Big swap in Iraq: Snags part of huge troop rotation

[Hoss68]

February 02, 2004

By Robert Hodierne
Times staff writer


MOSUL, Iraq — The last of the 23,000 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) will pull out of northern Iraq on Thursday, turning the occupation over to a replacement force just a third that size.

The 8,000 soldiers of the Fort Lewis, Wash.-based 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division — the Stryker Brigade — under the command of Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham, 51, will assume control that day of a four-province region roughly the size of South Carolina.

“The oft quoted opinion ... is this is the largest troop rotation since the end of World War II,” Ham said. “That’s probably accurate.”

There is no book on how to pull off a switch of this magnitude.

Ham and Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commanding general of the 101st, said they believe the handoff has gone smoothly, and for the most part it has. Further down the chain of command, however, there has been occasional confusion about who was in charge during the run up to the departure of the 101st.

Those speed bumps offer insight into the huge challenge facing U.S. military leadership over the next five months, as a total of about 250,000 troops are moved in and out of Iraq.

What remains to be seen here, after the 101st is safely back at Fort Campbell, Ky., is whether the Stryker troops have fully grasped the lessons learned, before their arrival, by the Screaming Eagles.

Col. Michael Rounds, who commands the Stryker Brigade and who will answer to Ham, said that the 101st soldiers “have invested so much and done so well that inevitably they’re going to feel that the guys coming behind them ... don’t understand it as well as they should and ... maybe don’t appreciate fully what they’ve done.”

But understanding a situation as complex as the one here is crucial for success. The city council, for instance, represents a carefully negotiated balance among nine different ethnic and religious factions, each with separate agendas.

“It is a very, very complex mission, more than I understood when we first heard about it,” Ham said.

But, as Rounds said, “At a certain point we have to take the reins and go with it.”

Before they got the reins, Stryker Brigade troops accompanied 101st troops on what were called “left seat-right seat” rides — a 101st soldier in the left seat driving, a Stryker troop in the right seat observing.

In many cases, it worked well. But not always.

An edgy handoff

In this Northern Iraq city of 1.7 million people, 2nd Brigade of the 101st and a Stryker battalion changed seats at 9 a.m., Sunday, Jan. 25. Eight hours later, the plan was coming apart.

The 2nd Brigade was in the process of turning over the tactical operations center to the Stryker troops.

Shortly after 5 p.m., the 2nd Brigade command staff was monitoring Stryker radio traffic: An Iraqi police boat on the Tigris River had capsized and a U.S. solider, who had been on board, was missing. Ninety minutes later they listened in stunned silence to a report that a Stryker OH-58 Kiowa searching for the missing soldier had crashed into the river and now two pilots were missing, as well.

Then, as they had done hundreds of times before, they started calling helicopter units to get airborne, preparing orders for a ground-troop response.

Brigade commander Col. Joe Anderson walked into the operations center and ordered them to back off. “It’s (Stryker Brigade’s) city,” he said. “They are in the driver’s seat.”

Staff Sgt. David Lemoine, 34, of Moreauville, La., slowly and deliberately tore into tiny pieces the incident report he had been preparing.

But less than 10 minutes later, Petraeus, who was still in overall command of the area at the time, ordered Anderson to reverse himself and take charge of the search-and-rescue mission.

Petraeus later explained. “In any handoff, there ... is always a delicate period, (when) the outgoing commander wants the incoming unit to have the opportunity to run ongoing operations under the watchful eye of the outgoing commander.”

That Sunday night, Petraeus said, “We thought it would be prudent to have the 2nd Brigade commander exercise ultimate responsibility. He still had the forces in the area. He knew the civil defense chiefs extremely well. He knew the city, the river, the terrain.”

A shift in roles

What many people will be watching, once the 101st is no longer providing a watchful eye, is whether the Stryker troops understand the delicate nature of what the Screaming Eagles accomplished here — and whether they learned from the 101st how to build on that experience.

Since its arrival, the 101st has poured money — $57 million — and countless hours into rebuilding the place. Its soldiers trained 20,000 members of the police department, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and other security organizations. Phones now work in the city and the road to Syria is in better shape than it was before the war, allowing trade to flourish. More than 500 schools have been refurbished.

Today, Iraqis have taken charge of deciding who gets the fuel that remains in short supply, and hotel chains like Marriott and Sheraton are bidding to take part in $23 million in private hotel investment.

“I think it’s important to remember that when the 101st got here in April of 2003 there was nothing,” said Ham. “There were no institutions that were functioning.”

Ham takes over an increasingly productive region. His mission, he said, is different.

When 101st soldiers arrived, they ran everything, Ham said. But “those operations are now led by Iraqis,” he said. “Our role will be much more of a support role rather than a leading role.”

That, he explained, is why he will be able to maintain security with a third as many troops.

It is clear already that some of the new guys get it.

Lt. Patrick Callahan, of Boston, a platoon leader in James’ battalion, drove his Strykers to Albu Sayf, a village with an impressive hillside view of the airport and a main military base two miles below. It also sits underneath the aircraft approach path, a perfect place to lob mortars or fire missiles at planes overhead.

In a stone meeting house, the floor spread with rugs, Callahan met with seven village elders and the sheik of the 7,000 people who live there.

Callahan, a 25-year-old in muddy boots, his M4 at this feet, sat alongside the weathered 80-year-old sheik Muhamed Salih Shuad, who wore a deep blue robe over a brown suit.

Before the U.S. invasion, the 7,000 villagers lived without running water. Their schools were inadequate and there was no doctor or clinic. Today, plastic pipes bring water to the village, though not to every home, and there is a clinic with a doctor and medicine, something the sheik said they’d never had before.

But now the village elders were asking for water to each house and a new road, besides. Callahan told the elders he thought those projects could be accomplished. He told the sheik and elders that “the ultimate goal for the U.S. forces is to empower the police, the political leaders to take care of problems. But if (the sheik) runs into problems ... and for some reason someone at the sewage plant or anywhere, if they give him any grief, they need to let me know. So we can make certain those people in certain areas understand they have to respond when the political leaders need help. Because it wasn’t happening before.”

[Alpha_Dog]

Lynne's son is deployed in Iraq and we just got notified that his outfit may be staying for another year. He was supposed to return stateside in March. We are trying to confirm this info but to no avail as of yet.

[kruser79]

Originally Posted by Alpha_Dog

Lynne's son is deployed in Iraq and we just got notified that his outfit may be staying for another year. He was supposed to return stateside in March. We are trying to confirm this info but to no avail as of yet.

Wow. That's a harsh one. Not too sure I've ever heard of that happening to a unit in this day and age. Anyone ever heard of this?

[Alpha_Dog]

Kruser, seems like the Army aint got it together deciding how or when to deploy troops that are Active, Guard etc................ or their replacements when they dont have the manpower to activate etc....... Keep in mind that this is a diff era for our Guard, Reserves and Active Duty folks. WHY are Active troops still stationed in CONUS? HMMMMMMMMMM

[Hoss68]

From other sites, I have been hearing of these kind of extensions A LOT!!! I have a friend who was supposed to go to Bosnia and they pulled the orders in December. I asked what that meant for the troops they were supposed to replace, but he never got back to me on it. This seems to be more prevelant with the Army for some reason... Telling them a return date that jerking it away in the last few weeks. Tends to build a lot of frustration for our men, women and families.