The Redhunter

The Iraqis are getting better too. In Part III, Yon describes his time with American Marines who took a welcome back seat to the Iraqi Army.

While al Qaeda runs and hides, stuffing its death-cult down the throats of Iraqis in other areas, out in Anbar, once its domain, American Soldiers and Marines are increasingly able to go in small numbers out on patrols with Iraqis. This morning, only two Marines accompanied an Iraqi-led foot patrol several miles through an Iraqi village. It is important to note that at the time of this patrol, Soldiers who had recently been kidnapped elsewhere in combat were still missing. With no backup, our guys are able to perform such patrols in many parts of Iraq.

In a fascinating report that you must read in it's entirety, Mario Loyola tells of innovative techniques by which we are "demolishing al Qaeda in Iraq."

The impetus for Phantom Strike was, in a way, born in Washington, where Congress created a series of benchmarks for progress in Iraq by mid-September, at which point an "interim report" is required from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander. The legislation inadvertently (perhaps "negligently" is a better word) created a "Tet" opportunity for al Qaeda here. If it can dominate headlines with spectacular mass-casualty suicide attacks in the days and weeks leading up to the report, the political climate in Washington might turn irretrievably against the military effort, thereby snatching a victory for the terrorists that they have failed to win on the ground. (Just as the Viet Cong's Tet offensive in 1968, while a military debacle for them, convinced U.S. media and political elites that that war was lost.) With this in mind, operational planners earlier this year began laying out a strategy to disrupt al Qaeda's ability to carry out the expected attacks.

Learning from past mistakes, commanders of the "surge" forces now take territory only if they can hold it. But for certain elements of Phantom Strike, they are making an exception to that rule. Divisional commands across Iraq have been instructed to cash in their accumulated intel and attack insurgents where they are most likely to be hiding--whether it makes sense to hold the territory or not. In planning rooms across the central third of Iraq, commanders looked at their target wish-lists--places where they had taken fire in the past, or tracked possible insurgents, or gotten credible tips from the population--and chose the most enticing ones.

and also

Operation Marne Husky is just such a disruptive operation. Most of General Rick Lynch's 3rd Infantry forces are committed to massive "clear control and retain" (CCR) operations in his area. He was therefore somewhat short of troops to contribute to Phantom Strike activities. But he wasn't short on targets. His operations have produced a steady stream of al Qaeda and other insurgents fleeing further south for safety, mostly to an area on the Tigris known as the Samarrah jungle. Flushed from their safe havens, and tracked by intel, the insurgents were now vulnerable--in some cases, sitting ducks. Once the Phantom Strike guidance gave Lynch the order to attack, all he needed was a little ingenuity to come up with the right assets.

The 3rd Infantry Division headquarters has a combat air brigade with more than a hundred helicopters. Marshalling other support services, and mustering a company of crack infantry freed up by the dramatically reduced tempo of operations in Anbar, Lynch put together an ad hoc unit for targeted strike operations, rather like a special forces contingent. In the first week of operations, this small force killed seven fighters and detained 64 suspects including 14 high-value targets, clearing nearly 120 structures in the process.

Such results are an early return on investment for the doctrines developed by Petraeus. The Counterinsurgency Field Manual, formulated under his command and released last December, chews through a lot of theory to arrive at one basic practical tenet: "Intelligence drives operations." The counterinsurgency manual specifies that being able to distinguish between insurgents and civilians is the key to victory.

The only way to do that is to provide protection for the population, enfranchise them, and enlist their help in identifying the insurgents. This creates a virtuous circle--security operations produce good intel which produces better security operations and in turn better intel. The CCR operations in and around Baghdad have produced a trove of actionable intelligence on al Qaeda--its movements, its senior leaders, and the sources and locations of its weapons, explosives, and bomb-making equipment. Phantom Strike has capitalized on that intel, further reducing al Qaeda's capacity to attack, which has improved security and increases the population's confidence in the Coalition and in the Iraqi Security Forces.

What's particularly interesting is that Loyola was not a supporter of the surge. In many postings on NRO's The Corner blog earlier this year in which he said that sending more troops wouldn't help. If they went there to do the same thing as we'd been doing, he'd have been right.

In an interview on Meet the Press, New York Times journalist Michael Gordon makes the point that we're not just "giving the Sunni tribes arms", as some allege, but changing the way we build reconciliation

The most important initiative going on in Iraq now is this effort to build reconciliation, as it were, from the ground up, instead of the top down, to enable these Sunni groups and try to get them to work with the government. That’s become really, I think, the centerpiece of the plan, more so than these benchmarks, which are more discussed in Washington than in Baghdad. And I think the success or failure of that over the next three or four months will determine the shape of the war in Iraq.

But if you're hoping for fair reporting from the rest of the New York Times forget it. Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard tells an unbelievable story about bias that'll make your heard spin. Apparently it's ok to publish statements by anti-war soldiers, but not ones that think we are succeeding and can win.