The POWs were a handful, there was now a fuckload of them, but there were a lot of Kurds to take care of that. They had pretty much the same approach as the Nepos. Be nice boys and you live. We'll even feed you.
Food turned out to be an issue in the whole region. The harvests were screwed by the weather. Right then I decided if this Last Centurions thing worked out I was going to discuss the weather.
But there were lots of fields around Mosul. Most of them were fucked up from the weather and plague but some had standing wheat and barley. With the fighting under control the next major operation was to get them harvested. The Kurds really wanted enough food to make it through the winter and next spring.
So I got together with the Kurdish commander and the Iraqi commander and a bottle of hooch.
Thing was, most of the Iraqi commander's troops were Shia not Sunni. Sunni had gotten down to less then ten percent of the Iraqi population by the time the Plague hit and they didn't fare any better than the Shia. Having a Sunni in control in Baghdad was just silly. It was purely a function of State leaving our gear where they did. Oh, and the fact that most of the Sunni left in Iraq were, ahem, "immoderates." (Read "hardcores.") Quite a few of them weren't even Iraqi; they were transplants who had come in for the "great jihad" against the U.S. Most of the long-term Iraqi families left in Iraq were those who just refused to leave and were going to fight the Shia tooth and nail until they were "ethnically cleansed." There were some good guys. The commander of the Mosul brigade was pretty decent as such guys go.
But most weren't.
What now? Lotsoprisoners you can't feed.
Truce with Baghdad. Prisoners. Better operational forces. Your equipment and support . . .
Yeah, on that. Don't bet. Stuff back home.
Still have equipment.
Yeah, on that . . .
Truce with Baghdad.
Mad Mullah.
()
Need a different government in Baghdad.
(Slight wry grin.) Culloden Field.
Now that was a reference I was surprised to hear. Go look it up. But clearly this guy realized that taking the Kurds all the way to Baghdad wasn't an option. In which he was smarter than Bonnie Prince Charlie.
I looked over at the Iraqi commander who was quietly sipping my booze and wondering why he was in a high level meeting with two of his enemies.
Need a different government in Baghdad.
There were . . . issues. There always are. And when people started to piece together what I'd done, let's just say that my career got rocky. But that was later.
Here were the issues.
The Iraqis, the non-hardcores, were going to be willing to follow the colonel. He was a pretty good guy all things considered. But they'd just gotten their asses kicked and a shattered unit is rarely cohesive in battle.
But even if the returning "army of conquest" could beat the hardcores working for Mullah Hamadi, and that was an "if," that would leave the colonel in a bit of a pickle. He'd be a Sunni trying to lead a bunch of Shia with absolutely no support from the Sunni around him.
Which had me making calls.
Turned out the mullah I'd left in charge at the LOG base had gotten pretty good relations going with the Shia over in southern Iraq. Basically, the border was a memory. They were getting into good cooperative agreement now that a couple of "issues" had been settled in the area. (HAMB on the Iranian side and the rest of the Mahdi Army over in Iraq.) The "moderates" were in a position that being "moderate" was no longer a survival trait so they'd gotten "immoderate" with the "immoderates" and since the "immoderate moderates" outnumbered the "immoderate immoderates" they'd kicked their ass.
If that makes any sense at all.
There had always been a lot of Iraqis who supported "moderation." Look at their fucking elections for God's sake. But the problem had been large numbers of fuckheads, the Sunni jihadis who were being funneled in and Ba'athist Sunnis who wanted back in power and the Shia who were puppets to the Iranians whether they knew it or not. And their various tribes. And criminals and whatnot.
The "immoderates."
With the Plague the "moderates" had realized that it was fight or die time. And they'd always outnumbered the "immoderates."
This pattern, too, was consistent in Islam. There'd been periods of "moderation" and then periods of "fucking nutballs in charge." Causality was pushing in the direction of "moderation."
Didn't mean I would want to be a Sunni in Iraq.
The point being, there was a group in south Iraq which was already looking at taking Baghdad and tossing the fuckheads out. Freedom and Democracy? Maybe. In time. But they were primarily secularist politically (even the "mullah" I'd left in charge in the LOG base) and that would have to do.
Their problem was, they had pretty good intel on what Mullah Hamadi had in Baghdad. It was way less, now, but it was still a tough nut.
We got everybody in a consult. Hey, I wasn't sure why I'd left the commo vans in the LOG base but I figured they might come in handy. Think the Palantir in the Lord of the Rings. (Yes, I've read it. School paper. God that's a fucking snoozer.)
The end point.
Combined assault on Baghdad from the north and south. The colonel would lead his primarily Shia unit on an "invasion of liberation from Sunni oppression." (Yes, he was a Sunni. People could and did ignore that.) They'd have some Kurds to lend esprit de corps and for whatever loot they could get from Baghdad. Forces from the south would come up in support. Food, which was more available in the south, would be sent to the Kurds for their help. Oh, and the Kurds get Mosul, Irbil and all the oil and other stuff up here to the line of . . . figure it out.
Shia?
Yeah, we can go for that. As long as we don't have those fucking Sunni in power anymore.
Guarantees? There's no such thing in the Middle East.
However, that left the colonel in a bit of a pickle. He hadn't been the most popular guy in the world in Iraq before the Plague. After it, he was less popular except among the Mullah Hamadi crowd who saw a school-trained Sunni. And he was willing to talk a good line to stay alive.
After they took Baghdad, Sunni were not going to be popular people.
Sigh. Couldn't have the savior of the country strung up. Which would have happened eventually. Life is like that. Or shot by the Shia as a Sunni or the Sunni as a traitor.
He had family in the Sunni Triangle. Hell, bit of the remains of a clan.
"Well, Moses, you know what's got to happen."
"Take my people out of Egypt?"
"Okay, maybe Abraham. Out of Babylon for sure."
So I put in a call to Jordan.
School-trained colonel. Sunni but secular. Nice guy. Probably bringing some weapons, personnel and equipment with him. Got a few things to do first.
Sure, Hussein Jr. would love to have somebody like that. Come on down! We'll bring the couscous.
Did I have authority to do any of that shit? Oh, hell no. And when State got wind of it they damned near wet their short trousers. Especially "justifying" the borders of Kurdistan. Who the hell did I think I was? Churchill?