I noted that we can't be brutal enough to subdue Ramadi and that Iraqis will have to shoulder the responsibility for this one. If it was purely enemy held like Fallujah, we could blast it. But it is contested with our troops inside the city so we can't really just knock it down around us. And Sunnis won't ever like us after toppling them from 400 years of dominance over the Shias and Kurds.
Well, we have surrounded Ramadi with forts to interdict enemy movement in and out of the city of 400,000:
Two weeks after thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces established a series of combat outposts, called "strong points," surrounding Ramadi, residents are returning to the unruly city, hoping to find relative normalcy.
As the strong points were being occupied, residents had fled or braced for a full-scale Fallujah-style assault that never happened. Instead, they are seeing a "soft offensive" that is emblematic of the new face of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency effort.
And we are building a net of forts for US and Iraq forts inside Ramadi:
The strong points in Ramadi, cohabitated by U.S. and Iraqi troops, are designed to cut off the insurgents from supplies and reinforcements from the outside. They also serve as small satellite bases from which to launch highly focused, company-level operations. While Americans still lead the effort to neutralize the insurgency, it is becoming increasingly incumbent on the thousands of Iraqi soldiers in Ramadi to win over the local population.
Coalition forces, along with Iraqi army units, hope for an "oil spot" effect at each strong point. The fortified outposts are a foothold from which they can take back and rebuild neighborhoods one block at a time. Every week, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers will expand the influence of their strong points until all efforts are widespread and interconnected with neighboring strong points.
Classic counter-insurgency. Heck, this is how the English conquered Wales. A web of forts pushed into enemy territory followed by commerce.
And as I noted must happen, the Iraqis will be in the lead:
What distinguishes MacFarland's mission from previous operations is that its success - or failure - will be largely dependent on the Iraqi army. Previous operations, including Fallujah, Samarah, and Baghdad's Sadr City, have put American grunts at the tip of the spear, with Iraqis in rear-area security roles. The Ramadi effort puts Iraqis shoulder to shoulder with Americans, with Iraqis often in the driver's seat.
This doesn't mean we don't have a significant role. We hit one terrorist haven inside Ramadi:
Members of al-Qaida in Iraq had been using the Ramadi General Hospital, a seven-story building with some 250 beds, to treat their wounded and fire on U.S. troops in the area, the Marines said.
They said wounded Iraqi police officers who had been taken to the hospital were later found beheaded.
Though there was no resistance during Wednesday's operation, the Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment said they found about a dozen triggering devices for roadside bombs hidden above the tiled ceiling of one office. They knocked down dozens of locked doors and searched medicine chests and storage closets for additional weapons.
Hospitals are considered off-limits in traditional warfare. In western Ramadi, however, insurgents have fired on Marines from the rooftop of a women and children's hospital so often that patients were moved to a wing with fewer exposed windows.
With Iraqis watching the locals and who have a better street sense, extending a network of forts from the periphery inward and eventually throughout the city will squeeze the enemy into a smaller and smaller area. Operating in company-sized units will be necessary at first because the enemy has operated in attacks up to 100 strong--the only place in Iraq I've read they can do this. Our troops will provide backup, too.
Hopefully, the enemy will die inside Ramadi and be unable to disperse as the enemy did from Fallujah. We killed rather a lot there in 2004, but too many got out first and caused problems elsewhere.
