The U.S. finally has a coherent Iraq policy, but hurdles remain

BAGHDAD — Last Thursday, Gen. David Petraeus addressed a gathering of hundreds of Sunni sheiks in flowing robes — including some who were attacking his soldiers around the capital not long ago.

This is the new Baghdad, where security has improved as tens of thousands of former Sunni insurgents have recently turned against al-Qaida in Iraq (AIQ) and smashed it with U.S. help. Many of these Sunnis are now on the U.S. payroll. But no one is certain whether these security gains will hold after the extra U.S. “surge” troops are withdrawn as scheduled by next July, or whether Iraq will slip back into brutal sectarian warfare.

So I asked Petraeus in an interview how he assessed the current situation and the post-surge future. We spoke in his Baghdad office, in Saddam’s garish former palace that now houses a warren of U.S. government offices.

“I think it is going the way we wanted in Baghdad and the belts around Baghdad,” he replied. “We have done considerable damage to al-Qaida in Iraq. Anbar is transformed,” he added, referring to the Sunni province once home to the toughest insurgents and a base for AQI.

Then he paused. “Tenuous is the right word to describe the situation,” he said, “and you won’t find any military commanders doing victory dances in the end zone.”

Petraeus is right to be both confident and wary.

Something new

The security progress of recent months results largely from a new military and political strategy that reverses the haphazard, incoherent U.S. Iraq policies of the past four tragic years.

Back in October 2003, when I first met Petraeus as commander of the 101st Airborne based in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, he was implementing a counter-insurgency strategy with this central principle: Winning over local Sunni tribal leaders was a higher priority than military action. The sheiks were given economic aid and jobs to get the economy restarted, and their men were hired into a new local security force.

But, back then, there was no coherent U.S. political military strategy for the whole of Iraq. In Anbar province, the Sunni heartland, the U.S. focus was on military attacks, and tribal leaders were treated crudely and brusquely; in fall 2003, I heard several complain bitterly when I visited Anbar. They soon became supporters of the insurgency and AQI.

Now Petraeus has made a new army counterinsurgency doctrine the basis of the military approach in Iraq — a doctrine that stresses flexibility and winning the support of local people. He says that U.S. commanders and troopers “get it,” that “we are finally seeing the cumulative impact of changes in our new counterintelligence manual. Mission rehearsals in California used to [simulate] mechanized forces colliding in the Mojave desert.” But now the exercises simulate the challenge of dealing with Iraqi villagers and townsmen, with “thousands of Iraqi speakers playing roles.”

We can now see the new doctrine in action. When tribal leaders in Anbar turned against AQI because it had had started persecuting local Sunnis, and when these sheiks asked for American backing, an army commander in Anbar took a chance and agreed to support them. (In 2006, U.S. commanders rebuffed similar requests.) Now the U.S. support has become massive.

An ‘awakening’

Petraeus credits the Anbar movement, known as “the Anbar awakening,” with creating a “dramatic shift. There was a critical mass of popular opposition to al-Qaida in Anbar, and it rippled down the Euphrates Valley and around Baghdad.” Now tribesmen do most of the policing in Anbar, and there are about 70,000 tribal fighters assisting U.S. forces in Baghdad and elsewhere.

But the general recognizes the fear of the Shiite-led government that these groups could morph into violent Sunni militias, or be infiltrated by members of al-Qaida. “You work very hard to get them transitioned into the Iraqi police,” he says. For the large numbers who don’t qualify, “we’re developing a lot of programs, a civil service corps.” U.S. funds will pay for this Sunni job corps at first, but the Iraqi government has pledged around $150 million to match the U.S. funding.

Petraeus says the program “saves double the cost per month in the number of U.S. military vehicles not lost to insurgents, not to mention the lives.” He is also trying to win Sunni hearts and minds by hastening the release of thousands of Sunnis detained in U.S. prisons.

But to co-opt the insurgency, and prevent renewed fighting, there must be progress at political levels.

Petraeus says, with excess generosity, “the political piece is sputtering along. None of this is smooth.”

But he adds that, though top political leaders haven’t passed “benchmark” laws, “there is reconciliation in many provinces in a way not yet reflected at the top.” One hope is that the Anbar Awakening may morph into new, nonsectarian political groupings more willing to deal with Shiite leaders than the current Sunni political parties.

Petraeus recognizes that unless Sunnis feel integrated into the political system the current security progress could unravel.

I asked Petraeus how the scheduled drawdown of “surge” troops — about 22,000 — would affect the security gains. After all, AQI retains strength in the north and could try a comeback. “We have to maintain the pressure on al-Qaida,” he said. But he believed this could be done without adverse affects by “thinning out” U.S. units “while thickening with local forces” like the new Sunni paramilitary, and better-trained Iraqi units.

X Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.