GIs focus on survival and nurse doubts in Iraq
GIs focus on survival and nurse doubts in Iraq
By Michael R. Gordon
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 3, 2006
HIT, Iraq Soon after Specialist Michael Potocki was shot and killed in June, the soldiers in his platoon agreed on their goal for the months ahead: to survive and make it home alive.
Survival may be the only thing the troops here agree on. The first death of a comrade in battle is always an emotional shock, and the views from the foxhole here are probably as varied as the 34 soldiers.
Still, in this hostile stretch of western Iraq, some of the troops have begun to wonder if the presence of U.S. forces here is worth the cost in American lives.
The vision at the top is that the forces here are a small but vital part of the counterinsurgency campaign, which requires patience and continued sacrifice until newly minted Iraqi forces are ready to take over.
"The coalition needs to leave, but not too fast," says Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Graves, who commands Task Force 1-36, the army unit responsible for securing the town.
Staff Sergeant Ryan Poetsch, who did a previous tour in Baghdad and serves in Potocki's platoon, acknowledges that he does not always have the big picture. But he does have a view from the streets in Hit and questions the strategy.
"As a soldier, I am going to do whatever we got to do," he said. "As a personal opinion, I don't think we need to be in this city, period. How much money and how many soldiers is it going to take when these people don't want our help? They just don't. We don't even know who we can trust."
Hit is a tough assignment. The predominantly Sunni town of some 65,000 sits astride the Euphrates in Anbar Province. Saddam Hussein hid in the nearby palm groves soon after escaping from Baghdad in April 2003, a telling indication that the town contained more than a few supporters of the old order.
The overstretched U.S. military got off on the wrong foot here.
In the year before Graves's task force arrived last February, an array of American units rotated through the area, a pattern that made it more difficult for the United States to cultivate relationships with the locals.
The current task force's deployment will last a year, but the mechanized unit has only some 600 troops - far fewer than some of its predecessor units. Many of the city's residents believe that the surest way to put an end to the roadside bombings, sniper attacks and mortar rounds would be for the Americans to deprive the insurgents of their target by leaving.
Graves seems to have the perfect résumé for the job.
A native of Killeen, Texas, he did a stint on a task force that studied the lessons of the Iraq invasion and served a previous tour as the army wrestled with insurgent-infested Ramadi. Lean, taciturn and focused, he often jogs around the perimeter of his camp on Hit's outskirts, in part to help him think about the decisions ahead.
Hit's police force was overrun by the insurgents last year, and Graves has told the town elders that U.S. forces will not leave Hit before a new police force is recruited, trained and on the streets.
Soon after a July police recruiting drive ended, he got into an armored Humvee and headed downtown to hear what the imams were saying at the local mosques. An interpreter scribbled down a sermon blasting from a loudspeaker. It implored the faithful not to cooperate with their occupiers.
Still, the colonel says he is making headway.
"Given where I was in Ramadi, I see progress," he said. "In January 2005 we could not get anybody in Ramadi to participate in the political process. Now you have the citizens of Hit who at least understand that process even if they don't necessarily agree with it."
A 34-year-old marine reservist from Detroit, Major Brent Lilly, leads the civil affairs team. A practicing Muslim who speaks some Arabic, his goal is to improve the city's ailing infrastructure, show the Iraqis that the Americans can be trusted and pick up some useful intelligence along the way.
The military has distributed $100,000 for sewage, water distribution and other projects, and has plans to spend much more if security improves. Lilly, however, is under no illusion about the difficulty of winning over the city's residents.
"Over all, they just tolerate us," he said. "We're here, and they have no other recourse but to tolerate us. The great majority want us to go home."
Al Qaeda figure arrested
U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior figure in Al Qaeda in Iraq, National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said on Sunday, Reuters reported from Baghdad.
"I can say al Qaeda in Iraq is severely wounded," he said at a news conference.
He named the man as Hamed Juma Faris al-Suaidi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, and said he was the deputy to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over the insurgent group after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.
By Michael R. Gordon
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 3, 2006
HIT, Iraq Soon after Specialist Michael Potocki was shot and killed in June, the soldiers in his platoon agreed on their goal for the months ahead: to survive and make it home alive.
Survival may be the only thing the troops here agree on. The first death of a comrade in battle is always an emotional shock, and the views from the foxhole here are probably as varied as the 34 soldiers.
Still, in this hostile stretch of western Iraq, some of the troops have begun to wonder if the presence of U.S. forces here is worth the cost in American lives.
The vision at the top is that the forces here are a small but vital part of the counterinsurgency campaign, which requires patience and continued sacrifice until newly minted Iraqi forces are ready to take over.
"The coalition needs to leave, but not too fast," says Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Graves, who commands Task Force 1-36, the army unit responsible for securing the town.
Staff Sergeant Ryan Poetsch, who did a previous tour in Baghdad and serves in Potocki's platoon, acknowledges that he does not always have the big picture. But he does have a view from the streets in Hit and questions the strategy.
"As a soldier, I am going to do whatever we got to do," he said. "As a personal opinion, I don't think we need to be in this city, period. How much money and how many soldiers is it going to take when these people don't want our help? They just don't. We don't even know who we can trust."
Hit is a tough assignment. The predominantly Sunni town of some 65,000 sits astride the Euphrates in Anbar Province. Saddam Hussein hid in the nearby palm groves soon after escaping from Baghdad in April 2003, a telling indication that the town contained more than a few supporters of the old order.
The overstretched U.S. military got off on the wrong foot here.
In the year before Graves's task force arrived last February, an array of American units rotated through the area, a pattern that made it more difficult for the United States to cultivate relationships with the locals.
The current task force's deployment will last a year, but the mechanized unit has only some 600 troops - far fewer than some of its predecessor units. Many of the city's residents believe that the surest way to put an end to the roadside bombings, sniper attacks and mortar rounds would be for the Americans to deprive the insurgents of their target by leaving.
Graves seems to have the perfect résumé for the job.
A native of Killeen, Texas, he did a stint on a task force that studied the lessons of the Iraq invasion and served a previous tour as the army wrestled with insurgent-infested Ramadi. Lean, taciturn and focused, he often jogs around the perimeter of his camp on Hit's outskirts, in part to help him think about the decisions ahead.
Hit's police force was overrun by the insurgents last year, and Graves has told the town elders that U.S. forces will not leave Hit before a new police force is recruited, trained and on the streets.
Soon after a July police recruiting drive ended, he got into an armored Humvee and headed downtown to hear what the imams were saying at the local mosques. An interpreter scribbled down a sermon blasting from a loudspeaker. It implored the faithful not to cooperate with their occupiers.
Still, the colonel says he is making headway.
"Given where I was in Ramadi, I see progress," he said. "In January 2005 we could not get anybody in Ramadi to participate in the political process. Now you have the citizens of Hit who at least understand that process even if they don't necessarily agree with it."
A 34-year-old marine reservist from Detroit, Major Brent Lilly, leads the civil affairs team. A practicing Muslim who speaks some Arabic, his goal is to improve the city's ailing infrastructure, show the Iraqis that the Americans can be trusted and pick up some useful intelligence along the way.
The military has distributed $100,000 for sewage, water distribution and other projects, and has plans to spend much more if security improves. Lilly, however, is under no illusion about the difficulty of winning over the city's residents.
"Over all, they just tolerate us," he said. "We're here, and they have no other recourse but to tolerate us. The great majority want us to go home."
Al Qaeda figure arrested
U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior figure in Al Qaeda in Iraq, National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie said on Sunday, Reuters reported from Baghdad.
"I can say al Qaeda in Iraq is severely wounded," he said at a news conference.
He named the man as Hamed Juma Faris al-Suaidi, also known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, and said he was the deputy to Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over the insurgent group after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June.
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