Why we haven’t yet called Iraq a “win”

By Adam Wojack

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few weekends ago I found myself at an apartment party in downtown Washington, D.C. It was a small gathering of twenty- and thirty-somethings, all of whom shared a common religious background. One person there, a young patent attorney, became enthusiastic when he learned that I was not only in the Army on active duty, but a veteran of the Iraq War as well.

After telling me that he and his father were both big supporters of the military and of American servicemembers, he asked me, perhaps in the spirit of generating amiable small-talk, when or if we were ever going to say we won the war in Iraq.

This was an unfortunate question to ask me, since I saw this as the opposite of small talk and excused myself in advance if my answer became long-winded or indecisive.

Well, I said, we should not and I hope we don’t call it a victory anytime soon. My words were still hovering in the air when I saw the upturned corners of his smile go flat. This was not what he expected to hear, I gathered, and knew that my response now required a detailed explanation. I understood where he was coming from, and if I’d been in his shoes – no military experience, but proud of his nation’s might, prowess and servicemembers – I’m sure I would have felt the same way. But I’d gone down a different road, and years later, my perspective was compromised: I knew no easy answer.

The truth is, soldiers don’t go around high-fiving each other after a combat deployment, even after a successful one. We may trade our wildest stories, but when it comes to scorekeeping, most of us remain silent. This is for a few key reasons: 1) as long as we keep getting deployed, it’s too early to celebrate; 2) losing fellow soldiers, friends and family members during wartime is a loss any way you look at it; and 3) doing so would feel disrespectful toward those who have sacrificed more – and there’s always someone who gave more than you.

Instead, soldiers usually get quiet and introspective and stare at the foam in their beer. Or, they go on at length and give you the answer you probably weren’t looking for.

No, I told him, calling it a win would be arrogant because even though things are better over there, the critical fact is that we didn’t do it all by ourselves. I added that we couldn’t have done it all by ourselves, either. Realizing that this also required proof, I chose to tell him the story of how the so-called Sons of Iraq turned the tide in Baghdad in 2007, several months into the famed Gen. Petraeus-led surge.

I told him how Petraeus, our new top boss, had issued a change in operational guidance early that year, directing that population centers were to be saturated with permanent U.S. and Iraqi Security Forces soldier presence. The idea was to crowd neighborhoods with soldiers in order to create a feeling of improved security for the locals which would eventually – in theory – lead to improved confidence in the ability of the combined U.S.-Iraq team to bring the peace.

All of this would result, we hoped, in our team winning the popular support of the people and convincing them that U.S. forces were their friends and partners rather than occupiers. The irony of the situation is that we were trying to accomplish all of this by “occupying” neighborhoods with fortified combat outposts.

What happened immediately afterward, I related, was a spike in U.S. casualties and an increase in catastrophic kills of U.S. combat vehicles and crews. Our heaviest vehicles – tracked Bradley fighting vehicles and even tanks – had suddenly become vulnerable to new makeshift anti-armor devices and improvised, buried bombs. To many, the casualty rate seemed unsustainable. It started feeling like we were losing, and many of us started wondering, for how much longer can we bleed like this?

None of that part of the story was news or unknown. My next point, though, may have been a bit more surprising. Then, I told him, things suddenly and irreversibly changed. Multiple factors were at play, but in my version of this story, there was one clear driving force: a group of Iraqi citizens who had acted on their own.

In late May, 2007, we received word that local citizens from one of the most violent and dangerous neighborhoods of Baghdad – the Sunni enclave Ameriyah – had decided to switch sides and battle al Qaeda rather than the U.S. Army. They phoned the American commander responsible for that sector to request that he stand by and not interfere as local men fought with and attempted to rid Ameriyah of its al Qaeda operators.

Of course, we were shocked, surprised – even awed. Within a few days, maybe a week, the fighting in Ameriyah was over. With some coalition help, the local Iraqis had pushed al Qaeda out and then offered to work with U.S. troops to maintain safety and security in Ameriyah in return for U.S. sponsorship.

It happened like that. By mid-summer, this sudden trend in Sunni parts of Baghdad – local neighborhood groups of Iraqi men taking charge of security in their neighborhoods in exchange for U.S. support – had spread to every neighborhood in the capital. And as Baghdad went, so went the rest of Iraq.

As I finished this story, the expression on this young lawyer’s face hadn’t changed. He respected my opinion but wasn’t satisfied with my answer. Part of me understood why: It sure looked like a victory, and the U.S. was clearly on the side that found a way to control violence in that country. But a bigger part of me refused to celebrate this fact.

Later, I wondered what the official answer might be, and found quotes from both President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In a September, 2010 Reuters story on the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq, the president said we would “earn” victory through “the success of our partners.” In the same piece, Secretary Gates said that declaring victory in Iraq “requires a historian’s perspective in terms of what happens here in the long run.”

Still later, as I tried to understand my own reluctance at participating in end-zone celebration over this, another kernel of memory came back. This was from 2004, my first tour there and my formative combat experience, which bore a link to the 2007 Iraqi-sparked turnaround in Baghdad.

In 2004, I was in Samarra. My infantry battalion had assigned me to work as a liaison of sorts with a brand-new unit of Iraqi soldiers: the Ministry of Interior Police Commandos. They were one of the first security products created by the new Iraqi government, only months old, and had been raised and trained in Baghdad. Outside of funding assistance, they bore no stamp of U.S. influence. This gave them credibility in the eyes of many Iraqis, but made them somewhat suspect in the eyes of U.S. soldiers. The first commando battalion had been sent from Baghdad to Samarra in October of that year to assist in stabilizing the security situation there by targeting and capturing known insurgent leaders who had so far been able to blend into the cityscape.

Over the next four months in the city, my small team worked together with the MoI Commandos, conducting countless raids and patrols, capturing bad guys and seizing weapons and bomb-making caches and occasionally getting ambushed, blown up or shot at and along the way. Overall, we suffered our share of casualties – and most of them were Iraqi commandos. The reason for this was because their government provided them with big, unarmored Dodge pickup trucks to drive, while we rolled in armored Humvees. While an IED or land mine might blow a tire or crack the armored glass of one of our Humvees – leaving passengers mostly unhurt – these same ambushes were almost always fatal for someone sitting behind the thin sheet metal of a commercial pickup truck.

But despite the increased danger, my Iraqi commando partners never backed down from a mission. In time, I couldn’t help but make friends with them. My favorite was a captain I called “Ibrahim” on missions in order to protect his identity. I worked with him for only six weeks of the total time I spent in Samarra with the commandos, but he and I were fast friends. He was a professional, a career MoI policeman who had worked for Saddam Hussein’s internal security force, but now worked with us. He was charismatic, smart, spoke good English and showed no fear on raids or patrols. He was very good at what he did, and he was fair and just. If the tables had been reversed, I would have willingly followed him into battle, the same as he did for me.

Our combined team’s best and most successful days in Samarra were always with Ibrahim at the lead of the commandos. Their information and intelligence led to the capture of men and material that interdicted or prevented attacks on U.S. forces in the city. The work done by Ibrahim and his commandos, while costing many of them dearly, saved U.S. lives in Samarra. It also helped set the conditions as early as the fall of 2004 for what would eventually take place in late spring, 2007. That much I say with confidence, because I was witness to both.

So when someone asks me if we won in Iraq, or if I think it’s safe to finally say we won, I think about the Sons of Iraq in Ameriyah, who ignited the big shift that pushed al Qaeda out of Baghdad, and which led to the sharp downturn in violence. I also think about what President Obama and Secretary Gates both said in September, 2010, that this question requires greater perspective and will ultimately be answered by the future success or actions of that nation.

But mostly, I think about Ibrahim and the commandos in Samarra, because this is as close as it ever was for me, personally. Sure, we were Americans fighting Iraqi insurgents. But there were more Iraqis fighting alongside us, and in many cases, fighting for us and dying for us. If it wasn’t for them – and for many others like those rugged individuals in Ameriyah – we’d probably still be fighting.

The statements made in this article are the express opinions of the author, and do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the United States Army.