and con- “Before rapport building with the NPQRF could begin, the Spartans had to build a rapport with their interpreters. Many teams would treat their interpreters as a nuisance — apiece of equipment requiring food and bed space. The interpreters were key to the mission. The Spartans had worked on rapport building with their interpreters several months before the Balad mission, which took a variety of forms. Without violating security requirements, interpreters were included in nearly every team function. Nearly every training event, including medical and crew drills, involved interpreters. When team meetings were held, the interpreters were included.” 12 — tinue the mission. Similar issues arose during later missions. Progress After over 2 months of endless conversations, numerous enemy engagements, endless cups of Chai (Iraqi tea), armed reconnaissance missions, and lamb with enough fat on it to give a man heart disease just looking at it, the Spartans began to see progress with both the NPQRF and the situation in Balad. The first, and perhaps most comforting, phenomenon observed was the treatment of the local populace by the NPQRF. The Baghdad-based NPQRF, despite being mostly Shiite, actually helped stop the mistreatment of Sunni detainees, which probably stemmed from the fact that the NPQRF, as outsiders, had little, if any, tribal connections to the local Balad Shiites. For example, several Sunni civilians were illegally detained by the local (Shiite dominated) Iraqi police at a joint (NPQRF/Iraqi police) checkpoint. The NPQRF policemen at the checkpoint attempted to stop the illegitimate detainment. When the NPQRF personnel at the checkpoint could not stop the detention, they reported the incident to the acting battalion commander (a major). The NPQRF major then went to the local chief of police and demanded the illegal detainees be freed or suffer the consequence of losing NPQRF checkpoint support. The Iraqi police relented and the illegally detained Sunni civilians were released. Another unsuspected outcome resulted from joint armed reconnaissance missions to certain tribal areas. The Spartans and the NPQRF often conducted armed reconnaissance missions into the tribal areas of a Sunni tribe known to harbor foreign fighters; however, they never experienced enemy contact on these missions. Interestingly, the propaganda stating that their battalion consisted of Iranian soldiers also originated from this area. The armed reconnaissance missions, coupled with their own propaganda, had an interesting effect: the tribesmen became fearful of an “Iranian invasion” during which “everyone would be killed.” When the panic of the tribe reached its pinnacle, tribal leaders approached the local U. S. unit commander asking for negotiations. In this case, the armed reconnaissance, meant to collect low-level intelligence and situational awareness of the terrain, had a nonkinetic psychological effect on the enemy. The NPQRF battalion command built a successful rapport with local tribal leaders, which also paid off — out of his contacts sprang a budding human-intelligence network that created targets. On the final target actioned during the Balad mission, the NPQRF demonstrated their targeting abilities very well. They developed a target from multiple human intelligence sources, planned and executed reconnaissance, executed the target, and conducted a professional successful interrogation of the detainee. All of this was done with minimal assistance from the Spartans. Redeployment of Troops The NPQRF’s normal responsibility was targeting high-value targets in Baghdad for the National Police headquarters, so they left a vacuum when the Balad contingency began. By mid-December, the list of targets at large in Baghdad was beyond the capabilities of Baghdad National Police units, so the National Police headquarters sent a replacement battalion to relieve the NPQRF. Through poor operational security, or sim ply leaks in the Iraqi Police (who shared some of the NPQRF checkpoints), one of the major, anti-government Sunni tribes in the area found out about the impending replacement of troops. The timeline for the relief-in-place was broadcast on an insurgent-friendly satellite television station, which caused the relief-in-place to be delayed, as well as some concerns while preparing for the trip to Baghdad on Highway 1. After both the Spartan team and the Iraqis conducted a successful relief-in-place, they redeployed to Baghdad on 11 December. Because they expected enemy contact, the Spartans planned and coordinated close-air support from an F-16 flying low over the most dangerous portion of Highway 1 in a show of force. However, the air support was diverted to other troops in contact. The Spartans and their counterparts faced a complex attack with multiple kill zones over a 10km stretch of Highway 1 that lasted for more than an hour. The attack consisted of multiple machine gun positions, numerous IED attacks, and indirect and small-arms fire. Although their counterparts sustained several casualties, and one of the Spartan HMMWVs was seriously damaged, the NPQRF showed a great improvement under fire. Compared to previous engagements, the NPQRF stayed in their vehicles and moved through the kill zone while the advisors used their crew-served weapons to suppress the enemy, and they also responded to contact with massive volleys of smallarms fire. The Balad operation was considered a success for the NPQRF. Their presence directly led to reducing sectarian events in the area and took Balad out of the news. The battalion commander also received an order reducing his time-in-service requirement by 2 years for promotion to general officer. Several weeks after the Balad mission, a small contingent of NPQRF vehicles assisted another National Police unit on a raid and received enemy contact. The NPQRF vehicles moved to suppress enemy fire as the rest of the patrol bypassed. “The Spartans conducted daily missions with their NPQRF counterparts. In ad dition to offensive operations, the NPQRF maintained three checkpoints on major roads. The Spartans observed their NPQRF leaders in action, they stopped younger policemen from playing Muktadah Sadr’s (a national militia leader) propaganda music at checkpoints, they settled a fuel dispute between the NPQRF and the local SWAT, and they ordered subordinates to camouflage the REVAs...” — 13

Following the mission, the commander of the element said, “After Balad, it was too easy.” He then smiled as he went on, “We just did what you guys do, engage the enemy while everyone else pushes through.” The Balad operations that the NPQRF undertook, with the help of the Spartans, gave a condensed glimpse into the progress of Iraqi units. Fast-paced operations, as well as deploying the NPQRF outside their home station, resulted in a significant increase in productivity. The initial engagements, logistics problems, and initial public impressions of the NPQRF exposed several weaknesses at the beginning of the operation in October that had significantly improved by December. By investing a great deal of time in rapport building, encouraging Iraqi interaction with local tribes, and conducting progressively more advanced combat operations, the Spartans saw a marked improvement in the NPQRF by the time it redeployed from Balad. Finally, the NPQRF’s performance in subsequent operations illustrates that the changes from Balad made a lasting impression. Although this account details specific events at a specific time, the lessons have a great applicability to the transition team mission in Iraq. The lessons of rapport building, tribalism, joint combat operations, and problems of the Iraqi logistics system are lasting issues for all transition teams, or any unit dealing with transition teams or Iraqi units. So, in the end, the mission was not only a success for the people of Balad, but for the NPQRF as well. In the NPQRF, leaders became more confident and took charge, soldiers became seasoned, and the transition team became more knowledgeable in the culture of their counterparts. The NPQRF took significant steps forward during the operation due to a combination of factors: the Spartans’ close relationship with the NPQRF provided leaders access to U. S. assets when needed so they could avoid illegitimate coordination with militia groups; the great amount of time spent rapport building, both on the battlefield and while drinking tea, created binding ties between Iraqi and U. S. soldiers; and the NPQRF (which was not from Balad) could act more judiciously because they had virtually no tribal ties in the area. Success with Iraqi units is possible; however, it requires a large time investment and a willingness to go along on their missions, as well as a consideration of the unit’s tribal, religious, and ethnic makeup when positioning them on the battlefield. Despite early hardships, all of these factors led to the NPQRF battalion’s ability to “stand and fight” in Balad. Captain Paulo A. Shakarian is currently serving as S2, Division Support Command, 1st Armored Division (1AD), Wiesbaden, Germany. He received a B. S. from the U. S. Military Academy. His military education includes the Military Intelligence Officer Basic Course. He has served in various command and staff positions, to include military advisor, National Police Quick Reaction Force Transition Team, Baghdad, Iraq; XO, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1AD, Wiesbaden; platoon leader, 2d Platoon, B Company, 501st Military Intelligence, Wackernheim, Germany, and Baghdad; and assistant S2, 1st Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1AD, Baumholder, Germany, and Baghdad. “The Spartans did not call these operations “checkpoint assessments,” they used the term “armed reconnaissance;” the name change elevated the seriousness of the mission. The Spartans conducted other armed reconnaissance missions with the NPQRF, particularly during the first few weeks. The goal of these missions was to examine trafficability of routes and identify blocked roads, as well as observe the reactions of the local populace.” 14 —