Clear, Hold and Build in Shulla, Baghdad
by First Lieutenant Matthew Valkovic, Small Wars Journal
Clear, Hold and Build in Shulla, Baghdad (Full PDF Article)
If there's one word to describe what is going here in Iraq right now, between all the parties involved--US forces, the Iraqi security forces, the government of Iraq, the insurgents/militias, and--lest we forget--the Iraqi people--it is transition. What makes it difficult is that while each these groups are going through their own separate transition, each of these transitions are inextricably linked together.
For my fellow troopers and me our transition, as our new commander in chief recently spoke about, will be the drawdown of combat brigades and the deployment of what are being called advisory and assistance brigades, units charged with training, advising and mentoring the Iraqi army and police over the next several years. The theory is that as our presence gradually reduces, the Iraqi army and police will take over providing security to the people of Iraq with the aid of US advisors, air support, intelligence and reconnaissance assets. State Department provincial reconstruction teams will stick around as well to help build the capacity of the Iraqi government and economy.
President Obama announced that "combat operations" would cease on Aug. 31, 2010 and that these new advisory brigades will start rotating into country over the next year, but "combat" itself will not cease here. To clarify, "combat" as we traditionally understand it (tactical fire and maneuver, shooting and killing the bad guy) doesn't really occur here anymore. Believe it or not, not one soldier in our battalion has fired a round with the intent to kill a positively identified target since we've been here--there've been no targets we've had to positively identify.
