Aftermath

by Nir Rosen

  One hundred and forty Sunni families returned to Washash, he told me. Salim also returned sixty-four Shiite families to Mansour’s Dawudi area, formerly an Al Qaeda stronghold. IDPs took their papers and identification cards to the returnee center in the Harthiya district. When they received a letter approving their return to their house, they gave it to the local unit in charge of the area. The family occupying the house had three days to leave, he told me. “If they don’t leave, they are treated like terrorists,” he said. “They must go back to their house.” Some families had agreed to exchange their houses.

  The Mahdi Army was finished, he said, but its supporters were still in the government. Salim was jailed for two months, he claims because of his aggressive pursuit of the Mahdi Army. “They made fake charges against me,” he said. “They accused me of killing Shiites.” Others say Salim beat a Mahdi Army suspect to death. He told me that he paid thirty thousand dollars in ransom to the man’s family and he was released. But he was kept off active duty for several months as a result, which he viewed as additional punishment.

  SALIM ALSO BELIEVED that Gen. Abdel Karim in Dora was associated with the Mahdi Army. He told me that the Badr Corps had been active only for the first two years of the occupation. “Their first goal was to kill Iraqi pilots and high-ranking Baathists, Saddam supporters, Iranian targets,” he said. “Then they worked with the government.” Salim believed that men who had fought the Americans were also criminals. “The Americans didn’t come to destroy the country,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the resistance, the Americans wouldn’t have stayed even for one year. We are all afraid—if the Americans go, who will fill the vacuum? Maybe the Iranians. Sectarianism is still there. An officer targeting Sunnis is promoted, but if he is targeting Shiites they will harm him or wait until the Americans leave. Shiites have power in the government and know they will take over Iraq. Sunnis want to overthrow the government and have Sunnis in power. Nobody can do anything now because the Americans are here.”

  Capt. Clarence “Wes” Wilhite worked closely with Salim. Wilhite was the Commander of D Company (nicknamed the Black Knights), of the First Battalion, Sixty-fourth Armor Regiment. Wilhite’s battalion arrived in Iraq in late May 2007 and departed in July 2008. He took over as the commander of D company in August 2007 and served throughout his deployment in that position. His area of operation included Washash, Iskan, Arabi, Dur Sud, Mutanabi, Hai Draq, Mansour, and Andalus. This put him on the eastern side of the battalion’s area. Unlike much of the 1-64 AR’s terrain, his area had not only an Al Qaeda presence but also Shiite militias, and in much of the area, these militias were the main threat.

  “Dur Sud was where we established the JSS on August 25,” Wilhite said. “This became known as the Sunni-Shiite ‘fault line’ for most of our battalion meetings. For lack of a better analogy, this was our line in the sand, where we wanted to prevent JAM expansion to the south. To the south of these areas, we faced the Sunni-insurgent threat, AQI. This area was unique because it was not necessarily as disputed as Amriya or Jamia. Often patrols encountered the deep-buried IED threats in Amriya and Jamia; however, this threat was not present in Andalus. Primarily, I saw this as a support zone where AQI used to facilitate operations in Amriya and Jamia. In the vicinity of the Grand Mosque was another interesting problem due to the high number of displaced persons, embassies, abandoned dense market areas, and high-level foreign officials in the area. Al Rawad Square had just suffered a vehicle-borne IED [VBIED] strike following a soccer game that killed over forty Iraqis in late July 2007.”

  I asked Wilhite what the area was like when he first arrived. “‘Desolate’ was the one word that came to mind,” he said. “My first patrol over eastern Mansour prior to assuming command of D Company was an eye-opener. I had hopped on a few patrols with my battalion commander’s security detail, but actually having the opportunity to walk the streets of these places and getting a back brief from some of my platoon leaders really opened my eyes. As I look back at my notes and video, specifically on Washash, the smell of raw sewage running through the streets in 105-degree heat, sights of Muqtada al-Sadr pictured everywhere, Naji graffiti everywhere, few people in sight, and young guys in tracksuits watching us at every corner and disappearing around the next corner come to mind. At the time, it was a nightmare, but an opportunity.”

  Wilhite explained that among his challenges were getting the Iraqi army to buy in to their plan and the persistent image of security in his area. “In July, prior to taking command of D Company and establishing the JSS, the company arrested one of the company commanders in the IA [Iraqi army] battalion who was actively working with Naji in Washash. We identified the IA company commander as being complacent and facilitating JAM operations in Washash and Arabi. He was detained and replaced.”

  Iraqi army cooperation with the Americans in the fall of 2007 prevented further collaboration with the Mahdi Army, he said. “Seeing the pure dissatisfaction and anger in their face at having to dig up their own people from shallow graves, having JAM kill a few of their soldiers or attack their checkpoints, affected their leadership—which, in turn, directly influenced their soldiers. Also, the IA’s first battalion commander we had to work with was terribly ineffective. The establishment of relationships, much like with any person in Arab culture, was absolutely critical. The relationship I had with Captain Salim and his second battalion commander, Lieutenant Wael, was a great one. Whenever we had good information, we shared it. When we detained someone, we made sure we both got the information from questioning. We made it a point to have all of our subordinate patrol elements do every patrol possible together after January. We took IA patrols to their FOB and did training exercises on dismounted patrolling techniques, marksmanship, vehicle search, home search (we actually learned more from them on this one), and room clearing. We made it a point to bring all of the leadership, IA officers and NCOs, to our planning sessions and patrol briefs. Often IA checkpoints would get in brief firefights with JAM. We always made it a point to get a patrol there as soon as possible to support them.”

  Another problem was the lack of effective local government leaders, Wilhite said. “There was no one—at least, very few. Literally, everyone had stepped down, fled the area, or been killed as a result of AQI attacks in the south, JAM in Mutanabi and Washash. When we didn’t have leaders we (us and the IA) asked around and made them to eliminate the perception of an area under martial law. I inherited a company that had great, ambitious small-unit leaders, but the vision and direction of where we were going was not clearly articulated. I wanted to compartmentalize the different lines of effort against Sunni and Shia insurgents and the effort to support the Iraqi population.”

  There were many different kinds of Iraqi police in Wilhite’s area, such as traffic, local, regional, and a quick reaction force. “Most of them were useless and corrupt,” he told me. “The local ones based out of the Yarmuk area for the Mansour district were by far the most reliable. Our liaison in our JSS proved very helpful at times during the Sons of Iraq integration.” With respect to the Iraqi army, he said, “competence varied here considerably, but collectively they were and became the most reliable, active, and trustworthy of the whole lot. This was, along with all ISF organizations, very officer-centric—the opinions, actions, and demeanor of the battalion commander drove the pulse of the whole organization. Our first battalion commander struck me as wishywashy, lethargic, and not a strong leader. He rarely provided us good feedback or buy-in about his area and was reserved to let the IA company commanders do what they saw fit with little back briefs. Lieutenant Colonel Wael came in with great ideas, a strong personality, and an open mind. A few commanders out there, I would go so far as to trust my soldiers to be led by them. Others should have been rooted out and fired. Sectarianism was present in their ranks.

  “The Sons of Iraq turned out to be an excellent gamble yet arrived with a lot of baggage. Inspired from the Anbar Awakening and the success of Lieutenant Colonel Kuehl’s i
ntegration of the neighborhood watch in Amriya with 1-5 CAV, we adopted a program for recruitment of the concerned local citizens program, later known as the Sons of Iraq program, to support the Iraqi army security efforts in the area. The ability to get these guys on checkpoints inside the mahala and regularly talking to their neighbors increased the effectiveness and saturation of security in the area threefold and completed the ‘oil spot’ of security in the area. Being able to add upwards of three to six checkpoints and a constant patrol walking inside the mahala during this critical time of transition helped everyone out. At its peak we had enrolled over four hundred local residents in this program.”

  Wilhite’s area “was less of an Al Qaeda stronghold and more of a transitory meeting area based on the terrain,” he explained. “In the fall, mainly in Dawoodi and Andalus, we would usually use just one platoon with an IA company and conduct meet-and-greet ‘soft knock’ patrols.” Most of the area was abandoned or had Sunni IDPs moving into the area. By searching abandoned homes for explosives and engaging local religious leaders, Wilhite’s troops kept a pretty good pulse on the situation. For the most part, except for some questionable embassy areas that were off-limits, things remained quiet. Typical insurgent tactics remained ineffective—they used “soda pop” IEDs (which had little or no effect against U.S. vehicles) and murdered government officials to little avail. “Our biggest worry,” Wilhite told me, “was that AQI would attempt to turn the area into a mini Amriya and Jamia.” This was doubtful, however. By that time most AQI fighters had fled from Baghdad because of pressure in those areas. Winter was very quiet. In the spring insurgents regrouped and began using different tactics. The standard IEDs became slightly larger and targeted only the Iraqi army, not U.S. forces. Insurgents began intimidating new markets that were popping up in the area by creating a diversion (usually an argument), leaving behind a satchel on time delay, and blowing up a store. They also began using stationary VBIEDs to target passing convoys and busy market areas.

  In light of the shifting tactics, Wilhite said the Sons of Iraq provided vital intelligence. A few found out information about Al Qaeda cell meetings and even possible attacks in the area. “As you can guess,” Wilhite said, “Salim had a personal stake in running these guys down. Some informants led us to higher-level folks.” But, he said, he had been barred from discussing the details of these cases. AQI’s most effective attack targeted one of Wilhite’s dismounted patrols at a marketplace in southeastern Mutanabi. It was a suicide attack—the first and only time this method was used in the area.

  Expulsion, displacement, and intimidation had been rampant before the JSS was built, but AQI’s ability to dump bodies and intimidate the populace decreased as U.S. forces established themselves in the area. Wilhite said they monitored the return of many families through the neighborhood council in the winter and spring of 2008, as conditions improved. The process for expulsion and displacement was fairly simple. Families were made to pay protection and rent to the Mahdi Army. If they didn’t pay, they were evicted, and if they didn’t leave, they were killed. Additionally, the Mahdi Army controlled propane, heating gas, and fuel in and around the mahala by forming a monopoly on the services provided to the populace. Local Shiite government complacency and corruption enabled this to occur.

  Wilhite said he would characterize the Washash tribal leaders as Sadrists, or “White JAM.” They had full knowledge of the killings that occurred in 2006 and 2007 but did not act on this knowledge for fear of their own lives and well-being. During his tenure in eastern Mansour, Wilhite said, he always considered the Washash sheikhs’ council fairly useless and ineffective. “When they showed up at the neighborhood council meetings it was, ‘I want,’ ‘We need,’ ‘Give me this,’ ‘We are important,’ ‘No, there is no JAM in Washash,’ ‘No, I will not commit to anything,’ ‘Tell Americans to stop coming into Washash.’ Pretty frustrating.” U.S. forces eliminated the Mahdi Army’s influence by putting the pressure on early. They were assisted in this effort by the assassination of Mahdi Army militiaman Hamudi Naji, and by other counter-measures such as the construction of the wall to restrict movement, the establishment of Sons of Iraq to the south to prevent further expansion into Mansour, and the IA’s desire to patrol the area. Hakami’s indecision also helped—most reports showed him growing paranoid over not wanting to end up like Naji. “In the end,” Wilhite said, “I think JAM was dissolving when we left, not necessarily directly because of our actions but also because of the situation.”

  Wilhite explained that he erected the walls around Washash in order to isolate the neighborhood and the Mahdi Army there from the rest of the population, and to prevent them from moving south. “We occasionally told Washash folks that the walls were to keep Al Qaeda out. Usually, we pushed this information campaign when AQI would detonate a car bomb in a Shia neighborhood. We told the people, ‘See, the walls keep you safe!’ We would say, ‘There are only two ways in, and the IA will not let a car bomb through the checkpoints. ’” Concrete was the order of the day during that time; walls went up around Khadra, part of Jamia, and Amriya. “If I was a cement contractor,” Wilhite said, “I’d be rich.” He ended up using concrete in Iskan, Dur Sud, Arabi, and part of Mutanabi as well. Wilhite felt that the walls were effective. Some Washash businessmen complained about losing customers, but he viewed this complaint skeptically. Iskan, Arabi, and Dur Sud all had cheaper prices and, Wilhite said, better products than Washash in the first place. He asked around about where folks went for food in the areas adjacent to Washash Market area.

  Hamudi Naji had owned “Black JAM,” and it owned Washash, Wilhite reported. Naji’s men had their hands in everything. They had systematically taken over almost every Sunni home in Washash and rented it out to a Shiite family. Sunnis were given three options: pay an exorbitant amount of protection money and live there until Naji’s men told you to leave; leave in the next twenty-four hours to avoid being killed; or lose your house and your life immediately. Wilhite’s troops later found Sunni families murdered and buried in their backyards in different states of decomposition.

  Naji’s group patrolled Washash much like a mafia gang. They had lookouts, and when the Americans would come on patrols or late-night raids, they used their own observation posts to describe the activity. When Wilhite’s group got too close, Naji’s group would often attempt to distract them with runners, gunfire, or distant explosions. Wilhite said his initial strategy was to stop focusing on Naji the individual (the agent of terror, the small-time warlord) and more on his apparatus (the organization itself). All intelligence always pointed to Naji, and Wilhite saw this as a liability. However, applying Petraeus’s COIN strategy to Dur Sud seemed new and made a lot of sense.

  In Washash, numerous raids had failed to capture Naji. Wilhite wanted to weaken Naji’s network instead of constantly trying to catch the one guy who would supposedly make everyone’s problems go away. He attempted to identify all the unknown midlevel managers taking orders—weapons traffickers, IED makers, financial supporters, shift managers (including sergeants of the guard)—and used a JSS hot line to get information from Iraqis. Wilhite said his troop would sometimes take informants out with them and conduct raids to get information about a Naji-led killing. For the most part, they were successful.

  “I remember,” Wilhite said, “after a raid, an old man even gave us a big smile and a thumbs-up sign. I felt we were starting to gain momentum because the population of Washash saw us pulling these guys off the streets.” Whenever possible, they also tried to bring the Iraqi army out with them too, though initially “buy-in” was difficult. Then, on the night of September 20, Naji was killed on the streets of Washash and all hell broke loose. Immediately, there were a few retribution killings of Sunnis. Elements of Wilhite’s Red Platoon drove headlong into a firefight while attempting to gather information on what had transpired. The next three days were “days of madness,” he recalls.

  The Iraqi army moved three companies into the area and lef
t them there to keep the peace. Those loyal to Naji wanted to kill and provoke every Sunni left in Washash and everyone connected to them. Several Sunni families piled everything they could carry and attempted to leave the first day. “I remember on the third day JAM attempted to intimidate anyone from leaving the area by detonating an IED on a group of males trying to leave the mahala,” Wilhite said grimly. “For the next eight days, we patrolled Washash heavily until a balance was restored.”

  “In the fall of 2007,” he continued, “we continued our strategy of attacking JAM’s network.” His troops did more raids, captured more low-level guys, and started building the wall around Washash. The purpose of the wall was to prevent them from having free access in and out of the mahala without submitting to searches at IA checkpoints. It also served as a physical barrier to contain Mahdi Army movements south into Mahala 615. After they completed building the walls in Mahala 617, they began building in Mahala 615 to measure the effects of the sectarian violence and Shiite expansion into mixed areas. They were also waiting to see who would emerge as the “next Naji.”

  The last Black JAM assassination was carried out in early November of that year. “An Iraqi army soldier had actually stopped a kidnapping from occurring and killed one of the midlevel managers of the Washash JAM network,” Wilhite said. “Unfortunately, he was killed in the process. What we were missing was a persistent presence in the area that could remain on the streets.” On the national level, the Awakening movement came to full steam. U.S. forces began recruiting Sons of Iraq in eastern Mansour. “Ultimately,” Wilhite explained, “the constant presence of the Sons of Iraq working with the Iraqi army in Dur Sud and Arabi prevented any more JAM movement into these areas to the south. Additionally, it motivated many families to work with our local neighborhood council members to bring displaced families, Sunni and Shiite, back into the communities.” At that point, the Mahdi Army was effectively contained through physical barriers and the presence of security in the southern mahalas.