CONGRESSMAN STEVE ISRAEL
VISIT WITH U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ
JANUARY 26-28, 2003
Participants: Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA); Rep. Solomon Ortiz (R-TX); Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY); Rep. Candice Miller (R-MI); Rep. Rodney Alexander (D-LA); Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN).
SUNDAY JANUARY 26,2003:
As a Member of the House Armed Services Committee, I determined early that the responsibility of deploying young people to dangerous places comes with a critical obligation to support and visit them in such places. I depart for Iraq with two fundamental goals.
First, to demonstrate my support for our troops. As I have said often, "We live in a country where we have a right to agree, the right to disagree, and even the right to remain silent. But we have no right to neglect or forget our troops abroad, or when they return home."
Second, to seek answers to many questions that are swirling in the halls of Congress, in my meetings with constituents, in newspapers and on television:
• Do our troops have adequate equipment and resources?
• Were there intelligence failures with respect to weapons of mass destruction?
• Is the U.S. plan to restore sovereignty to Iraq by June 20th feasible?
• What lessons have we learned in Iraq that may be applied to the future of threat and conflict in the world?
On a warm Sunday night in Kuwait City, I arrive to see for myself.
MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 2004
7: 00 am:
A C-130 growls against a steady warm breeze sweeping across the tarmac of an airport in Kuwait City. Members of the 1st Armored Division stand in formation at the rear of the aircraft, waiting to board. I shake hands with men and women from New York, California, Texas, New Jersey, until a military escort leads our delegation to its seats.
"Seats", of course, is a rather generous term. We are harnessed into canvass slats, in a cabin crowded with troops, weapons, MRE's (Meals, Ready -To-Eat), duffel bags, picnic coolers and wood pallets. A crewmember shouts against the rumble of the propellers: "Ladies and gentleman, we anticipate making a very aggressive landing at BIAP [Baghdad International Airport, formerly Saddam International Airport]. We're going to make ourselves a very small target in case anyone tries shooting at us. If you have sinus problems, just keep applying pressure." He hands out earplugs and ascends into the cockpit.
The props roar even louder, we rumble down the runway, and soon we are airborne.
We ask a soldier sitting nearby about conditions in Baghdad.
"IED's [improvised explosive devices] are the biggest threat," he says. "I don't know what you do with them. Four guys I know were killed. One on Christmas eve..." He falls silent, staring straight ahead. A few seconds pass, and then he resumes. "After a while, you start to pick up on certain things. If there's a location that usually attracts big crowds and it's quiet, you know something is wrong. Or if someone is pushing a broom and speaks great English, you wonder, 'what were you doing before we got here?'"
I ask him whether his training prepared him for such encounters, or is it sheer instinct and judgment. "You just kind of pick up on it," he responds. "It takes a while, but you pick up on it."
For the duration of the flight, most soldiers drift into sleep. Others find distractions: a young woman reads a novel; the soldier next to me plays Game Boy and interrupts only to offer me some Beef Jerky.
Our descent is aggressive, but not chilling. I have been warned by other Members of Congress to expect stomach-churning, brain-numbing evasive maneuvers against the possibility of shoulder-fired missiles. However, this landing seems no worse than the shuttle from Washington to LaGuardia on a blustery day - a few accentuated rolls a steep descent, and a rather sudden touchdown.
9:45 am:
The cabin door opens and we are in Baghdad, Iraq.
A protective detail surrounds us and leads us to a convoy of Humvees and armored SUV's. "Let's get away from the mortar," someone says. I don't know whether it is meant to be funny or overly dramatic. We are given protective body armor, and loaded into the SUV's.
Our convoy begins a slow ride from the airport. In front and behind we are protected by Humvees - helmeted soldiers train their weapons at any potential threat from a 360-degree radius. Other vehicles are equipped with devices to jam signals from lED's. On either side of us, a vehicle with additional forces meanders from one side of our convoy to the other, their own weapons poking through open windows. And above us, a helicopter offers aerial surveillance. A member of our security detail tells us that whenever we arrive at a destination, we are to remain in the vehicle until the doors are opened externally.
We arrive at a former Presidential Palace, now called "Coalition Provisional Authority Palace". It looks like a Washington bureaucracy has simply been plunked down in the middle of a lavish Arab setting: beaten wooden desks wobble on lush rugs; the hurried footsteps of officials echo through spacious marble hallways; magnificent chandeliers hang over improvised conference rooms. "Barbershop" and an arrow are taped against an archway.
Meeting with Ambassador Paul Bremer (Administrator, Coalition Provisional Authority); Ambassador David Richmond (UK Special Representative to Iraq); LTG Ricardo Sanchez (Commanding General, Combined Joint Task Force; etc.): Ambassador Bremer notes:
1. Security: Security has improved since the arrest of Saddam Hussein. We have better insight into the financing and organization of the insurgency. The insurgency has become nervous and reactive. Yet it is still a major threat in Iraq. We are trying to place Iraqis in more security roles. Our top priority is "getting Iraqi's in front of their own security."
2. Economy: The consumptive economy is doing well, particularly shops, retail and automotive. However there are structural problems. Energy is essentially free and distorts the economy. Our focus is getting capital into the economy. The 2004 Iraqi budget is on balance, and next year oil production should help generate $4 billion to $5 billion net proceeds, which can be allocated to reconstruction. Oil production is currently at about 2.3 million barrels per day.
3. Political: We are working to transfer sovereignty by June 30th. Making "good progress" in drafting a constitution. If it is promulgated, it will be "the most liberal constitutional document in Arab history." CPA will spend $750 million to build Iraqi democracy, which Bremer calls, "the largest democracy building project in history." After June 30th, when sovereignty is restored to the Iraqis, the CPA will "close down" but the U.S. expects to maintain "one of the largest embassies in the world."
LTG Sanchez notes:
1. We remain in a "low intensity conflict". 13 0,000 Coalition forces from 3 8 countries.
2. Forces in southern regions focus on "stability and support"; while the northern region is addressing low intensity conflicts. 95% of engagements are occurring in one specific area.
3. The entire insurgency may be estimated at 3,000 to 5,000, with perhaps several hundred foreign fighters. The primary influx of foreign fighters comes through established points of entry in the Syrian border area through the Euphrates River Valley to Baghdad. We lack sophisticated capacities to identify false paperwork.
4. Engagements have been reduced from 40 per day to less than 20. Our Intelligence Fusion Center is "turning up operations" within minutes instead of hours.
5. We are on the verge of shifting from threats by FRE [Former Regime Elements] and beginning to see the emergence of "professional terrorists" associated with Al Queda and others. Engagements are becoming more professional, sophisticated and targeted. When this extremist threat becomes preponderant, we will have a steady-state challenge.
6. Rotation of forces began in November and the entire transition of Coalition Forces is underway. By mid-May, the entire Combined Joint Task Force transition will be complete. However, there are related challenges:
a. Because of the time many forces have been on the ground, we have built-up
remarkable "situational awareness." As they leave the theater, the newly
rotated force will have less awareness and it will take time to regain.
7. Steady-state of 110,000 Americans on the ground. 30% are Guard and Reserves. "I am very comfortable we have the right combat ability for the next few months to a year."
8. "We are in a 360 degree battlefield that puts every soldier at risk."
9. We discuss technical needs - more UAVs for example. I ask about "cultural awareness" and share some of the work I have been doing with MG Scales, former Commandant of the Army War College on cultural awareness. General Sanchez agrees that "we don't have sufficient capacity in that area. We need linguists. We don't understand some of the cultures we are digging into. General Scales is right: we don't spend much time improving the average soldiers' cultural awareness."
Tour Believer's Palace:
Deep beneath the palace is a hardened bunker, now a dark, musty warren of tiny meeting rooms, conference areas, kitchens, bunk beds, chemical decontamination rooms, sleep areas, and the conference room where Saddam Hussein met with his commanders before and during hostilities — a room U.S. news viewers saw many times on their televisions. The horseshoe conference table is still there, caked with grime and dust. The palace itself — once spacious and ornate, is now twisted steel, mounds of rubble, scattered wreckage. The effects of precision bombing are evident - small holes punched through ceilings, and craters where they landed on the floors below. COL Aswell points to one opening in the ceiling through which a beam of sunlight now pours. "What's wrong with this?" he tests us. No one knows. "There's a hole in the ceiling, but no hole in the ground. Which means there's an undetonated missile lying somewhere around here." We step gingerly into the next room, and then depart for Ambassador Bremer's residence.
Meeting With Iraqi Governing Council Members:
Our meeting with IGC President Pachaci and other members focuses on whether the Administration's desire to have caucuses followed by June 30th sovereignty is feasible; and growing opposition to caucuses among Shiite leaders, most prominently Sheik Sistani. Among the points made by IGC members:
1. The UN will send a team to assess whether direct elections are possible before 6/30. "We are determined to keep to the June 20th deadline for sovereignty. On that there is complete unity among Iraqis."
2. President Pachaci said: "I hope when elections are fought in Iraq, they are fought not on the basis of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds, but on the basis of issues. We have educated classes of people who are open minded and less religiously oriented. Kurds want to assert their rights and identity and feel secure against prosecution. We understand and support that principle. We have differences on how to design those protections, but we will work to settle those differences. We will respect the special status of the Kurds."
3. However, one IGC representative noted: "The 6/30 deadline is being dictated by politics. A deadline should be affixed when the situation on the ground permits, not vice versa. The writing of a Constitution, building consensus on critical issues, designing future systems takes time. We are being squeezed to do it. We are anxious to transfer sovereignty as soon as possible. But we need time to write a proper, permanent Constitution. The timing is being dictated in Washington instead of timelines being developed through a natural process here."
4. Another IGC member disagreed: "Yes the deadline does squeeze us. But it gives us a date to work towards. We must find a compromise between those who support regional caucuses and those who want direct elections."
Meeting With MG Dayton, Iraq Survey Group, Camp Slayer
-Classified Briefing-
Dinner with soldiers at Bob Hope Dining Facility I eat burgers, hot dogs, and fries with New Yorkers attached to the 1st Armored Division, including natives of Smithtown and Central Islip. The Central Islip soldier asks me to contact his mother when I return to the U.S.
The young men and women at my table display an extraordinary professionalism and dedication. They are doing dangerous work, but with a sense of pride and duty. I ask them what Congress can do to assist in their work, and there seems to be a natural hesitation to respond. "You probably have lots of Congressman coming through here and asking what's going wrong?" I say. "Yes sir" they respond politely. "I'm on the Armed Services Committee. My job is to bring what I hear back and try to make it right. Your chain of command is trying hard to give you everything you need. But it would help if I heard directly from you."
"Well, sir" one soldier offers hesitantly. "It would be good if the hot water in the showers worked consistently."
"No hot water?" I asked.
"We have hot water, sir. But not all the time, sir. That's one thing we could use."
His hot water complaint ironically breaks the ice:
1. The biggest continued concern is the "up-armoring" of Humvees and other military trucks. Troops are driving in dangerous places - exposed to roadside bombs and sniper bullets - in vehicles with thin metal floorboards and canvass doors. They have been forced to customize their vehicles with homemade armor. In one case, a unit used an Iraqi manufacturer to make steel plating. I later learn that the Army is trying to produce more than 4,000 heavily armored Humvees, and has ordered 8,400 add-on kits. This is war by improvisation and ad hockery.
2. I ask about reported early shortages in armored vests. A female soldier tells me she is still awaiting her vest. "I heard they over-ordered large sizes, and under-ordered smalls" she says.
3. Mail and communications are improving. One area of discrimination, I learn, is the cost of calling home. If your family lives near a military base, you can call the base and they will transfer you for free. If you don't live nearby, you must pay for the cost yourself.
Return To Kuwait:
If our morning flight to Baghdad did not provide the evasive maneuvers my colleagues warned me about, our return more than made up for it. Aboard the C-130, we were told that all lights would be turned off so as not to be a target in the dark skies above Baghdad. We waited on the tarmac, engines rumbling, for about half an hour; and then suddenly lurched forward. The plane seemed to lift-off almost vertically. Within a few seconds, I heard a rapid staccato tapping, like hail popping against the plane; then saw a flash of orange off the starboard wing. We were deploying flare countermeasures against possible shoulder-fired-missile attacks. Our crew then "put us through the motions." We seemed to drop suddenly, then climb steeply, then roll sharply left and right in a series of maneuvers that left every civilian eyeing the parachutes and wondering how they worked. Later, we heard two versions of the circumstances that led to these actions. One military escort told us they had received "Intel about a possible incident." Another scoffed. "The systems on these aircraft are automatic," he said. "They're deployed as a matter of course. An unrelated cell phone signal from the ground can set them off. There was never any threat." Perhaps, but the ride was interesting nonetheless.
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 28,2004
6:45 a.m.
After the prior evenings' flight, I choose to go with a light breakfast in Kuwait. This morning our C-130 flies to Balad, headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division. We arrive to a raw, foggy, cold day. A row of Blackhawk helicopters awaits us. We don our body armor, and board the choppers for Ad Dawr and the famous "spider hole" where Saddam was captured. I sit next to Major General Odierno, who commands the 4th Infantry Division.
The ride is thrilling - low to the ground to avoid gunfire, synchronized perfectly with the topography. We lift upwards, just seeming to skim tree and power lines, and then swoop into lower areas and valleys. Below us, Iraqis wave from cement huts and farms and riverbanks. At times, we tilt sharply. "He's trying to get around fog patches" General Odierno explains through our headsets, and then commences to brief us on his command. The 4th ID may have one of the harshest challenges in Iraq - maintaining security in the large and notorious Sunni Triangle. Our conversation is interrupted by the pilot, who barks into the headsets: "Sir, we're not going to be able to make it to Tikrit, sir. I tried from the north and east, and I keep running into a wall of weather."
"No way around?" Odierno asks.
"No sir. What we're going to need to do sir is turn back for Balad."
"Notify the others and have them meet me at HQ".
Disappointed, we return to HQ where we are briefed by General Odierno and COL
Rudesheim.
The 4 Infantry Division is charged with maintaining and supporting security in one of the most dangerous areas of Iraq, extending from north of Baghdad through Samarra, Tikrit and Kirkuk - much of the Sunni Triangle. This is where Saddam ultimately fled. This is where he was found in a spider hole on the evening of December 13th. This is where cultural traditions and tribal loyalties protected him, and continue to challenge us. And the challenges here - the culture, the history, the loyalty, the intent of our enemies - may represent the nature of threat and conflict and whether we intelligently address it in the near and distant future.
"My job is to provide security," General Odierno says. "But there are several pieces to security: governance, building an infrastructure, economic development, and democratization. All of these things help security." The General tells me that he now spends most of his time promoting security by setting up town councils, standing-up local police forces, organizing women's and school groups, helping people start small businesses.
Without saying it. General Odierno is demonstrating the use of hard power and soft power to maintain security and stability.
Our combat capability in Iraq was a vivid demonstration of "hard power." We used armored vehicles, artillery systems, air defense systems, combat aircraft, reconnaissance and support, helicopters, naval vessels, munitions. Each of these systems helped give us "situational awareness" and force projection that swiftly defeated Iraq in combat.
What the General now does in the Sunni Triangle is deploy "soft power" in an attempt to maintain security. In his words, that means "democracy building, personal interaction, and creating empowerment."
These are tools that cannot be built, technologies that cannot be developed. In the words of Major General Bob Scales, former commandant of the Army War College, this capability requires a "cognitive military transformation as opposed to a technical military transformation." It means addressing the sometimes intangible qualities of leadership, education, judgment, initiative and historic knowledge that is invested in our troops.
How do we achieve that, I ask? And throughout my trip, I receive a diversity of answers.
Some commanders scoff at the notion. "We're already doing that," says one General. "And all those academic theories can't be put into practice in battle space."
Another says: "there's no 'how to build a country' manual. You have to have a holistic approach."
Still, many others echo the statement that Commanding General Sanchez made at our very first meeting in Baghdad: "We don't have sufficient capacity in that area. We need linguists. We don't understand some of the cultures we are digging into. We don't spend much time improving the average soldiers ' cultural awareness. "
General Odierno tells us, "The Army War College offers courses and seminars on peace - keeping, nation-building, democratization. But we need to go even further.
1. We need to expand the curricula at the Army War College and in officers training to emphasize cultural awareness, peacekeeping, nation-building, democratization, civil affairs, personal interaction and creating empowerment.
2. We need to recruit, train and deploy far more linguists and translators. As one Civil Affairs reservist told me, a New York City Police detective, "Sometimes we'll go out with a local translator. And we don't know what kind of agenda he has: who he likes, who he doesn't like. What scores he may try to settle. So when he is telling us what a person is saying, may not be what is being said."
3. We need more Civil Affairs personnel in the Army's active components. Right now, reservists make up the bulk of that vital resource. Yet their rotations don't allow for the long-term work that civil affairs officials need to build relationships of trust and faith.
4. We need more Human Intelligence cells attached to every brigade and battalion. These are the people who can truly give our soldiers the "cultural awareness" and "situational awareness" to preempt and defeat threat. As MG Scales wrote in his history of the Iraq War: "The enemy will be located not by satellites and UAVs, but by patient intelligence work, back-alley payoffs, information collected from captured documents and threats of one-way vacations to Cuba."
5. We need Political Affairs officers assigned to every division commander, to help them through the steep learning curves of local politics, relationships, culture and custom.
This is vitally important - not just in Iraq, but for our long term stability and security in a post 9/11 environment. In many respects, Iraq reflects the changing nature of threat and conflict in the 21st century. We may be engaging against asymmetric threats. Our enemies won't play by the conventional rules of the military; they have and will continue to adapt to our high technology capabilities by developing low technology capabilities; we may face simultaneous eruptions and low intensity conflicts that build against us and strains our forces. War won't be governed by diplomacy and nation-states but by tribal warlords and non-state actors.
And, like it or not, nation building and democracy expansion will have to follow us wherever we go. As Major General Scales wrote: "Attitudes will be influenced less by demonstrations of fighting strength than by the emotional security that comes from safe streets, employment, electricity and fresh water. In a sense, this phase reminds us all that the nature of war is immutable. Technology may alter how wars are fought, but it will never change the fact that wars are conducted by human beings for political ends."
Visit to the Spider Hole
After our briefing, the sun cuts through the fog and our choppers lift into bright skies en route to Al Dawr and the Spider Hole. At the end of my visit, Blackhawk deposit us at the Spider Hole. There, on the night of December 13th, a soldier acting on an intelligence tip literally stumbled on a piece of cloth in the ground. His instinct told him that cloth didn't belong there. He turned it over, and found a rug. Under the rug he found Styrofoam. And under the Styrofoam he found a heavily bearded, disheveled man who said, "I am Saddam Hussein. I am the unanimously elected President of Iraq. I am willing to negotiate." It was that soldier's instinct and judgment, and good human intelligence, which led him to literally uncover Saddam Hussein. Since then, others like him have been patrolling dusty streets, rebuilding, organizing, teaching, and democratizing.
Ultimately, that is why I supported the use of force in Iraq. We may never know whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction. We need to change the trajectory of the Middle East region to a place that includes democracy versus dictatorship; prosperity versus poverty; education versus indoctrination; schools that teach kids how to put things together versus schools that teach kids how to blow things up. Every day, in dangerous places in Baghdad, in Samarra, in Tikrit, in Kirkuk, in Fahlujah, the young people I met and tens of thousands of others are involved in that mission. They are warriors, to be sure. But they are nation builders as well. If they are successful (and they will be if we give them the tools they need), then our mission truly will be accomplished; and the world will be a safer place for it, for a long time to come.
God Bless them.
