What Iraqis Think of the American Withdrawal: Diyala Province
by Stephen Farrell
New York Times
As American forces pulled out of Iraq, we asked Iraqis around the country three questions:
1. Will Iraq be better or worse off after American troops leave?
2. What did the Americans achieve in Iraq?
3. What have they personally lost or gained since the 2003 invasion?
Comments
As one who have spent some wild battle time in the wild west called Diyala Province ie Baqubah in 2005 to 2006 --in my mind it was and will remain the single key point of the fight with the Sunni insurgency within the Sunni triangle.
Why Diyala---before the war a deep province anchored to Saddam and the Baath Party, major bases with extensive looted depots, clash point between three ethnic groups, and history ie the on the silk road to Iran. More importantly it was the R&R and refit area for the Sunni insurgents and had a direct link straight to Baghdad for better IOCs, and a strong economic base before the war. Historically important for the AQ in the Land of Two Rivers-they called for the Iraqi jihad in early 2004 from the steps of the Green Dome in Baqubah.
Something that still sticks in my mind--I was interrogating an attack cell leader from the Baqubah Ansar al Sunnah who had participated in a major insurgent swarm attack (2005) (at a time we knew nothing about swarm attacks on the intel side) on a headquarters building of the newly created/rebuilt 6th IA Div near Baqubah.
I had pictures of the building after the attack---looked like swiss cheese with holes in the building that one could drive multiple HMMWVs through.
Listened to the insurgent description of the fight which they viewed as a major win--they had successfully attacked the IA within the building, destroyed the building (could drive a HMMWV through some of the holes and drove off the IA with IA losses), departed in a formal fashion just prior to the QRF which ran smack into the IED ambushes on the avenues of approach just as they planned, limited losses as planned for-medical recovery worked well for them, and it involved three separate insurgent groups in the planning/attack---AQI paid for it, Revolution 1920 had the foot soldiers and AlS lead the attack through the front door and designed/implemented the IEDs.
Army unit's take of the fight---we won as we used the QRF to drive the insurgents away from the building-yes we did run into the IED ambushes, but we still made to the building driving off the insurgents and relieving the IA.
At that moment I knew just much perception plays in the "conflict ecosystem". Never heard anything back from the analysts on the request to eval the DIR as to the TTPs decribed in the report.
The Sunni insurgency in Diyala is really worth a single study in the concept of conflict ecosystems.
Just a side note---the IAI recently released a "After the Final Mission" video with their explanation of their five year war against us which they viewed as a major victory---interesting in the fact that they mention a long series of technology/fighting TTPs they used during the period-comes in both English and Arabic---really worth a long review of that video-it really is all about perception.