The military launched its latest offensive in a cluster of cities in the Euphrates River valley about 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. Code-named "River Gate," it was the largest U.S. offensive in the troubled Anbar region of western Iraq this year, the military said. It also included hundreds of Iraqi troops, the largest such contingent of any of the offensives this year.
The press has complained a lot that past offensives merely swept a town and then moved on, letting the enemy back in once we were gone.
This complaint has some truth to it. Counter-insurgency requires persistence in an area. When you are fighting insurgencies, it is best to hold the ground to deny the enemy recruiting and training space. The enemy should have to face opposition from security forces and a population that doesn't want the insurgents around if it wants to come in to a protected area.
Failing that, a ground sweep will tear up the enemy infrastructure and accumulated supplies while killing the enemy and forcing the enemy that survives to relocate. The enemy can come back after the government forces move out, but the enemy has lost valuable time just surviving and regrouping.
If you can't do this, you want to at least bombard the enemy to inflict some losses. The enemy can dig deep and avoid some of the pain but not all. This is mostly attrition since the enemy base area remains intact and they are free to plan attacks of their own. But it is better than doing nothing.
Finally, if you can't do anything at all, the enemy gains a rear area to plan, rest, train, equip, and send out attackers.
The press correctly notes that controlling ground is best and has criticized the military for not doing this. The press ignores that the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. Sure, aerial strikes and ground sweeps aren't ideal, but they do accomplish good things. And doing nothing at all just because the perfect isn't possible should not be an option. But we are seeing our forces beginning to carry out the best response to enemy safe areas and we should see some good progress.
Still, remember that Al Anbar is a tough nut to crack. American efforts in the western part of Al Anbar province have gone from ignoring it in order to focus on securing the Sunni heartland, to aerial strikes, and then to ground sweeps, and more recently to holding ground taken.
The key is having Iraqi troops to hold the ground; and as the Iraqi military grows in strength we are getting to the point where holding ground out in the wild west is our practice.
