Nir Rosen - Aftermath

“The Sons of Iraq turned out to be an excellent gamble yet arrived with a lot of baggage. Inspired from the Anbar Awakening and the success of Lieutenant Colonel Kuehl’s integration of the neighborhood watch in Amriya with 1-5 CAV, we adopted a program for recruitment of the concerned local citizens program, later known as the Sons of Iraq program, to support the Iraqi army security efforts in the area. The ability to get these guys on checkpoints inside the mahala and regularly talking to their neighbors increased the effectiveness and saturation of security in the area threefold and completed the ‘oil spot’ of security in the area. Being able to add upwards of three to six checkpoints and a constant patrol walking inside the mahala during this critical time of transition helped everyone out. At its peak we had enrolled over four hundred local residents in this program.”

Wilhite’s area “was less of an Al Qaeda stronghold and more of a transitory meeting area based on the terrain,” he explained. “In the fall, mainly in Dawoodi and Andalus, we would usually use just one platoon with an IA company and conduct meet-and-greet ‘soft knock’ patrols.” Most of the area was abandoned or had Sunni IDPs moving into the area. By searching abandoned homes for explosives and engaging local religious leaders, Wilhite’s troops kept a pretty good pulse on the situation. For the most part, except for some questionable embassy areas that were off-limits, things remained quiet. Typical insurgent tactics remained ineffective—they used “soda pop” IEDs (which had little or no effect against U.S. vehicles) and murdered government officials to little avail. “Our biggest worry,” Wilhite told me, “was that AQI would attempt to turn the area into a mini Amriya and Jamia.” This was doubtful, however. By that time most AQI fighters had fled from Baghdad because of pressure in those areas. Winter was very quiet. In the spring insurgents regrouped and began using different tactics. The standard IEDs became slightly larger and targeted only the Iraqi army, not U.S. forces. Insurgents began intimidating new markets that were popping up in the area by creating a diversion (usually an argument), leaving behind a satchel on time delay, and blowing up a store. They also began using stationary VBIEDs to target passing convoys and busy market areas.

In light of the shifting tactics, Wilhite said the Sons of Iraq provided vital intelligence. A few found out information about Al Qaeda cell meetings and even possible attacks in the area. “As you can guess,” Wilhite said, “Salim had a personal stake in running these guys down. Some informants led us to higher-level folks.” But, he said, he had been barred from discussing the details of these cases. AQI’s most effective attack targeted one of Wilhite’s dismounted patrols at a marketplace in southeastern Mutanabi. It was a suicide attack—the first and only time this method was used in the area.

Expulsion, displacement, and intimidation had been rampant before the JSS was built, but AQI’s ability to dump bodies and intimidate the populace decreased as U.S. forces established themselves in the area. Wilhite said they monitored the return of many families through the neighborhood council in the winter and spring of 2008, as conditions improved. The process for expulsion and displacement was fairly simple. Families were made to pay protection and rent to the Mahdi Army. If they didn’t pay, they were evicted, and if they didn’t leave, they were killed. Additionally, the Mahdi Army controlled propane, heating gas, and fuel in and around the mahala by forming a monopoly on the services provided to the populace. Local Shiite government complacency and corruption enabled this to occur.

Wilhite said he would characterize the Washash tribal leaders as Sadrists, or “White JAM.” They had full knowledge of the killings that occurred in 2006 and 2007 but did not act on this knowledge for fear of their own lives and well-being. During his tenure in eastern Mansour, Wilhite said, he always considered the Washash sheikhs’ council fairly useless and ineffective. “When they showed up at the neighborhood council meetings it was, ‘I want,’ ‘We need,’ ‘Give me this,’ ‘We are important,’ ‘No, there is no JAM in Washash,’ ‘No, I will not commit to anything,’ ‘Tell Americans to stop coming into Washash.’ Pretty frustrating.” U.S. forces eliminated the Mahdi Army’s influence by putting the pressure on early. They were assisted in this effort by the assassination of Mahdi Army militiaman Hamudi Naji, and by other counter-measures such as the construction of the wall to restrict movement, the establishment of Sons of Iraq to the south to prevent further expansion into Mansour, and the IA’s desire to patrol the area. Hakami’s indecision also helped—most reports showed him growing paranoid over not wanting to end up like Naji. “In the end,” Wilhite said, “I think JAM was dissolving when we left, not necessarily directly because of our actions but also because of the situation.”

Wilhite explained that he erected the walls around Washash in order to isolate the neighborhood and the Mahdi Army there from the rest of the population, and to prevent them from moving south. “We occasionally told Washash folks that the walls were to keep Al Qaeda out. Usually, we pushed this information campaign when AQI would detonate a car bomb in a Shia neighborhood. We told the people, ‘See, the walls keep you safe!’ We would say, ‘There are only two ways in, and the IA will not let a car bomb through the checkpoints. ’” Concrete was the order of the day during that time; walls went up around Khadra, part of Jamia, and Amriya. “If I was a cement contractor,” Wilhite said, “I’d be rich.” He ended up using concrete in Iskan, Dur Sud, Arabi, and part of Mutanabi as well. Wilhite felt that the walls were effective. Some Washash businessmen complained about losing customers, but he viewed this complaint skeptically. Iskan, Arabi, and Dur Sud all had cheaper prices and, Wilhite said, better products than Washash in the first place. He asked around about where folks went for food in the areas adjacent to Washash Market area.

Hamudi Naji had owned “Black JAM,” and it owned Washash, Wilhite reported. Naji’s men had their hands in everything. They had systematically taken over almost every Sunni home in Washash and rented it out to a Shiite family. Sunnis were given three options: pay an exorbitant amount of protection money and live there until Naji’s men told you to leave; leave in the next twenty-four hours to avoid being killed; or lose your house and your life immediately. Wilhite’s troops later found Sunni families murdered and buried in their backyards in different states of decomposition.

Naji’s group patrolled Washash much like a mafia gang. They had lookouts, and when the Americans would come on patrols or late-night raids, they used their own observation posts to describe the activity. When Wilhite’s group got too close, Naji’s group would often attempt to distract them with runners, gunfire, or distant explosions. Wilhite said his initial strategy was to stop focusing on Naji the individual (the agent of terror, the small-time warlord) and more on his apparatus (the organization itself). All intelligence always pointed to Naji, and Wilhite saw this as a liability. However, applying Petraeus’s COIN strategy to Dur Sud seemed new and made a lot of sense.

In Washash, numerous raids had failed to capture Naji. Wilhite wanted to weaken Naji’s network instead of constantly trying to catch the one guy who would supposedly make everyone’s problems go away. He attempted to identify all the unknown midlevel managers taking orders—weapons traffickers, IED makers, financial supporters, shift managers (including sergeants of the guard)—and used a JSS hot line to get information from Iraqis. Wilhite said his troop would sometimes take informants out with them and conduct raids to get information about a Naji-led killing. For the most part, they were successful.