The story behind the story in Iraq

Newsweek has an interesting piece this week from a reporter embedded with a Marine unit in Iraq. All we usually see and hear about are the fierce insurgent attacks on our forces and the renewed battle for Baghdad. What we don’t hear about is the ‘boots on the ground’ vantage point, how the troops there see things. 

Here’s how one officer in Ramadi sees things in that deadly location, which some Marines liken to the Wild West:

Everyone agrees, though, with the assessment of the U.S. commander in Ramadi, Col. Sean MacFarland: what happens in this city could ultimately mean disaster or success in the struggle against Sunni insurgents throughout Iraq. It is, he adds, at a “tipping point.”   

But which way? The article is a both a grim account of just how entrenched the enemy is there, and a message of hope for the growing humanity in the relationships our troops are building with the people there. An especially dicey balance when you realize that the troops have to figure out in each town who the bad guys are, who the less bad guys are, and who the friendly ones may be, if given the opportunity.

Along Ramadi’s western edge, a different approach may be working. There Lima Company’s captain, Max Barela, stopped kicking down doors months ago. Instead, he knocks and asks politely to come in. He stays for hours, sometimes into the middle of the night, just “chitchatting,” he says. He recently conducted a census of the 2,000 homes in his area. “I know every family in my area,” he says. Barela differentiates between enemies like Al Qaeda and “nationalist insurgents” who see themselves as fighting for Iraqi independence. “We have a policy where unless we have information that’s going to put them away for a long time, we leave them alone,” Barela says. “You’d be shocked at the level of frankness you can have with a nationalist insurgent.” In the past three months, vio-lent incidents have decreased more than 70 percent in Lima Company’s area, MacFarland confirms. Children play on the streets past curfew, and IED attacks have virtually ceased.

This is a counter-insurgency approach that never makes it on camera, but it’s a daily reality in Iraq along with the assaults.

 “One of the things I want to do is get to the point where I’m not killing so many people a day,” McFarland told NEWSWEEK. “I want to give them jobs.” It’s not easy. The insurgents kill every tribal cop they can, dumping their corpses in the street as a warning to anyone else who would cooperate with the Americans, but new recruits keep coming.

And why would they do that, given the deadly risk?

What a powerful will. What an amazing story.