Working Paper

By

Peter W. Connors, PhD8165906821

A DIFFERENT ENEMY EVERY DAY

Despite concerted efforts, insurgents in Iraq failed to disrupt the January 2005

national election. There is no doubt, however, that a true insurgency was in full bloom

by early 2005; and denials of an Iraqi insurgency by Bush administration and Coalition

officials had subsided. The insurgency at this point was a loose confederation of Former

Regime Elements, Sunni nationalists, foreign fighters including al-Qaida (AQI), Shia

militias, and criminal groups. Sunni insurgents were united in their desires to derail the

new Iraqi government and to drive out the Coalition, while Shia militiamen opposed the

Coalition presence and Sunni-Shia reconciliation. Insurgents, who by this time had

learned not to confront Coalition forces in direct combat, were resorting to ambushes and

the use improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to attack US troops and Iraqi Security

Forces (ISF). AQI was deemed responsible for the high-visibility, deadly, attacks on

Shia civilians and Coalition/Iraqi forces. These high-profile attacks were intended to

raise questions among Iraqis regarding the competence of their new government and its

ability to provide adequate security for the people. During the winter of 2005, the

number of daily insurgent attacks increased to nearly twice that of the previous year.

1

Attacks against the ISF and Shia retaliation strikes against Sunnis were also on the

increase. In spite of a significant number of Coalition and ISF offensive operations

intended to kill or capture insurgents, the pace of terrorist attacks in Iraq intensified over

the remainder of 2005. This chapter describes the evolving nature of the Iraq insurgency

in both 2005 and 2006, as well as the composition, motivations, and tactics of the various

insurgent groups. Initially, however, is a brief discussion of the root causes of the Iraqi

insurgency, which began shortly after the fall of Saddam’s regime in April 2003.

Roots of the Insurgency in Iraq

As Operation Iraqi Freedom combat operations officially concluded in April 2003,

Coalition military commanders and US government officials genuinely anticipated that

peace and stability would soon return to Iraq. Although several pre-invasion

assessments predicted limited looting, plundering, acts of revenge, and the possibility of

organized violence, only Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC)

planners actually envisioned the rise of an outright insurgency in post –Saddam Iraq.1

Colonel Kevin Benson, Chief of CFLCC Planning, however, discounted the possibility of

a full-blown insurgency, rating it as unlikely.2 As a result, Coalition post-conflict

operations concentrated primarily on humanitarian assistance (restoring electricity and

water, re-opening hospitals and banks) and searching for weapons of mass destruction. A

significant number of US Soldiers had served in Bosnia and Kosovo and could have

easily made the transition to peacekeeping operations in Iraq, however, the

preponderance of Coalition forces were under-prepared to curb the widespread

lawlessness and broad based looting that erupted across the country in April 2003.3

2

Despite near heroic efforts by Soldiers and Marines to protect key facilities in Baghdad

and elsewhere, the magnitude of the looting was overwhelming and impossible to

prevent. Additionally, since US-led invasion forces had destroyed television and radio

transmission facilities in an effort to silence Iraqi Minister of Information, Mohammed

Saeed al-Sahaf (Baghdad Bob), it was impossible for the Coalition to communicate en

masse with the Iraqi people and to express its intention of liberating, not occupying, the

country.4

The much debated issue of adequate troop strength may also be related to the early

days of the insurgency in Iraq. James Dobbins, Director of the International Security and

Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation gave newly-appointed Presidential

Envoy and Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), Ambassador L.

Paul Bremer III, a report that estimated that as many as 500,000 troops would be required

to stabilize postwar Iraq. Bremer forwarded a summary of the report to Secretary

Rumsfeld, but never received a response.5 Former head of the Office of Reconstruction

and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, supported

the notion that a larger force was necessary. “The force was not big enough…things

began to deteriorate right away,” Garner explained.6 He described further how the

Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), General Tommy

Franks’ original Iraq invasion plan called for a force of 380,000 and how this figure was

continually whittled down by officials in the Pentagon. General Franks would later point

out that had the 4th ID been able to move through Turkey in March and attack Iraq from

the north, the division would have been in the Baghdad area in April and been able to

3

assist with local security. Franks also believes that had the 1st Cavalry Division been

deployed in accordance with the original Time-Phased-Force Deployment List (TPFDL),

they too would have been in a position to contribute to Phase IV peacekeeping

operations.7 On 21 April 2003, Garner met in Baghdad with V Corps Commander and

commander of US ground forces in Iraq, General William Wallace. Wallace’s troops

were already guarding 272 static targets that he had never planned on having to protect.

“It was eating up his entire force,” Garner noted.8 Relatedly, Colonel Kevin Benson’s

CFLCC ECLIPSE II plan for post-hostilities Iraq called for a total of 20 brigades –

approximately 300,000 combat, combat support, and service support troops - in the Phase

IV troop-to- task analysis.9 Adding to the complexity of the situation was the fact that

many Coalition units were still engaged in combat operations and, thus, unable to focus

attention on less serious looting issues. Finally, Soldiers were unprepared and in most

cases unwilling to use deadly force against non-combatant Iraqi civilians who were

simply pillaging former regime facilities and infrastructure. As a result of the chaos that

ensued immediately following the downfall of Saddam’s regime, many Iraqis began to

question the Coalition’s motives and its ability to establish authority and to maintain law

and order. This skepticism among Iraqis regarding the Coalition became one of several

causes of the insurgency that emerged in the spring of 2003 and grew for the remainder

of the year and beyond.

Insert stock photos of General Garner and Ambassador Bremer

4

On 16 May and 23 May 2003, respectively, the Coalition Provisional Authority

issued CPA Order Number 1 (De-Baathification of Iraqi Society) and CPA Order

Number 2 (Dissolution of Entities).10 The subsequent banishment of Baathists and the

sudden unemployment of hundreds of thousands of angry, armed, young Iraqi men may

very well have contributed to the inception of the insurgency.

ORHA Director, Jay Garner, who remained in Iraq until 1 June 2003, strongly

disagreed with both Orders 1 and 2. Both General Wallace and Garner were counting on

the availability of former Iraqi soldiers and mid-level Baathists to help rebuild the

country. “We told at least 300,000 soldiers they didn’t have jobs and they were still

armed….we told 50,000 Baathists –‘you don’t have a job,’” Garner later explained.11 In

a heated discussion with CPA Administrator, L.Paul Bremer, Garner tried to soften the

impact of de-Baathification, arguing “it’s absolutely too deep….you don’t want to do

this….you can’t live with the results.”12 CIA Baghdad station chief, Charles Sadell, who 10 “Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1.” http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/20030516_CPAORD_1_De-Ba_athification_of_Iraqi_Society_.pdf (accessed 15 December 2007); “Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2.” http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/20030823_CPAORD_2_Dissolution_of_Entities_with_Annex_A.pdf (accessed 15 December 2007). 1 See for example: US Department of State, The Future of Iraq Project (Washington, DC: 2003); US National Defense University, Workshop Report: Looking Beyond Saddam’s Rule (Washington, DC: 2002); Conrad Crane and Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insight, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Iraq (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003). 2 Colonel Kevin C. M. Benson, interview by Dr. Peter Connors and Lynne Garcia, 6 February 2006, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 8.3 Major General (Ret) Buford C. Blount, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 15 February 2006, Washington, DC, 17. 4 Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 6 June 2006, Windermere, FL, 14-15. 5 L. Paul Bremer III, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 9-10.6 Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 6 June 2006, Windermere, FL, 9. 7 General Tommy Franks, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 23 June 2006, Tampa, FL, 7-9.8 Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 6 June 2006, Windermere, FL, 21.9 Kevin C. M. Benson, “’ Phase IV’ CFLCC Stability Operations Planning” in Turning Victory into Success: Military Operations After the Campaign, ed. Brian M. De Toy (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Combat Studies Institute), 2005, 187, 198.

5

also met with Bremer, warned him “that you are going to drive between 30,000 and

50,000 Baathists underground before the sun sets in Baghdad.”13 Bremer, however,

refused to back-down, noting that he had his orders and was going to execute them – both

CPA Orders 1 and 2 were implemented shortly thereafter.

Bremer staunchly defended his stance on de-Baathification and disbanding the

Iraqi army. According to Bremer the vast majority of Iraqis viewed de-Baathification in

a favorable light, since it manifestly demonstrated the Coalitions intent to move beyond

Saddam’s oppressive regime by replacing it with a new democratic Iraqi government.14

Similarly, Bremer considered disbanding the Iraqi army to be “absolutely correct,” and

that simply recalling the former army would lead to “political catastrophe.”15 Retaining

the Iraqi army and failing to deal decisively with Baathists “would have led to immediate

civil war and the break-up of Iraq,” in Bremer’s view.16

In September 2003, Ambassador Bremer published seven steps to sovereignty that

described the manner in which the CPA would continue to oversee Iraq until a permanent

constitution was adopted and elections were held. By October, however, Secretary

Rumsfeld had convinced Bremer to close down the CPA by June 2004. Former

Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas J. Feith, would nevertheless suggest that

not turning governance over to Iraqis sooner, i.e. leaving the CPA in control for fourteen

months, was the most significant contributing factor to the rise of insurgency in Iraq.17

6

Major General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division,

described the effects of de-Ba’athification as “tens of thousands of former party members

unemployed, without any salary, without any retirement, without any benefits, and

therefore, to a large degree, without any incentive to support the new Iraq.”18 Also,

newly appointed CENTCOM commander, General John Abizaid, “recognized that the

violence in Iraq was escalating…that groups were organizing in an effort to prolong the

opposition to US presence…that some of them were military officers, former Baathists…

and that a long term resistance was forming.”19 As the Coalition slowly addressed the

unintended consequences of de-Baathification and dissolution during the summer of

2003, many disenfranchised/unemployed Sunni Arabs, who “found themselves politically

and organizationally adrift,” began to affiliate with elements of the mounting insurgency

in an effort to both support their families and to fight what they considered a foreign

occupation.20 “I am a father of nine and I have a wife,” bemoaned Abu Basel, a newly

unemployed former military officer who had fought in the Iraq-Iran conflict and had been

a prisoner of war for ten years.21

As intelligence gathering relative to the insurgency improved during the summer of

2003, the Bush administration began to acknowledge potential miscalculations with

respect to post-Saddam peacekeeping operations and the surprising resistance

encountered from Saddam loyalists, Baathist insurgents, and foreign terrorists.22 At the

same time, however, administration officials down-played the seriousness of the

insurgency. Secretary Rumsfeld, for example, referred to Iraqi insurgents as “dead-

enders – Baath Party loyalists and remnants of the paramilitary Fedayeen Saddam and

7

Iraqi Republican Guards,” while special assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Lawrence

Di Rita, called them simply “mid-level Baathists holding out hope that the regime can

come back.”23

Initial Coalition optimism resulting from the killings of Uday and Qusay Hussein

by US forces in Mosul in July 2003 soon gave way to further misgivings when insurgents

bombed the Jordanian embassy and the UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad.24

Insert photo of bombed out UN building

Insurgent attacks on electrical, water, and oil infrastructure increased during the fall as

did the targeting of civilian workers participating in various reconstruction projects

throughout Iraq. As with the deaths of his sons, the capture of Saddam Hussein in

December was heralded by Coalition leaders as foreshadowing the collapse of the

insurgency. Instead, insurgent violence, inflamed by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal,

intensified in 2004 with an increasing number of attacks on Iraqi security forces and the

abhorrent beheadings of hostages.25 When four contractors were brutally mutilated in

Fallujah, the US vowed to retaliate.

Insert photo of contractors

Marines attacked the city, but were forced to withdraw as a cease-fire settlement was

reached with the insurgents. CPA administrator Paul Bremer noted that had the fight for

8

Fallujah continued, the Iraqi Governing Council would have been lost since the Sunni

members would have all resigned. “In the end, it [the withdrawal from Fallujah] was the

President’s [Bush] decision,” Bremer explained.26 Insurgents throughout Iraq were

encouraged by the turn of events in Fallujah – to them it was a significant victory.

Coalition leaders again believed that the transfer of authority in June from the CPA

to the Interim Iraqi Government (IIG) headed by former Baathist Iyad Allawi would have

a diminishing effect on the insurgency. Unfortunately, insurgent violence increased in

Ramadi and Samarra, a car bomb killed nearly 50 people in Al-Karkh, a suicide bomber

killed 22 US Soldiers in a Mosul mess tent, those Iraqis who cooperated with the

Coalition or the IIG were increasingly subjected to kidnappings and beheadings, and

Sunni Islamists intensified attacks of Shia civilians in an effort to provoke sectarian

hostilities and disrupt the January 2005 legislative elections.27 As pre-election violence

persisted, the resulting security issues were partially responsible for the withdrawal of

Iraq’s largest Sunni Muslim party (the Iraqi Islamic party) from the campaign.28

Numerous high-profile attacks were intended to dissuade Iraqi citizens from participating

as candidates, poll workers, or voters in the election process. Just days before the

election, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi released an internet message that announced “a bitter

war against democracy and all those who seek to enact it”… and denounced the IIG as a

“tool used by the Americans to promote this lie that is called democracy.”29 Thirteen

electoral commissioners resigned in Anbar province in the face of prolonged insurgent

intimidation. “It is impossible to hold elections in the province…they are kidding

themselves,” Saad Abdul-Aziz Rawi, head commissioner, explained, referring to officials

9

insistent on proceeding with elections in Anbar.30 On the day of the election, ISF and

Iraqi police were assigned primary polling place security responsibility, while US troops

patrolled the streets and served as a behind-the-scenes backup reserve force. Although 45

Iraqis died in election day violence, the anticipated spike in terrorist attacks failed to

materialize.

Enemy Situation in Iraq 2005 – Campaign of Intimidation

By early 2005, Former Regime Elements (FRE), religious extremists, newly

radicalized Sunni nationalists, foreign fighter such as al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), Shia

militias, and various criminal organizations had weakly united to form the Iraq

insurgency, which still consisted mainly of Sunni Arabs.31 Foreign fighters and Sunni

insurgents often engaged in campaigns of intimidation aimed primarily at Shia. In Tal

Afar, for example, Sunni extremists known as Takfirin, terrorized Shia, threatened to kill

them, and branded them infidels for not adopting strict forms of Islam. The insurgency

at this point was not a national movement, but rather a series of semi-autonomous

regional groups loosely connect through family, tribal, and former professional social

networks. There was no national insurgent leader in Iraq, no centralized command and

control, and no shared vision for the future. Fragile networks also existed between

insurgent groups for recruiting, procuring weapons, training, and funneling funds; and

AQI’s network of foreign Salafi jihadists, although small, was the most sophisticated.32

The RAND Arroyo Center described the Iraq insurgency as net warfare perpetrated by

flatter, linear, diffuse, and multidimensional networks, as opposed to traditional

10

pyramidal hierarchies. Autonomy and local initiative prevailed among insurgent groups

and decisions were often made on a decentralized, consensus-building, basis.33

Although these groups were driven by differing objectives, they all agreed that

removing Coalition forces from Iraq and destabilizing the new Iraqi government were

common goals. Many insurgents were also disenchanted with the economic chaos that

existed in Iraq at the time. FRE insurgents were intent on regaining political power in

Iraq, however, they were unable to successfully block or interfere with the 30 January

national elections. The insurgency lacked centralized command and control and operated

primarily in Baghdad, Al Anbar, Salah Ad Din, and Ninevah provinces. Insurgents were

reluctant to confront Coalition forces directly and began employing ambush-style attacks

and improvised explosive devices (IEDs - the number one cause of Coalition casualties in

2004)34 as their primary tactics. Although limited in numerical strength,35 foreign

terrorists, such as AQI, promoted sectarian violence and concentrated on carrying out

high-visibility strikes against Iraqi Shia, the new government, and Coalition forces.

Sunni extremist and Jordanian expatriate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had the blessing of

Osama bin Laden, led AQI and was intent on forming an Islamic caliphate in Iraq.36

Closely affiliated with AQI were two homegrown Sunni religious extremist groups,

Ansar al-Sunna (AS) and its predecessor, Ansar al-Islam. AS claimed responsibility for

the US mess hall bombing in Mosul the previous December.37 Finally, despite setbacks

in 2004, Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army represented a continuing

insurgent threat to Coalition forces and an impediment to Sunni/Shia reconciliation.38

Collectively, these groups met the classic Joint Doctrine definition of insurgency, since

11

each in their own way intended to overthrow the GoI, gain political power for

themselves, and/or drive Coalition forces out of Iraq. Experts at the RAND Arroyo

Center suggested, however, that, since terrorist in Iraq lacked a clear leader, and had no

unifying ideology, center of gravity, or desire to seize and hold territory, the insurgency

did not clearly fit the classical guerrilla warfare/Mao Tse-tung model.39

In March 2005, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) also assessed the Iraq

insurgency, noting that re-establishing political power and defending Sunni concerns,

rights, and benefits were powerful motivating factors for insurgents. Controlled

primarily by FRE and Baathist Sunni Arabs, the insurgency was becoming increasingly

interconnected through important religious, tribal, and family groups.40 DIA also agreed

that, although numerically small, AQI was responsible for a significant number of high-

visibility, vicious, attacks on Shia civilians, Iraqi security forces, NGOs, and Coalition

troops. The shrewd implementation of an accompanying propaganda campaign allowed

AQI to gain maximum media and internet exposure for these attacks, thereby raising

doubts in the minds of many Iraqis concerning their new government’s legitimacy and its

ability to provide adequate, long-term, security and to deal with the persistent problems

of unemployment, economic recovery, and rebuilding the country’s infrastructure,

particularly the electricity and oil sectors. Overall, DIA concluded that the Sunni

insurgency grew larger and had increased its reach and range of capabilities by winter

2005. Attacks in the first three months averaged 50-60 per day as opposed to 25 per day

for the corresponding period in 2004. Finally, DIA predicted that, in spite of defeats at

12

the hands of Coalition forces in 2004, Shia militias were likely to re-emerge as threats to

Sunni-Shia reconciliation.

Equally disturbing in 2005, were indications that insurgents were planning and

executing attacks intended to incite civil war in Iraq and to drive a wedge between

various ethnic and sectarian groups.

Turn into call out box “Insurgent Suicide Attack Chronology January – June 2005”

8 February 2005 – A suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of a crowd of army recruits, killing 21 people.

18 February 2005 – Two suicide bombers attacked two mosques, leaving 28 people dead, while an explosion near a Shia ceremony killed two other people.

28 February 2005 – A suicide car bomber targeted mostly Shia police and National Guard recruits in Hillah, killing 125 and wounding more than 140. Some of the dead and injured were at a nearby market.

10 March 2005 – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia mosque during a funeral in Mosul, killing at least 47 people and wounding more than 100.

24 April 2005 – Insurgents staged coordinated double-bombings in Tikrit and a Shia neighborhood in Baghdad, killing 29 Iraqis and injuring 74.

1 May 2005 – A car bomb obliterated a tent crowded with mourners for a funeral of a Kurdish official in Tal Afar, killing 25 people and wounding 50.

4 May 2005 – A bomb exploded among Iraqi civilians applying for police jobs in Kurdish city of Irbil, killing 60 people and wounding 150.

16 June 2005 – suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body at a gas station near a Shi’a mosque in Musayyib, blowing up a fuel tanker and killing at least 54 people and wounding 82.41

Unfortunately, Sunnis accused the new Iraqi police forces and the new Iraqi army,

whose members were predominantly Shia, of retaliation strikes against Sunni civilians,

13

thereby further inflaming sectarian violence in 2005. Members of the Badr Organization

(Al-Badr Mujahideen) and the Army of the Mahdi (Jaish al-Mahdi) infiltrated the

Ministry of Interior (MOI) and “police officers, who also were militia members, abused

their official powers to pursue personal and party agendas,” according to the US

Department of State 2005 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Iraq.42 This

report further noted that “police torture and ill treatment of detainees was commonplace.

In interviews with 90 prisoners, 72 asserted that they had been tortured or mistreated…by

beatings with cables and hosepipes, electric shocks to earlobes and genitals, food and

water deprivation, and overcrowding in standing-room-only cells.”43 Scattered reports of

abuses by the new Iraqi army also surfaced in 2005 and included detainee accusations of

being beaten, shocked, and hung upside down until losing consciousness.44

Thus, as Iraqi police and army units intensified reprisal activities aimed at Sunnis,

Sunni insurgents expanded terrorist attacks on Iraqi security forces (ISF). This was a

natural evolution in Sunni insurgent tactics, since the ISF was less well-trained and thus

more vulnerable to attack than heavily armed Coalition forces. Also, the increasing

numbers of ISF inherently exposed them to a greater likelihood of insurgents’ locating

and attacking them. Furthermore, in 2005, the ISF began to assume responsibility for a

variety operations typically conducted by the Coalition, thus further heightening their

vulnerability – this at a time when Coalition forces were becoming increasingly proficient

with respect to their own force protection. As a result, US KIAs declined from 107 in

January 2005 to 58 in February and 36 in March.45

14

On 28 April 2005, after being politically deadlocked for three months, President

Jalal Talabani (a Kurd), Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (a Shia), and the members of

Iraq’s transitional national assembly formed a new Iraqi cabinet that included only six

Sunni Arabs out of 36 total ministerships. Although the Defense Minister position went

to Sunni, Saadoun al-Dulami, the remaining Sunni appointments were to positions of less

importance – Trade, Culture, Women’s Affairs, Provincial Affairs, and Industry.46 The

composition of the cabinet, heavily weighted in favor of Kurds and Shia, further enraged

Sunni Islamists and led to increased ethno-sectarian violence in the late spring and

summer of 2005.

Throughout the remainder of 2005, Coalition and ISF launched a series of

offensive search-and-destroy operations in an on-going effort to suppress the insurgency.

In May, for example, the US Marine Corps initiated Operation MATADOR, which was

designed to eliminate a buildup of insurgents and foreign fighters in northwestern Anbar

province along the Syrian border. Director of Operations for the Joint Staff, Marine

Lieutenant General James Conway, “was not surprised by the strength and capability of

the insurgency being encountered. We know this is a determined enemy, that he has the

skills, ordnance, and weapons to resist fiercely,” Conway explained.47 The following

month, ISF launched Operation LIGHTNING in the greater Baghdad area to stop

insurgent attacks on Iraqi citizens and the duly elected government and to search for

suspected insurgent bomb-making facilities. Elements of the 5th Iraqi Army Division led

this operation with Coalition support from the US 1st Armored Division.48 Over the

remainder of 2005, Coalition forces and ISF conducted a surprisingly large number of

15

additional operations intended to locate and destroy insurgents and to disrupt their

activities:49

Make into call out box “Coaltion and ISF Anti-insurgent Operations 2005”

Operation Moon River Dragon – May, in Al JulaamOperation Rohme – June, in KarabilahOperation Saif – June, between Haditha and HitOperation Muthana Strike – July, near BIAPOperation Bow Country – July, in eastern BaghdadOperation Qmtia – July, in ZaidonOperation Thunder Cat – July, in western BaghdadOperation Hunter – July, in QaimOperation Quick Strike – August, in Haditha, Haqliniyah, and BarwanahOperation Able Warrior – August, west of BIAPOperation Restoring Rights – September, in Tal AfarOperation Zoba’a – September, in RutbahOperation Flea Flicker – September, in ZafaraniyaOperation Kabda Bil Hadid – October, in Sa’dah, Karabilah, and UbaydiOperation River Gate – October, in Haditha, Haqliniyah, and BarwanahOperation Clean Sweep – October, in southern BaghdadOperation Al Hajip Elfulathi – November, in western Al-Anbar provinceOperation Numur – November, in RamadiOperation Dhibbah – November, in northern RamadiOperation Asad – November, in southern RamadiOperation Nimur – November, in eastern RamadiOperation Harba – December, in Ramadi

Despite the relative success of these Coalition/ISF operations, the pace of insurgent

attacks continued unchecked in 2005.50 By year-end, terrorist attacks numbered nearly

100 per day and total attacks increased to nearly 33,000 for the year versus slightly over

22,000 in 2004.51 Also, insurgents gained further tactical knowledge regarding their need

to disperse, maintain a low profile, and avoid direct contact with US forces.

16

Insert Call Out Box “Enemy Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) from

Figure 21, page 214 of “An Army at War”

http://www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/download/csipubs/mcgrath_army/day1.pdf

Another challenging issue facing the Coalition was estimating the overall size of

the insurgency. Because the insurgency lacked centralized leadership, insurgents

themselves may not have known their total numbers. In February 2005, when chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, explained to the Senate Armed

Services Committee the difficulties involved in accurately estimating the insurgency’s

size, Senator John McCain replied, “I don’t know how you defeat an insurgency unless

you have some handle on the number of people that you are facing.”52 In that same

senate hearing, Senator Carl Levin recalled that during an earlier meeting, MNF-I

Commanding General, George Casey, reported that the Coalition had killed or captured

15,000 insurgents in 2004.53 Four months later, CENTCOM commander, General John

Abizaid, acknowledged in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that

“the overall strength of the insurgency remains about the same level it was a year ago…

and that a greater number of foreign extremists were coming into Iraq from nearby

countries.”54 General Abizaid estimated that insurgents represented less than one-tenth

of one percent of Iraq’s population or approximately 20,000 participants.55 Michael

Eisenstadt and Jeffrey White, consultants on Iraqi military affairs at the Washington

Institute for Near East Policy, suggested a much larger number, noting that as many as

100,000 Sunni Arabs could be either insurgent combatants or members underground

support networks.56 Finally, several insurgency experts agreed that, in 2005, AIQ and

17

other foreign fights in Iraq numbered between 1,000 to 2,000 operatives.57 Irrespective of

its numerical strength, the insurgency managed to easily attract new recruits to replace

those who had been killed or captured.58

Terrorist attacks picked up briefly in advance of the 15 October constitutional

referendum, but dropped off prior to 15 December parliamentary elections, due in part to

a reported de facto insurgent cease-fire during the balloting and the Sunni Iraqi Islamic

Party’s support for certain aspects of the new constitution.59 Also, potential insurgent

attacks were prevented by strict security procedures that prohibited vehicles from

approaching the polling stations and by utilization of the three ring defensive system

(Iraqi police – inner ring; Iraqi Army – middle ring; and Coalition forces – outer ring) to

surround and protect each polling location. Voting in Sunni areas increased by more than

50% over the January 2005 election turnout.60

Unfortunately, the successful parliamentary elections did little to quell insurgent

attacks and the rise of ethno-sectarian violence. US monthly casualties for the year

averaged 71 killed and 566 wounded. Totals for 2005, however, were lower than those of

2004 at 846 killed and 5949 wounded.61 The death toll among Iraqi civilians in 2005 was

estimated by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count at slightly more than 6,800 and Iraqi army

fatalities numbered 2,545.62

Insert Table of 2005 vs 2004 casualty figures

61 Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, 5. http://icasualties.org/oif/ (accessed 2 January 2008). 62 Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, 1. http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx (accessed 2 January 2008).

18

In an independent scientific study funded by the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology and the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response of the Johns Hopkins

Bloomberg School of Public Health, researchers Gilbert Burnham et al. examined post-

invasion excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war. They concluded that an

additional 600,000 more Iraqis died from March 2003 to July 2006 than would have

otherwise due to the violence, primarily gunfire and car bombings.63 Roughly

extrapolated, excess violent Iraqi deaths would have approached 500,000 by December

2005, using Burnham’s methodology. Although Bush administration officials quickly

denounced the study, the possibility that the death rate among Iraqi citizens could be

much higher than previously reported fueled a continuing debate regarding overall post-

invasion casualties in Iraq.64 Eventually, a larger epidemiology study, conducted jointly

by the World Health Organization and the Iraq Family Health Survey Study Group and

based on door-to-door surveys of more than 9,000 households, estimated the number of

violent deaths among Iraqi civilians at approximately 150,000 for the period March 2003

to June 2006. This figure tracks more closely with Iraqi Health Ministry estimates that

were based on 100 bodies per day arriving at morgues and hospitals and represents about

125,000 violence-related deaths for the period March 2003 – December 2005.65

By the end of 2005, despite concerted efforts, Iraqi insurgents had been unable to

achieve their primary objectives of disrupting the democratic process and inciting

nationwide ethno-sectarian violence. Failure to reach these goals was mainly attributable

to appeals for restraint from prominent Iraqi officials; closer cooperation between

19

Coalition/ISF commanders and local leaders, tribal chiefs, and religious clerics; and a

substantial expansion of intelligence data willingly supplied by the general populace.

Insurgent attacks continued, however, in an ongoing attempt to terrorize religious leaders,

politicians, and those citizens who cooperated with the Coalition, and to cripple economic

development, foreign investment, reconstruction activity, and NGO involvement.

By this time, Coalition assessments characterized the insurgency as principally

Sunni Arab in nature and focused regionally in Baghdad, al-Anbar, Salah ad Din, and

Ninevah provinces. Four separate, yet interlaced, insurgent elements were identified as

terrorists and foreign fighters, Sunni rejectionists, Saddam loyalists, and criminals.

Numerically, insurgents still represented only a very limited percentage of the overall

Iraqi population.66 Bob Kitrinos, who at the time was assigned to JCS J-2, but on loan to

the State Department as the Iraq desk officer, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, noted

that the insurgency was merely symptomatic of the deeper, more worrisome, issue of

Sunni discontent and the desire of FRE to win back political power. Kitrinos also pointed

out the improbability of defeating the insurgency militarily, since the Coalition lacked

sufficient troop strength to physically control Iraq. This, coupled with the insurgency’s

ability to easily replace killed/captured fighters thereby making it partially impervious to

attrition tactics, and the insurgents’ uncanny knack for re-emerging even after decisive

defeat (the whack-a-mole syndrome), made outright Coalition military victory unlikely.67

Also, according to Kitrinos, the expanded authority of Shias and Kurds was the principal

driving force behind the Sunni insurgency, not the Coalition occupation. Similarly, the

majority of insurgents tolerated AQI’s presence in Iraq primarily for its shock value.

20

Thus, as 2005 ended, the Sunni Arab insurgency persisted – flexible, adaptive, diffuse,

and integrated.68

Changing Face of the Insurgency 2006

In early 2006, subtle differences within the Iraqi insurgency began to emerge.

Core elements, consisting of rejectionists (IRZ), Saddamists (SDM), and terrorists and

foreign fighters (T&FF), remained steadfast in their opposition to the new Iraqi

government and the Coalition occupation. Iraqi rejectionists, by far the largest insurgent

group, were primarily Sunni Arabs and simply desired to regain the advantages they

enjoyed under Saddam. They rejected the Coalition and the government of Iraq and

attempted to re-establish power through violence. Many IRZ, however, were beginning

to see some merit in reaching their goals by joining the political process in Iraq. In

contrast, Saddamists, who were fewer in number and mainly former high-ranking regime

officials, were intent on reinstating a Baathist style autocracy and continued to strongly

oppose both the Coalition and the Iraqi government. SDM influence, however, was

weakening and many Saddamists began forming allegiances with IZR and T&FF

factions. Terrorists and foreign fighters, who were motivated by extreme religious

ideology, generally embraced the fanaticism advocated by AQI and were determined to

wreak havoc throughout Iraq, to provoke civil war between Sunni and Shia, and

eventually to create a Middle Eastern Caliphate.69 A significant number of actual AQI

members were Iraqi, while foreign terrorist fighters were typically Middle Eastern or

North African, infiltrated primarily through the Syrian border, and received financial

21

support from several surrounding countries. In total, foreign terrorists in Iraq were still

few in number at approximately 2,000 combatants. However, Coalition and ISF

commanders believed that a substantial percentage of the over 500 suicide car and suicide

vest bombings since 2003 had been conducted by these foreign cells. Overall, insurgents

continued to attack refineries, pipelines, electrical grids, and other infrastructure in 2006

as part of an ongoing effort to disrupt essential services, destabilize the new Iraqi

government, and undermine international assistance.70 Finally, CENTCOM continued to

classify radical Shia militias and extra-governmental armed groups, such as Muqtada al-

Sadr’s Jaysh al Mahdi (JAM) and the Badr Brigade, as likely enemy groups, since they

had infiltrated the ISF and Iraqi police and represented an ongoing threat to the legitimate

government of Iraq.71 Collectively, the combination of Sunni insurgent groups, T&FF,

radical Shia militias, along with rising sectarian violence, became known as the four wars

concept.

Call Out Box Here With Following Info

“Insurgent Practices and Motives 2006”

A few large groups were beginning to dominate the insurgency. Groups were better organized and employ sophisticated communications techniques to disseminate their message.

The insurgency was taking on a stronger Sunni Islamic identity, held together by a unique combination of Salafism and patriotism.

Many insurgents refused to participate in the political process and remained averse to the occupation and the GoI.

Insurgent groups were becoming more conscious of their public perception. Loathsome acts of violence were reduced. Insurgents accused Shia, ISF, and Coalition forces of violence against civilians, thereby shifting blame away from the insurgency.

22

Insurgents were slow to articulate a plan for the future of Iraq. They presented no comprehensive programs for addressing political issues in Iraq other than opposing the GoI and the Coalition presence.

The insurgents thought that they were winning. To them, the jihad was legitimate, while the GoI was not. They believed that they would prevail in the war of attrition against the United States.72

Also by 2006, three separate Iraqi intelligence agencies were functioning in the

country. The Iraqi National Intelligence Service concentrated on domestic issues, while

the Police Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Defense Intelligence Agency focused

on police and military intelligence, respectively. These agencies, along with Coalition

commanders and State Department officials, identified three prominent terrorist groups

that were operating in Iraq:

Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (QJBR): Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (al-Qaida of the Jihad Organization in the Land of Two Rivers), is most clearly associated with foreign terrorist cells operating in Iraq and has specifically targeted Coalition forces and Iraqi citizens. In a July 2005 letter to al-Qaida deputy Zawahiri, Zarqawi outlined a four-stage plan to expand the Iraq war to include expelling U.S. forces, establishing an Islamic authority, spreading the conflict to Iraq's secular neighbors, and engaging in battle with Israel. The United States also refers to the group as al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI).

Ansar al-Sunnah (AS): Ansar al-Sunnah (also known as the Followers of the Tradition) is an Iraqi extremist group dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq based on Sharia law. Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas is an affiliated group that has claimed responsibility for attacking Coalition vehicles in Baghdad.

Kongra-Gel/PKK: The Kurdistan Workers Party (Kongra-Gel/PKK) is a Marxist-Leninist group with roots in Turkey seeking a pan-national Kurdish state carved out of majority Kurdish populated areas. The existence of Kongra-Gel/PKK operatives in northern Iraq continued to be a source of friction between Turkey and Iraq.73

23

The following additional insurgent organizations were identified by MNF-I and other reliable sources as also operating in Iraq in early 2006:

Secret Islamic Army (SIA): SIA was led by Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, also known as Abu Ayman, a former member of Saddam’s intelligence service. SIA operated in Babil province and was suspected in the February 2005 kidnapping of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.74

Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI): After first emerging in 2003, IAI was one of the largest and most sophisticated insurgent groups. IAI promoted itself as a more conventional substitute for AQI or AS.75

1920 Revolution Brigades (1920 BDE): Also known as the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance, this group operated primarily west of Baghdad and desired to rid Iraq of foreign military and political occupation. 1920 BDE has claimed responsibility for the deaths of dozens of US Soldiers, the bombing of several US armored vehicles, and the shooting down of two US helicopters.76

Sheibani Network (SN): Named for Abu Yaser al Sheibani, the SN received support, weapons, and training from Iran. Iranian explosively formed penetrators (EFP) were smuggled into Iraq by SN and distributed to other insurgent groups.77

Army of the Guardians (AoG): This is an Iranian military organization known by its full name – Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. Elements of AoG may have been operating clandestinely in Iraq and providing funding, training, intelligence, and supplies to Shia militias.78

Jaysh Muhammad (JM): Otherwise known as the Army of Muhammad, JM consisted primarily of former Ba’ath Party members and military officers. JM claimed responsibility for UN headquarters bombing in August 2003.79

Gangs of Iraq (GoI): Twenty-three separate death squads and militias, including the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army, were operating in Baghdad during the summer of 2006.80

Islamic Front of the Iraqi Resistance (JAMI): A sophisticated, nationalistic, public relations organization that serves other insurgent groups. Has a website and publishes a monthly magazine.81

First Four Caliphs Army: This group has six operational brigades and a website.

Victorious Group’s Army: This group issues weekly update and has three brigades.

Mujahidin’s Army: This group issues weekly updates and has a website.

24

Islamic Resistance’s Movement in Iraq: This group joined with the 1920 Revolution Brigades.

Swords of Justice Brigades: This group claims responsibility for November 2005 kidnapping of four peace activists in Iraq. May be affiliated with Ansar al-Sunna.

Mujahidin Brigades: This group operates in Kirkuk and threatens retaliation against Iraqi police and ISF.82

God’s Wrath: Based in al-Basrah, this anti-Coalition Shia group fought against British troops in 2004.

Vengeance Detachments: This group hunts down and kills former Saddam regime security and intelligence officers in Baghdad and Tikrit.

National Front for the Liberation of Iraq: The Front, made up primarily of nationalist and Islamists, has ten organized resistance groups operating in Arbil, Kirkuk, Al-Fallujah, Samarra, Tikrit, and Basra.83

The Return: This group operates in Samarra, Tikrit, Al-Dur, and Mosul, and is made up of former Iraqi intelligence officers.

Imam Ali Bin-Abi-Talib Jihadi Brigades: This Shia group threatened to assassinate members of the GoI and to attack US fprces in Al-Najaf and Karbala.

Assadullah Brigades: This group claimed the right to kill or capture any infidel that enters Iraq.

Other small insurgent factions operating in Iraq during 2006 included: the Iraq Liberation

Army, the Awakening and Holy War, the White Banners, the Al-Haqq Army, the

Hamzah Faction, the Islamic Retaliation Movement, the Islamic Anger Brigades, the

Khalid-Bin-al-Walid Brigades, Iraq’s Martyrs Brigades, the Black Banner Group, the

Clans of the People of Iraq, and the Lions of Unification Brigades.84

Ascertaining which insurgent and militia groups were functioning where, in what

timeframe, and in what numbers was a difficult undertaking. Many groups came and

went quickly, while others assumed new names or combined amongst themselves. Dr.

25

Ahmed Hashim, the International Crisis Group, and Human Rights Watch identified

several additional secular, nationalist, tribal, and religious insurgent groups in Iraq;

however, CENTCOM and the US Department of State considered those listed above

most critical in early 2006.85 Although many of these groups cooperated with each other,

they all competed for resources in a fundamental struggle for power as well. AQI hoped

to render Iraq ungovernable and continued to attack ISF, Coalition forces, and Shia

civilians to provoke sectarian backlash and incite civil war.

Al-Askariya Shia Mosque Bombing

On 22 February 2006, the al-Askariya Shia mosque in Samarra was severely

damaged by explosions that destroyed the shrine’s four main supporting pillars, causing

its golden dome to collapse. The mosque, one of the most renowned shrines in Iraq,

contained the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams and was held in the highest regard by

Shia pilgrims from around the world because of its religious, cultural, and historic

significance.

Insert photo of bombed out mosque

The location of the mosque, known alternatively as the Golden Domed mosque or the

shrine of the Two Imams, was unusual, given that Samarra’s population were nearly 90

percent Sunni. Since the attack occurred early in the morning, there were no injuries;

however Coalition commanders and GoI officials feared the bombing would inflame

26

sectarian violence and propel the country toward civil war. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-

Sistani issued three fatwas later in the day calling for calm, peaceful demonstrations, and

week-long mourning period. Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari also pleaded for

restraint, telling Iraqis to “close the door to all those who are fishing in the troubled

waters.”86 The GoI recalled all ISF back from leave to their respective duty stations,

expanded security around mosques and shrines, and imposed night-time curfews in

Samarra and Baghdad. The next day, seven mosques were attacked and two Sunni

imams and one shiekh were killed.87 By 26 February, numerous additional mosques had

been attacked and damaged, and an estimated 200 Iraqis had been killed in the aftermath

of the Samarra bombing.88 The International Crisis Group described the sectarian

violence as the worst yet during the US occupation and put the resulting Iraqi death toll at

800 as of 1 March.89 The Shia on Sunni violence marked a suspension of Shia restraint,

as once growing cooperation between the two groups temporarily came to an end. “The

war could really be on now,” noted Abu Hassan a Samarran Shia. “This [bombing of the

Golden Mosque] is something greater and more symbolic than attacks on people…this is

a strike at who we are.”90 Similarly, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme

Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), warned of potential retributions,

explaining that “if the government can’t protect us then we will have to do it ourselves.”91

Finally, Juan Cole, a specialist in Islam, also predicted reprisals, indicating with regard to

the aftermath of the Samarra attack “this could be a tipping point…it’s an apocalyptic

moment.”92

27

Coalition commanders were quick to focus blame for the Golden Mosque bombing

on AQI. In a 23 February press conference, Major General Rick Lynch, MNF-I Deputy

Chief of Staff, described a seemingly unrelated earlier operation near Ramadi, in which

AQI letters and thumb drives were discovered. The letters suggested that attacks on

small villages were turning local citizens against AQI and that a change in tactics, e.g.

shifting attacks to major cities, may be beneficial. Another AQI objective noted in the

captured letters was the notion of driving the wedge deeper between Shias and Sunnis

who were beginning to cooperate in forming a unified Iraqi government. Lynch

contended that destroying the mosque in Samarra was the first salvo in AQI’s attempt to

incite sectarian violence by attacking things of symbolic significance to Shias rather than

attacking Shias themselves. “Let’s attack the Golden Mosque in Samarra,” Lynch said,

speculating as to what AQI leaders might have been thinking. “That’s what we

experienced yesterday, he suggested.93 Iraq’s National Security Advisor Mowaffak al-

Rubaie, agreeing with Major General Lynch’s assessment, blamed AQI and Abu Musab

al-Zarqawi for the Golden Mosque attack. “The blueprint of al-Qaeda in Iraq is there…

they want to drive a wedge between the Sunni and the Shia,” al-Rubaie said in an official

denial that the ensuing violence was a harbinger of civil war between the two religious

groups.94 As one might expect, each faction blamed the other for the Samarra bombing.

Shias accused Sunni insurgents, while Sunnis pointed to Shias and the Mahdi Militia,

accusing them of sabotaging the Golden Mosque, then blaming Sunnis for the attack,

thereby justifying further retaliatory violence. A T&FF insurgent group circulated a

28

statement indicating that the GoI’s growing relationship with Iran had been the root cause

of the bombing. This was followed by a television broadcast by Iranian President

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s in which he blamed the attack on the United States and Israel.

Over the next several weeks, no group, insurgent or otherwise, came forward to either

accept responsibility for or to take credit for the Golden Mosque bombing.95

The security environment in Iraq continued to deteriorate during March 2006,

prompting Iraqis and US officials to offer divergent opinions as to whether the Samarra

attack would provoke civil war. Americans began referring to the heightened ethno-

sectarian violence as a “low-level civil conflict,” rather than using the term “civil war.”96

In pointed contrast however, former Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, exclaimed “It is

unfortunate that we are in civil war…we are losing each day 50-60 people throughout the

country…if this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is.”97

Immediately following the Golden Mosque bombing, Major General Rick Lynch

had seen the situation differently. “We are not seeing civil war ignited in Iraq,” Lynch

stressed. “We are seeing a competent, capable, Iraqi government using their security

forces to calm the storm.”98 Similarly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discouraged

further discussion of civil war, adding “I don't think we do the Iraqi people any good, or

really that we are fair to them, in continually raising the specter that they might fall into

civil war."99 Sectarian and militia violence continued throughout the spring. A Sunni

insurgent car bomb killed ten Iraqis near the holy Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, and eighty

29

more were killed by suicide bombers at the Baratha shrine, SCIRI headquarters in

Baghdad.

Insert photo of Baratha Shrine bombing

Despite the upturn in attacks following the Golden Mosque bombing, the Department of

Defense officially declared in the May 2006 report “Measuring Stability and Security in

Iraq” that the strife in Iraq did not amount to civil war. The possibility of civil war

increased after sectarian violence rose following the Golden Mosque bombing. Also,

polling of Iraqi civilians by the US State Department Office of Research indicated an

increased risk of civil war. True civil war in Iraq, however, never officially broke out,

since several classic indicators, e.g., unrestrained sectarian strife, self-sustained strife

across multiple provinces, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and forced population

movements, did not occur to a large extent. The DoD report concluded that “some of

these conditions exist within Iraq, especially in and around Baghdad, and the percentage

of Iraqis concerned about civil war has increased in recent months. However, the

insurgency and sectarian strife do not currently constitute a civil war.”100

The Spread of Ethno-Sectarian Violence in Iraq

30

Speculation regarding the significance of the Golden Mosque bombing persisted.

Despite the likelihood that AQI orchestrated the bombing, ethno-sectarian violence did

escalate after the Samarra attack, which by any measure was a crucial setback for Sunni-

Shia reconciliation. However, Samarra was simply one more in a series of events, pitting

Shias against Sunnis, which began in late 2004 after the second battle of Fallujah. Many

Sunni refugees settled in insurgent-controlled west Baghdad after Fallujah was destroyed.

Violence erupted in the western suburbs of al Amriya and Ghazaliya as Sunnis brutally

evicted the few remaining Shia families and seized their homes. Shias quickly retaliated

in the Shia dominated Shaab district, where Sheikh Safaa al-Tamimi and Mahdi army

soldiers organized the first of many Shia death squads. Unrestrained ethnic cleansing

soon spread across Baghdad as the cycle of violence intensified. Sunnis were targeting

Shias for being Shia not for their support of the GoI or the Coalition. Similarly, Shias

turned on Sunnis, not because many were insurgents, but for simply being Sunni. Ethno-

sectarian violence became a war within a war that smoldered beneath Coalition and ISF

efforts to root out terrorists and insurgents.101 The Samarra bombing was just one of

many in this fight, and was neither the beginning of sectarian strife, nor the start of civil

war.

Shia militia groups, which were now better equipped and more professionally led,

continued to be problematic for the Coalition in 2006. Militias regularly participated in

illegal activities against Sunnis, such as extortion, executions, assassinations, and

kidnappings, while at the same time providing protection and security for Iraq’s Shia

population. The Badr Corps, associated with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s SCIRI

31

religious organization, and the Mahdi army, Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) led by Muqtada al-

Sadr, were the two most well known militias operating in Iraq at the time. Both of these

organizations refused to disband, thereby violating the requirements of CPA Order No.

91 (Regulation of Armed Forces and Militia Groups in Iraq) as well as stipulations in the

new Iraqi Constitution. Many militia fighters joined the ISF; however, JAM members,

who had been involved in actions against the Coalition, were excluded. The prevalence

of Shia militias prompted Sunni leaders to form their own small militia groups to provide

neighborhood security.102 Finally, Coalition commanders continued to accuse Iran of

supplying Shia militias in Iraq with weapons, equipment, and training. “We do know that

Shia extremist groups have received training through some sort of third element

associated with Iran…we do know that weapons have been provided,” explained Major

General William Caldwell, MNF-I spokesman in Baghdad.103 Nearly two years later,

accusations regarding Iran’s involvement persisted. Addressing US troops at Camp

Arifjan in Kuwait in January 2008, President Bush continued to press the issue: “Iran has

supported extremist groups [in Iraq] with training and lethal aid.”104 MNF-I

Commanding General, David Petraeus, who accompanied Bush to Kuwait, added “The

overall flow of weaponry from Iran into Iraq appears to be down, but attacks with

roadside bombs, called ‘explosively formed projectiles,’ linked to Tehran are up by a

factor of two or three in recent days.”105

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Killed in Hibhib

32

On 7 June 2006, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of AQI, and his spiritual advisor,

Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed in a Coalition air strike at Hibhib, five miles west of

Baquba in Diyala province.

Insert photo of Zarqawi

A US Air Force F-16C dropped two precision-guided bombs, a laser-guided GBU-12 and

a GPS-guided GBU-38, on the safe house in which Zarqawi, Rahman, and four other

associates were meeting.106 The attack was in all likelihood controlled by a direct action

US Special Mission Unit, since President Bush congratulated Army Lieutenant General

Stanley McChrystal, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, for the

successful operation, noting “special operations forces, acting on tips and intelligence

from Iraqis, confirmed Zarqawi’s location and delivered justice to the most wanted

terrorist in Iraq.”107 MNF-I spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, described

locating and killing Zarqawi as resulting from “tremendous work by coalition forces,

intelligence agencies, and partners in our global war on terrorism, that all came together

feeding different parts and pieces that allowed us to build that puzzle…a painstaking

process that occurred over several weeks.”108 Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-

Maliki, acknowledged that tips from Iraqi citizens in the Hibhib area were instrumental in

tracking down Zarqawi; and Army Lieutenant General Dell Dailey, Director of the

Center for Special Operations at the time, believed similarly that Iraqis turned on Zarqawi

because of his brutal treatment of civilians.109

33

Zarqawi’s mission was to establish a caliphate in Iraq where he had been declared

Prince of Al Qaeda by Osama bin Laden. With a $25 million Coalition bounty on his

head, Zarqawi was believed to be responsible for a series of ruthless beheadings, suicide

attacks, car bombings, and assassinations, along with the destruction of the UN

headquarters in Baghdad and the bombing of three hotels in Amman. The Jordanian-

born Zarqawi fought the occupying Soviets in Afghanistan in 1989, and, later, formed his

own al-Qaeda training base near Herat in 2000. He fled to Iran after the US invaded

Afghanistan, then relocated to Iraq in 2002, where he vowed to foment civil war and to

obstruct the democratic process. In 2004, Zarqawi was captured in Fallujah, but released

by mistake.110 He was nearly captured again in February 2005 and may have been

wounded in a fire fight the following May. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld declared

Zarqawi’s death “a stunning shock to the al-Qaeda system,”111 but warned that the

violence in Iraq was far from over. MNF-I commanding general, George Casey, and US

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad echoed Rumsfeld’s concerns, with Casey cautioning

“although the designated leader of al-Qaeda is now dead, hard fighting in the war lies

head…this is just a step in the process.”112 A message on al-Qaeda’s website praised

Zarqawi as a martyr and confirmed the terrorist organization’s intentions of continuing

holy war in Iraq.

Isert the al-Qaeda message in arabic

34

Several additional Islamic extremist groups, under the umbrella of the Mujahedin

Shura Council, were waiting in the wings to take a leadership role in the insurgent fight

against Coalition forces, the ISF, and the legitimate government of Iraq. By mid-June,

AQI announced that Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri had replaced

Zarqawi as its leader.113 As summer approached, the rates of insurgent attacks and

Coalition/ISF casualties did not abate as a result of Zarqawi’s death. One US Soldier was

killed and two captured by insurgents at a vehicle checkpoint south of Baghdad. The

beheaded remains of the two abducted Soldiers were later discovered in the town of

Yusufiyah.114 Also, kidnappings of Iraqi officials – as opposed to ordinary civilians -

increased dramatically. In July, the chairman of Iraq’s Olympic Committee, a female

Sunni legislator, a consular official, and the Minister of Electricity were all seized for

ransom by gunmen wearing military or police uniforms.115

The Insurgency Grows in Scale and Complexity

Over the remainder of 2006, the nature of the Iraq war continued to gradually shift

from a Sunni-dominated insurgency to a battle for economic and political power among

ethnic, sectarian, and tribal groups. Violence increased in both scale and complexity

during this period as Shia fought amongst themselves, as well as against Sunnis and

Coalition forces. Sunnis and al-Qaeda attacked Shias, ISF, and the Coalition.116

Although Coalition forces were the primary target of most attacks, Iraqi civilians

sustained the most casualties.117 Twenty civilians were killed and more than100

wounded, for example, in a June bombing of the Kirkuk courthouse.118 Attacks against

35

Iraqi civilians averaged approximately 85 per week in 2006, while the weekly casualty

rate among civilians exceeded 550 – thus averaging nearly seven Iraqi civilian casualties

per attack. Comparable weekly attack/casualty data for ISF and Coalition forces in 2006

were as follows:

ISF Coalition

Weekly Attacks 160 525

Weekly Casualties 185 144

Casualties per Attack 1.2 0.3

During the three-month period of October – December 2006, Coalition forces, ISF,

and Iraqi civilians endured more attacks and more casualties than any comparable period

since 2003 and the rate of attacks in Baghdad reached 45 per day. Also, sectarian

murders as defined and compiled by MNF-I rose from less than 200 in January 2006 to

nearly 1,300 in December, and totaled more than 10,000 for the entire year.119 In

aggregate, nearly 17,000 Iraqi civilians and 2,112 ISF were killed in 2006. By year end,

822 Americans had been killed and 6, 298 wounded.120

Although a relatively low level of violence continued in remote areas, such as

Basrah, Kirkuk, Tal’Afar, and Mosul, the majority of attacks (80%) were concentrated in

Baghdad, Anbar, Salah ad Din, and Diyala provinces. Limited fighting in the southern

provinces typically involved the Badr vs. JAM power struggle, attacks on coalition

forces, and tribal rivalries. Ethnic and sectarian competition for economic/political

control and ongoing Sunni extremist attacks exemplified the nature of the conflict in

36

northern Iraq. In Anbar province, however, AQI and Sunni insurgents continued

attacking ISF and Coalition forces. Yet, attempts by extremists to coerce local citizens

into establishing an Islamic state were resisted by tribal leaders and Sunni Sheikhs. In ar-

Ramadi, for example, local Sunnis began openly challenging AQI in what would become

a broad-based political coalescence known as the “Sunni Awakening.” In 2006, Sheikh

Abdul Sattar Bezia al-Rishawi, head of the Abu Risha tribe, founded the Sahawa al

Anbar (Anbar Awakening Council), which eventually grew into a forty-two tribe alliance

pledged to fight AQI.121

Insert photo of al-Rishawi

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, AQI and JAM battled for control and authority. These

groups seldom confronted each other head-to-head, however. Instead, AQI attacked Shia

civilians and JAM attacked Sunnis in a deadly give-and-take campaign of sectarian

violence. Both Sunnis and Shias were displaced from their respective Baghdad

neighborhoods. AQI and foreign fighters would strike any group (Coalition, GoI, ISF,

Shias, or Sunnis) that attempted to prevent them from establishing a radical Islamic state

in Iraq. By late 2006, DoD considered Sunni insurgents, AQI, and JAM the key

destabilizing elements in Iraq and identified their respective goals as follows:

Insert “Goals of Key Destabilizing Elements in Iraq”

http://www.defenselink.mil/home/pdf/9010_March_2007_Final_Signed.pdf, page 16

37

Finally, Syria and Iran continued to provide support to anti-Coalition and anti-GoI

groups in Iraq. Politically, Syria opposed Coalition activities in Iraq, persisted as the

principal point of entry for foreign jihadists, and offered safe haven and logistical support

to former Ba’ath Party expatriates. Iran continued to train, finance, and equip Iraqi Shia

militia groups, primarily JAM and the Badr Organization. In all likelihood, EFPs were

produced in Iran, since the sophisticated manufacturing techniques required to produce

them were not available in Iraq.122

On 29 December 2006, President Bush announced the execution by hanging of

former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Saddam’s trial had begun on 19 October, the Iraqi

High Tribunal convicted and sentenced him to death on 5 November, and the Appellate

Chamber upheld his conviction on 26 December.

Insert photo of Saddam on the Gallows

During the course of the trial, insurgents killed three of Saddam’s defense attorneys.

“Saddam’s death should serve as a new beginning for the nation,” Iraqi Prime Minister

Nouri al-Maliki proclaimed.123 President Bush, however, was more cautious, noting that

“bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an

important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain,

38

and defend itself…many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead.”124 As with

previous milestones in post-conflict Iraq - killing of Uday and Qusay, capturing Saddam,

the 2005 elections, death of al-Zarqawi - Saddam’s execution failed to quell the mounting

violence.

Improvised Explosive Devices – Wearing Down the American Will to Fight

Explosive materials used to produce improvised explosive devices (IED) were

widely available in post-Saddam Iraq. Nearly one million tons of explosives, along with

blasting caps and hundreds of miles of detonation cord, were hidden in thousands of

unsecured munitions caches scattered throughout the country. Also, many disbanded

former Iraqi military officers were proficient and experienced in the use of explosives.

CENTCOM Commanding General, John Abizaid, described the situation bleakly, noting

“there’s more ammunition in Iraq than any place I’ve ever been in my life, and it’s not

securable…I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control, but we don’t.”125 “The

entire country is one big ammo dump…it’s just a huge, huge problem,” observed

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in early 2007 shortly after assuming office.126

IEDs quickly became the weapon of choice for insurgents in Iraq. These explosive

devices were triggered at first by a variety of unsophisticated mechanisms, such as egg

timers, washing machine timers, automobile key fobs, doorbell buzzers, and remote

controlled toy cars.127 Insurgents emplaced IEDs in fake guardrails or inside road kill,

often along main supply routes, or close to Coalition forward operating bases (FOBs).

39

By fall 2003, IED attacks numbered more than 100 per month, leading Colonel William

Adamson to conclude, “The concept of a front line, or line of battle has vanished in Iraq,

giving way to 360-degree warfare.”128 US forces used scrap metal to fabricate “hillbilly

armor” for their Humvees. Soon “uparmored Humvees” and the more-protective

interceptor individual body armor began arriving in Iraq. A cat-and-mouse game

developed in which nearly every IED countermeasure adopted by the Coalition was

quickly overcome by deadly technical device improvements created and introduced to the

fight by insurgents.

Insert stock IED explosion photo

Mounting IED casualties led the Army to establish an official IED Task Force in

fall 2003 under the direction of Brigadier General Joseph Votel, who had commanded the

75th Ranger Regiment during recent tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Votel set up shop

at the Army Operations Center in the Pentagon basement and nailed a sign on the door

that epitomized the task force mission: “STOP THE BLEEDING.”129 Task force field

teams deployed to Camp Victory to analyze the IED phenomenon in depth and to train

Coalition forces in locating and defeating the devices. Unfortunately, by spring 2004,

IED attacks had risen to nearly 100 per week, prompting General Abizaid to declare

IED’s “the greatest casualty producer” in Iraq.130 Significantly, however, and as a direct

result of the IED Task Force’s efforts, the actual rate of casualties attributable to IED

attacks began to decline. In July, DoD expanded the task force’s role, renaming it the

Joint IED Task Force. Brigadier General Votel now reported directly to Deputy Defense

40

Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and had the resources of all the services at his disposal.

Despite a continued increase in IED attacks during the remainder of 2004, the casualty

rate remained relatively flat. Coalition forces began to attack bomber cells and the IED

Task Force announced an enhanced jammer strategy that called for deploying as many

systems as possible to Iraq. The electromagnetic spectrum became the new battle space.

However, the proliferation of jammers in theater interfered with standard Coalition

tactical radio communication channels and with radio signals to UAVs and Blue Force

Tracker . Almost immediately, insurgents switched to higher frequencies and higher-

powered remote controlled IED triggering devices that were not always susceptible to

Coalition jamming.

By 2005, Bush administration officials and senior US military leaders began to

view the insurgent’s use of IEDs as a serious strategic issue – one intended to sap the will

of the American people and erode support for the war in Iraq. Insurgents, meanwhile,

relentlessly upgraded their IED capabilities. For example, the explosively formed

penetrator (EFP), which first appeared in Basra the previous May, was jammer-proof

since it incorporated passive infrared triggering technology – referred to by Coalition

troops as the “Eye of Allah.”131 When detonated, EFPs fired several pounds of semi-

molten copper that easily punctured armored vehicles, sending a barrage of hot metal

throughout the crew compartment. In August, a new, highly explosive, underbelly IED

destroyed an armored personnel carrier, killing 14 Marines in Haditha. A device this

powerful could easily wipe out any armored vehicle in the US inventory. “You can’t

41

armor your way out of this problem,” declared an Army Brigadier General when asked

about protecting Coalition forces from EFPs and underbelly IEDs.132

Insert photo of Cpt. Combs from pg.6

www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/IraqReport06.2.pdf

Throughout 2005, insurgents switched technologies and modified their tactics to

stay ahead of Coalition IED countermeasures. They wired explosives together, for

example, in a daisy chain effect to create a larger kill-zone. Insurgents also tracked UAV

takeoffs and landings at Balad airbase and restricted IED planting activities to down

times or bad weather, no-fly, days. Terrorist bombers also became more adept at

implanting devices quickly, thereby reducing exposure time. As Coalition jammers and

passive infrared countermeasures became more effective, insurgents returned to simpler

triggering mechanisms, such as pressure plates, walkie-talkies, cell phones, cordless

phones, and basic wire connections. Passive infrared triggers were also modified with

radio-controlled telemetry that permitted the bomber to activate and de-activate the IED

as necessary while waiting for a lucrative target. Gasoline, propane, or chlorine gas were

added to basic IED bomb making materials to enhance the explosive effect; and

insurgents began to excel at booby- trapping Iraqi houses often with anti-tampering

trigger devices. Insurgents concealed IEDs in drainpipes, flowerpots, imitation

curbstones, car wheel wells, mannequins dressed in Coalition uniforms, and either in or

under the bodies of dead Iraqis. 2005 also saw the increased use of vehicle-borne IEDs

(VBIED) which terrorists employed to attack civilian markets, mosques, and police

42

stations. Finally, Coalition or ISF convoys hit with IEDs were often then attacked by

insurgent small arms or mortar fire, as the fighting in Iraq grew increasingly complex.

In December 2005, Brigadier General Votel, after skillfully guiding the task force

for more than two years, returned to combat duty, this time with the 82nd Airborne

Division in Afghanistan. Retired Army General Montgomery Meigs assumed

directorship of the task force, which was re-named the Joint IED Defeat Organization or

JIEDDO. General Meigs was former commander of NATO peacekeeping forces in

Bosnia and had earned a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, where he wrote his

dissertation on the Manhattan Project. Meig’s charge was to attack the entire insurgent

IED system – both right of boom and left of boom – and to concentrate on the overall

network, not just the device. He developed a three-pronged mantra: attack the network -

defeat the device – train the force, and his new battle cry for JIEDDO became “I’ll find a

way or make one.”133

Since the US invasion of Iraq nearly three years earlier, more than 32,000 IED

attacks had taken place. The eleven thousand IED attacks in 2005 killed 408 US

servicemen and women.134 Insurgent IED networks were broad-based and included Sunni

rejectionists, Sunni Baathists, AQI, and Shia militia members. A financier, bombmaker,

emplacer, triggerman, spotter, and an occasional cameraman made up a typical insurgent

IED cell.135 Cell members were often independent contractors, paid by-the-job or given

bonus payments for successful IED attacks. General Meig’s “left of boom” strategy

emphasized neutralizing these IED networks and disrupting the chain of events that occur

43

prior to emplacement. To this end, a classified project referred to as Cerberus was

initiated in 2005 to specifically track down and eliminate IED network bombmakers.

“The whole idea is to get the darn thing never to go off, never to be emplaced…that is

where we want to focus the majority of our energy,” Meigs

explained. 136 “Right-of boom,” on the other hand, involved targeting emplacers and

triggermen after an attack, quickly attending to the wounded, collecting/analyzing

forensic evidence, and implementing a variety of law enforcement techniques.

With respect to defeating the device and training the force, JIEDDO continued to

develop new technologies, such as reprogrammable/reactive jammers, drones, ground

penetrating radar, microwave emitters, and infrared sensor decoys, to counter the IED

threat and to train US forces in identifying and disarming IEDs before they exploded. In

2006, General Meigs, with assistance from Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael

Mullen, brought 300 Naval Electronic Warfare officers to Iraq to help US Army and

Marine Corps units in the field deal more effectively with the complex electromagnetic

environment. Still, more than 17,000 IED attacks occurred in Iraq in 2006, killing 427

Americans.137 To JIEDDO’s well-deserved credit, however, the casualty-to-explosion

ratio dropped significantly in 2006 and, by yearend, 45 percent of all IEDs were being

discovered and disarmed before detonating. “Three years ago, practically every IED

incident created some kind of casualty…now the enemy must create six incidents to

cause a casualty,”138 observed Brigadier General Anthony Tata, Deputy Director of

Operations at JIEDDO. Despite heroic efforts by the JIEDDO Task Force, insurgent

bombers remained cunning and elusive as EID attacks persisted with 1500 more in

44

January 2007. IEDs were the number one killer of US forces in Iraq. “For every move

we make, the enemy makes three…the enemy changes techniques, tactics, and

procedures every two to three weeks,”139 declared Brigadier General Joe Ramirez, Deputy

Commanding General of the US Army Combined Arms Training Center, during a

roadside bomb conference at Fort Leavenworth, KS.

Add “Iraq IED Incident Trends” Graph pg 15 JIEDDO Annual Rpt 2006 on R

drive

Insurgency Changing in Character, Scope, Dynamics, and Lethality

Sectarian violence continued to escalate in Iraq as 2006 came to an end. In

November, more than 100 Shias and Sunnis were kidnapped from the Departments of

Scholarship and Culture at the Iraqi Higher Education Ministry facility in Baghdad.

Insert photo of kidnapping site

The audacious abduction, which took place in broad daylight, was carried out by men in

commando uniforms driving Ministry of Interior trucks.140 The kidnappers were never

identified or apprehended; however, according to the Director of the Defense Intelligence

Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, in congressional testimony in November

2006, the Iraqi police and the Ministry of Interior had been infiltrated by militia

45

members from both Muqtada al-Sadr’s Jaysh al-Mahdi army and the SCIRI’ Badr

Corps.141 “We assess that sectarian violence is now the greatest threat to Iraq’s stability

and future…Iraq today is very far from peaceful…no single narrative is sufficient to

explain all the violence we see today,” Director, Central Intelligence Agency, General

Michael Hayden, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on 15 November.142 During

the same senate hearing, Lieutenant General Maples provided further detail, noting that

“The conflict was unquestionably complex and difficult…was changing in character,

scope, dynamics, and lethality…and was increasingly an intra-Arab sectarian struggle for

power and authority.”143 The overall Sunni insurgency continued to consist of an

intermingled hodgepodge of ex-military officers, former Baathists, Iraqi nationalists,

Jihadists, foreign fighters, and al-Qaeda. Shia militia groups and wide-spread criminal

networks also played significant roles in Iraq’s deteriorating security and stability

environment in late 2006.

As 2007 began, the ever-changing enemy situation in Iraq shifted subtly once

again. According to intelligence estimates in the 2007 CENTCOM Posture Statement,

insurgent groups still had differing motivations for inflicting violence in Iraq, yet they

were steadfast in opposition to the Coalition presence and their rejection of the GoI.

AQI, despite loosing favor among the overall Sunni Arab community, continued to attack

Iraqi civilians in an ongoing effort to provoke sectarian violence. Shia militias, some

supported by Iranian operatives, persisted in their efforts to retain political power by

undermining confidence in the ISF and GoI. Infiltration of the Iraqi Police by Shia

militia was an ongoing, troublesome, dilemma; and in Baghdad, Shia death squads

46

committed the preponderance of sectarian attacks against Sunnis.144 The insurgency was

still comprised primarily of Sunni Arabs, some acting directly, others in supporting roles.

Although Sunni Arabs represented only 17% of Iraq’s population (roughly 28 million

total by 2007 with Shia Arabs, Sunni Kurds, and Turkmen/Christians comprising the

remainder at 60%, 17%, and 6%, respectively), they still felt strongly that Iraq belonged

to them, since they alone had led it; and therefore, they opposed both the Coalition

occupation and the legitimate GoI. Shia Arabs, who had supported the overthrow of

Saddam’s regime, were fundamentally Iraqi nationalists and, as such, also had mixed

feelings regarding the Coalition presence. For Shia, halfheartedly supporting the

occupation was a means-to-an-end for them to gain political power for the first time.

Nevertheless, the two principal Shia militia groups, Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps,

continued to engage in insurgent attacks against US troops in central Iraq and against

British forces near Basra. Foreign fighters, intent on engaging in holy war against

western invaders, continued infiltrating Iraq, primarily by crossing the Syrian border. As

was the case earlier in the conflict, these non-Iraqis represented only a small percentage

of all insurgents and by 2006-2007 recruits were typically younger Islamic militants from

a variety of Middle Eastern and European nations. Indigenous Sunni Arab insurgents

often distrusted the foreign jihadists and disavowed their notion of comprehensive

Islamic rule for Iraq. Conversely, many foreigners never felt welcome in Iraq and feared

that local citizens were all too willing to turn them over to ISF/Coalition forces. By early

2007, Coalition commanders were defining the enemy in Iraq as being comprised of four

separate, yet interrelated, insurgent organizations.145

47

Four Major Insurgent Groups as of 2007

Baathists and former regime members remained Iraq’s largest insurgent group and

consisted primarily of military and intelligence officers from the pre-conflict Iraqi

Republican Guards Corps, the Special Republican Guards, and the Fida’yin Saddam

(Those who sacrifice for Saddam). After Saddam’s execution in December 2006, Izzat

Ibrahim al-Duri was named leader of the Baath Party. A subgroup of the Baath Party,

Fida’yin Saddam, was now its military arm and espoused both Iraqi nationalism and

strong Islamist beliefs. Jaysh Muhammad (Muhammad’s Army), also a militant

subgroup, was affiliated with Arab Baath Socialists and zealously promoted Islamist

ideology.

Nationalist-Islamists represented the second major insurgent organization in Iraq.

This group resisted the Coalition occupation on both patriotic and strong anti-western

Islamist grounds. Many former Baathists, some still irritated by Iraq’s failure to more

forcefully defend itself against the Coalition invasion, along with middle-class Iraqi

intellectuals and influential Sunni tribal sheiks from al-Anbar province formed the

leadership element of this insurgent group.

The third major insurgent organization in Iraq in 2007 was made up of Iraqi

Salafist Islamists, who advocated strict adherence to Shari’ah law, disavowed any

government founded upon democratic principals, abhorred western values, and strongly

objected to the Coalition presence. The largest subgroup of Salafists was the Jaysh al-

48

Islami fi al-Iraq (Islamic Army of Iraq/IAI) and included a smaller element, al-Fatihin,

that began targeting Coalition forces and Shia militias in 2006. IAI unified loyalists,

nationalists, and Islamists to resist the Coalition, the GoI, and all infidels in an attempt to

convert Iraq to an Islamic state. Another Salifist subgroup at this time was Ansar al-

Sunnah wa al-Jama’a (AS), which was organized into brigade size units and fought

against ISF/Coalition forces in al-Anbar and Diyala provinces. The 1920 Revolution

Brigades (1920 RB), also known as the Iraqi National Islamic Resistance, remained

dedicated to the insurgency during this period, and consisted of ex-Baathists, nationalists,

and Islamists deployed in combat brigades. 1920 RB, which had ties to centrist Sunni

politician and activists in Baghdad, split into two separate elements in 2007, one retaining

the original name and the other assuming the title HAMAS-Iraq. Also affiliated with

Salafist Islamists was the Jaysh al-Mujahidin (Army of the Mujahidin), which operated in

al-Anbar and Ninevah provinces. Al-Mujahidin, IAI, and AS combined operations in

2007, forming the Joint Resistance Front (JRF) to concentrate on attacking the Coalition,

while refraining from attacking each other and Iraqi civilians, and to distance itself from

AQI’s brutal methods.

Finally, AQI, Iraq’s fourth major insurgent organization, merged with several

affiliates in 2006 to form the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), headed by Emir Abu Umar al-

Baghdadi. Of all the insurgent organizations, ISI was by far the most dogmatic in strictly

observing Salafist Islamist doctrine and was most radical in its rejection of the Shia-led

GoI. Under its former leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a US air strike

in June 2006, AQI/ISI was known first as as al-Qaeda fi Balad al-Rafidayn (Al-Qaeda in

49

the Land of the Two Rivers) and later as the Mujahidin Shura Council (MSC). Despite

the series of name changes, AQI relentlessly attacked Iraqi civilians, Shia militias, ISF,

and Shia shrines during the early days of 2007.146

Insert group photo of AQI fighters

More detailed information regarding foreign fighters in Iraq came to light after US

Special Operations Forces captured the records of 700 infiltrated terrorists during a raid

near Sinjar in Ninavah province. The resulting data were subsequently analyzed by the

Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at the US Military Academy. CTC researchers

determined that the vast majority of foreign fighters were Saudi Arabians (41%) and

Libyans (18%), a significant number of whom had crossed from Syria to Iraq near the

border town of Albu Kamal. Collectively, their average age was 24-25 years old as of

January 2007, and most had been students (43%) prior to being recruited as either suicide

bombers (56%) or fighters (42%).

Insert graph “Foreign fighters by Country of Origin” on pg 8 and pie chart

“Foreign fighter Recruited Roles” pg 18 of Al-Qaeda’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/pdf/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf

By early 2007, AQI/ISI had been unsuccessful in reconciling the secular interests of Iraqi

insurgents with the Salafist Islamist interests of foreign fighters, to the extent that

firefights between the two factions became a regular occurrence. AQI’s barbaric

50

methods and religious fervor antagonized potential Iraqi recruits, and AQI/ISI began to

lose favor throughout the country.147

Growing Iranian Influence 2007

147 Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 19 December 2007, 1-30. http://www.ctc.usma.edu/harmony/pdf/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf (accessed 4 January 2008). 11 Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 6 June 2006, Windermere, FL, 18.12 Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 6 June 2006, Windermere, FL, 18.13 Charles Sadell’s comments noted in Lieutenant General (Ret) Jay Garner, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 6 June 2006, Windermere, FL, 18.14 L. Paul Bremer III, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 45; L. Paul Bremer, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 20 April 2006, Chevy Chase, MD, 3.15 L. Paul Bremer, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 20 April 2006, Chevy Chase, MD, 5. 16 L. Paul Bremer, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 20 April 2006, Chevy Chase, MD, 5.17 Douglas J. Feith, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 18 January 2008, Bethesda, MD, 14.18 Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus, interview by Catherine Small, 17 February 2006, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 12.19 General John P. Abizaid, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 10 January 2007, Tampa, FL, 2.20 The CPA established the Interim Governing Council (IGC) dominated by Shia Arabs on 13 July 2003; Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2006), 20; General William S. Wallace, interview by Lynne Garcia, 22 May 2006, Fort Monroe, VA, 12.21 Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2006), 27-28.22 See comments regarding problems with peacekeeping operations in Iraq from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Richard Myers, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in Rowan Scarborough, “U.S. Miscalculated Security for Iraq; Post-Saddam Resistance Unforeseen, Officials Say,” Washington Times, 28 August 2003, A.01. 23 Jim Garamone, “Bremer Calls on People to Keep Perspective on Iraq,” Armed Forces Press Service, 25 June 2003, 1-2. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=28829 (accessed 18 December 2007); US Department of Defense, “DoD News Briefing – Mr. Di Rita and General Abizaid,” 16 July 2003. http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=2845 (accessed 14 November 2007). 24 Brigadier General Frank Helmick, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, Arlington, VA, 15 February 2006, 5; Jim Garamone, “Attacks Reveal Nature of Terrorism, Bush Says,” Armed Forces Press Service, 25 August 2003, 1-2. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=28568 (accessed 19 December 2007). 25 “Militants Behead American Hostage in Iraq,” FoxNews.com, 11 May 2004, 1. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119615,00.html (accessed 19 December 2007). 26 L. Paul Bremer, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 20 April 2006, Chevy Chase, MD, 10-11.27 “Car Bomb Kills 47 Outside Baghdad Police Headquarters,” Chinadaily, 15 September 2004, 1-4. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/15/content_374447.htm (accessed 20 December 2007); Brigadier General Carter F. Ham, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 28 June 2006, Arlington, VA, 10.28 Karl Vick, “Sunni Party Pulls Out of Iraqi Vote as Doubts Grow,” Washington Post Foreign Service, 28 December 2004, A01; Also, many Iraqi Islamic party members simply boycotted the elections.

51

As AQI’s influence in Iraq wavered, Iranian intervention in Iraqi affairs loomed

ever larger. Attacks by Iranian-backed militia groups on Coalition forces, ISF, GoI

officials, and Sunni Arabs in Iraq increased dramatically by late 2006 and early 2007.148

The Quds Force from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC-QF) organized,

trained, funded, and equipped both Shia and Sunni insurgent elements, through a series of

29 Quoted in “Purported al-Zarqawi Tape: democracy a Lie,” CNN.com, 23 January 2005, 1-3. http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/23/iraq.main/ (accessed 21 December 2007). 30 Quoted in Jackie Spinner, “After Threats, Iraqi Election Board Resigns,” The Washington Post, 10 January 2005, A12.31 According to a 2005 CIA study, Saddam Hussein released tens of thousands of criminals before the war began in 2003 as described in Walter Pincus, “CIA Studies Provide Glimpse of Insurgents in Iraq,” The Washington Post, 6 February 2005, A.19. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1508-2005Feb5?language=printer (accessed 31 December 2007). 32 General John Abizaid, “2005 Posture of the United States Central Command,” 3 March 2005, 11. www.dod.mil/dodgc/olc/docs/test05-03-03Abizaid.doc (accessed 14 November 2007), Mahan Abedin, “Iraq’s Divided Insurgents,” Mideast Monitor 1, no 1 (February 2006): 1-8. 33 RAND Arroyo Center, A Campaign-Quality Army-Annual report 2005 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006), 10-11.34 General John Abizaid, “2005 Posture of the United States Central Command,” 3 March 2005, 13. www.dod.mil/dodgc/olc/docs/test05-03-03Abizaid.doc (accessed 14 November 2007). 35 A 2005 CIA study described foreign fighters as “lesser elements but still a source of danger,” as reported in Walter Pincus, “CIA Studies Provide Glimpse of Insurgents in Iraq,” The Washington Post, 6 February 2005, A.19. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1508-2005Feb5?language=printer (accessed 31 December 2007). 36 Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2006), 43, 47.37 National Counterterrorism Center, “Ansar al-Sunna (AS),” 1. http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/as.htm (accessed 22 December 2007); Jonathan Schanzer, “Ansar al-Islam,” The Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2004, Volume XI, Number 1, 1-8. http://www.meforum.org/article/579 (accessed 22 December 2007). 38 General John Abizaid, “2005 Posture of the United States Central Command,” 3 March 2005, 10-14. www.dod.mil/dodgc/olc/docs/test05-03-03Abizaid.doc (accessed 14 November 2007). 39 RAND Arroyo Center, A Campaign-Quality Army-Annual report 2005 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006), 10. 40 Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, “Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States,” Hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence United States Senate, 109th Cong., 1st Sess., S. Hrg. 109-61, 16 February 2005 (GPO: Washington, DC, 2005), 52. http://intelligence.senate.gov/threats.pdf (accessed 22 December 2007). 41 Anthony Cordesman, Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2006), 27, revised working draft dated 22 June 2006. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060622_insurgency.pdf (accessed 15 November 2007). 42 US Department of State, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Iraq 2005,” 8 March 2006, 2. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61689.htm (accessed 27 December 2007). 43 US Department of State, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Iraq 2005,” 8 March 2006, 4. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61689.htm (accessed 27 December 2007).44 US Department of State, “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Iraq 2005,” 8 March 2006, 5. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61689.htm (accessed 27 December 2007).45 Anthony Cordesman, Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2006), 30-31, revised working draft dated 22 June 2006.

52

contacts known as the Sheibani network, in an effort to defeat the Coalition and to disrupt

the democratic political process in Iraq. Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah advisors

provided Ansar al-Sunnah Sunni insurgents and Jaysh al-Mahdi Shia militiamen with

advanced training and a variety of weapons systems, including rockets, mortars, sniper

rifles, and explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs as previously described). The IRGC-QF

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060622_insurgency.pdf (accessed 15 November 2007). 46 Glen Rangwala, “The Interim Government of Iraq from 2003-06,” 1-10. http://middleeastreference.org.uk/iraqministers.html (accessed 29 December 2007). 47 Lieutenant General Conway quoted in Donna Miles, “Operation Matador Helping Flush Insurgents from Western Iraq,” Armed Forces Press Service, 10 May 2005, 1-2. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=31688 (accessed 30 December 2007). 48 Mathew Webster, “Operation Lightning: Iraqi Soldiers Strike at Terrorists in Taji,” Defend America-Army News Service, 10 June 2005, 1-3. http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/june2005/a061005pj1.html (accessed 30 December 2007). 49 Anthony Cordesman, Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2006), 36-38, revised working draft dated 22 June 2006. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060622_insurgency.pdf (accessed 15 November 2007).50 For example, Operation Steel Curtain, which involved US units along with 1,000 Iraqi army soldiers, helped clear AQI from the Euphrates River Valley and pave the way for Iraqis in Anbar province to vote in the December Parliamentary elections. 139 insurgents were killed, 256 captured. See “Operation Steel Curtain Concludes along Iraq-Syria Border,” American Forces Press Service, 22 November 2005, 1-2. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=18236 (accessed 31 December 2007). 51 MNF-I, “Overall Weekly Iraq Attack Trends,” unpublished briefing slides on file at the US Army Combat Studies Institute; David Walker, Enemy Initiated Attacks in Iraq (Washington, DC: GAO, 2007), GAO-07-1048R, 3. http://www.gao.gov/news.items/d071048r.pdf (accessed 31 November 2007). 52 Senator McCain’s comment quoted in Walter Pincus, “CIA Studies Provide Glimpse of Insurgents in Iraq,” The Washington Post, 6 February 2005, A.19. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1508-2005Feb5?language=printer (accessed 31 December 2007). 53 Walter Pincus, “CIA Studies Provide Glimpse of Insurgents in Iraq,” The Washington Post, 6 February 2005, A.19. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1508-2005Feb5?language=printer (accessed 31 December 2007); the 15,000 insurgent figure also appears in Glenn Robinson and Kalev Sepp, “Current Insurgency in Iraq in the Context of Historical Islam,” unpublished presentation to the Conference on Understanding Terrorist Networks and Organizations, Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey, CA, 7 April 2005, 3. 54 General John Abizaid quoted in Bryan Bender, “US General Says Troops Question Support,” Boston Globe, 24 June 2005, 1-3. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/24/us_general_says_troops_question_support/ (accessed 14 November 2007). 55 Michael Eisenstadt and Jeffery White, “Assessing Iraq’s Sunni Arab Insurgency,” Military Review 86, no 3 (May/June 2006): 34-35. 56 Michael Eisenstadt and Jeffery White, “Assessing Iraq’s Sunni Arab Insurgency,” Military Review 86, no 3 (May/June 2006): 34-35. 57 See for example Robert Kitrinos, “The Insurgency in Iraq: An Overview (December 2005) Part II, unpublished US State Department briefing presentation last edited 12 December 2005, 9, on file at the US Army Combat Studies Institute; Glenn Robinson and Kalev Sepp, “Current Insurgency in Iraq in the Context of Historical Islam,” unpublished presentation to the Conference on Understanding Terrorist Networks and Organizations, Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey, CA, 7 April 2005, 4; James Baker and Lee Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006),

53

also established a series of Hezbollah-like secret cells in Baghdad to gather intelligence

regarding Coalition and ISF operations and to facilitate clandestine missions.149 Iranian-

backed Shia extremist elements that had broken away from radical Shia cleric Muqtada

al-Sadr’s Mahdi army were by early 2007 referred to as “special groups.”150 Iranians also

paid Iraqi insurgents rewards and bonuses for shooting down US aircraft, bombing

10. 58 Kalev Sepp, Assistant Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Post Graduate School, implied that recruiting of new insurgents in Iraq was relatively easy when he noted, “Every week [we] kill more and capture more, yet there are more insurgents than there were when we started.” Quoted in George Packer, “The Lessons of Tal Afar,” The New Yorker, 10 April 2006, 3. 59 Richard Boudreaux and Borzou Daragahi, “Referendum in Iraq: Sunnis Join Millions for Iraq Charter Vote,” Los Angeles Times, 16 October 2005, A.1. 60 US Department of State - Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Country Reports on Terrorism,” 28 April 2006, 4. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/64344.htm (accessed 3 January 2008). 63 Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts, “Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: a Cross-sectional Cluster Sample Survey,” The Lancet 386, no 9545 (21 October 2006): 1421-1428.64 Ali Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 450-451.65 Amir Alkhuzai, et al., “Violence-Related Mortality in Iraq from 2002 to 2006,” The New England Journal of Medicine, 31 January 2008, 484-493. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMsa0707782 (accessed 10 January 2008). 66 “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq,” Report to Congress in accordance with Conference Report 109-72, October 2005, 18-19. www.defenselink.mil/pubs/20051013_publication_OSSRF.pdf (accessed 8 November 2007). 67 Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt described the whack-a-mole operational concept (fighting insurgents over and over again in the same location) in Donna Miles, “Iraqi Security Forces Steadily Improving, but Still Need Support,” American Forces Press Service, 29 November 2005, 1-2. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=18207 (accessed 20 November 2007). 68 Robert Kitrinos, “The Insurgency in Iraq: An Overview (December 2005) Part II,” unpublished US State Department briefing presentation last edited 12 December 2005, 46-49, on file at the US Army Combat Studies Institute. 69 General John Abizaid, “2006 Posture of the United States Central Command,” 14 March 2005, 9-10. http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/General%20Abizaid%20Statements/PostureStatement2006.htm (accessed 26 September 2007).70 US Department of State - Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Country Reports on Terrorism,” 28 April 2006, 4. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/64344.htm (accessed 3 January 2008).71 General John Abizaid, “2006 Posture of the United States Central Command,” 14 March 2005, 10. http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/uscentcom1/General%20Abizaid%20Statements/PostureStatement2006.htm (accessed 26 September 2007).72 International Crisis Group, “In their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency,” Middle East Report No. 50, 15 February 2006, i-ii. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3953 (accessed 28 November 2007).73 US Department of State - Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, “Country Reports on Terrorism,” 28 April 2006, 5. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2005/64344.htm (accessed 3 January 2008). 74 David McKeeby, “Iraqi, Coalition Forces Capture Top Insurgent Leader,” Current Issues, 6 April 2006: 1-2. http://www.usembassy.org.uk/iraq331.html (accessed 8 January 2008). 75 Evan Kohlmann, “Islamic Army in Iraq: A Response to Abu Omar al-Baghdadi,” GlobalTerrorAlert, 5 April 2007, 1. www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0407/iaionisi0407.pdf. (accessed 8 January 2008).

54

vehicles, and killing Coalition Soldiers. Locating and destroying Iranian-sponsored Iraqi

militias became a major focus of Coalition combat operations in 2007.151

76 Samir Haddad and Mazin Ghazi, “An inventory of Iraqi Resistance Groups: Who Kills Hostages in Iraq?,” Global Policy Forum, 19 September 2004: 2-3. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2004/0919overview.htm (accessed 8 January 2008).77 Sara Wood, “Petraeus: Interrogations Reveal Iranian Influence in Iraq,” American Forces Press Service, 26 April 2007, 1. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=32963 (accessed 8 January 2008). 78 US Department of the Treasury, “Fact Sheet: Designation of Iran Entities and Individuals for Proliferation Activities and Support for Terrorism,” 25 October 2007, 1-6. http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/hp644.htm (accessed 8 January 2008). 79 Bob Drogin, “Report: Iraq Insurgents Seeking Chemical, Germ Weapons,” The Seattle Times, 10 October 2004.80 Frontline, “Gangs of Iraq: The Anatomy of Civil War,” America at a Crossroads. http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/about/show_gangs_of_iraq.html (accessed 8 January 2008). 81 International Crisis Group, “In their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency,” Middle East Report No. 50, 15 February 2006, 2. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3953 (accessed 28 November 2007). 82 Kathleen Ridolfo, “A survey of Armed Groups in Iraq,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 4 June 2004, 3-4. https://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/iraqsurvey.pdf (accessed 19 October 2007). 83 Samir Haddad and Mazin Ghazi, “An Inventory of Iraqi Resistance Groups: Who Kills Hostages in Iraq?” Global Policy Forum, 19 September 2004, 1-7. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2004/0919overview.htm (accessed 8 January 2008).84 International Crisis Group, “In their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency,” Middle East Report No. 50, 15 February 2006, 3. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3953 (accessed 28 November 2007); Samir Haddad and Mazin Ghazi, “An Inventory of Iraqi Resistance Groups: Who Kills Hostages in Iraq?” Global Policy Forum, 19 September 2004, 1-7. http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/resist/2004/0919overview.htm (accessed 8 January 2008). 85 See for example Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2006), 171-176; International Crisis Group, “In their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency,” Middle East Report No. 50, 15 February 2006, 3. http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3953 (accessed 28 November 2007); and Human Rights Watch, “Iraq: Insurgent Groups Responsible for War Crimes,” 17, no 9 (3 October 2005): 13-34. http://hrw.org/reports/2005/iraq1005/iraq1005.pdf (accessed 21 November 2007). 86 Quoted in Multi-National Force-Iraq, “Terrorists Strike Shiite Shrine, Leaders Urge Restraint,” press release 23 February 2006, 1-2. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1533&Itemid=128 (accessed 9 January 2008). 87 Major General Rick Lynch, “Operational Update, February 23,” MNF-I press briefing, 23 February 2006, 3. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2122&Itemid=128 (accessed 9 January 2008).88 Michael Howard, “Sunni-Shia Schism Threatening to Tear Iraq Apart, Says Conflict Group,” The Guardian, 27 February 2006, 24.89 International Crisis Group, “Crisis Watch Search Results: Iraq, 1 March 2006.” http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?action=cw_search&l=1&t=1&cw_country=51&cw_date= (accessed 28 October 2007); For an even higher estimate of Iraqis killed see Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti, “Toll in Iraq’s Deadly Surge: 1300,” The Washington Post, 28 February 2006, A.1.

55

Conclusion – Different Faces of the Same Totalitarian Threat

“Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat,” President

Bush proclaimed in describing the enemy situation in Iraq during his 2007 State of the

Union Address, in which he also announced a troop surge of more than 20,000 additional

90 Quoted in Dan Murphy, “Attack Deepens Iraq’s Divide; Blast at a Major Shrine Set Off Widespread Shiite Protests,” The Christian Science Monitor, 23 February 2006, 1.91 Quoted in Dan Murphy, “Attack Deepens Iraq’s Divide; Blast at a Major Shrine Set Off Widespread Shiite Protests,” The Christian Science Monitor, 23 February 2006, 1.92 Described in Ali Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 444; Quoted in Dan Murphy, “Attack Deepens Iraq’s Divide; Blast at a Major Shrine Set Off Widespread Shiite Protests,” The Christian Science Monitor, 23 February 2006, 1. 93 Major General Rick Lynch, “Operational Update February 23,” MNF-I Press Briefing, 23 February 2006, 7-8. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2122&Itemid=128 (accessed 14 November 2007). 94 Quoted in “Official Says Iraqis Resisting Civil War,” CNN.com Interview, 26 February 2006, 1-2, accessed 11 January 2008 at http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/26/alrubaie.interview/index.html. 95 Anthony Cordesman, Iraq’s Evolving Insurgency and the Risk of Civil War (Washington, DC: CSIS, 2006), 51, revised working draft dated 22 June 2006 accessed 15 November 2007 at http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060622_insurgency.pdf. Later in 2006, Coalition commanders concluded that Haitham Sabah Shaker Mohammed al-Badri had been the mastermind behind the Golden Mosque bombing. Al-Badri was a high-value target and al-Qaeda’s emir in Salah ad Din province. He was killed by US Special Forces in August 2007, see Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, MNF-I Press Conference, 20 January 2008, 7-8. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16576&Itemid=131 (accessed 20 January 2008).96 Edward Wong, “Shiites Say US is Pressuring Iraqi Leader to Step Aside,” The New York Times (International), 28 March 2006, 1-2, accessed 29 October 2007 at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/28/international/middleeast/28cnd-iraq.html. 97 Quoted in Scott Peterson, “In Iraq, US Influence Wanes as Full Scale Civil War Looms,” The Christian Science Monitor, 20 March 2006, 1-2, accessed 10 January 2008 at http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0320/p10s01-woiq.html. 98 Quoted in Johnathan Finer and Bassam Sebti, “Sectarian Violence Kills Over 100 in Iraq,” The Washington Post Foreign Service, 24 February 2006, A01, accessed 21 October 2007 at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022300216.html. 99 Quoted in Bradley Graham, “US Looks to Baghdad to Deal with Violence,” The Washington Post, 24 February 2006, A11 100 “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq”, Report to Congress in accordance with Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2006 (Section 9010), May 2006, 38, accessed 8 November 2007 at http://www.defenselink.mil/home/features/Iraq_Reports/Index.html. 101 Nir Rosen, “Anatomy of a Civil War,” Boston Review, November/December 2006, 16-21, accessed 9 January 2008 at http://www.bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.php; See also Ali Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 447-448.102 “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq”, Report to Congress in accordance with Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2006 (Section 9010), May 2006, 29-31, accessed 8 November 2007 at http://www.defenselink.mil/home/features/Iraq_Reports/Index.html. 103 Quoted in Ali Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 449. 104 Terence Hunt, “Bush Could Switch on Drawdown,” The Kansas City Star, 13 January 2008, A15.

56

US forces.152 Sectarian violence had continued to grow in magnitude and intensity during

2006, prompting the National Security Council (NSC) to conclude that “the situation in

Iraq is unacceptable…our current strategy is not working. We did not have enough

forces before…it requires additional troops to deal with sectarian violence and bring

security to the people of Baghdad.”153 Meanwhile, Iraqi civilians were becoming

105 Terence Hunt, “Bush Could Switch on Drawdown,” The Kansas City Star, 13 January 2008, A15.106 Presentation by USAF Brigadier General Stephen Hoog, MNF-I Weekly Press Briefing, 15 June 2006, accessed 22 January 2008 at http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2017&Itemid=128. 107 Michael Hirsh and John Barry, “The Hidden General,” Newsweek.com, 26 June 2006, 1-4, accessed 15 January 2008 at http://www.newsweek.com/id/52445; President Bush quoted in John Burns, “US Strike Hits Insurgent at Safehouse,” The New York Times, 8 June 2006, 1-6, accessed 15 January 2008 at www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/middleeast/08cnd-iraq.html. 108 Quoted in Steven Donald Smith, “Zarqawi Survived Air Strike, Died Shortly After,” American Forces Press Service, 9 June 2006, 1-2, accessed 15 January 2008 at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=16086. 109 Lieutenant General Dell Dailey, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 15 January 2008, Washington, DC, 7. 110 Iraqi Security Forces captured Zarqawi, but did not recognize him and subsequently released him.111 Donald Rumsfeld, US Department of Defense News Transcript, 8 June 2006, 1, accessed 10 October 2007 at http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=32. 112 Lieutenant General George Casey quoted in John Burns, “US Strike Hits Insurgent at Safehouse,” The New York Times, 8 June 2006, 1-6, accessed 15 January 2008 at www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/world/middleeast/08cnd-iraq.html. 113 Major General William Caldwell, MNF-I Weekly Press Briefing, 15 June 2006, accessed 22 January 2008 at http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2017&Itemid=128. 114 Jonathan Finer and Joshua Partlow, “Kidnapped US Soldiers Found Slain,” The Washington Post, 21 June 2006, A1. www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060621/news_1n21iraq.html (accessed 28 January 2008).115 Kimberly Kagan, “Iran’s Proxy War against the United States and the Iraqi Government,” Iraq Report: Institute for the Study of War, May 2006 – August 2007, 15. www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/IraqReport06.2.pdf (accessed 15 January 2008).116 Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “National Intelligence Estimate: Prospects for Iraq’s Stability,” January 2007, 5-7. http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/wdc/documents/nie020207.pdf (accessed 17 November 2007).117 Attacks defined as including IEDs, VBIEDs, EFPs, underbelly devices, suicide bombers, indirect fire weapons, small arms and sniper fire. 118 Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, MNF-I Press Conference, 20 January 2008, 8. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16576&Itemid=131 (accessed 20 January 2008).119 “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq”, Report to Congress in accordance with Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2007 (Section 9010), March 2007, 17-19. http://www.defenselink.mil/home/pdf/9010_March_2007_Final_Signed.pdf (accessed 8 November 2007). 120 MNF-I data collected and compiled by the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx (accessed 3 December 2007).121 Patricia Butenis and Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno, “MNF-I Joint Statement Regarding the Assassination of Sheikh Abdul Sattar Bezia al-Rishawi,” 13 September 2007. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13989&Itemid=21 (accessed 17 December 2007).

57

increasingly frustrated with Coalition efforts to protect them from violence, regardless of

the source. “Force levels overall in Baghdad have been inadequate to stabilize a city of

its size,” NSC officials surmised in recommending an increase in OIF US troop strength

during an early-January Iraq Strategy Review briefing.154

122 “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq”, Report to Congress in accordance with Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2007 (Section 9010), March 2007, 17-19. http://www.defenselink.mil/home/pdf/9010_March_2007_Final_Signed.pdf (accessed 8 November 2007). Highly-calibrated machine tools and 20-ton hydraulic presses were required to form pure copper into the concave discs used in EFPs.123 “Iraq Puts Former Dictator to Death,” MNF-I Press Release, 30 December 2006, 1-3. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8655&Itemid=128 (accessed 25 January 2008).124 George Bush, “President Bush Statement on Saddam Hussein’s Execution,” American Forces Press Service, 29 December 2006, 1-3. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=2557 (accessed 25 January 2008). 125 Quoted in Rick Atkinson, “The IED Problem is Getting Out of Control – We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding,” The Washington Post, 30 September 2007, A13. 126 Quoted in Rick Atkinson, “The IED Problem is Getting Out of Control – We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding,” The Washington Post, 30 September 2007, A13.127 General (Ret) Montgomery Meigs, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 17 January 2008, Washington, DC, 4. 128 Quoted in Rick Atkinson, “The IED Problem is Getting Out of Control – We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding,” The Washington Post, 30 September 2007, A13.129 Rick Atkinson, “The IED Problem is Getting Out of Control – We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding,” The Washington Post, 30 September 2007, A13.130 Quoted in Rick Atkinson, “The IED Problem is Getting Out of Control – We’ve Got to Stop the Bleeding,” The Washington Post, 30 September 2007, A13.131 Rick Atkinson, “You Can’t Armor Your Way Out of this Problem,” The Washington Post, 2 October 2007, A01.132 Quoted in Rick Atkinson, “You Can’t Armor Your Way Out of this Problem,” The Washington Post, 2 October 2007, A01.133 General (Ret) Montgomery Meigs, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 17 January 2008, Washington, DC, 3.134 Michael O’Hanlon and Jason Campbell, “Iraq Index,” Brookings Institution, 21 December 2007, 17. https://www.brookings.edu/saban/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index20071221.pdf (accessed 3 January 2008). 135 Clay Wilson, “Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan: Effects and Countermeasures,” Congressional Research Service, 28 august 2007, 2.136 General (Ret) Montgomery Meigs, interview by Dr. Peter Connors, 17 January 2008, Washington, DC, 4.137 US Department of Defense, “DoD News Briefing,” 1 November 2007. http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/briefingslide/317/071101-D-6570C-005.jpg (accessed 29 January 2008); Michael O’Hanlon and Jason Campbell, “Iraq Index,” Brookings Institution, 21 December 2007, 17. https://www.brookings.edu/saban/~/media/Files/Centers/Saban/Iraq%20Index/index20071221.pdf (accessed 3 January 2008). 138 Quoted in Bobby Ghosh, “The Enemy’s New Tools in Iraq,” Time, 14 June 2007, 5. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1633081-2,00.html (accessed 28 January 2008).

58

President Bush endorsed the NSC troop surge recommendation and subsequently

authorized its implementation in mid-January. Specifically, the surge called for two

additional Marine Corps reinforced battalions (4,000 Marines) to clear out al-Qaeda and

Sunni terrorists in Anbar province and five additional US Army brigades to reinforce

units (Coalition and ISF) already in Baghdad – for an increase of 21,000 troops and a

total of approximately 160,000 US forces in Iraq. Also, additional US forces were to be

embedded with ISF units throughout Iraq. In his address, the President also established a

special congressional advisory council on the War on Terror and asked for authorization

to increase the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 Soldiers and

Marines.

President Bush also encouraged establishing strategic partnerships with moderates

in Iraq, be they Sunnis, Shias, or Kurds. He redefined the enemy as extremists of all

139 Quoted in Bobby Ghosh, “The Enemy’s New Tools in Iraq,” Time, 14 June 2007, 5. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1633081-2,00.html (accessed 28 January 2008).140 “Iraq: UN Calls for Immediate Action to Free Kidnapped Education Ministry Workers,” UN News Centre, 14 November 2006, 1. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20593 (accessed 30 January 2008).141 Lieutenant General Michael Maples, “The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 15 November 2006, 5. http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=2427 (accessed 29 January 2008). 142 General Michael Hayden, “The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 15 November 2006, 4. http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=2427 (accessed 29 January 2008); Quoted in Sara Wood, “Failure in Iraq Would Affect Region, World, Intel Officials Say,” American Forces Press Service, 16 November 2006, 1. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=2142 (accessed 30 January 2008).143 Lieutenant General Michael Maples, “The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 15 November 2006, 3. http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=2427 (accessed 29 January 2008). 144 Admiral William Fallon, “2007 Posture of the United States Central Command,” 3 May 2007, 4. http://www.centcom.mil/en/posture-statement/2.html (accessed 17 November 2007). 145 Ahmed Hashim, “Universal Adversary Order of Battle: Disaggregating the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq,” unpublished manuscript received 8 January 2008 and on file at the US Army Combat Studies Institute, 1-6.146 Ahmed Hashim, “Universal Adversary Order of Battle: Disaggregating the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq,” unpublished manuscript received 8 January 2008 and on file at the US Army Combat Studies Institute, 6-10.

59

sorts, noting in particular Shia extremists supported by Iran and Sunni extremists assisted

by AQI terrorists intent on forming an Iraqi caliphate. By 2007, the conflict in Iraq had

become one more of moderates vs. extremists, rather than simply Sunnis vs. Shias.

Additionally, continuing Iranian interference in Iraqi affairs led the President to order an

increase in operations against Iranians who were aiding and abetting extremists groups

inside Iraq.155 The United State’s strategic goal in Iraq never changed: A unified

democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an

ally in the War on Terror. Administration officials and Coalition commanders did,

however, sharpen several key objectives in this new 2007 phase of OIF:

Defeat al-Qaeda and its supporters and ensure that no safe haven exists in Iraq,

Support Iraqi efforts to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad and regain control over the capital,

148 General Michael Hayden, “The Current Situation in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, 15 November 2006, 4. http://www.armed-services.senate.gov/e_witnesslist.cfm?id=2427 (accessed 29 January 2008).149 General George Casey, “Pentagon Press Briefing,” 21 June 2006, 9-10. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1233&Itemid=128 (accessed 20 February 2008); General David Petraeus, “Opening Remarks to Congress,” Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee attended in-person by Dr. Peter Connors, 11 September 2007; General David Petraeus, “Opening Remarks to Congress: Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq,” 11 September 2007, 1-2. http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13963&Itemid=128 (accessed 19 February 2008); Sean Naylor, “Iran Deeply Involved in Iraq, Petraeus Says,” Army Times, 25 May 2007, 1. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/05/military_petraeus_iran_070523w/ (accessed 5 December 2007). 150 Brigadier General Michael Milano quoted in Patrick Quinn, “Extremists Attack Baghdad’s Green Zone”, Kansas City Star, 24 February 2008, A16. 151 Kimberly Kagan, “Iraq Report: Iran’s Proxy War against the United States and the Iraqi Government,” The Institute for the Study of War, May 2006-August 2007, 1-32. www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/IraqReport06.2.pdf (accessed 15 January 2008). 152 President George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address – 2007,” 23 January 2007, 5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/print/20070123-2.html (accessed 6 February 2008).153 “Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials,” 10 January 2007, 1-16. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070110-1.html (accessed 6 February 2007).154 “Highlights of the Iraq Strategy Review,” National Security Council, January 2007, 6. http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/iraq/2007/iraq-strategy011007.pdf (accessed 6 February 2008).155 Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: The New Way Forward in Iraq,” 10 January 2007, 1-3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/print/20070110-3.html (accessed 6 February 2008).

60

Ensure the territorial integrity of Iraq and counter destructive Iranian and Syrian activity in Iraq,

Help safeguard democracy in Iraq by encouraging strong democratic institutions impartially serving all Iraqis and preventing the return of the forces of tyranny,

Foster the conditions for Iraq national reconciliation with the Iraqi Government clearly in the lead,

Continue to strengthen Iraqi Security Forces and accelerate the transition of security responsibility to the Iraqi Government.156

One year later, President Bush reassessed the enemy situation in Iraq and reflected on his

decision to authorize the troop surge:

In Iraq, the terrorists and extremists are fighting to deny a proud people their liberty, and fighting to establish safe havens for attacks across the world. One year ago, our enemies were succeeding in their efforts to plunge Iraq into chaos. So we reviewed our strategy and changed course. We launched a surge of American forces into Iraq. We gave our troops a new mission: Work with the Iraqi forces to protect the Iraqi people, pursue the enemy in its strongholds, and deny the terrorists sanctuary anywhere in the country.157

In January 2007, however, the hostile environment in Iraq aroused a growing sense

of despair and hopelessness among the Iraqi people. Relentless violence persisted led by

Sunni insurgents, Shia militias, and AQI, all of whom actively resisted the US presence

in Iraq. Unabated clashes and inevitable reprisals between Sunnis and Shias were, by this

time, fundamental threats to peace and stability in the country. Clearly something had to

be done to prevent further deterioration of conditions in Iraq and to preclude a potential

Iraqi government breakdown. Would a surge in US troop strength be the answer? 156 “Highlights of the Iraq Strategy Review,” National Security Council, January 2007, 8. http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/iraq/2007/iraq-strategy011007.pdf (accessed 6 February 2008).157 President George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address – 2008, 28 January 2008, 6. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/01/20080128-13.html (accessed 6 February 2008).

61

How did Coalition forces fight the Iraqi insurgency in 2005 and 2006? Was “clear,

hold, and build” a successful strategy? Which counterinsurgency tactics worked and

which did not? Overall, coalition efforts fell short of detering the insurgency in Iraq,

despite heroic efforts. Likewise, continued progress on the Iraqi political front was not

sufficient to restrain the ongoing violence. In the United States, the will of the American

people to continue the fight in Iraq was wanning. Also, training Iraqi forces had become

a time-consuming, burdensome, process, and those units that were adequately trained

could not, on their own, stem the violence. A shift in strategy was necessary – a shift to

an updated strategy that placed primary emphasis on ensuring long-term security for

Iraqi citizens, particularly those in Baghdad.

62