The convoy came crashing into Camp Ali moments after I left the Iraqi COC. Staff Sergeant Donaldson, hanging outside his Humvee’s window, yelled, “Get Doc!” I yelled back, “Why do you need Doc?” He quickly replied, “We have a Leyland full of bloody detainees!” I dashed for the MiTT camp to grab Doc.
Soon Doc and I arrived at the Leyland, the bed of which was full of crusted bodily fluids. Blood stained the detainees and the t-shirts that wrapped their injuries. As if the situation were not bad enough for the detainees, the jundi wanted to make it worse. They wanted to kill the detainees for causing the IED. They wanted to implement “Duke Nukem justice,” which involves blowing everyone up and “letting God sort ’em out.”
The logical progression of how the detainees caused the IED was not clear, yet one of the Iraqis on the convoy explained why it made sense to either kill or beat the detainees. First, these people were detained for a reason; they had not been picked up because they were on a Sunday stroll. It was likely the detainees were insurgents, and thus killing them now would probably eliminate a future problem. Second, the detainees were young males from the local areas and certainly knew what was going on in their streets. If the jundi were allowed to beat them, they could extract information on insurgent activity.
I replied, “If these detainees were insurgents, then why the heck would their insurgent buddies blow them up in an IED attack? You got a good answer to that one?” He didn’t have an answer. He simply responded, “I still think we should beat them.”
Iraqi logic is not always logical.
Chapter 16
Transitioning to Independent Operations
As advisers we were not supposed to command the Iraqi army; rather, our mission was to advise Iraqis. At this point in the deployment, the MiTT controlled all Iraqi meetings, controlled all convoys, and conducted most of the planning for the Iraqi operations. The jundi did what we told them and gladly followed. In many ways the Iraqis were less prepared for independent operations than they had been with the previous MiTT. We had actually gone backward. This monumental failure annoyed me, and I decided to confront the problem myself.
Letting Iraqis Lead—A Novel Concept
My plan was to put together a convoy-training package that would transition the Iraqis to independent convoy operations, which made up 80 percent of our combat operations. The convoy setup involved three MiTT vehicles dispersed throughout the Iraqi convoy. We maintained the second, middle, and rear Humvee positions and kept control of the convoy at all times. The boss claimed that the Iraqis had free rein of the convoy, but that showed a complete lack of understanding. Every Iraqi officer who had conducted convoys had personally complained to me that the setup gave them no ability to control the convoy. Plus, with MiTT Humvees at the front, center, and rear of the convoy, it was difficult for the Iraqis to exercise any leadership without having their toes stomped on by our boss.
The three-phase plan I wanted to implement would radically change the way we did business as an adviser team. While the details of the plan were complicated, the basics of each phase were pragmatic and easy to grasp. The first phase would begin with a change in attitude. The Iraqis would not be looked upon as convoy participants but as convoy leaders. Additionally, the MiTT vehicle in the front of the convoy would be moved to the middle of the convoy and the other two MiTT vehicles would be in the rear of the convoy. By moving more toward the rear of the convoy, we would eliminate our ability to command and control the situation when things get hectic, which is the very time we want the Iraqis to work through the issues. Once everyone was comfortable with phase one we would move into phase two.
Phase two would take one of the MiTT vehicles completely out of the convoy. There was no reason to be risking four American lives and a bunch of equipment for absolutely no reason. In this phase, two American Humvees would sit in the rear of the convoy and merely provide communications support to call on American assets if the Iraqis needed them (calling up an EOD team to examine an IED would be an example). Also, the Iraqis would be required to give a full operations order before each convoy, which would cover all the aspects of the convoy mission.
Phase three of my plan was the gold standard. In this phase the MiTT would not even participate in convoy operations. We would merely coordinate movements and advise the Iraqis on COC operations back at battalion headquarters. The Iraqis would operate independently, make their own decisions, and learn from their own failures. There was no reason for Americans to die for Iraq when there were Iraqi soldiers to take on that risk. If we really wanted Marines to accomplish the mission in Iraq, we would kick out the Iraqi army, add an additional two hundred thousand troops, and implement martial law on the entire country. The tricky thing with the final phase was figuring out how to coordinate with other American units in the area and how to get support to the Iraqis if something bad happened.
Unfortunately, coalition forces have little to no Arabic-speaking capability. I also had a solution for this problem. I planned to translate various communications templates the Marines use, such as IED nine-line reports and enemy contact reports (SALUTE report). When the Iraqis needed support, they would fill out their template and send the message in Arabic back to the Iraqi COC. The terps would translate this message and hand it off to a Marine adviser, who would call on support from the Marines.
I pitched the plan to nearly everyone who would listen. I spent weeks going to every Iraqi officer’s swahut to get advice on how to make the plan better. All of them were extremely enthusiastic about the opportunity to actually be free men and lead their own battalion versus being micromanaged by our MiTT. Everyone on the adviser team was enthusiastic with the plan as well. Sadly, the only person who had a problem with the idea was the boss—the one person we needed on board to make this work.
While I was not able to convince the boss, I had a good idea: Maj. Gen. Rick Zilmer, the Multi-National Forces West commander, agreed to help me out. The newest guidance required us to “make all efforts and accept more risk in order to ensure Iraqis are being given the chance to take the lead on operations.” After seeing the general’s new guidance, the boss gave me approval to kick my plan into gear.
The next day I woke up around 0630 after sleeping a few hours. Despite being tired, I was super motivated. I planned to sit down with Lieutenant Ahmed, the acting S3 operations officer, and start working on the convoy transition plan. This would be my chance to change the direction of our MiTT and do something that helped the Iraqis become an independent organization so we could get the hell out of this country.
Ahmed and I had an outstanding relationship. I sat down with him for about three hours discussing how we could implement the convoy transition plan. We accomplished in three hours what MiTT teams had been trying to accomplish over the past two years—transition security operations duties over to the Iraqis. We both felt like we had accomplished something. I took his ideas, he took mine, and in the end we had something that would make the Iraqi army more capable. At the end of our meeting I smiled at Ahmed and said, “We should be on a military advising brochure—that was too easy.” Ahmed replied, “No Jamal, you make it easy. You understand how we operate.”