The Bush White House and all mainstream media outlets seem to state, as absolute fact that the “surge” strategy is the single reason for the decrease in violence in Iraq. We hear John McCain tout the surge as his idea, and it is presented repeatedly as the only Iraq war idea that worked. It appears, however, that the “surge” of approximately 30,000 additional troops sent to Iraq in 2007 was only one reason and perhaps, according to Bob Woodward’s new book, The War Within, a secondary one for the decrease in violence.

Throughout the summer of 2007, as the troop surge in Iraq reached full strength, Gen. David H. Petraeus and the world was waiting for the tide of violence to turn, and by that summer’s end the General saw violence decline by nearly a 50 percent. Violence has continued to fall fairly regularly over the past year.

While Washington, in typical fashion, manipulated the facts to support their simplified view that the “surge was working” it appears the full story was far more complicated, with at least three other factors being equally, or more important than the troop increase. All of these important factors have been, for the most part, overlooked or downplayed by the mainstream media, but I have tried to concisely summarize them below.


Covert Operations
In the spring of 2007 the US Military and intelligence agencies launched a series of covert operations, using highly classified techniques that allowed them to locate, target and kill key individuals in various “terrorist” or other insurgent groups.
These techniques included a form of “collaborative warfare” which employed a combination of tools simultaneously and included signal intercepts human intelligence and any other method that would allow for “lightening quick and sometimes concurrent operations” according to Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) responsible for hunting al-Qaeda in Iraq.

According to Bob Woodward, “…a number of authoritative sources say the covert activities had a far-reaching effect on the violence and were very possibly the biggest factor in reducing it.” Some 85 to 90 percent of the operations were successful and provided “actionable intelligence” from new sources, methods and operations, according to sources cited by Woodward.


Anbar Awakening and Tribal Community Security Groups

In June of 2007 tens of thousands of Sunnis turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq and signed up with US forces. It appears Al-Qaeda in Iraq made several strategic errors in the region, including forced marriages with Sunni women, taking over hospitals and using Mosques for beheading operations.

Matters were further ignited when al-Qaeda in Iraq mortared playgrounds and left headless bodies lying around the countryside, with signs reading "Don't remove this body or the same thing will happen to you." The Sunnis revolted against the al-Qaeda brutality and sided with America to rid their country of a common enemy.

U.S. forces under Petraeus, worked for months with tribal leaders, who had once fought the Americans, to build local security forces throughout Anbar, and it is those forces who feel they were the actual driving force behind saving Iraq. "We are the ones who saved our country," Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, who now serves as president of the Iraqi Awakening Council, said in an interview. "We were able to fight al-Qaeda."

The US military also set up a network of what Petraeus then called “Concerned Local Citizens” but which was later called The Sons of Iraq, to act as armed citizen watch groups and provide intelligence to US and Iraqi forces. These groups fed information to the Collaborative Warfare groups.


Shia Cleric Mogtada al-Sadr and pure luck

A third significant and lucky break in fighting came Aug. 29, when militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered his powerful Mahdi Army to suspend operations, including attacks against U.S. troops.

This order came after a gunfight between his powerful Mahdi Army and Iraqi forces in the holy city of Karbala in which 50 Shia pilgrims were injured and another 275 were injured. Sadr’s order was motivated, not by good will, but by self preservation, as any leader knows it is bad PR for one’s followers to be gunned down by their own army.

The cease fire provided by al-Sadr was a stroke of luck for America, and helped feed the “surge is working fairy tale” that Washington has been spinning ever since. The danger in such simplification is that it glosses over the techniques, the cost and the alliances our government made to get these results.

I would much prefer to know what exactly my tax money, or rather the money my government is borrowing from China, is going toward, than to live under the false belief that 30,000 extra US Super troops could, single handedly, quash anti-US violence and subdue 3000 year old tribal religious warfare going on between Sunni and Shia.

I guess I will have to read Bob Woodward’s book to figure out what else my government has been up to in Iraq, because I know it is highly unlikely my government or the corporate owned media in this country will ever report the truth.


Sources: Washington Post.com Tribal Coalition in Anbar Said to Be Crumbling, Joshua Partlow and John Ward Anderson, June 11, 2007, Washing Post.com Why Did Violence Plummet? It Wasn't Just the Surge, Bob Woodward,Sept, 8, 2008