The 1st Cav in Baghdad: counterinsurgency EBO in dense urban terrain.

Major General Pete Chiarelli, Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, deployed America's First Team to serve as part of the MND-B in Baghdad for OIF II from March 2004 until March 2005. "Task Force Baghdad" conducted full-spectrum effects-based operations (EBO) in a city of 200 square miles packed with six to seven million people. Its mission was to "conduct full-spectrum operations focused on stability and support operations and to secure key terrain in and around Baghdad, supported by focused and fully integrated information [IO] and civil-military operations, in order to enable the progressive transfer of authority to the Iraqi people, their institutions and a legitimate Iraqi national government."

At its largest (just before the January 2005 Iraqi national elections), TF Baghdad had 12 US brigade-sized elements, 62 US battalions, 322 US companies, 3 Iraqi brigades, 7 Iraqi battalions and 58 Iraqi companies, totaling more than 40,000 Coalition Soldiers.

This interview was conducted on 29 June at Fort Hood, Texas.

Ed

Q What was Baghdad like when you got there?

A Well, it depends on what day you're talking about--literally. When I arrived in Baghdad to stay on the 31st of March, things looked pretty good. We had a few issues: the shutdown of Muqtada al Sadr's newspaper, The Al Hawza, and the arrest of one of Sadr's lieutenants prompted eight pro-Sadr demonstrations in the four days prior to 3 April 2004. Things were tense, but they had been tense before. Overall, it seemed things had been improving.

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Everything changed on the 4th of April. At about 1705, 2-5 Cav [2d Battalion, 5th Cavalry], 1st Cavalry Division, was completing its transition with the 2d ACR [2d Armored Cavalry Regiment]. 2-5 Cav was mid-stride in transferring authority when a firefight broke out in Sadr City. Eight Soldiers were killed and 51 were wounded.

Fighting then broke out throughout Baghdad in just about every Shi'a neighborhood and some Sunni areas; it was a tough fight. And the 1st Cav Division would not officially assume control from the 1st Armored Division for another 11 days. So in terms of combat operations, things changed.

From the standpoint of Iraqi security forces, we had seven Iraqi battalions at that time. On 4 April, they each were running about 700 to 800 people strong. By the end of the first week of fighting, they were down to 100 to 200 per battalion. Most of the Iraqis had decided not to fight--had gone home.

We also had about 8,000 police on the street. For a city the size of Baghdad, we really needed about 23,000. Many decided not to come to work.

In the area of infrastructure improvement, there was much that needed to be done. An $18.4 billion supplemental was "on the table." But because of the deteriorating security situation, very little had been spent. In some areas of Baghdad, many of the same conditions that Soldiers found when they arrived right after the end of major combat operations in March of 2003 still existed.

In the area of governance, we had neighborhood and district advisory council [NAC and DAC] meetings that were absolutely critical. They were part of an excellent program established by the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority]. But those meetings were suspended in early April because people were afraid to attend them.

And in the area of emphasis we call "economic pluralism" (you could call it long-term economic development), the overall unemployment rate in Baghdad was 39 percent, and in the northern two-thirds of Sadr City, it was 61 percent.

So, that's where we stood about the 15th of April. Welcome to Baghdad.

Q Please describe your enemy.

A There were two types of the enemy. The first is the insurgency, which is made up of Iraqis or people who have lived in Iraq who want something different.

The insurgency itself has three major groups. Of course, there are elements of the former regime, the Ba'athists who are followers of Saddam Hussein. Then there are folks who, because of policies that have been implemented, are either out of jobs or don't want to work for the new government--some are Ba'athists who aren't allowed to return to their old government positions. The last of the insurgency are the Sunni and Shi'a fundamentalists (such as Muqtada al Sadr).

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This insurgency, as compared to other insurgencies, did not have then--and I still believe does not have now--any kind of well developed political platform. No one says, "When we win, Iraq will become a socialist (or capitalist or federalist or whatever) state." No one is promising "a chicken in every pot." No one is saying "'Mohammed' will be the new president, king or leader." There seems to be a single focus: "We want the Coalition out."

You would think that the three elements of the insurgency would get along with one another because they have the same goal--but they don't. There are very few times when they get together on anything.

I call the second category of the enemy "international terrorists." These are people who come from outside Iraq's borders to conduct attacks against the Coalition and Iraqis. They include folks like Zarqawi, the Jordanian, who was proclaimed to be "The Prince of Iraq" by the terrorist Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian. They are not "insurgents," they are "terrorists" in every sense of the word.

While the insurgents often use terror as a weapon against the innocent people in Iraq, during the time we were there we found no direct linkage between the insurgency and international terrorists who travel to Iraq to attack both the Iraqis and Coalition Forces. Now they may have followed the same intent at a particular time, but we saw definite fissures in how they got along with one another. It was not a monolithic group. It's very difficult for the American people to understand the differentiation between the two types of enemy because we haven't educated them on it.

This distinction caused us challenges. For example, when we were making progress against the insurgency, the international terrorists increased the number of attacks and the level of destruction, so the American people would see the same or an increase in violence. It is hard for anyone back in America to see the distinction; it all seems like a big fog with the attacks continuing to escalate. But those very often are reactions to progress in the battle against the insurgents.

Understanding all that makes a big difference in how you fight and win in Iraq.

Q Please describe Baghdad when you left a year later.

A We conducted combat operations in Baghdad almost every day. We stopped attacks against Coalition Forces; picked up a lot of weapons, small arms and ammunition; and created a safer Baghdad. I think we definitely had great success against the insurgents and against some of the international terrorists.

In the area of training the Iraqi security forces, those seven battalions I told you about were at their authorized strength (700 to 800 soldiers each) by the time we left. For seven months, we literally embedded 70-man teams in each of those battalions. Our American embeds trained, conducted patrols and strike operations with, and mentored their counterparts on a daily basis.

Resourced down to the platoon level, the advisors leveraged the cultural importance of relationships with the Arab people to build trust and rapport and to create momentum toward a truly professional military force. These forces were trained to conduct counterinsurgency operations 24 hours a day as opposed to the culturally desired strike-force mentality. When we left, we think we had seven of the best Iraqi Army battalions in Iraq.

We also embedded a 50-man team with the 40th Iraqi Brigade. That same brigade took over the Sheik Marouf-Tallil Square-Haifa Street area on 6 February 2005. For our year in Baghdad, this was one of the most difficult areas in the city. TF 1-9 Cav worked this area for 11 months and received 192 purple hearts. If you followed the news today, the Sheik Marouf-Tallil Square-Haifa Street area is one of the calmer areas in all of Baghdad.

One reason is that during our year we went after the insurgents while at the same time--really simultaneously--we maximized nonlethal effects focused on infrastructure improvements, establishing governance and increasing employment, all enhanced by a robust IO campaign. Additionally, we now have the Iraqi 40th Brigade controlling that part of the city trained in counterinsurgency operations--not strike operations.

Instead of thinking they can provide security with intelligence-based operations conducted periodically with units that spend a majority of their days at the forward operating base [FOB], the Iraqi battalions we trained assume control and conduct full-spectrum counterinsurgent operations 24/7, 365 days a year. They conducted strike operations when they had the intelligence, but, more importantly, they conducted daily patrols and neighborhood outreach engagements instead of staying on the FOB. Alongside the Soldiers of the 3d Infantry Division, they are doing an excellent job of making that area very livable again.

In the area of city police, we had limited success. We went from 8,000 to about 14,000 of the 23,000 policemen needed for what were then 79 police stations in Baghdad during our year. Although coalition vetting and recruitment of Iraqi police during the deployment was on par to achieve the 23,000 needed to support a city of six to seven million, the reality was that many of those recruits, after graduating from one of two police academies, were siphoned off by the Ministry of Interior to support strike-force operations (special police battalions) or into an overpopulated police bureaucracy. This practice severely hindered the Baghdad populace from getting the local security it needed.

In the area of infrastructure improvement, we changed the plan of attack for implementing our part of the $18 billion supplemental I mentioned earlier. Initially, the monies were heavily weighted toward large capital projects, such as landfills, sewage and water plants, and relied on other donor nations to fund projects that connected the large capital projects to local neighborhoods. While many of these large capital projects were needed, it made little sense to build a sewage treatment plant if you could not get the sewage out of the streets or build a large water treatment plant if you could not distribute the water. The failure of these funds to be provided immediately created a need to reprogram some of the $18 billion to affect the immediate signs of progress at the local level--what we considered the "first mile."

You see, we found during the April uprising and from collaboration with the 1st Armored Division that areas where local infrastructure was in shambles became prime recruiting zones for insurgent forces--those areas with sewage running through the streets, electricity almost nonexistent, no running water, trash everywhere, no jobs and no basic medical services. We needed to affect the recruiting zones first before we built the large capital projects.

We had to become creative. In Al Rashid, a capital-level project ended in a local labor success. Instead of using modern machinery and less than 500 workers, we hired approximately 4,000 Iraqis to build the southern Baghdad landfill. When the project was completed in February 2005, southern Baghdad had a place to dump all its solid waste while simultaneously employing 4,000 locals for more than four months. This took not only 4,000 people out of the enemy's recruiting pool, but also allowed workers (with an estimated 13-plus family members each) to support their families through local employment.

Another example occurred 72-hours after fighting ended in Sadr City in mid-October 2004 [the second Sadr uprising that began in August 2004]. We worked with the US Embassy, USAID [US Agency for International Development] and local Baghdad leadership and contractors to mobilize and saturate Sadr City quickly with more than 22,000 local jobs oriented on neighborhood sewage, water, electricity and trash improvements. The effect: it attacked Muqtada al Sadr's base of power--the disenfranchised--by providing jobs and visible signs of local improvement.

In mid-February 2005, a central portion of Sadr City awoke to the first running water system the city had ever seen. 200,000 people were immediately affected. Local contract and labor completed the project.

These two projects, along with many more throughout the Baghdad area of operations, made lasting impressions and "took the wind out of" insurgent rhetoric. During our year and upon our departure, infrastructure repair became the immediate impact theme that set conditions for long-term security.

In the area of governance, we were pleased. The successful election of 30 January 2005, where millions of Baghdad citizens voted in spite of the insurgent and terrorist intimidation campaign, left us with a clear indicator that the Iraqi people wanted a taste of true democracy. From our standpoint, the CPA-implemented neighborhood/district advisory councils played a very important role in teaching Iraqis about democracy. However, the concept of local government working in partnership with the national government was not part of the Iraqi and Arab culture. This centralization of government was compounded by the only example of governance the Iraqi populace had for the last 35 years--Saddam Hussein's dictatorship.

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In the area of economic pluralism, or rather creating long-lasting jobs, we went from 39 percent unemployment throughout Baghdad to about 21 percent unemployment. A more pronounced result occurred in Sadr City: from 61 to 22 percent unemployment. We implemented long-term economic growth projects centered on developing the region's agricultural potential and infusing local growth by creating economic incubators. So we were very pleased with that.

Q How did you execute EBO to create the desired effects?

A Simultaneously. You must work all five of the lines of operations [LOOs] that we have discussed, literally, at the same time, complemented by a robust IO program that supports all five LOOs [conduct combat operations, train and develop the Iraqi security forces, improve the infrastructure, establish governance and promote economic pluralism].

The amazing thing about the American Soldier--and one of the things I'm most proud of--is his or her versatility to do all that. Our Soldiers routinely balanced conducting combat operations at six a.m. to handing out humanitarian supplies at eight a.m. Then they deftly shifted to help educate Iraqi entrepreneurs on how to put together a business plan and apply for a small business loan at 10 a.m. to training Iraqi Security Forces on how to conduct professional development sessions with their own forces by one p.m. Later in the day, that same unit would balance conducting detainee operations with meeting with local NAC leaders about an infrastructure project that needed to be accomplished. Soldiers and leaders made it all happen.

Now, it may be somewhat of an overstatement to say that every platoon conducted all LOOs in one day, but some platoons on some days did just that. Platoons very seldom conducted operations that supported a single LOO.

Soldiers and leaders understood that the execution of infrastructure improvement supported their force protection. Soldiers understood we weren't ensuring Iraqis had water just because we wanted them to have water. They knew that when we helped the Iraqis get water or electricity or helped the Iraqis get sewage out of the streets, it had a direct effect on force protection.

If we could employ an Iraqi who had 13 mouths to feed--and there were areas in Baghdad that had 13 or more mouths to feed in 52 percent of the homes--then it had a direct effect on force protection. If we could put a single breadwinner to work at a meaningful job for 10 to 12 hours a day, then he had neither the requirement nor desire to go out and fight the Coalition at night.

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The key to EBO is to understand that there's no line you can work independently. For example, you will never achieve security if all you do is try to provide security through combat operations--it just won't happen. Security in this environment is not something that simply grows "out of the barrel of a gun."

At the division level, we focused our effects through an ECC [effects coordination cell] that had a LOO chief [field grade officer] responsible for each line of operation. The ECC was run by my chief of staff. The division fire support element [FSE] did traditional FSE tasks but understood the intent and evaluated the effects of lethal fires on the overall campaign plan. There were times that lethal missions that would have been fired without hesitation in a different kind of war were canceled because of their negative impact on a nonlethal LOO. It was about achieving a balance.

Q How did you conduct counterfire?

A We had made the conscious decision to deploy without an FA brigade to run counterfire, but I later asked for one. I had been using my DFSCOORD [deputy fire support coordinator] for counterfire because I gave the Div Arty [1st Cav Division Artillery] responsibility for the Al Rashid area of Baghdad as the 5th BCT [brigade combat team]. The Div Arty was fully committed and out of the fire support coordination and counterfire business--there was no way Steve Lanza [Colonel, Div Arty commander] could run a distinct maneuver fight and provide fire support coordination for the division.

So when I asked for an FA brigade, there was no hesitation in providing the 75th FA Brigade Headquarters (minus) that ran our very difficult counterfire fight and was absolutely fantastic.

We found that because of the constricted urban terrain and the tactics employed by the insurgents, we had to look at counterfire operations differently. We had to look very hard at pattern analysis by dissecting enemy engagements and techniques to anticipate and target future possible firing positions rather than employ the traditional counterfire drill.

The 75th FA Brigade gave us some redundant capabilities. It also gave us an O6 commander with a lot of experience. We did some very unique targeting in Baghdad. We couldn't get an acquisition from a Q-36 radar and immediately put fires on the point of origin because the point of origin could be the back patio of an apartment complex with hundreds of people living in it. So we needed some additional capabilities, some additional eyes to take a look at how we could fight that fight. The 75th Brigade provided those capabilities.

Q What have you learned in counterinsurgency operations?

A First I learned that success in one LOO opens up an assailable flank for the enemy to attack, and he will attack. For example, in November 2004, our polling showed 45 percent of the people in Baghdad were happy with the electricity they were getting. By January, that was down to about four percent. The reason was because the enemy realized we were starting to get the distribution system "squared away" and decided to go outside Baghdad where the people couldn't see the attacks and take down the 400-kilovolt lines that brought the electricity into the city. The enemy knew the people of Baghdad were almost unanimous in their hatred of attacks on the infrastructure. Our polling showed 98 percent of the people said there was no justifiable reason for any attacks on the infrastructure.

And I promise you, the enemy blames such a "failure to provide electricity" on the Coalition and the fledgling Iraqi government--although that is probably not well understood in America.

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The other thing I learned is we are good at lethal effects; but in a counterinsurgency, nonlethal effects are as important as, and, at times, more important than kinetic effects. We are very good at fighting and breaking things and teaching other people to do the same. But nonlethal effects are critical to winning the war in Iraq. So, if we're really serious about fighting an insurgency, we have to change our culture and accept the importance, and sometimes preeminence, of nonlethal effects.

I'm as guilty as anybody else about not "putting my money where my mouth is." Prior to my year in Baghdad, if you gave me 10 lieutenant colonels, rank ordered from best down to worst, and said, "Okay, fill your staff," where do you think I'd put the number one lieutenant colonel every time? Tell me.

Probably your G3 shop.

That's exactly right. But we need to train and develop IO officers to the same quality as our folks in the G3. IO is that important.

We also need the right people to analyze what needs to be done in the infrastructure. In a counterinsurgency, getting the resources to improve the infrastructure can be as important as getting more tanks or bullets.

We need to restructure our staffs to operate in a counterinsurgency, including adding a robust IO cell. For example, I pulled together an IO cell for the ECC. But the problem is that when you go to, say, the G3, and ask for two people to work in the IO cell, the G3 picks the people he can afford to let go. Then when those people come to the IO cell, who do they work for, the IO chief or G3? Who has rating authority? As a legacy division, we were not authorized these personnel by MTOE [modified table of organization and equipment]; therefore, we were forced to form an IO cell from various staff sections. The Army has made great efforts to remedy this under the new Modular Force structure. If our experience means anything, IO sections will grow as we continue to improve our modular formations.

I give big kudos to the Army for providing us cultural advisors for our IO cell. These were civilians from the region who helped ensure the IO products we created weren't IO products designed by Americans to convince Americans but were vetted through someone who understood the culture, helping to ensure the products had the desired effects on the Arab population of Baghdad.

We need to relook the entire headquarters of the UEx or UEy [two- and three-star units of employment]. The Chief of Staff of the Army has made it clear that our current transformation organization is not the final organization. It will need tweaking as we begin to understand more about modularity.

I think we need to look at the way our staffs are set up. Do we need a G1, G2, G3, you know, and G5 and G6 like we have now?

In OIF II, we basically re-focused our staffs around three major functions. We had our ECC that I talked about before, and we redesigned the staff into Information, Strike, and Sustain sections. I will tell you that, from a command and control perspective, that makes sense.

We have to make full use of collaboration. The greatest tool I've seen in almost 33 years in the Army, from a command and control standpoint, is the advent of the command post of the future [CPOF] that allows headquarters located miles away to collaborate in real time on the same problem within the current operational picture.

From my CPOF screen, I could see the real-time operational picture with my brigade commanders and come up with a maneuver plan, fire support plan, an infrastructure plan, a whatever plan. So while maneuver commanders talk about their plans, fire supporters, engineers, intel guys all listen, ask questions and simultaneously put together their support and collection plans for the scheme of maneuver. We quickly can move through the MDMP [military decision-making process] in a way that never has been possible before.

In the CPOF, I could "get into the brains" of brigade commanders on the ground, each with 22, 24 years of experience, to help me solve problems. I would like to see that capability expanded to allow UEx commanders to pull in battalion commanders to help solve problems.

Another thing I learned in counterinsurgency is the importance of passing information and knowledge down and horizontally. In the Army I grew up in, you always passed information up and then down. In Baghdad, Soldiers on one side of the city who saw an emerging enemy tactic, technique or procedure [TTP] being employed could save lives by quickly passing that info down and out, from one platoon sergeant to another, rather than passing the info up to be filtered and then to be passed down again.

Combat in Baghdad was not a division fight--not even a brigade fight. It was a company and platoon fight and, every once in a while, a battalion fight. Brigades orchestrated the five LOOs, and resourced combat operations run by battalion commanders and, mostly, company commanders or platoon leaders.

To help those junior leaders, we came up with the CavNet, a knowledge transfer system where individuals can post emerging enemy and friendly TTPs on SIPRNET [secure internet protocol network]. A platoon sergeant could see the newest TTP on the CavNet just before he conducted PCIs [precombat inspections] or briefed his platoon on its upcoming patrol, or he could post what he saw or learned during his patrol on the CavNet.

This is revolutionary. Let me give you an example. In one part of the city, we saw Muqtada al Sadr posters being rigged with IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. The natural response of an American Soldier is to rip the poster down. A Soldier in one part of the city noticed wires coming out of the poster and discovered it was booby trapped. He posted the info on the CavNet that night.

Days later, because a Soldier had checked the CavNet, a platoon in another part of the city checked out posters and found them booby-trapped too. There is no question that Soldiers' lives were saved by that fast transfer of information.

That is where we need to go. I may not be able to get CPOFs down to the company level, but what I would like to see is a PDA [personal digital assistant] or some other device in the hands of every patrol leader. It might not even have to be a secure device. I understand OPSEC [operational security] concerns, but rapid fielding of a relatively cheap non-secure device for passing this type of life-saving information may be in order.

Q What other systems or weapons do we need for a counterinsurgency?

A We had enemy rounds falling on us, hurting and killing people, so we need a way to acquire incoming rounds more effectively.

Then I need the ability to shoot now. Can I knock a mortar out of the sky? Is that possible? Do we have the technology to do that while limiting collateral damage to acceptable levels?

I would like to have more Predator-like capabilities--not just a UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] that finds targets, but also a UAV that kills targets. I don't necessarily have to have the weapon hung on the UAV, like the Predator. But if the UAV has a laser designator for Apache helicopters in a laager position where they can't be heard or seen, we proved the Apaches can pop up and engage the target with Hellfire missiles. That is very effective, especially in urban operations, causing minimum collateral damage.

Q Sir, that sounds like what Major General John Batiste, Commander of the 1st Infantry Division in OIF II, said in his interview [May-June edition].

A Well, you see, John and I intentionally decided to conduct a coordinated campaign. He fought to get additional Predators with weapons onboard, while I was trying to get laser designators on my Shadows.

Q What message would you like to send Field Artillerymen around the world?

A Full-spectrum operations will be the norm in the future. I believe the role of the Field Artillery in a full-spectrum fight is going to grow, not diminish. The skill sets of Artillerymen, as effects-based operators, are becoming more important, not less important.

The Chief of Staff of the Army has said the transforming Army is an organization that will be worked over time. I think we're going to see many of the capabilities provided by the Div Arty come back--probably not as a Div Arty, but in a different form. It's our responsibility to ensure that the force we design can do the job in all the ways we plan to employ it. And we need a force FA headquarters for the FA assets that are absolutely essential to the way we fight.

Major General Peter W. Chiarelli is the Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas. In March 2005, he returned from a one-year deployment in command of the Multi-National Division (Baghdad) in Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Also in the 1st Cavalry Division, he served as the Assistant Division Commander (Support) and G3 as well as the Deputy G3 Director of Plans, Training and Mobilization for III Corps, also on Fort Hood. His other commands include the 3d Brigade, 2d Infantry Division, and 2d Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division, both at Fort Lewis, Washington. Before taking command of the 1st Cav, he was the Director of Operations, Readiness and Mobilization in the Army G3 at the Pentagon. He is a graduate of the National War College in Washington, DC, and holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Washington and a Master of Arts in National Security and Strategy from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island.

Major General Peter W. Chiarelli

Commander of the Multi-National Division, Baghdad (MND-B) during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) II

Interview by Patrecia Slayden Hollis