Infantry commander shares lessons from Iraq

Eds: UPDATES with details of essay, background on deployment, ADDS byline, Internet note.

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By JOHN MILBURN

Associated Press Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- U.S. forces didn't start winning hearts and minds in Baghdad and beating back the insurgency until they embraced tactics that involved interacting with influential Iraqis in their shops and homes instead of working mainly through official Iraqi government channels, a senior Army officer said.

Lt. Col. Jim Crider wrote in an essay published this week that his training had not properly prepared him to deal with the insurgency when he was deployed to Baghdad in 2007 as a squadron commander.

Residents saw U.S. troops as an extension of an Iraqi government few trusted, and U.S. forces had fomented resentment among Iraqis by trading reconstruction funds for information about insurgents rather than using it to help businesses reopen and get people back to work, Crider wrote.

The essay, published the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank, provides an insider's look at how a switch to counterinsurgency tactics helped U.S. forces turn the tide in their battle with insurgents.

Crider said he wrote the essay to put his unit's experiences in proper perspective and to provide lessons for those who follow him into combat.

"The senior leadership of the Army has established a culture where this type of sharing is not only accepted, but encouraged," he told The Associated Press in an e-mail Thursday.

Crider said when he arrived in Baghdad to lead the 1st Squadron of the 4th Cavalry Regiment out of Fort Riley, he was prepared, like other U.S. commanders, to battle the insurgency by "destroying the enemy on the battlefield."

But the traditional tactics of cordoning off a neighborhood after an attack to gather intelligence didn't work, and U.S. troops were failing in their mission because they lacked a good understanding of the cultural and political causes of the insurgency, wrote Crider, who later served as a senior military fellow at the think tank.

"Perhaps my biggest lesson is that none of the things I learned were new," he wrote.

Crider described the frustration he felt working with residents of Baghdad's Doura neighborhood during the first few weeks in 2007 and not making any gains. His soldiers faced 50 attacks in their first 30 days.

"I did not truly understand the insurgency in Doura. We had little understanding of why we were being attacked despite trying to help the people," Crider wrote.

Crider said he was reluctant at first to change to tactics outlined in what was a new Army counterinsurgency doctrine released in late 2006. But he quickly came to realize his forces were better able to earn the trust of ordinary Iraqis by identifying and engaging influential individuals.

To do this, Crider said he conducted a census and sent small groups of soldiers out to the shops and homes of locals.

"In just a matter of months, the tables had turned. Before, we had no idea who was watching us or plotting attacks," he said. "Now insurgents had no idea who was giving them up."

Eventually, Crider developed dozens of good sources and leads and the insurgents moved on.

"Many were teenagers lacking parental supervision who were persuaded to join the insurgency in order to gain a form of respect," he said.

Since the soldiers were the ones providing security, jobs and infrastructure, Iraqis viewed them as the government, Crider said. The challenge was to get the Shiite government to reach out to Sunnis if the insurgency was to halt.

"We pleaded for the Iraqi government officials to visit Doura in late 2007 and early 2008," he said. "We wanted to show them that the neighborhood was no longer the insurgent haven that many locked up in the Green Zone still believed."

Crider said he also came to realize that it was important to give out reconstruction funds for more than intelligence about insurgents, because improving the economic outlook for ordinary citizens removed incentives to join the insurgency.

"The counterinsurgent should not attempt to hold money, services or security as a bargaining chip for information," he said. "Denying these items will only cause resentment."

Thomas Ricks, a senior fellow at the think tank, said Crider's essay is important because it's a rare first-person account by an on-the-ground commander in Iraq that didn't pass through official channels. He said U.S. forces learned many of the same useful counterinsurgency tactics during the Vietnam war but forgot them.

"This could be the story any battalion commander during the surge. It's almost like a miniature history of the war," Ricks said. "It's shocking to me that that late in the ball game that the Army wasn't better preparing its leaders."

Crider is heading back to Iraq later this year as the operations officer for the 3rd Infantry Division. The division is heading to the northern part of Iraq, which remains a volatile region still marked by insurgents and an al-Qaida presence.

The deployment comes as the United States reduces its military forces in Iraq and transitions security duties to the Iraqis. Crider was part of the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, as well.

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On the Net:

Center for a New American Security: http://www.cnas.org