My Share of the Task

by General Stanley McChrystal

officially under way: Smith and MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens,” 48. The same event is recounted in Al-Jabouri and Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI Roles,” 11.

  wrote to Nouri al-Maliki: Khalid Al-Ansary and Ali Adeeb, “Most Tribes in Anbar Agree to Unite Against Insurgents,” New York Times, September 18, 2006.

  Iraqi government payroll: Al-Jabouri and Jensen, “The Iraqi and AQI Roles,” 14–15.

  did not like having an American tank: Sheikh Sattar’s attitude toward the tank, and the rotation of Iraqi and American models, was recounted in an interview with Sterling Jensen. It also appears in his article, written with Al-Jabouri (ibid.,13).

  now a token of power: Sheikh Abdul Sattar was assassinated a year later, in September 2007, but not before he had served as a rallying point for the Sunni Awakening in Ramadi. His brother assumed his mantle as a leader of the Awakening.

  my old friend Graeme Lamb: Lamb took the title of Deputy Commanding General/Senior British Military Representative in MNF-I on September 7, 2006.

  and declare a national position: My recollection of the early Awakening was confirmed by interviews with task force members and with Graeme. As the Awakening gathered steam and consolidated, Graeme noted in January 2007 that “a conference of tribal chiefs in Anbar ended with a pledge to support the national government’s campaign against Al-Qaeda insurgents.” Graeme Lamb, “Dispatches from Baghdad: A Soldier’s View on Iraq,” Ministry of Defense, January 9, 2007.

  created the “COIN academy”: For details of the COIN Academy General Casey established, see Thomas E. Ricks, “U.S. Counterinsurgency Academy Giving Officers a New Mindset,” Washington Post, February 21, 2006.

  cited its teachers’ precepts: Lawrence F. Kaplan, “Letting Go,” New Republic, July 10, 2006.

  Squeeze Chart: Graeme’s description that day would later that fall be visualized in a series of increasingly descriptive diagrams that we called “The Squeeze Chart.” While they underwent a number of iterations, the most lasting chart that summarized his concept was a Venn diagram, with three circles laterally spaced. The leftmost circle comprised Sunnis, the rightmost Shia. They did not overlap, but where their edges touched was at the center of the third circle, in the middle. This central circle represented those groups assisting, or not resisting, a legitimate Iraqi government.

  permeated the rest of the Coalition: This point is made in Mark Urban, Task Force Black (Abacus, 2011), 186.

  terms helped us conceptualize: While Ambassador Khalilzad described groups as “irreconcilables” that summer, General James Mattis gives credit to Graeme for meaningfully introducing these terms—and the attendant logic—into the Coalition’s mindset. Al-Anbar Awakening, vol. I, 30.

  “not an independent phenomenon”: See book eight, chapter six of Carl von Clausewitz’s great work On War for his extended treatment of this famous quote. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton University Press, 1984).

  just shy of the most extreme: If we wanted to excise violence from the system, Graeme’s thinking went, we needed to approach the most violent groups that could realistically be approached. Cleaving the most radical irreconcilables away from the rest—by killing and capturing them and by separating them psychologically from the people—was key to breaking their hold on the other potentially reconcilable groups. “They will poison the people on the fence,” he said.

  Iraqis were fleeing every month: Sabrina Tavernise, “Civilian Death Toll Reaches New High in Iraq, U.N. Says,” New York Times, November 23, 2006.

  perhaps at its all-time low: On November 29, 2006, the New York Times published a memo written on November 8 by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. He wrote, “Despite Maliki’s reassuring words . . . the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action.”

  assaulting the Ministry of Health: Kirk Semple, “Sectarian Attack Is Worst in Baghdad Since Invasion,” New York Times, November 24, 2006.

  another 250 wounded: Casualty figures are from Associated Press, “Death Toll in Sadr City Rises to 202 Iraqis,” USA Today, November 24, 2006.

  hold that record for long: On August 15, 2007, four car bombs killed 250 and wounded 350. James Glanz, “Death Toll in Iraq Bombings Rises to 250,” New York Times, August 15, 2007.

  Ansar al-Sunnah’s leadership: Information on the ten captured leaders comes from an MNF-I press release: Multi-National Force–Iraq, “Capture of Terrorist Emirs Gives al-Qaida in Iraq Nowhere to Turn” (press release), December 6, 2006.

  mess-hall tent in Mosul: Ansar al-Sunnah was the biggest and most violent indigenous Iraqi insurgent group that had a pro–bin Laden ideology. Prior to the U.S. invasion, AAS had set up a Taliban-like enclave in the ungoverned parts of Kurdistan, banning music, dancing, and liquor, as reported, for example, by C. J. Chivers, “Kurds Face a Second Enemy: Islamic Fighters on Iraq Flank,” New York Times, January 13, 2003.

  Kurdish leaders had reported: Interview with task force member aware of intelligence on this matter.

  merger between the two groups: Bill Roggio, “A Zarqawi Letter and a Potential Merger with Ansar al-Sunnah,” Long War Journal, September 21, 2006.

  These were conversations: Details of these meetings with Abu Wail come from interviews with Graeme Lamb.

  “you’re a face of occupation”: Interview with Graeme Lamb. Note that this quote from Abu Wail has elsewhere been incorrectly attributed to Abu Azzam (Fairweather, A War of Choice, 294). In fact, it came from the Ansar religious emir.

  FSEC’s first strategic release: The timing of Abu Wail’s release comes from interviews with members of FSEC.

  “Annie, another Christmas apart”: E-mail to Annie, December 25, 2006. Edited slightly for punctuation.

  new strategy in Iraq: George W. Bush, Decision Points (Crown, 2010), 377.

  stretching back to the spring: Peter D. Feaver, “The Right to Be Right: Civil-Military Relations and the Iraq Surge Decision,” International Security (Spring 2011), 101.

  believed Al Shabab was sheltering: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror (John Wiley and Sons, 2011), 148.

  Abu Taha al-Sudani: Bill Roggio, “U.S. Gunship Fires on Al Qaeda Leader and Operative in Somalia,” Long War Journal, January 8, 2007.

  “Succeeding in Iraq”: George W. Bush, “President’s Address to the Nation,” White House, January 10, 2007.

  there were four vectors: Department of Defense, “DOD News Briefing with Secretary Gates and Gen. Pace,” February 2, 2007.

  explosively formed projectile IEDs: In 2004 Iranian-backed Special Groups had introduced to Iraqi roads a deadly new device known as an explosively formed projectile, or EFP. For years, “shaped charges” had been used in high-tech weaponry to penetrate armor plating. In the late 1990s, however, insurgents in southern Lebanon had adapted the technology for use in portable roadside bombs against Israeli vehicles. The technology migrated from their source, Iran, to Iraq, and according to Rick Atkinson in the Washington Post (October 1, 2007) the first EFP was detonated in May 2004 in Basra. By late 2006, the device was all too common and frighteningly lethal. The large number of EFPs was clear evidence of the extent of direct Iranian involvement in the conflict.

  EFPs varied in size; most were about the size of a small oil drum or a five-gallon paint bucket, but they could be even smaller. Insurgents positioned them a few feet above the ground and aimed them to shoot laterally into the roadway. Once triggered, often by hidden infrared sensors, an explosive charge on the back of the drum forced a concave metal cone to be reshaped into a dartlike stream in the direction of the target. The dense molten stream, often the size of a bowling pin and traveling at twice the speed of a bullet, punctured inches of met
al plating like water through snow. Inside the vehicle, the molten slug cut through legs and torsos, and its heat often lit the cab and the men inside on fire. Our heaviest armored vehicles were vulnerable and despite extensive countermeasures, in large numbers they were a potential game changer.

  In the early evening: One source claims the attack took place at 6:00 P.M. (Mark Kukis, “An Ambush in Karbala,” Time, July 26, 2007). Another article times the event at 5:00 P.M., providing further details about the number and line of SUVs and the PJCC. (Department of Defense, “Karbala Attackers Used U.S. Army–Styled Uniforms to Gain Access,” Armed Forces Press Service, January 26, 2007).

  wore U.S. Army uniforms: Department of Defense, “Karbala Attackers Used U.S. Army–Styled Uniforms.”

  roughly a dozen: Ibid.

  weapons through the doors: Kukis, “An Ambush in Karbala.” Details of this event draw on this article.

  suspicions about their involvement: Ibid.

  neighboring province of Babil: Borzou Daragahi, “Military Provides Details of Slain Soldiers’ Abduction,” Los Angeles Times, January 27, 2007.

  scrawled his name in the film: Kukis, “An Ambush in Karbala.”

  CHAPTER 15: THE LONG WAR

  could avoid producing antibodies: Then-Major Ben Connable used this same terminology describing Abizaid’s position in volume 1 of Al-Anbar Awakening.

  eighty-five of their comrades: Casualty figures come from Smith and MacFarland, “Anbar Awakens,” 52.

  could not knowingly target: Throughout the time Task Force 17 was active, it coordinated its target list with MNF-I and the State Department. Any time it posted a slide with “SCIRI” on it—referring to one of the main political parties that used the Badr Brigade as its violent arm—embassy officials would offer fierce objections.

  feverishly triaging the material: My recollection of this event was aided by interviews with those closely involved.

  twenty-two-page document: My recollection of the contents of this material was confirmed and elaborated upon in interviews with two individuals privy to it.

  attack on our outpost in Karbala: General Petraeus later said in a press conference, “[T]he heads of the Qazali network and some of the key members of that network that have been in detention now for a month or more . . . When we captured these individuals . . . we discovered, for example, a 22-page memorandum on a computer that detailed the planning, preparation, approval process and conduct of the operation that resulted in five of our soldiers being killed in Karbala.” Department of Defense, “DOD News Briefing with Gen. Petraeus from the Pentagon,” April 26, 2007.

  as well as postoperation assessments: Multi-National Force–Iraq (Brigadier General Kevin Bergner), “Situational Update” (briefing), July 2, 2007.

  military IDs taken: Jack Fairweather, A War of Choice: The British in Iraq 2003–2009 (Jonathan Cape, 2011), 297.

  life inside the camp: Then–Brigadier General Kevin Bergner described in detail the capture of the Khazalis and the contents of the twenty-two-page document in his MNF-I press briefing, July 2 cited above: “The document that we captured showed the following. It showed that the group that attacked the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala had conducted extensive preparation and drills prior to the attack. Quds Force had developed detailed information regarding our soldiers’ activities, shift changes and fences, and this information was shared with the attackers.”

  immediate pressure to release Qais: Indeed, according to Fairweather, Maliki called Dave Petraeus early that morning to demand the Khazalis’ release. Fairweather, A War of Choice, 297.

  seized an opportunity: Petraeus later reflected, “We told Maliki now was the time to take action against the Jaish al-Mahdi to demonstrate his authority.” Fairweather, A War of Choice, 297.

  sought to capture in Irbil: “Interview with Mohammed Jafari,” Frontline, PBS, August 2, 2007.

  sought to convince its leadership: Details of arguments presented to Ansar leadership were provided by those closely involved.

  twenty-three hundred men patrolling: Richard A. Oppel, Jr., “Mistrust as Iraqi Troops Encounter New U.S. Allies,” New York Times, July 16, 2007.

  Daraji was ambushed: Edward Wong and Damien Cave, “Attack on Sadr City Mayor Hinders Antimilitia Effort,” New York Times, March 15, 2007.

  leader of its operations in Iraq: Multi-National Force–Iraq, “Capture of Terrorist Emirs Gives al-Qaida in Iraq Nowhere to Turn” (press release), December 6, 2006.

  cleansed many of the neighborhoods: Some of the best work on this subject was done by Dr. Michael Izady of Columbia University as part of The Gulf/2000 Project. His maps of increasingly homogenous neighborhoods are available on the project’s website.

  giving Graeme greater latitude: Interview with Graeme Lamb.

  Whitehall had ordered: Fairweather, A War of Choice, 316.

  to the airport in September: Ibid., 318.

  wounded each of these months: Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, “Fatalities by Year and Month,” iCasualties website, 2012; Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, “U.S. Wounded Totals,” iCasualties website, 2012.

  blood on their hands: This exchange is based on my recollection, as well as interviews with participants. A form of this episode is also told in Fairweather, A War of Choice, 292. Note: While this book implies this discussion took place at Maude House, I remember it at the Friday meeting.

  never to sugarcoat or obscure: Interviews with members of FSEC.

  time for a decision: My recollection of these meetings is aided by interviews with two task force members present.

  Jihad and Reform Front: The “JR Front Establishing Statement” was posted to an English-language Islamic Army in Iraq website on September 15, 2007, but was signed and dated May 2, 2007.

  to avoid killing innocents: One of the Front’s policies covered this issue: “Mujahedeen operations target the occupiers and their agents, and don’t target innocents whom one of Jihad goals is [sic] to support them and achieve a good life for them, and use kindness as the way that we treat Muslims.” “JR Front Establishing Statement,” Islamic Army in Iraq website, September 15, 2007.

  led by Abu Wail: “Jihad and Reform Front,” Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor, March 20, 2009.

  a faction came with him: Ibid. See also Evan F. Kohlmann, “State of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq: August 2007,” NEFA Foundation, 15, 18–19.

  collaborating with the United States: “Jihad and Reform Front.” Jane’s.

  target the leaders: Stanford University, “Islamic Army in Iraq,” Mapping Militant Organizations, project website, 2012.

  clashed with AQI, petered out: Ibid.

  dissension within Ansar’s ranks: “Jihad and Reform Front,” Jane’s.

  Dadullah the Lame: Dadullah may have led one of the earliest meetings that set the still small Taliban resurgence movement into action in 2002. See Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (Columbia University Press, 2008), 11. In 2003, Mullah Omar dispatched Dadullah to lead recruitment in Baluchistan and Karachi, where he was rumored to be accompanied by Pakistani officials. Elizabeth Rubin, “In the Land of the Taliban,” New York Times Magazine, October 22, 2006.

  anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s: According to a Taliban biography, he joined the anti-Soviet resistance in 1983. Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn, An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban-Al Qaeda Merger in Afghanistan, 1970–2010 (Hurst and Co., 2012), 275.

  quit school to join: Ibid., 275–76.

  stepped on a mine: Omid Marzban, “Mullah Dadullah: The Military Mastermind of the Taliban Insurgency,” Jamestown Foundation, March 21, 2006.

  “preceded him to Paradise”: Abu Yahya al-Libi, quoted in “Islamist Website Monitor No. 110,” Middle East Media Research Institute, June 8, 2007.r />
  Mullah Omar retired him: Elizabeth Rubin notes, “His fighters slaughtered hundreds of Hazaras . . . in Bamiyan Province, an act so brutal it was even too much for Mullah Omar, who had him disarmed at the time” (“In the Land of the Taliban”).

  “I no longer need them”: Kate Clark, “The Layha: Calling the Taliban to Account,” Afghanistan Analysts Network, July 4, 2011, 3, note 7.

  United Front in the north: Linschoten, An Enemy We Created, 276.

  the atrocities he carried out: Carlotta Gall, “Northern Alliance Presses for Surrender of Taliban Commander and Troops,” New York Times, December 4, 2001.

  relied increasingly on suicide bombs: This point is made in Linschoten, An Enemy We Created, 279.

  bombs on the roads of Iraq: Sami Yousafzai, “Suicide Offensive,” Newsweek, April 15, 2007.

  there were 141: Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (Penguin, 2009), 366. Other accounts give slightly different numbers, but the magnitude of increase is the same. Linschoten, for example, reports 3 suicide bombs in 2004 and 123 in 2006. Linschoten, An Enemy We Created, 279.

  distance from Al Qaeda: This is one of the central arguments made in Linschoten, An Enemy We Created.

  four dollars a disc: Matthias Gebauer, “The Star of Afghanistan’s Jihad,” Der Spiegel Online, March 1, 2007.

  ridgelines and beheading “spies”: Rubin, “In the Land of the Taliban.”

  relief when he was disposed of: This is explained in Clark, “The Layha,” 4.

  eulogies from Al Qaeda: “I announce to you today the passing of a hero among the heroes of Jihad in this era and a knight among its knights,” mourned Ayman al-Zawahiri (Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Elegizing the Commander of the Martrydom-Seekers Mulla Dadullah [May Allah Have Mercy on Him].” World Analysis, May 22, 2007.) Abu Yahya al-Libi also had praise for Dadullah. “Today,” he said, “we take leave of one of these noble commanders, Mullah Dadullah, who has joined the ranks of the martyrs . . . after having spent his life on the battlefronts fighting the infidels.” Abu Yahya al-Libi quoted in “Islamist Websites Monitor No. 110,” Middle East Media Research Institute, June 8, 2007.