Iraq War, Surge

President George W. Bush, on January 10, 2007, announced that the US would surge at least 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, to improve security in the Baghdad to a point where the remaining Iraqi Security Forces could control violence from Iraqi sects and foreign sources.

Intended to be more policing and engaging directly with the people, the approach was "population-centric" rather than "enemy-centric."

Context

Linda Robinson, a journalist and author of Tell me how this ends: General Petraeus and the search for a way out of Iraq, was invited to discuss the general situation with the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. While her talk focused on the surge, she said it was necessary to set a context, and began by saying that the insurgency was caused by the early decisions of the US Coalition Provisional Authority for debaathification and disbanding of the Iraqi military. While an insurgency was already in progress January 2005, the next contributor was having an election that was boycotted by the Sunni comunity. This election created the body that would write the constitution. Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad made an "agreement was made that there would be constitutional revisions considered and implicitly a guarantee that some at least would be adopted within four months of the seating of the new parliament. And that agreement was never honored, still has not been to this day."

Planning

It was a campaign, ordered by GEN David Petraeus, the senior commander of coalition forces in Iraq (Multi-National Force-Iraq and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Planning was by a Joint Strategic Assessment Team led by COL H. R. McMaster (U.S. Army) and David Pearce (U.S. State Department). Operational control would be under Multi-National Corps-Iraq, under LTG Ray Odierno, with tactical operations under Multi-National Division-Baghdad, built around the 3rd Infantry Division under MG Rick Lynch.

Implementation

American infantry in the Baghdad area, prior to the surge, tended to operate in larger units, often supporting Special Operations forces making raids on time-sensitive enemy targets. As the surge began, the emphasis changed to a combination of patrolling, often on foot, and manning security outposts among the population. The US troops partnered with Iraqis, both from the army and police, but also local tribal or other authorities.

Kilcullen, visiting the 1/325 Airborne battalion, said they had reduced their casualties since the start of 2007, because they were vulnerable to ambushes and IEDs while "commuting to the fight". When, for example, they were based in a police station, they could react to problems immediately, but also make it harder to infiltrate the Sunni areas in which the security forces were concentrated.

Larger operations began in June, which Odierno called the true beginning of the surge. This was intended both to clear insurgent bases outside the city, and to support the local security operations within it.

Evaluation and recommendations

Opinions of its effectiveness vary with the source. It clearly reduced violence, but the issue of whether Iraqi forces can sustain the security is an open issue, fraught with complexity, and sometimes viewed through an ideological prism. Nevertheless, it is an attempt to deal with a situation where there are no ideal options.

In January 2008, Senator Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) termed the surge a failure.

Thomas Ricks said the American people have difficulty in understanding:

1. "how difficult the surge was and how different it was from the previous four years of the war
2. that the surge failed, judged on its own terms
3. the war is not over. In fact, I suspect we might be only halfway through it, which is to say that President Obama’s war in Iraq may well be longer than George Bush’s war in Iraq, which was five years and ten months old when Bush left office."

Ricks also describes the surge as demonstrating a new humility in the US approach to the war. Emphasizing how much of a change it was, he said "With the advent of the surge, the Army effectively turned the war over to its internal dissidents." GEN Petraeus took command after being deeply involved in a writing a counterinsurgency manual, the guidelines of which were not followed in the first year of the war. Ricks says Ambassador Ryan Crocker "reveals in my book that he had essentially opposed the original invasion of Iraq."

What is the potential outcome? Ricks said that

The best-case scenario is that Iraq isn’t going to look anything like a success to Americans. It’s not going to be democratic, it’s not going to be stable, and it’s not going to be pro-American. Ambassador Crocker predicts in the book that the future of Iraq is probably something like Lebanon today. Most of the other experts I’ve talked to consider that wildly optimistic.

In March 2009, House Republicans introduced a resolution, agreed to be symbolic, Its sponsor, Rep. Steve King(R-Iowa) "called it less of a criticism of Mr. Obama and more of an encouragement that he 'expand on the victory rather than walk away...Our military has achieved a definable victory, and I want to tell them that America appreciates them...They've left a legacy and it's up to the new leadership to preserve and enhance the victory they've achieved.'"

On a positive side, as of August 2009, US casualties were the lowest since the invasion, and the death toll for civilians dropped from July.