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February 3rd,
2007 - Soldiers in Iraq View Troop Surge as a Lost Cause |
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Soldiers in Iraq View Troop Surge
as a Lost Cause By Tom Lasseter McClatchy Newspapers Sat, Feb. 03, 2007 Baghdad, Iraq - Army 1st Lt.
Antonio Hardy took a slow look around the east Baghdad neighborhood that he
and his men were patrolling. He grimaced at the sound of gunshots in the
distance. A machine gunner on top of a Humvee scanned the rooftops for
snipers. Some of Hardy's men wondered aloud if they'd get hit by a roadside
bomb on the way back to their base. "To be honest, it's
going to be like this for a long time to come, no matter what we do,"
said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want
to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home
are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated." While senior military
officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send
more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers
who're already there say it's a lost cause. "What is victory
supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's
somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29,
of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one
evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands
of years, and we're not going to change that overnight." "Once more raids start
happening, they'll (insurgents) melt away," said Gill, who serves with
the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months
later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back." Soldiers interviewed across
east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, said the
violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American
troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring
lasting security to Iraq is misguided. Lt. Hardy and his men of the
2nd Brigade of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo.,
patrol an area southeast of Sadr City, the stronghold of radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A map in Hardy's company
headquarters charts at least 50 roadside bombs since late October, and the
lieutenant recently watched in horror as the blast from one killed his
Humvee's driver and wounded two other soldiers in a spray of blood and
shrapnel. Soldiers such as Hardy must
contend not only with an escalating civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite
Muslims, but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. forces. "We can go get into a
firefight and empty out ammo, but it doesn't accomplish much," said Pvt.
1st Class Zach Clouser, 19, of York, Pa. "This isn't our war - we're
just in the middle." Almost every foot soldier
interviewed during a week of patrols on the streets and alleys of east
Baghdad said that Bush's plan would halt the bloodshed only temporarily. The
soldiers cited a variety of reasons, including incompetence or corruption
among Iraqi troops, the complexities of Iraq's sectarian violence and the
lack of Iraqi public support, a cornerstone of counterinsurgency warfare. "They can keep sending
more and more troops over here, but until the people here start working with
us, it's not going to change," said Sgt. Chance Oswalt, 22, of Tulsa,
Okla. Bush's initiative calls for
American soldiers in Baghdad to take positions in outposts throughout the
capital, paired up with Iraqi police and soldiers. Few of the U.S. soldiers
interviewed, however, said they think Iraqi forces can operate effectively
without American help. Their officers were more
optimistic. If there's enough progress
during the next four to six months, "we can look at doing provincial
Iraqi control, and we can move U.S. forces to the edge of the city,"
said Lt. Col. Dean Dunham, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry
Division's 2nd Brigade, which oversees most of east Baghdad. Maj. Christopher Wendland, a
senior staff officer for Dunham's brigade, said he thinks there's a good
chance that by late 2007 American troops will have handed over most of
Baghdad to Iraqi troops. "I'm actually really
positive," said Wendland, 35, of Chicago. "We have an Iraqi army
that's actually capable of maintaining once we leave." If the Iraqi army can
control the violence, his thinking goes, economic and political progress will
follow in the safest areas, accompanied by infrastructure improvement, then
spread outward. In counterinsurgency
circles, that notion is commonly called the "inkblot" approach.
It's been relatively successful in some isolated parts of Iraq, such as Tal
Afar on the Syrian border, but in most areas it's failed to halt the
bloodshed for any length of time. © 2007 McClatchy Washington
Bureau and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. External link: http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16616389.htm |