Aviation Week | By Paul McLeary | 28 December 2009
USMC Anbar Awakening Report Faults U.S.
Neither Petraeus nor his COIN Manual was the key in Anbar

[Download [pdf]: : Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II: Iraqi Perspectives; From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, a publication of Marine Corps University Press. The companion document is Volume I: American Perspectives.]

Washington:  The U.S. Marine Corps recently released a study on the turn of the Sunni tribes in Anbar, Iraq, against al Qaeda beginning in 2007, and the paper is gaining attention for both its approach and its message, purposeful or not.

In a departure from usual U.S. reviews, the USMC study – Al-Anbar Awakening: Iraqi Perspectives From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004-2009 – is from the local perspective and it makes some blunt assessments of the insurgency, including who caused it and what fixed it. According to the USMC report: “In Iraq to a very large degree, we — the U.S. military and civilians — were the source of the insurgency. Honest men and women can argue the whys, what-ifs, and what-might-have-beens, but ultimately, it was mostly about unfulfilled promises and the heavy-handed military approach taken by some over the summer of 2003 that caused events to spiral out of control.”

Moreover, there is what could be interpreted as the Corps’ pushback against the celebrity of Army Gen. David Petraeus and the counterinsurgency field manual he championed. Marine Maj. Gen. John Kelly writes: “No single personality was the key in Anbar, no shiny new field manual the reason why, and no ‘surge’ or single unit made it happen. It was a combination of many factors, not the least of which — perhaps the most important — was the consistent command philosophy that drove operations in Anbar from March 2004 forward.”

The Marine report may still not provide a full review, however. Anbari tribes had tried before to reach out to U.S. forces but were rebuffed. An early opportunity came when Army Col. Sean MacFarland’s 1st Brigade of the 1st Armored Division started building small combat outposts and striking deals with Sunni sheiks in Ramadi in 2006-2007. Nevertheless, the 340-page Marine report remains a fascinating look into the Iraqi side of the equation.

Photo credit: U.S. Defense Dept.

Source: Aviation Week