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http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2006/tr20060127-12385.html
MR. WHITMAN: We can hear you fine in here. Well thank you for joining us this afternoon. I think you'll recognize our briefer from back in September. This is Colonel H.R. McMasters -- McMaster. He is the commander of the 3rd ACR, Armored Cavalry Regiment. His regiment is assigned to the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, and he's currently operating from Tall Afar. He's -- as we normally do, going to give you a brief update on what his unit has been doing. The last time he talked to you they were participating in Operation Restore Rights, and that has been some time ago.
And good morning to the press corps here in the Pentagon. And I know that he wants to bring you up to date, and then we'll take your questions.
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COL. MCMASTER: Thank you. As you recall, when I discussed Tall Afar, and western Nineweh province generally, the last time I had the opportunity to speak with you, I described the area as an area that the enemy had used as kind of a support base to organize, train and equip insurgent cells for deployment in Mosul and throughout the northern region of Iraq. It was an area that the enemy was drawn to for a couple of reasons. First of all, it gave them access to external support into Syria. And also, in terms of the enemy's long- term vision for Iraq, they really want Iraq – the enemy wants Iraq to fail, to descend into civil war, it was the perfect place to incite ethnic and sectarian conflict. And what we saw among this enemy was an alliance of convenience, really, between former regime elements, Saddamists, and Islamic extremists known as Taqfirists, who believe that not only is anyone who doesn't adhere to their narrow definition of Islam an apostate or rejectionist, but it is their duty to wage jihad against them. And this enemy was particularly brutal, and this enemy had choked the life out of the city after conducting really systematic attacks throughout the region in September of 2004.
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But over time, people saw through this, and they had seen what this enemy had done to their city, and as a result of our combined efforts with Iraqi security forces from brave Iraqi leaders, soldiers and police, I'm happy to report to you the situation in Tall Afar and in western Nineveh has fundamentally changed. And what we have been able to achieve there together alongside our Iraqi brothers is to bring life back to this area, to rekindle hope.
We've been able to address the main grievances of the people through our operations and our other activities in the region. The first one, of course, was security based on the utter brutality of this enemy; things that this enemy did that are just difficult for us even to imagine, difficult for us to understand, those who have been in a position to witness this murderous activity.
So at first, we were able bring back security, and life returned to the city.
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I know I want to get to your questions, so I'll just leave you with really what I think were four keys to our success, and then a qualifier here at the end.
The first thing is that we had complete and, I think, extraordinary unity of effort between the Iraqi leaders, the mayor, our brothers within the Iraqi army and their leadership and Iraqi police leaders. And as a result of that unity of effort, we were able to bring a population with us, which is sort of the second key to success, I think, is that the people of Tall Afar understood that this was an operation for them, an operation to bring back security to the city.
And it was their cooperation that gave us the intelligence we needed to carry out the very precise operation there and limit damage to property and so forth within the city, so life can return to normal as quickly as possible.
I think the third key was the brutality of the enemy. I mean, we ought to give the enemy credit for helping isolate themselves from this population. And their utter, utter brutality and inhumanity revealed what their true intentions were and allowed us to get after the enemy very effectively while protecting the population.
And the last key to success, I would tell you, is the disciplined dedication, the compassion, the toughness, the endurance of our soldiers. Yeah, our soldiers ought to be exhausted now, but they're not. I mean, it seems like we're gaining energy every day because we see the difference we are making in real people's lives. And I wish more of you could be here to see this rekindling of hope.
My qualifier is that this is a victory for the Iraqi people, it's a victory for the Iraqi security forces, but certainly it's a fragile victory. I mean, this is a brutal and determined enemy who wants to get back into the city, who wants to continue to brutalize these people.
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Q Gordon Lubold from Army Times. Colonel, you mentioned receiving tips and what-not from the Iraqi people in the area. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about just from a practical standpoint, how are those tips received? Received directly from the Iraqi people to you guys, or through the police or security forces? And then just can you describe an instance in which perhaps security forces or police would go out and respond to that tip, perhaps on their own, or do you always accompany them?
COL. MCMASTER: Sure. The tips come from a variety of means. We have a -- we call it a Joint Coordination Center in Tall Afar that now is a --it's combined sort of command post and intelligence-sharing facility with the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police, our forces, there's a public works desk in there and so forth.
So a lot of tips are telephoned in. Others are while your police and army are out on patrols. And also, we are living in the city with them and have very close access to the population. So a lot of them are walk-ups to Iraqi army and police. Hey, guys, I could list, you know, 40 examples of times when that intelligence is received and the Iraqi army and police respond to it immediately.
I mean, one dramatic case -- we had 60-millimeter mortars fired indiscriminately into a neighborhood of the city. Immediately there was a telephone tip. And you know, the police are charging out of the police station, and we're asking, "Hey, where are you guys going?" And then we caught up with the intelligence and moved into a position to support them, which, it turns out, they really didn't need. They captured the mortar tube, conducted questioning of people in the neighborhood, who pointed out the offending individuals, and then captured them as well. I mean, it was that fast.
So there are many, many examples of that. And it's happening every single day across the city, as one of the most obviously encouraging things in terms of every time an attack occurs.
Another dramatic example would be, you know, immediately after Operation Restoring Rights, you'll recall that the enemy conducted a mass murder attack in a marketplace. And you know, before -- you know, before Restoring Rights, you know, we would have -- you know, we've had a hard time, working through interpreters, building relationships in the neighborhoods around there, what happened -- immediately we had a flood of intelligence to the newly reconstituted or work-in-progress still police force and the Iraqi army. We were able to pursue the suicide cell and capture the individuals responsible for that attack. And we caught them in the act of planning a suicide vest attack on election day and preempted that attack. So lots and lots of examples of how that's working.
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Okay, so its Phadreus here again. This is what is meant by police work. Go to the link, read the article, google the Colonel, read other stories on his success and open your minds to what works.
1. Blasting through Fallujah, or Sadr City or Southern Lebannon creates more terrorists. It does the terrorists work for them. This is mlitary action.
2. Creating security, aligning the USA's interests with the local mayors is police action (or Israel's with the mayors of Southern Lebannon) and it makes the locals into the eyes and ears for the Good Guys, and turns the terrorists into hunted men. In Tal Afar, the attacks per month went from 140- 170 all initiated by the Bad guys, down to 30-40 per month, most initiaed by US forces or Iraqi police attacking the terrorists!
[link:homepage.mac.com]
it's too bad that the "progress" he was extolling was already beginning to come apart as he spoke. There were some unique elements in the retaking of Tal Afar last September that probably won't repeat themselves now that the 3rd CAV and McMasters have gone. Col. McMasters himself appears to have been unique among commanders in Iraq. According to the Washington Post , McMasters has a PhD in history and told Sunnis that "we understand why you fight", and he developed unique and friendly relations with the people of Tal Afar by treating them like human beings rather than objects of contempt and disgust.
One out of every 10 soldiers received a three-week course in conversational Arabic, so that each small unit would have someone capable of basic exchanges with Iraqis. McMaster, who holds a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina and is an expert on the Vietnam War, distributed a lengthy reading list to his officers that included studies of Arab and Iraqi history and most of the classic texts on counterinsurgency. He also quietly relieved one battalion commander who didn't seem to understand that such changes were necessary.
That is really impressive! But how many McMasters can there possibly be serving in Iraq (if any)? If George & Co. had had half the knowledge of this man, there would be no fighting in Iraq.
Another piece of the uniqueness of what happened in Tal Afar was that it took 5,000 troops and a sand mound enclosure to bring about the absence of the al Qaeda fighters and peace in the city of 200,000. In other words it was, for awhile a showcase of what could be accomplished in Iraq with the right number of resources, something that has never been the case since troops crossed the Kuwait border into Iraq back in March of 2003.
and more here-- its from a Scott Ritter peice, and is overall very negative against the Iraq war, and even McMasters, but its a great piece still.
The Generals who criticize Congressman Murtha would do well to study recent history, especially some of the historical lessons drawn from books that they themselves encourage mid-to-senior level officers to read. Since its publication in 1998, US Army Colonel H. R. McMasters' "Dereliction of Duty", an indictment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the escalation of the Vietnam War, has been required reading for a generation of US Military leaders. Drawing upon recently-declassified documents, McMasters outlines the betrayal of the American military during the Vietnam War by its own leaders, the General officers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who put their own career ambitions ahead of the welfare and well being of their troops, allowing the politicization of the Vietnam War to occur to the point that a war all knew to be un-winnable (and unjust) was sustained for many years by those afraid to speak out lest they threaten their career and reputation.
General Pace and his fellow Joint Chiefs of Staff are the current manifestation of the same cowardice and dereliction of duty McMaster's chronicled in his book, a trend that leads one to question whether there are any Generals today who possess enough honor to speak out against a war, and its underlying policies, that not only destroys the men and institutions they represent as leaders, but threatens the very nation they are sworn to defend.
One only needs to look to Colonel McMasters himself to find an answer to this question. McMasters, a Major at the time of the publication of his book, is an officer of great courage and conviction, not to mention considerable military talent. He commanded an armored unit during the 1991 Gulf War, which engaged the Iraqi Republican Guard in a ferocious battle known as "73 Easting". During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, McMasters commanded an armored battalion with distinction. More recently, McMasters commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, where he participated in combat operations in northern Iraq, including a decisive battle in September 2005 for the city of Tall Afar, a city of some 200,000 people about 260 miles northwest of Baghdad and only 40 miles from Syria. This battle, Operation Restore Rights, was one of several waged by the US Military and its erstwhile Iraqi Government allies against Iraqi insurgents in an effort to demonstrate that the Iraqi military was taking a lead in security and stability operations inside Iraq. In a briefing to journalists shortly after the fighting in Tall Afar wound down, McMasters referred to the insurgents as "terrorists" who were drawn to Tall Afar because of its location along routes between the Iraqi city of Mosul and Syria. According to McMasters, the "terrorists" considered it a good place to incite sectarian and ethnic violence and chaos that would preclude Iraqi governmental control.
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