Global Policy Forum

By Matthew Riemer

In response to numerous guerrilla strikes in early November -- the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the onset of the war in Iraq -- the U.S. leadership initiated a new hard-line policy regarding security in the occupied country. Originally dubbed Operation Iron Hammer, the new approach to the emboldened insurgents was decidedly proactive, with U.S. forces attacking and destroying what were believed to be guerrilla camps and bases, as well as supply centers. Since then, areas generally considered to be civilian have also been subject to a more aggressive security philosophy.

The result so far for Washington has been a decidedly positive one: attacks on U.S. forces have decreased significantly, which is often pointed out by the Coalitional Provisional Authority. At a press briefing in Baghdad on Monday, December 8, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said, "Over the past seven days there's been an average of 18 engagements per day against coalition military, two attacks per day against Iraqi security forces, and one per day against Iraqi civilians. These numbers are significantly lower than recent norms, although we anticipate, and are fully prepared for, any upturn in attacks in the days and weeks ahead." In the weeks before Operation Iron Hammer began, attacks on U.S. troops hovered around 40 per day.

Conversely, however, attacks on other coalition countries have increased. During the weekend of November 29/30, fourteen foreign nationals were killed in Iraq, including seven Spanish intelligence officers ambushed and killed south of Baghdad, two Japanese diplomats gunned down near Tikrit, two Koreans also killed near Tikrit, and a murdered Colombian contractor.

Additionally, increasingly aggressive security measures levied on Iraqi towns and civilians may be alienating an unacceptable amount of citizens. Most recently, U.S. forces have begun surrounding entire villages that appear to be harboring guerrillas, or from which mortar fire has come, with barbed wire fences. Villagers must come and go according to a strict curfew and acquire numbered ID cards to leave and re-enter the village. And in some cases multiple family members of guerrillas have been arrested as leverage over the Iraqi resistance. On December 7, the New York Times ran a story of one such village, Abu Hishma.

In that article, a soldier with the Fourth Infantry Division, Captain Todd Brown, is quoted as saying, "You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face."

Not surprisingly, the villagers aren't pleased with this new state of affairs. One man told the New York Times, "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians. We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."

Situations like this, which are, unfortunately, the inevitable result of the U.S.' new hard-line policies, speak to the strategic balance that must be struck between protecting U.S. forces attempting to secure the region and the levels of alienation and oppression felt by the Iraqi citizenry. The U.S. leadership understands that tactics like these will naturally result in fewer attacks against their patrols, but they must carefully examine how bitter the population is becoming as a result of this inverse relationship of factors.

One of the most potentially dangerous developments for the United States is the comparison between the occupation of Iraq and that of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory like the one made above. This issue -- the occupation of Palestinian lands -- is one of the most emotional issues for Iraqis and one the U.S. should be careful of stepping on if Washington expects the full cooperation with and acceptance of the American mission in Iraq.

This analogy is now slowly beginning to gain greater acceptance; in fact, the U.S. military has explicitly stated that the Israeli tactics of urban warfare as practiced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been studied and evaluated for application in the new guerrilla conflict now evolving in Iraq. One of the most contentious techniques used by the Israeli Defense Forces is the practice of bulldozing the homes of families of known militants, a practice the United States has already started to employ in select problem areas of the Sunni Triangle where a concentration of insurgents is apparent.

The increased security for U.S. troops then is coming at a price: increased attacks on other coalition members and Iraqi police and citizens, and obvious parallels to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Washington will have to evaluate its new tough security policy, as the more other coalition countries are hurt, the less likelihood there is of further countries becoming actively involved on the ground in Iraq. The real issue for the Bush White House would seem to be that of short-term security versus the long-term and far reaching sentiment of the Iraqi populace, which is probably the most important factor that will shape the future of the country.

The desire on the part of the U.S. leadership to bring some kind of closure to the conflict in Iraq either before the 2004 U.S. presidential election or within the next 18 months is highly impractical and likely to create more long-term challenges if a sovereign and democratic Iraq is still the intent of policymakers.

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