Frederick W. Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Kimberly Kagan, executive director of the Institute for the Study of War, describe the surge strategy in Iraq by contrasting it with previous operations.
...previous clearing operations in Iraq were not part of a coherent plan to establish security in a wide area, but rather reactions to violence in particular places. Thus, U.S. commanders made no extensive efforts to contain the accelerants to violence--vehicle-bomb factories, insurgent safe houses, training grounds, smuggling routes, and weapons caches--located outside the cities being cleared. By contrast, the current strategy aims to establish security across greater Baghdad, and Petraeus and Odierno have added a phase between the preparation phase and the major clearing. This is Operation Phantom Thunder, which aims to disrupt enemy networks for many miles beyond the capital, as far away as Baquba and Falluja. What's more, Phantom Thunder is striking the enemy in almost all of its major bases at once--something Coalition forces have never before attempted in Iraq.
Al Qaeda's operations in Baghdad--its bombings, kidnappings, resupply activities, movement of foreign fighters, and financing--depend on its ability to move people and goods around the rural outskirts of the capital as well as in the city. Petraeus and Odierno, therefore, are conducting simultaneous operations in many places in the Baghdad belt: Falluja and Baquba, Mahmudiya, Arab Jabour, Salman Pak, the southern shores of Lake Tharthar, Karma, Tarmiya, and so on. By attacking all of these bases at once, Coalition forces will gravely complicate the enemy's movement from place to place, as well as his ability to establish new bases and safe havens. At the same time, U.S. and Iraqi forces have already disrupted al Qaeda's major bases and are working to prevent the enemy from taking refuge in the city. U.S. forces are also aggressively targeting Shia death-squad leaders and helping Iraqi forces operating against Shia militias.
Still ahead, of course, is the challenge of completing the clearing and holding of a city of 6 million.
And of course, still ahead is an anticipated mini-Tet offensive to be launched by al Qaeda and insurgent allies, compliments of our Democratic leadership. Reid, Pelosi, and company have invited it by scheduling another vote this September in which they hope to eliminate support for the war. Between now and then al Qaeda will attempt to ramp up the violence in anticipation of that vote, hoping to give ammunition to a Democratic leadership eager to claim that America can't win and should therefore quit the fight.
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