The Redhunter

GEN. HERTLING: ... When we arrived, there were nearly 1,800 attacks per month. Last week we had our lowest number of attacks in the north, with 108. When we arrived, there were four Iraqi army divisions in the north struggling to conduct operations above the company level, and there were about 55,000 Iraqi police. Nearly 75 percent of those were untrained. Today there are five Iraqi army divisions. They are conducting offensive operations at the brigade level, usually partnering with us. And they are beginning to build confident enablers, like engineers, explosive ordnance teams, intelligence and aviation. And there are 76,000 Iraqi policemen, and 70 percent of them are trained. And there's about a hundred women as well.

When we arrived, there were distrust of the central government, and the unemployment rate was staggering. For every two steps forward, we assessed, they were making one step back. Now there is improved coordination and communication between the government of Iraq and the provinces. And they are slowly executing provincial budgets, they are rebuilding infrastructure with their own dinars, and they are taking three to four steps forward for every one step back.

These actions were brought about not only by the desire of the Iraqi people but, frankly, by the performance of the U.S. military and a very small band of committed and selfless volunteers from the Department of State. The soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Provincial Reconstruction Teams that I have had the honor of serving with have been phenomenal. And I have been amazed as I -- as I've watched them make miracle happen.

We have had 104 of our comrades pay the ultimate price while we've been here, and 891 of our own have been wounded, some very seriously. Many more of our Iraqi brothers have experienced the same at the hands of an evil and committed enemy. At every memorial we rededicate ourselves to our motto, "Make these sacrifices matter." We try to do that, but our prayers are with the family members of our fallen as we complete this tour.

There are still enemies that need to be destroyed. The Iraqi government is still very fragile. And there is a need to polish the representative process and methods of infrastructure repair.

But despite the statistics and the assessments, the most dramatic change is one that only we get to see over here, and that's now a new hope in the eyes of the Iraqi people.

Hertling gives several reasons here for success

1. An improved Iraqi government. Trust, coordination, and execution of budgets have improved
2. The performance of the US military
3. The performance of the PRTs (Provisional Reconstruction Teams, the "volunteers from the Department of State")

The result has been a change in the attitude of the Iraqi people.

We have discussed the role of the PRTs previously on this blog. In a previous briefing a PRT leader described their function:

The chief role of the PRT is to teach, mentor and partner with provincial and local governments, civil society organizations and other provincial actors, increase their abilities, efficiencies, technical expertise and transparency.

A January 2007 story in the Washington Post tells us that the idea behind the PRTs was to move from massive construction projects to microfinancing of Iraqi entrepreneurs.

On to the Q & A.

Q Hi, General. It's Al Pessin from Voice of America. You've been there during a very key period when things went from spiraling downward to a much better situation. What would you say was the key, or the few keys, the most important factors in the turnaround in your area?

GEN. HERTLING: Well, I think a couple things, Al. I think, first of all, as I said in the opening comments, it's been the military that's been here as well as the work of the members of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams.

That's certainly been a factor.

I think in some parts of the north -- and you know how big the northern area is; it's about the size of the combined states of Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland and Vermont -- I think the -- in some of those areas, the rising up of the Sahwa, the awakening movements, in areas where they could rise up, was extremely helpful.

I think the Iraqi people themselves have really, as I've mentioned several times in these formats -- they're just sick of violence and they want to push the violence away from their society and get started again after 30 to 40 years of trauma at the hands of dictators.

But I think probably one of the more important facets of the improvements has also got to be placed right in the hands of the Iraqi security forces; the improvement in the army and the Iraqi police that have stood up over the last couple of years. That's always been the strategy, to get them to stand up to take responsibility for their own work, but today that's a reality. They're getting better and better every day.

And I think a combination of those factors -- the people wanting it, the U.S. military and our State Department friends assisting, and the standup of the Iraqi security forces have been the three keys to all of this.

I'm not sure if Pessin missed what Hertling said in his opening comments or was expecting more, but Hertling pretty much said the same thing, that the reasons for success in northern Iraq were:

1. The people wanting to end the insurgency
2. The assistance of the State Department Provisional Reconstruction Teams
3. The re-emergence of the Iraqi security forces as a potent force

Note that I said "keys for success in northern Iraq." There are or were several wars in Iraq, and because the problem was different in each one we used different techniques in each one.

While our military gets most of the attention, much credit must go to the PRTs and the Iraqis. In another part of the interview, Hertling says about the leaders of Iraq, civilian and military. At another point in the interview Hertling says a but more about how the Iraqis have stepped up:

GEN. HERTLING:... I'm confident that what we have allowed them to do is take on the security of their country. And what I'm seeing in the Iraqi army is some true patriotic leaders. They are in fact leading the way in terms of bringing this society into a representative government and a representative society. And they are fighting in very nationalistic terms for the future of Iraq. And it's heartwarming to see that.

In Pessin's next question we hear the word we've heard so often in these briefings; fragile. In briefing after briefing we hear the same thing; that we've pretty much got the insurgency beat but that it's too soon to just declare everything fine and solved. There are problems that require our presence, albeit at a much reduced level.

Q If I could just follow up, General: We almost always hear the word "fragile" along with declarations of progress in Iraq. How fragile or not fragile is it in your area?

GEN. HERTLING: Yeah, that's a great question.

What we've seen over this last -- these last 15 months is a coming together of the provincial governments -- the four provincial governments in the north with the government of Iraq. It's fragile because, frankly, they don't have the democratic processes and the bureaucracies that are needed in something like this. I mean, everything they do is starting from scratch.

Rule-of-law procedures -- I mean, you say, "Hey, you arrest criminals on the street; let's put them in jail." Well, the jails are bad. "And let's try them." Well, we don't have enough lawyers or judges. "Let's work the warrant process." Well, that doesn't exist in the rule of law, for example.

The budget execution problem -- I mean, we literally have budget offices in the four provinces that -- whereas we look at our state budgets as being executed with Excel spreadsheets, you walk into a budget office in Nineveh province, as an example, and these guys are there with big ledgers, opening up and literally writing billions of dinars worth of notes and contracts. There isn't the capability right now to hold people accountable for contract execution. Those are just some examples of the kinds of things we're talking about.

And then you throw into that, you've got an enemy that's affecting this, and in the north for the past several years, and it got extremely bad this year, there was a -- even a disaster of the drought, which affect the -- affected the agricultural area of the north.

So it's been interesting to watch everything, potentially, as a negative effect, but the Iraqi people have continued to fight this. They've fought the enemy. They fought the crisis of the drought. They've tried to put bureaucratic processes in place.

There is -- when we got here, and I think this is true throughout Iraq, nothing works right.

The infrastructure system, repair, the economy, all of the things were really in a very bad state. And that's why I would say it's fragile. And that's why you keep hearing many of the military and the civilian leaders say that it is fragile.

Maj. Gen. Hertling speaks to two things we didn't take into account before we invaded. One is cultural. The Iraqis have no tradition of pluralism or democracy.

The other is technical. We tend to forget, I think, just how backwards so many non-Western countries are.

Neither of these mean that we cannot succeed in Iraq. Our efforts to instill democracies in Germany and Japan at the end of WWII were criticized because it was pointed out that neither had a tradition of democracy, Japan less than Germany.

This said, it has been much commented on that we underestimated the cultural and infrastructure challenges in Iraq before we invaded. Once again we see that these criticisms were mostly correct.

Next, we'll look at upcoming elections, something that is crucial to building confidence in the government.

Q General, this is Joe Tabet with Al Hurra. When you say nothing is working right and when you say the situation is fragile, how long do you think the situation needs to be resolved? How long -- what the Iraqi government needs to do to help to fix this situation? And I don't know if you could give us, like, in terms of time, how long do you need to start drawing down in your area?

GEN. HERTLING: Well, again, I'm not going to address the drawing down issue. I'll let my senior commanders address that. But in terms of some of the things that the Iraqi government has to do, they're already doing them.

They are increasing -- as an example, they're increasing the visits of Deputy Prime Minister Rafi al-Issawi to all of the provinces. Within the last month, he has been to three of our four provinces. He's been to Diyala, to Nineveh and last week he was in Salahaddin, where he was making a connection with the government of Iraq to the provincial governments, and seeing what they needed, in terms of infrastructure repair. He's been tasked by the prime minister with synchronizing the various ministries to go after the things that the central government needs to do to support the provinces. That's number one.

I think the big thing that will occur is the provincial elections, which are now scheduled for, as you know, the late January, the January 31st time frame. That, in and of itself, will be huge in order to get elected officials into power that are answering directly to the people.

Right now, all of the governors of Iraq, to include our four governors in the northern provinces, had not been elected. They had been appointed. The governors are increasing the amount of time they're spending with their people.

But I think the provincial elections, what we will see in terms of more of a representative government, the election of a true elected official as the governor and the deputy governor and the provincial counsels, that will be critical in terms of representing all the people within each one of the provinces.

So those are really two examples of things that could happen. I think a third one is, what we have seen over the last three years is a -- fits and starts in terms of execution of provincial budgets. Within the last several months, there has been great gains by the fielding of some technological equipment to the various provinces, which will allow them to increase their capability of executing their budgets to better serve their people.

At the end of the day the people have to believe that their government represents them and has their interests at heart. We've heard this time and again from American military commanders in these briefings. Petraeus (his team, anyway) wrote about it in the U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24.

Next we'll do a human interest story.

Yes I know, anecdotal stories can be used to prove just about anything. And I'm not trying to argue from the specific to the general here, just relating a story that needs to be told. With this in mind I think it good though to step back from the geeky high-level analysis a bit and look at how close the partnership is between us and the Iraqis on a human level:

GEN. HERTLING:...The third one occurred about two weeks ago. That individual has confessed to the crime. But what was interesting about that particular incident is, the same day that made the news, the partnership with the American -- between the American army and the Iraqi army is so incredibly strong, the division commander called me, called -- the Iraqi division commander called me, called the regimental commander, called the battalion commander, offered his apologies. I happened to be up there that day. The Iraqi division commander literally was crying about the fact that someone within his ranks would have committed this act.

But that same day, we lost another soldier who -- and this is the part -- the kinds of things that don't get reported. And I'd just say this: The exact same day that many things were being reported about how there was infiltration within the Iraqi ranks, there was another soldier who slipped off a river bank in the Tigris River south of Mosul; another soldier jumped in to try and grab him, and drowned saving his life. Sergeant First Class Wilson drowned.

But when that body was lost, there were several Iraqis -- who didn't know Sergeant Wilson -- who entered that freezing water with that rapid current and searched for four hours for that body. This is the other side of the partnering, that sometime isn't recorded.

Finally, what can we look forward to in the future?

GEN. HERTLING:...I think when -- when you walk the streets of Mosul -- and I'd invite any of you to come over and -- well, not walk with me, because I'm leaving tomorrow, but walking with General Caslen -- what you will hear is the people not talking about security anymore. What they are now talking about is government and the economy.

And as soon as those two things are taken care of -- and I think they will be with the provincial elections -- we'll see a much stronger Mosul, and it will be the final destruction of al Qaeda in that particular city.

Previous Briefings by Maj. Gen. Hertling
Iraq Briefing - 06 October 2008 - Three Steps Forward, One Step Back
Iraq Briefing - 11 August 2008 - Going after al Qaeda with a Vengance
Iraq Briefing - 09 June 2008 - Job Creation to Defeat the Insurgency
Iraq Briefing - 11 Feb 2008 - AQI Is On the Run
Iraq Briefing - 22 Jan 2008 - Operation Iron Harvest
Iraq Briefings 15/19 November 2007