The Redhunter

Q Sir, it's Kristin Roberts with Reuters. I'm hoping you can give us a little detail about your efforts to incorporate the CLCs or the Sons of Iraq, the local folks there, into the Iraqi security forces or other government jobs, specifically how many want to be transitioned into the ISF and how many have been already.

COL. MALAY: All right. Well, I need to point out to you right off the bat that the Sons of Iraq are common to the Ramadi-Fallujah area. In Al Anbar, we progressed way past that months ago, and we have Iraqi policemen, we have provincial security forces, we have Iraqi highway patrol and the Iraqi army. That constitutes the security forces that we work with out here.

Getting the population involved in it's own defense is a primary goal of counterinsurgency. Because of the difficulties and time involved in getting Iraqi Police (IP) and Iraqi Army (IA) units up and running, one of the things Petraeus did was start a "Concerned Local Citizen" groups throughout Iraq. These were essentially neighborhood watch programs on steroids. A few months ago the Iraqis renamed them Sons of Iraq. The original CLCs grew out of the Anbar Awakening movement.

The idea was to get something for neighborhood defense up and running asap, and then later recruit from the CLCs to build IP or IA units. What Col Malay is saying is that they have gone through the CLC/Sons of Iraq stage and have already turned them into IP or IA units.

Q Hi, Colonel. This is Courtney Kube from NBC News. You spoke about the successes you're having in some of the bigger cities in your area of operations, but I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the more rural areas that your Marines have been moving into in recent weeks, specifically down in the southwestern part, near Rutbah. Can you talk about the economic situation there? And then, are you seeing foreign fighters continuing to flow into that area, and weapons? Can you update us on that situation?

COL. MALAY: Certainly, Courtney. You know, we're still very much working the clear, hold, build aspect of the counterinsurgency. We're well past clear in all of the areas, to include Rutbah, and now what we're concentrating on is hold and build. The hold is fulcrumed on how well the Iraqi security forces are able to integrate into the city areas and then extend out into those rural areas that you're talking about.
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I wanted to comment quickly about the foreign fighters. Yes, they're still out there and we're still running into them, and we're finding them -- they're hard to find. They're hard to fix in place because they're running from us. But once we find them and we fix them, they're very easy to finish. We've had great success destroying them and a good portion of their network in the wadi systems, in particular around Rutbah.
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Q Can you give us any -- sort of quantify the foreign fighters Have the numbers gone up, gone down, since you've been there, or even since the last time you were in the area?

COL. MALAY: Oh, goodness, last time I was here was 2004 and they were coming across literally by the busload, full-up weapon systems, grenades, chest plates, chest rigs, the whole thing. It's completely different now. These guys are few and far in between. When they see us, they run like crazy. They're living in caves in the wadis. And there's very few of them now.

The first goal of counterinsurgency warfare is to secure the population. Only when this is done can political and economic progress take place, as was explained in the a href="http://theredhunter.com/2008/03/book_review_us_army_marine_corps_counterinsurgency_field_manual_324.php">>U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (FM 3-24)

The point here is that we have secured the population in Col Malay's AOR (Area of Responsibility), western Al Anbar. The enemy is on the run.

Q Colonel, it's Al Pessin from Voice of America. I was planning to ask something that you partly already answered, where you talked about how much clearing, how much holding, and how much building. It sounds like most of the -- most of your AOR is in the hold and build phase. Can you, again, try to quantify the percentages for clear, hold and build? And as you move more towards this role that you say you're already playing to a large degree, the overwatch role, when does that translate into an ability for that area to function without so many U.S. Marines there?

COL. MALAY: Well, we're already well -- (audio break) -- three months, we've gone from five battalions to three battalions. We've taken a 40 percent cut in our combat power and a 30 percent reduction of personnel in my area of operations. And we're doing quite well with that because we're thickening the Iraqi security forces.... And what we're seeing is tremendous response and positive atmospherics from the locals.

I recently did a patrol in Baghdadi and I asked the people, hey, have you seen any Takfiri -- said, we haven't seen them here in 18 months, and if they ever come back we'll kill them and lay them in the street for you.

So as you can see, we -- we're pulling back. I haven't had Marines out in that area in months and months and months. And it is still very peaceful, very prosperous. And people are very comfortable with the fact that the Iraqi security forces and their governing bodies are giving them what they need to get on with their lives in the 21st century.

Takfir - "rendering (Muslim) opponents infidels", the purpose of which is to purify Islam against those who, in this view, have corrupted it. A (rough) Western synonym might be "inquisition". A Takfiri is someone who has adopted this version of Islam.

Iraqis, at least the Sunnis in al Anbar, have taken to calling the al Qaeda "Takfiris". A sort of term of opprobrium, it shows how AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) has gone from being seen as allies against the infidel occupiers, to being seen as the lowest of the low. The Sunnis may not like us, but the hate AQI even more.

As such, we have been able to reduce our forces. All of this is very good news. Here's more on the same subject.

Q I have a question. Colonel, you were saying that a couple years ago you had a lot of foreign fighters running around in western Iraq there, western Anbar. Where did they come from? Were they, like, from Syria? Were they coming over the border from Syria, or where were they coming from? And how do you account for the reduction? Has the border been sealed off?

COL. MALAY: This was two years ago? I was in Fallujah. What I understood is a good many of them were coming across the Syrian border. And they came from all over the world. And why are they not here now? Well, quite frankly, I think we've killed a lot of them. I think that the enemy is having a more difficult time recruiting to the numbers that they had in the past. And no, they're not coming across.

As we all know our presence in Iraq attracted every Muslim who wanted to be the reincarnation of Saladin. It is pointless to argue whether this was part of a deliberate U.S. "flypaper" strategy or happened unexpectedly. What matters is that they came, they fought, and they died. And now they've not coming any more. Maybe they've gotten the message that the Democrats haven't; we're winning.

(In his closing) COL. MALAY: And no doubt about it, what I've seen in the last -- since I was here in 2004, it's mind-boggling the changes that have taken place here. I mean, we're past clear, we're past hold, and we're so far into build -- I mean, it's a civil society that we're building here.

For example, before, there was no government. There was no city council, and then we built one. But they couldn't drive around. You had to fly them anywhere before they could start to function. Now they get in their cars and they drive all over the place. They visit the governor at will. Places from al Qaim and Rutbah, they just get in the car, drive down the road, and they're taking care of business. So tremendous change, and if you're looking for a reason, it's because we've got some great servicemen and -women following orders and getting the job done out here.

Here the Col. somewhat contradicts his earlier statement that "what we're concentrating on is hold and build". It's a small matter, though. FM 3-24 makes clear that the nature of an insurgency can vary greatly from one village to the next, so in some areas we may still be more in the "hold" phase than others. In most of the briefings I've watched the commanders say that while AQI is on the run, it could come back if we're not vigilant.

After Somalia it became fashionable, on the right as well as the left, to say that we shouldn't engage in nationbuilding. The situation in Iraq has left us with little choice. We can either cut-and-run, which is what the left wants us to do (whether they like the term or not), or we can stay and make the country work. Staying involves nationbuilding.
As I have said many times, it's pointless to argue about the past. We are where we are. The good news is that if we stick to our current strategy we stand a very good chance of making Iraq work, which would be good for the U.S. and certainly for the Iraqis.