The Redhunter

COL. GRIGSBY: ...When we arrived, violent crime was out of control. Shop owners were extorted by criminal elements, and we were getting attacked about four to five times a day.

In our time here, murders have declined by greater than 50 percent, from 631 in '06 to 253 in '07. Shop owners are selling their goods in revitalized markets and we are now down to maybe one attack every other day.

We accomplished this by conducting doctrinally correct, sound, full-spectrum counterinsurgency operations on the fundamental base of conducting aggressive, intel-driven combat offensive operations. We wanted to bloody the nose of the enemy and make them fear us. We did bloody the nose of the enemy and the enemy does fear us, both coalition forces and Iraqi security forces.

We never forgot what a U.S. Army heavy brigade combat team is built to do: to close with and destroy the enemy. We killed 160 enemy combatants, detained more than 500 suspected criminals, 47 of which were division and brigade high-level individuals, or "most wanted." And we cleared every enemy sanctuary that existed prior to our arrival.
...

But beyond killing and capturing the enemy, we knew that we needed the good people of the Madain qadha to trust and respect us. While we were conducting 25 air assaults into enemy sanctuaries in the dead of the night, we were building relationships with the townspeople that we lived with as neighbors in the major population centers. Since we worked out of eight patrol bases and four joint security sites in the middle of population centers, we never commuted to work. We did not ride to work. When a combat patrol began each day, Sledgehammer Soldiers were already among their neighbors, living with them.

We built these relationships by trust, by treating local residents with dignity and respect and giving them their communities back. By taking extremists and criminals off the streets in Jisr Diyala, Wahida, Salman Pak, and Nahrawan, we emboldened the good people to step back into the traditional roles of leadership, leadership by the tribal leaders, leadership by local governmental officials rather than leadership by fear where individuals use murder, intimidation to control the masses.

The major population centers of the qadha all now have revitalized markets, health care facilities, water distribution systems, schools, and even some windmills.

These tactics are straight out of the U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24. If you're somehow not aware, this is the book written by a team led by then Lt. Gen. David Petraeus in 2006, and released in December of that year. It is the "bible" of U.S. troops in Iraq, and following its prescriptions is a major reason for our astounding success since then.

Continuing with Col. Grigsby's introduction

But with all positives in Iraq, our hold on this momentum and these gains is tenuous. To make these tenuous gains permanent, we will continue to hunt the enemy where he sleeps and we will continue to assist our Iraqi partners where they look to make improvements. We will continue to shake hands and build relationships during the daytime and kill or capture the extremists at night. We will never forget what a heavy brigade combat team is built to do. As I said earlier, we have been here for 15 months, so we are scheduled to soon redeploy. We have a lot of work to accomplish before we depart, however. We are integrating another combat-tested brigade, Colonel Pat White's 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, the Iron Brigade, into the Madain qadha, and they are iron-strong. ...

The Sledgehammer Brigade is the most deployed brigade in the Army, and our Sledgehammer Soldiers can be proud that we are leaving this country in a far better condition than we arrived. Just a couple days, a couple of the kids came up to me and said, "Sir, you know the difference between last time and this time is no kidding. We see the difference. We see the transformation from 15 months ago today. We see the gains that we've made."

I mentioned earlier that Col. Grigsby tended to evade directly answering many of the reporters questions, and that is true. But what is also interesting is that none of the reporters directly challenged his assessment of the situation.

The first exchange is representative:

Q Colonel, it's Andrew Gray from Reuters. Could you tell us something about the strength of Iraqi forces in your area? What kind of size of Iraqi security presence do you have and how capable are they? The fact that a new brigade is coming in to replace you, does that indicate they're not yet ready to take over security in that area?

COL. GRIGSBY: Well, that's a great question. We have some great Iraqi security forces in the Madain qadha. I was here in OIF 2, where we were just starting with the Iraqi security forces, and I can tell you over the last 15 months I see some great gains, the best I've seen in 37 months of combat.

We have an Iraqi National Police brigade that we focus a lot of effort on, the 3-1 National Police commanded by Brigadier General Emad. And they are the center focus of that Marne Dauntless operation. And they're conducting independent operations. He has an intel network and he goes out and he kills or captures extremists along with the 3-1 Cav and now 1-35 Armor.

We also have a great Iraqi army brigade that came into the southern portion of our battlespace which is a known brigade, the 35th, out of Baghdad. They came out to the Madain qadha -- saw the great gains. And they're keeping the southern portion of our battlespace free of the Sunni extremists. They're doing a great job.

And we continue to work with the Iraqi police. We will continue to partner with them. We'll continue to help them with their community policing within the towns so that when the common Iraqi comes out of their house, they will see that guy on the beat.

And we can't forget about the Sons of Iraq, the 7,000 Sons of Iraq, that has helped us with security, and their support in assisting the Iraqi security forces within the Madain.

And we are one of the surge brigades, but we're the only brigade that is being back-filled. And 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division will come out here and support and assist the Iraqi security forces within the Madain and take it to the next level.

Hope that answers your question.

Q Sure. Just to follow up, though, Colonel, does the fact that you need to be back-filled by another brigade indicate that they still have some way to go? What do they still need to do before they can take over security for their own area?

COL. GRIGSBY: I think it indicates that people see that the Madain qadha's a key piece of terrain. Before we came here there was maybe one or two companies coming across on the east side of the river -- Sunni extremists, Shi'a extremists and Persian influence were doing what they wanted to.

They no longer can do that. The Madain qadha has a government that's standing up. The Madain qadha has 70 percent agriculture, which was shown by a farmers' co-op we've done just two weekends ago, where over 1,500 farmers came and worked.

There's a lot of ways to go out here, not only with security, but also with the capacity build, with governance and economics. And the Baghdad government is starting to see, and they're bringing $86.1 million out here to help us out. I think we were backfilled because we see this as a key piece of terrain and we see that this also is a door into Baghdad and we can continue to interdict the accelerants, if they are out there, that may try to threaten Baghdad.

He didn't really answer Andrew's question, which means that although the Iraqis are making progress they're not ready yet to fully take over.

As for the gains being fragile (read "reversible"), this has been stated by commanders at all levels for months. I suppose you can compare it to WWII in late 1944. Things looked good for the allies, but as we discovered the enemy still had surprises for us; the Germans with what was termed the "Battle of the Bulge", and the Japanese with the kamikaze.

Lastly, this important information about R 'n R for the troops when they get home

Q Colonel, Nathan Hodge with Jane's Defence Weekly.

You mentioned, in your opening statement, a brigade had been deployed 41 months since 2002. You also mentioned the utility of a heavy brigade combat team in these kinds of operations.

When brigade returns back to home station, will you see the need for any kind of focus on things like the traditional operations that you would have -- high-end warfighting? What kinds of things does the brigade need to focus on when it returns to home station?

COL. GRIGSBY: We always need to remember that we're a heavy brigade combat team. But I tell you what, these boys have been fighting for 15 months. And as we go home, we're going to go home. We're going to give them a 48-hour pass.

We're going to go through 10 half-days deliberate training, dictated by Major General Rick Lynch, on 10 half-days of reintegration training. As we get all the soldiers back into the Fort Benning, back into Fort Benning and their family members, and make sure that's straight.

And then we'll give them 30 days of leave or more, and they'll come back off of leave rested.

We'll do some leadership changes, and then we'll start conducting some individual training.

But during that first six months, these soldiers won't train at night. These soldiers will have Thursday afternoons off, called Marne family time, and these soldiers won't train on the weekends. So we get these guys back with their families. That's the most important thing.

And then as the leadership changes over in the December-January time frame, we'll start it again, but we'll start off like a heavy brigade always starts off. We'll focus on marksmanship, killing what we shoot at. We'll focus on maneuver. All this stuff, we'll focus on synchronized and indirect fire and attack aviation. Everything that built a fundamental base of this heavy brigade combat team.

And just as a side note, as we go back, this brigade on 17 February made its reenlistment objectives on 17 February, five months into the fiscal year. We made that along with the great 3rd ID. So we have soldiers not only that want to stay in the Army, they want to stay at Kelly Hill and continue to get after it. And I couldn't be more proud of them.

That's time off well deserved.

Bottom line, nothing in this briefing leads me away from my oft-stated conclusion that our gains are real and if current trends continue we will win, which means a stable, at least somewhat democratic Iraq that is an American ally.

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