There has been much chatter leading up to the President's speech tonight about Iraq.

Many people are noting what was said by certain politicians and other noteables in 2007 regarding the Surge and comparing it to their current opinions.

My favorite quote from 2007 went something like this:

"When historians write about the Iraq war they will write about the invasion, the Battle of Fallujah and OUR VICTORY in the Surge."

Those words were written on a piece of poster board in the tactical operations center of the 1-28 Infantry 'The Black Lions' in the West Rashid district of Baghdad.  I saw them in May of 2007.

My second favorite is this rant by Glenn Greenwald.  [Scroll down to (2) where he starts talking about me.  He's responding to this post. ]

I witnessed the Surge in person.  I was the first reporter to see the Anbar Awakening spread past Ramadi down the Euphrates river valley.  I spent a month in Baghdad with an infantry battalion building safe neighborhoods and capturing Jaish al Mahdi leaders.

The Surge was not something I watched on TV.  I saw it with my own eyes and through my own camera lens.

During those months I encoutered two suicide truck bombs, dodged machine gun fire, should have been killed by enemy mortar fire and got shot at a few more times.  I honestly do not know how I lived.  I caught an intestinal virus from the sewage in Baghdad and met an Iraqi man whose stand against Al Qaida was equal parts "High Noon" and "Walking Tall."  I lived down in the dirt with Soldiers who volunteered to fight what had become a very unpopular war, Soldiers who were being told they had failed.

When I made it back to the US it was like I had entered an alternate universe where the facts on the ground were denied vehemently by those who had staked a position in favor of failure.

Joining the fray, I penned articles and editorials like this one showing how despite losing on the ground in Iraq, the insurgents were winning inside the Beltway and in major media.

I was back in Baghdad in 2008 and the changes were undeniable.

Those months in Iraq are something I will always carry with me and I will never forget who wanted to win and who said we had already lost.

I also know that the American people are not stupid, they will remember as well.
 

The front-page news of ten humanitarian medical workers murdered in Afghanistan is so shocking because it
is so rare.

Every day in Afghanistan hundreds, maybe thousands westerners working with NGOs, aid groups and the media roam about the country unarmed or only armed with side arms.  When they complete their trips without event it is not news.

When I went on a roadtrip to Bamiyan province and came back only with photos of the lush valley and ancient ruins it was not news.  Had I been kidnapped and taken hostage, it would have been news.

This skews the public perception of what is happening in Afghanistan and ultimately affects US policy.

The murder by basmachi of ten dedicated people is a tragedy.  That it took their murder for their work to be reported in the media is a serious failing.

In the 1980s Iran and Iraq fought to a bloody stalemate on a thin strip of desert over access to a waterway, the Shatt al Arab, that had been in dispute since the days of the Ottoman Empire.

The war was a pure fire-power battle resembling the trench warfare of World War I and the set piece charges of the American Civil War.

The tension over the Iran/Iraq border still lingers making border security one of the key missions of US Forces in Iraq.

I spent a day at the Shalamcha Port of Entry, a bustling entry point for Iranian tourists and transhipment point east of Basrah, Iraq.

Every morning hundreds and sometimes thousands of Iranian tourists line up on the Iranian side of the border to enter Iraq.  The tourists arrive in busses, unload, cue up, get their passports stamped then load up in busses on the Iraqi side headed for the holy sites in Karbala or Samarra.

In the afternoon, busses unload tourists heading back to Iran.

Iranian tourists lined up to enter Iraq.

Hundreds of trailer loads of goods also enter Iraq six days a week through Shalamcha.  Tractor trailers park in a load yard on the Iranian side of the border, Iraqi drivers transload the cargo into their trailers, then drive into Iraq where the cargo is weighed, taxed and, at least in theory, inspected by Iraqi customs agents.

Very little cargo is shipped from Iraq into Iran.

The truck gate at the Shalamacha Port of Entry.

Pedestrian lane heading into Iran.

The physical and attitudinal remants of the war between Iraq and Iran still remain.  Firing positions for tanks are still in place and large tank traps still dominate the land scape.

At one time this area had the largest date palm groves in the world, but the land has been stripped bare of vegetation and canal works.

This is a tank trap temporarily filled with water from a rainstorm, not a canal.  The far side is Iran.

The attitudinal remnants of the war physically manifest themselves in the gradual encroachment of Iran at Shalamcha.

In the photo below the green, white and red flag of Iran is only 30 feet from the red, white and black flag of Iraq. Several months ago, the Iranian flag was at the far end of the yellow awning.  If you look closely, on the lower right 1/4 of the photo you can see a metal gate painted green, white and red that is in Iraqi territory.

The Iranian port of entry facilities as viewed from the entry arch to Iraq.

As the clock counts down to the official end of Operation Iraqi Freedom in August when a new phase called Operation New Dawn begins, working with the Iraqi Border Enforcement agency will be one of the key efforts of US Forces in the South and for the 1st Infantry Division. 

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Just when I think I'm out...I get an assignment to cover Iraq.  But since the assignment is to cover the 1st Infantry Division as part of a project for the Cantigny First Infantry Division Museum, I couldn't say no.

The Headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division--The Big Red One--is running the United States Division--South out of Basra.

I flew from Kabul to Dubai on Kam airlines and stayed the night at the Holiday Inn Express Airport.  I'm becoming an authority on the H.I. Expresses of Dubai, so far I like the Airport one the best.  I flew Emirates Airlines to Kuwait and then took a Blackhawk from the military transit point Contingency Operating Base Basra.

The second largest and most economically powerful city in Iraq, Basra is key terrain in the current stability operations in Iraq.  Basra is Iraq's only port, and for a oil producing nation, ports are essential.

In the 1980s, the Iran/Iraq war was fought,in part, over access to the Persian Gulf.  Iraq's access is limited to a narrow confluence called the Shaat al Arab--more of wide, deep river mouth than anything else.

Being so close to Iran, checking the persian influence is a key component of the work of US Forces and diplomats in Basra.  US Forces also work with Iraqi forces on border security.

Here are some snapshots with my little digicam from the helicopter flight from Kuwait to Basra.

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After a spate of attacks in central Kabul a few months ago, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan supposedly stepped up security in the capital.

The also seemed to hire a PR firm to come up with a catchy phrase for the stepped up security--Ring of Steel.

So at the usual checkpoints staffed by police officers, there are these big metal signs.

 I am sure they will deter the Taliban.

An M-ATV, rolls into a parking lot outside of Camp Dubs.  The remains of the Royal Queen's palace are in the background.

The M-ATV is two analogies and a seriously bad idea.  Using the M-ATV for true combat operations makes about as much sense as its name.

The "M" stands for MRAP which is Mine Resistant Ambush Protected.  The "ATV" stands for All Terrain Vehicle.  The All Terrain part should be in air quotes because there is a lot of terrain in Afghanistan the M-ATV is not rated for.

(Read Part I here)

The Musahe District, southwest of Kabul on the border of Logar province, is dotted with small villages in the valleys low, rocky mountains.  The Directorate of National Security says that the Taliban uses it is as a staging ground for attacks on Kabul.  District police officers report Taliban activity ranging from criminal extortion to planting bombs on the roads to target Afghan security forces and ISAF coalition forces.

As part of the Validation Transition Team's assessment of the 1st Battalion, 111st Afghan National Army Divsion, they wanted to ride along on a mission in Musahe District.

The VTT is NATO/ISAF's internal reviewer of the readiness and operational abilities of Afghan Army units.  When Congress and think-tanks release reports on the state of the Afghan National Army, they are largely based on the work of the VTT.

The upcoming reviews of President Obama's strategic plan for Afghanistan, which relies on increasing the size of the Afghan security forces, will use the work of the VTT.

To properly assess a unit the VTT follows them on a mission from beginning to end--from the planning phase to the after action review.

On the afternoon when the Battalion Commander, Colonel Zalmat Nbard was supposed to review the mission with the VTT it became very obvious that the planning phase had never even been considered.

Col. Nbard, MAJ Gries, MAJ Johnson and Wally

The Musahe District is within Nbard's area of operations.  He is tasked by his higher headquarters with patrolling the area no less than once a week.  Heading out to Musahe is a routine operation and hardly worthy of a full blown process.  Many American units have regular operations and just update the plan with the latest intelligence.  Majors Gries and Johnson understood how this was a regularly scheduled patrol and tried to get the Colonel to walk them through the basics--which should have been pretty easy since he did it every week--it wasn't.

Just back inside  some more civilized wire.  I haven't seen much war out there, but that doesn't surprise me.  The wars always seem worse on CNN than they are in real life because CNN and the rest of the media don't report on things that do not go boom.

For the past few days I've been with the Afghan Army and a couple teams of Americans that have a unique role in the fielding of the Afghan National Army.  There is a lot to report and even more for me to study and research, for now I'll hit some of the high-lights.

Ultimate victory over the Taliban will be won by Afghans, not US Soldiers and Marines.  US/NATO/ISAF military forces can contain the Taliban, but ultimate destruction of the Taliban will be done by Afghans, which is why I've been so interested into digging into the Afghan National Army.

My tour guides were the Validation Transition Team Kabul and VTT 201.  The latter going by the nickname 'Zombie Killers' for their firm belief that the ultimate test of readiness is being ready for the Zombie Apocalypse.

The Afghan National Army as whole is not ready for the Zombie Apocalypse, but Colonel Zalmat Nbard, a former Mujahadeen Commander in the Northern Alliance and now Commanding Officer of an Afghan Army Battalion is as close to being ready to take on the Taliban as any ANA unit gets. 

Colonel Zalmat Nbard and JD

 Colonel Nbard, an ethnic Tajik, fought against the Soviets in the 1980s.  He became an officer in the short-lived post-communist government before going back to the Panjushir valley to rejoin Masood's Northern Alliance in the civil war.  In the late 1990's up to 2001, Col. Nbard fought the Taliban to a stand-still.  After 9/11 Nbard and others swept south with US Special Forces routing the Taliban.  Nbard is a leader of Afghans and the personification of the Afghan way of war which looks nothing like the US way of war.

Last week I rode up to Bamiyan province on a road trip using a guide book from 1962 that proved remarkably accurate.

The old books on Afghanistan by Louis Dupree and Olaf Caroe despite being 30-years-old are still spot on. Even Mountstuart Elphinstone's 'History of the Kingdom of Cabul' written in 1814 is holds up more accurately than current works on Afghanistan. The current books are too coloured by the politics of our time to be of any use.

For millenia, dynasties have come and gone. Foreign empires have invaded, been bloodied and quickly passed from the scene. The Khyber and Salong passes being a rite of passage for every empire but the Roman.

Afghanistan does not change.

Whatever we have been doing in Afghanistan for the past 8.5 years has not been working that well. The Soviets proved that a modern army cannot kill its way to victory and that a puppet Afghan National Army will quickly crumble.

The error of the US Military effort in Afghanistan is that the very bright US Army officers, when confronted with a complicated problem, come up with an even more complicated solution. Most infantry officers have a keen grasp of the complexities of counter insurgency, but not the step-by-step techniques that have been proven to quash an insurgency. The US Military is hindered by its own sophistication when it just needs to get back to basics.

The problem set on the ground is that a certain subset of people in Afghanistan want to run the country again--the Taliban. There aren't that many true Taliban, but they pay well and the work is appealing to unemployed young men.

The solution is get rid of the Taliban and their hired help or dissuade the hired help. Simple. But the US Military/ISAF/NATO do know who we need to get rid of.

The problem is nothing new. Insurgency is as old as the first empire. The solution is not new either. In fact it is so old fashioned, boring and dull that most military officers over look it. But it works and every time I have a seen a census data-base built by an infantry battalion, the war promptly ends in their area.

The Talibs and their day-laborers can hide in plain sight because US and ISAF forces do not know who everyone is. (This concept shocks some Afghans who think the American surely have some gizmo that tell them who everyone is in a town.) The local Afghans know who everyone is and use that as leverage on the Americans. Relying on local intel is necessary, but you should not rely on the locals to be your phone book.

The best census is very old fashioned and does not use the HIDE system--the HIDE sytem may be used along with a mundane access or even excell spreadsheet, but is just a supplement, not a replacement for a real database. (A good iPhone App could probably do it all with the integration of the photos.)

Soldiers and Marines need hit the streets constantly knocking on every door getting the names of everyone who lives in a house. The GPS grid of the house is noted and used as a street address. A picture of the house is taken with a digital camera. Pictures of the adult males are taken with a digital camera. The file number of the picture is tagged along with the names of the residents and the GPS grid. All of this is added into an Access database. The pictures are on corresponding power-point slides.

Bingo. You now have a clue as to who is supposed to live at that house. When you go on patrol again, you can check and see who is supposed to be in the house and confirm the data. It will take an entire deployment to get a significant database, but once a unit gets enough names, the enemy will have a hard time hiding and move on.

Other info can also be gathered like age, occupation, vehicle license plate numbers, etc.

This old, slow, boring, dull approach to fighting an insurgency works every time. But I rarely see it employed in Afghanistan. Why? It is a lot of work. It is a lot boring, dull, work and a lot of commanders are too smart and sophisticated to understand how such a boring, straight-forward tactic can work. It also looks very un-sexy on a powerpoint slide. (These operations were used more often in Iraq than I have ever seen in Afghanistan.)

Using a census takes advantage of how little Afghanistan changes. Most Afghans live their whole life within a 30 mile area. Most of the extended families have been rooted in an area for centuries.

It does not take long to start putting together what families go together, what clans go together and sub-tribes. The social networks are not complicated.

Outsiders can be identified and isolated. People coming into the area who do not live there begin to stand out. In Iraq's Anbar province, the Marines and the Son's of Iraq would deny entry or passage to people who did not live in a village. (The Sons of Iraq sometimes went a little beyond denial of entry.)

The movement of the Taliban is then limited, the flow of money, drugs, materiel, weapons, etc. stops. Local rent-a- fighters cannot be paid and the insurgency is slowly strangled all by a pen, paper, clip board, digital camera and cheap database.

Everything I've written above comes from the counter insurgency field manual written by Petraeus. In the Summer of 2007 I watched a lot of very basic, boring counter insurgency operations which resulted in a sudden halt to the extreme violence in Iraq.

Afghanistan doesn't change much. The change in commanders at the top will not change things unless Brigade and Battalion Commanders exploit the fact that Afghanistan does not change. Here's hoping Petraeus has read the old books and will demand his subordinates follow his field manual.

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