Well, in the area, a whole lot, for the team, not too much.
Since 30 JUN 09 (Sovereignty Day) the National Police have been on the ball. They are really taking charge of the area and keeping pretty good order. There has been one significant activity - - one of the big Sunni bosses was assassinated, pretty tragic: he was one of the leaders that convinced the Sunni population to stop fighting everyone and settle down in this area. He was blown up in his car, Mafia Style, the other guy in the car only got a few scratches. I was pretty worried when I heard about it because the folks that everyone suspected have been on the warrant request list for 3 months.
Somehow all of the planets and stars aligned and one of the new judges issued 14 warrants for arrest in less than 4 days. So far, 9 arrests have been made, so the National Police are looking pretty good in the eyes of the population. After the arrests, BG E was pretty much giggling the whole day he was so happy. There are 5 more folks to arrest, he thinks they will have them here shortly. I think they got this security stuff down.
Because the National Police are on it, the team doesn't have a whole lot to do, but I guess that is a small sacrifice for good security in this corner of Iraq.
Other news:
About 40 days til we start heading towards Kuwait, I do hope it is easier to leave than it was to get here.
I am on week 7 of my Army Ten Miler Training Plan, I am able to keep pace on most of the runs, but I have to break the long tempo runs down to one mile chunks and do them as interval runs. I thought I had a pretty good base laid down, but I am not able to sustain speed for over a mile. I am sure it will all work out.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Slow down
30 JUN 09 = Iraqi Sovereignty Day, that is the day the brakes got slammed on and we moved into slow down operations. For us (folks outside of the big cities) there hasn't been a whole lot of impact, we just have to make sure that all of our operations and patrols are combined with the Federal Police (the organization formerly known as National Police, I don't know why the name changed). For about the past month that is the way the US Forces have been working in our corner of Iraq, there were very few US only operations and now there are none.
For the folks in the big cities, that means a lot of sitting around. I have heard stories of some units not going out the gate at all because their Iraqi partner units have said " . . . don't worry, we have it under control, if we need you, we will call you . . . ". BG E is a huge fan of partnership so I doubt he will ever say that. He has pretty much been directing operations in his OE for the past couple of months, so not a big change for the US Forces in this area.
The two weeks prior to 30 JUN were some of the worst ones that I had seen as far as targeting US Forces in Baghdad. There were several attacks that prompted us to decide not to bother going to the city for anything. Across the river in our area there have been a few attacks but the insurgents over here are not too good at the attacks. Their best effort so far has been lobbing 4 rockets in the general direction of COP Cashe South, but the berms around here are so high and the COP is so small that it is very hard to hit unless you are right outside the wall. Since 30 JUN the US Forces in the big cities have been keeping a low profile and there have been no attacks on US Forces.
There has been a few good sized attacks on the local population, but nothing too spectacular yet. It is hard to stop these sorts of attacks, you really have to go after the networks that are supporting and executing the attacks. In order to do that you have to have a warrant which is another whole story in itself.
The biggest thing we have going on is some training for the Federal Police out at FOB Hammer and getting ready for a big religious pilgrimage. For the most part, pilgrims will be passing through this area into the big city, not stopping here.
So, to keep busy, I read a lot, surf the net, work out and watch a little TV. I lucked out and got an entry number to the Army Ten Miler (my favorite race) so I have started a 16 week train up for the race (currently on week 5).
Not a whole lot else to report, but that is a good thing. Reconciliations are still going on, but to be honest, once you see one, you have pretty much seen them all. The SOI transition to regular government employees has not started yet, so no issues there and the next election cycle isn't until JAN 10, I will be watching that on CNN.
56 days until no Kevlar (helmets, body armor) is required.
For the folks in the big cities, that means a lot of sitting around. I have heard stories of some units not going out the gate at all because their Iraqi partner units have said " . . . don't worry, we have it under control, if we need you, we will call you . . . ". BG E is a huge fan of partnership so I doubt he will ever say that. He has pretty much been directing operations in his OE for the past couple of months, so not a big change for the US Forces in this area.
The two weeks prior to 30 JUN were some of the worst ones that I had seen as far as targeting US Forces in Baghdad. There were several attacks that prompted us to decide not to bother going to the city for anything. Across the river in our area there have been a few attacks but the insurgents over here are not too good at the attacks. Their best effort so far has been lobbing 4 rockets in the general direction of COP Cashe South, but the berms around here are so high and the COP is so small that it is very hard to hit unless you are right outside the wall. Since 30 JUN the US Forces in the big cities have been keeping a low profile and there have been no attacks on US Forces.
There has been a few good sized attacks on the local population, but nothing too spectacular yet. It is hard to stop these sorts of attacks, you really have to go after the networks that are supporting and executing the attacks. In order to do that you have to have a warrant which is another whole story in itself.
The biggest thing we have going on is some training for the Federal Police out at FOB Hammer and getting ready for a big religious pilgrimage. For the most part, pilgrims will be passing through this area into the big city, not stopping here.
So, to keep busy, I read a lot, surf the net, work out and watch a little TV. I lucked out and got an entry number to the Army Ten Miler (my favorite race) so I have started a 16 week train up for the race (currently on week 5).
Not a whole lot else to report, but that is a good thing. Reconciliations are still going on, but to be honest, once you see one, you have pretty much seen them all. The SOI transition to regular government employees has not started yet, so no issues there and the next election cycle isn't until JAN 10, I will be watching that on CNN.
56 days until no Kevlar (helmets, body armor) is required.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Sovereignty Day
Two days ago was Sovereignty Day, a new national holiday as declared by the Prime Minister. This was the day that US forces ceased combat operations in the big cities. Big day for the Iraqi Security Forces, I hope things work out for them, there are still some major problems that have to be worked out: Shia factions in the parliment, Sunni unrest because they are being ignored by the Shia dominated government and the Kurdish problem. So, as they say here: Im Shah Allah (if god wants it to happen, it will).
The declaration sparked off a huge celebration, which the National Police wanted to get in on, so they decorated their HMMWVs and pickups with ribbons and flowers and cruised around the city. A couple of days earlier, BG E's oldest son (Emir) came to visit and hung around the headquarters for a while. While he is here, Emir gets away with murder because none of the soldiers want to say NO to the general's son. Kind of funny, we walked outside and saw Emir driving around the compound in the forklift (Emir is 12), when the general saw that he got mad at the soldiers that were supposed to be watching him, but, what could they do?
Anyway, big day for the National Police, Emir, COL A, the general and me commemorated the day with a picture in the general's office:
Operation Big Arrow
Recently the high command in Baghdad ordered some pretty curious missions, a lot of searches on the fringe of the city, and we are definately on the fringe. The brick factory search was the first in our area, Operation Big Arrow was the second one. Basically, the high command put a big arrow on the map and said" . . . . we think you should search, umm, around here . . . . ". BG E being a good soldier said yes and came up with a plan that kind of made sense. See graphics below:
I say kind of, because he, I and all of the other commanders pretty much knew that there wasn't too much in that area, except for a lot of empty desert, but search it we did. When I suggested that he search the smaller villages in the area and call it a day, he said no, the high command wants that area searched and that is what we are going to do. I asked him what he thought he would find in the area, he had a pretty good answer: The area is a fault line between several Sunni villages on one side and several Shia villages on the other, so there may be a few caches there. If you remember back to OCT/NOV 08 the NP found a HUGE cache of home made explosives and C-4 (military version of plastic explosives) in a cemetary, well the cemetary was about in the middle of the search area. So, search it we did.
The cemetary at Um Al Bid:
Being total pro's, the brigade staff put together a pretty good operations order, that covered most of the details, including how to logistically support the operation. The logistics portion of the order was towards the end of the order, so we had to sit through a lot of arabic and translation. During a long meeting we will rotate interpreters through the duty, so you get some really good interpretation and some not so good. By the time the logistics got briefed, we were on our third interpreter, Shadow, who is ok, but misses some words. So, you will hear (arabic, sounding a lot like Charlie Brown adults): WawaaaaawaaWa . . wa wawawaaaaWa . . waaaawaaaWa. . . . wawawawawaawaa WaWaaaaawa wa . . followed by Shadow trying hard: Ok, he said this will be a long operation, ahhhh, I missed that part, the soldiers should bring some water and something else and the soldiers should bring cookies . . . .
BG E in charge, checking the map:
When we all heard bring cookies, we all snapped out of the daze and looked at each other to confirm that we had heard "they should bring cookies". Kind of funny thing to hear, but it made us all giggle on the inside. True to the order, all the soldiers deployed with a little packet of cookies for snacks.
National Police moving out:
The mission went off without a hitch, except for our MRAP's AC did it's disappearing act, AGAIN, so, 11 hours in a steel sauna. About halfway through the mission, BG E called a pause and issued a FRAGO: Just check the two small villages in the remaining area and we will call it a day. The cows were deemed "safe and clear" so, no further searches of cows necessary.
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