| Author |
Message |
Earl Anthony
Guest
|
 Posted:
Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:03 pm Post subject:
Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian borde |
|
|
The well-worn footpath snakes across the Syrian desert, over a small
mound of dirt that serves as the feeble barrier between Iraq and its
western neighbor and juts through a wire fence that long ago was slashed
to leave a 3-foot gap. The trail then meanders into the Iraqi
countryside, toward sun-baked villages that U.S. authorities say are
hideouts for Islamic extremists, former members of Saddam Hussein's
regime and foreign fighters.
U.S. Army Capt. Eric Fortin shook his head as he surveyed the terrain.
"You need to understand something," he told the dozen Iraqi Border
Patrol soldiers gathered around him. "The U.S. forces are currently
conducting major operations just south of here, in Al-Anbar province,
where the bulk of the foreign fighters and weapons have been coming into
Iraq. In the coming weeks, that border will effectively be sealed off.
The insurgents are going to be looking for the new weak link in the
Iraqi-Syrian border, and we are very afraid it is going to be here."
The Iraqis smiled and nodded at the sunburned American officer. Again
and again they promised that inshallah - God willing - the border would
become a no-go zone for terrorists.
But the mission here is expected to be so complicated that even the most
inspired of pep talks and military plans could fail to keep out the
people, guns, ammunition and money that fuel the insurgency. Gen. John
Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East, acknowledged to
Congress last week that "there are more foreign fighters coming into
Iraq than there were six months ago."
The challenges here, on this nearly 180-mile stretch of border in Iraq's
Nineveh province, are daunting.
Smuggling has been a vital industry in the region for centuries, and the
people are very good at it. They smuggle sheep and cigarettes, fuel and
vegetables. According to top military commanders on the ground, if the
well-established supply routes are used for nefarious purposes, they
have the potential to be at least as successful as the ones in Anbar
province, where U.S. Marines have been fighting and dying for weeks.
But stopping all smuggling in the region could alienate the local
populace, whose economy is greatly dependent on bringing illegal goods
across the border. Iraqis who are sympathetic to U.S. forces - or, at
minimum, neutral - could be tipped in the opposite direction.
All of this falls at a time when U.S. forces have been told that their
fundamental mission is to support Iraqi security forces. For example,
Fortin's soldiers are not supposed to spearhead the mission along the
border but to encourage and train the Iraqis to do it on their own.
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
"That border is the equivalent of the New Jersey Turnpike for
insurgents," said Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, which assumed control of the region about a
month ago. "They come up, they pay their bribe or even just walk through
without that, and they go off to do what they do."
The 3rd Armored Cavalry was shifted to the region from Baghdad when it
became apparent that the U.S. Marines' crackdown on insurgent
strongholds in Anbar could have a ripple effect in Nineveh, the province
directly north of Anbar. When McMaster's soldiers arrived here in May,
one key city, Tal Afar, already held an estimated 500 insurgents -
including an entire tribe said to be closely tied to militant leader Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, according to local leaders.
The province's Iraq-Syrian border security is largely a shambles.
At its one authorized border crossing, at the town of Rabia, U.S.
soldiers arrived in May to find that inspection agents were
independently hiring untrained people to supervise the border operation
while the employees slept.
And virtually anyone who was caught bringing illegal goods into Iraq -
either at the official crossing at Rabia or along any of the illegal
footpaths - could simply pay a bribe and continue on, said U.S.
officials now charged with supervising the checkpoint.
"Why would they willingly change to doing things on the up-and-up when
they could go on doing things the way they have for centuries and get
money out of it?" asked Hector Noriega, a U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officer who recently was brought in to train Iraqi border
workers.
On a recent morning, Noriega was skeptical about the possibility of ever
sealing the Syrian border. Some positive steps had been made, such as
bringing in technology that remotely X-rays trucks approaching the Rabia
checkpoint. But that does not dent the other problems, such as foreign
fighters who reportedly use false passports to cross into Iraq.
"Look at this place," Noriega said, motioning to the chaotic checkpoint,
where people milled over the border freely. "We haven't even begun to
deal with teaching them things as advanced as false documents."
Other than Tal Afar, most cities and villages in the region have not
been insurgent hotbeds, and the United States has not maintained a
military presence here.
Unemployment is staggering. U.S. troops say well over half the
population is without work, a situation that creates other problems.
"It's all about the Benjamin here," said Capt. Craig Olson, the
regiment's top intelligence officer, using the slang expression for $100
bills. "This is a smuggling economy. If you've always made your money
sneaking goods across the border and suddenly someone is willing to pay
you $150 to let a foreign fighter hide overnight in your house or to
hide some weapons in a wagon full of vegetables, I don't think many
people are going to refuse."
Troops acknowledge that a crackdown on what essentially is the region's
No. 1 industry is bound to infuriate those who depend on smuggling. But
they believe they don't have the luxury of treating the cigarette
smuggler more leniently than the arms smuggler.
"I don't want to be the guy who disrupts or shuts down the entire
economies of entire villages of already impoverished people," said Capt.
Jason Whitten, whose engineering company is in charge of the Rabia
border checkpoint. "But how do we know that the money made smuggling
cigarettes doesn't eventually go to supporting the insurgency?
"And maybe even more than that is the idea that the kind of country we
are trying to help the Iraqis create is not supposed to be a place that
is built around bribing border agents and breaking laws and dismissing
the rules of the elected government."
Soldiers in Nineveh also worry that if their mission is not synchronized
with the Marines in Anbar, it could create a situation in which one
region cracks down and the smuggling simply moves to another area. Then
a few months later, the situation repeats itself.
"It's been described as the Pillsbury Doughboy phenomenon," Olson said.
"You poke hard in one place and cause a ripple effect somewhere else."
For now, soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are moving along
the Nineveh border and training the Iraqi Border Patrol. American
soldiers know the border never will be impenetrable.
But the stakes are high.
"If you get just three to five people slipping past each day, that's
potentially 90 to 150 suicide bombs in hot spots like Mosul each month,"
Olson said.
On a recent afternoon, Capt. Fortin visited Sinjar, a largely stable
city at the base of Sinjar Mountain.
He ate lunch with Gen. Shallan Thyab Hamad, the commander of the
region's border patrol. Hamad told an alarming story about a Syrian man
who was caught sneaking across the border a few days earlier. When Hamad
interviewed the man and asked him why he was sneaking into Iraq, the man
unabashedly said, "I am coming to kill Americans," the general recalled.
"Yes, we're very afraid they will start using this border," Fortin said.
The general burst out laughing. "They are using it now," he said.
---
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Rita
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
The well-worn footpath snakes across the Syrian desert, over a small
mound of dirt that serves as the feeble barrier between Iraq and its
western neighbor and juts through a wire fence that long ago was slashed
to leave a 3-foot gap. The trail then meanders into the Iraqi
countryside, toward sun-baked villages that U.S. authorities say are
hideouts for Islamic extremists, former members of Saddam Hussein's
regime and foreign fighters.
U.S. Army Capt. Eric Fortin shook his head as he surveyed the terrain.
"You need to understand something," he told the dozen Iraqi Border
Patrol soldiers gathered around him. "The U.S. forces are currently
conducting major operations just south of here, in Al-Anbar province,
where the bulk of the foreign fighters and weapons have been coming into
Iraq. In the coming weeks, that border will effectively be sealed off.
The insurgents are going to be looking for the new weak link in the
Iraqi-Syrian border, and we are very afraid it is going to be here."
The Iraqis smiled and nodded at the sunburned American officer. Again
and again they promised that inshallah - God willing - the border would
become a no-go zone for terrorists.
But the mission here is expected to be so complicated that even the most
inspired of pep talks and military plans could fail to keep out the
people, guns, ammunition and money that fuel the insurgency. Gen. John
Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East, acknowledged to
Congress last week that "there are more foreign fighters coming into
Iraq than there were six months ago."
The challenges here, on this nearly 180-mile stretch of border in Iraq's
Nineveh province, are daunting.
Smuggling has been a vital industry in the region for centuries, and the
people are very good at it. They smuggle sheep and cigarettes, fuel and
vegetables. According to top military commanders on the ground, if the
well-established supply routes are used for nefarious purposes, they
have the potential to be at least as successful as the ones in Anbar
province, where U.S. Marines have been fighting and dying for weeks.
But stopping all smuggling in the region could alienate the local
populace, whose economy is greatly dependent on bringing illegal goods
across the border. Iraqis who are sympathetic to U.S. forces - or, at
minimum, neutral - could be tipped in the opposite direction.
All of this falls at a time when U.S. forces have been told that their
fundamental mission is to support Iraqi security forces. For example,
Fortin's soldiers are not supposed to spearhead the mission along the
border but to encourage and train the Iraqis to do it on their own.
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
"That border is the equivalent of the New Jersey Turnpike for
insurgents," said Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, which assumed control of the region about a
month ago. "They come up, they pay their bribe or even just walk through
without that, and they go off to do what they do."
The 3rd Armored Cavalry was shifted to the region from Baghdad when it
became apparent that the U.S. Marines' crackdown on insurgent
strongholds in Anbar could have a ripple effect in Nineveh, the province
directly north of Anbar. When McMaster's soldiers arrived here in May,
one key city, Tal Afar, already held an estimated 500 insurgents -
including an entire tribe said to be closely tied to militant leader Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, according to local leaders.
The province's Iraq-Syrian border security is largely a shambles.
At its one authorized border crossing, at the town of Rabia, U.S.
soldiers arrived in May to find that inspection agents were
independently hiring untrained people to supervise the border operation
while the employees slept.
And virtually anyone who was caught bringing illegal goods into Iraq -
either at the official crossing at Rabia or along any of the illegal
footpaths - could simply pay a bribe and continue on, said U.S.
officials now charged with supervising the checkpoint.
"Why would they willingly change to doing things on the up-and-up when
they could go on doing things the way they have for centuries and get
money out of it?" asked Hector Noriega, a U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officer who recently was brought in to train Iraqi border
workers.
On a recent morning, Noriega was skeptical about the possibility of ever
sealing the Syrian border. Some positive steps had been made, such as
bringing in technology that remotely X-rays trucks approaching the Rabia
checkpoint. But that does not dent the other problems, such as foreign
fighters who reportedly use false passports to cross into Iraq.
"Look at this place," Noriega said, motioning to the chaotic checkpoint,
where people milled over the border freely. "We haven't even begun to
deal with teaching them things as advanced as false documents."
Other than Tal Afar, most cities and villages in the region have not
been insurgent hotbeds, and the United States has not maintained a
military presence here.
Unemployment is staggering. U.S. troops say well over half the
population is without work, a situation that creates other problems.
"It's all about the Benjamin here," said Capt. Craig Olson, the
regiment's top intelligence officer, using the slang expression for $100
bills. "This is a smuggling economy. If you've always made your money
sneaking goods across the border and suddenly someone is willing to pay
you $150 to let a foreign fighter hide overnight in your house or to
hide some weapons in a wagon full of vegetables, I don't think many
people are going to refuse."
Troops acknowledge that a crackdown on what essentially is the region's
No. 1 industry is bound to infuriate those who depend on smuggling. But
they believe they don't have the luxury of treating the cigarette
smuggler more leniently than the arms smuggler.
"I don't want to be the guy who disrupts or shuts down the entire
economies of entire villages of already impoverished people," said Capt.
Jason Whitten, whose engineering company is in charge of the Rabia
border checkpoint. "But how do we know that the money made smuggling
cigarettes doesn't eventually go to supporting the insurgency?
"And maybe even more than that is the idea that the kind of country we
are trying to help the Iraqis create is not supposed to be a place that
is built around bribing border agents and breaking laws and dismissing
the rules of the elected government."
Soldiers in Nineveh also worry that if their mission is not synchronized
with the Marines in Anbar, it could create a situation in which one
region cracks down and the smuggling simply moves to another area. Then
a few months later, the situation repeats itself.
"It's been described as the Pillsbury Doughboy phenomenon," Olson said.
"You poke hard in one place and cause a ripple effect somewhere else."
For now, soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are moving along
the Nineveh border and training the Iraqi Border Patrol. American
soldiers know the border never will be impenetrable.
But the stakes are high.
"If you get just three to five people slipping past each day, that's
potentially 90 to 150 suicide bombs in hot spots like Mosul each month,"
Olson said.
On a recent afternoon, Capt. Fortin visited Sinjar, a largely stable
city at the base of Sinjar Mountain.
He ate lunch with Gen. Shallan Thyab Hamad, the commander of the
region's border patrol. Hamad told an alarming story about a Syrian man
who was caught sneaking across the border a few days earlier. When Hamad
interviewed the man and asked him why he was sneaking into Iraq, the man
unabashedly said, "I am coming to kill Americans," the general recalled.
"Yes, we're very afraid they will start using this border," Fortin said.
The general burst out laughing. "They are using it now," he said.
|
Interesting account of the challenges faced in border control in
Iraq. Sounds as if, unless the Iraqi army quickly rises to the
task and is provided with the right equipment, etc., it is going to
be an almost impossible task to accomplish.
Since the U.S. will not
or cannot send more troops, the Iraqis will have to be able to
maintain the security of their own country.
I wonder if there are any plans afoot to generate jobs for the people
in this area who now rely on smuggling? Seems a many headed task to
change a pattern that has existed so long. Somehow it seems the locals
need to be co-opted to go along with the program. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rita
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri Jul 01, 2005 4:04 pm Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | "We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
Now that is somewhat shocking, isn't it? Why do you suppose the |
U.S. has failed to provide the Iraqi soldiers with what they need
to do a proper job? Why no night vision goggles, no reliable
weapons?
I have read so many accounts of how the fledgling Iraqi army
is not provided with the same equipment U.S. forces have.
Why do you suppose this is? If they are to take on this
monstrous job should not providing the best in and enough tools
to do it be a priority?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Jerry Okamura
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri Jul 01, 2005 9:44 pm Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
"Rita" <nitany_98@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:m0nac1174moc2r99bkeeg4hqnaal015fmh@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
The well-worn footpath snakes across the Syrian desert, over a small
mound of dirt that serves as the feeble barrier between Iraq and its
western neighbor and juts through a wire fence that long ago was slashed
to leave a 3-foot gap. The trail then meanders into the Iraqi
countryside, toward sun-baked villages that U.S. authorities say are
hideouts for Islamic extremists, former members of Saddam Hussein's
regime and foreign fighters.
U.S. Army Capt. Eric Fortin shook his head as he surveyed the terrain.
"You need to understand something," he told the dozen Iraqi Border
Patrol soldiers gathered around him. "The U.S. forces are currently
conducting major operations just south of here, in Al-Anbar province,
where the bulk of the foreign fighters and weapons have been coming into
Iraq. In the coming weeks, that border will effectively be sealed off.
The insurgents are going to be looking for the new weak link in the
Iraqi-Syrian border, and we are very afraid it is going to be here."
The Iraqis smiled and nodded at the sunburned American officer. Again
and again they promised that inshallah - God willing - the border would
become a no-go zone for terrorists.
But the mission here is expected to be so complicated that even the most
inspired of pep talks and military plans could fail to keep out the
people, guns, ammunition and money that fuel the insurgency. Gen. John
Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East, acknowledged to
Congress last week that "there are more foreign fighters coming into
Iraq than there were six months ago."
The challenges here, on this nearly 180-mile stretch of border in Iraq's
Nineveh province, are daunting.
Smuggling has been a vital industry in the region for centuries, and the
people are very good at it. They smuggle sheep and cigarettes, fuel and
vegetables. According to top military commanders on the ground, if the
well-established supply routes are used for nefarious purposes, they
have the potential to be at least as successful as the ones in Anbar
province, where U.S. Marines have been fighting and dying for weeks.
But stopping all smuggling in the region could alienate the local
populace, whose economy is greatly dependent on bringing illegal goods
across the border. Iraqis who are sympathetic to U.S. forces - or, at
minimum, neutral - could be tipped in the opposite direction.
All of this falls at a time when U.S. forces have been told that their
fundamental mission is to support Iraqi security forces. For example,
Fortin's soldiers are not supposed to spearhead the mission along the
border but to encourage and train the Iraqis to do it on their own.
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
"That border is the equivalent of the New Jersey Turnpike for
insurgents," said Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, which assumed control of the region about a
month ago. "They come up, they pay their bribe or even just walk through
without that, and they go off to do what they do."
The 3rd Armored Cavalry was shifted to the region from Baghdad when it
became apparent that the U.S. Marines' crackdown on insurgent
strongholds in Anbar could have a ripple effect in Nineveh, the province
directly north of Anbar. When McMaster's soldiers arrived here in May,
one key city, Tal Afar, already held an estimated 500 insurgents -
including an entire tribe said to be closely tied to militant leader Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, according to local leaders.
The province's Iraq-Syrian border security is largely a shambles.
At its one authorized border crossing, at the town of Rabia, U.S.
soldiers arrived in May to find that inspection agents were
independently hiring untrained people to supervise the border operation
while the employees slept.
And virtually anyone who was caught bringing illegal goods into Iraq -
either at the official crossing at Rabia or along any of the illegal
footpaths - could simply pay a bribe and continue on, said U.S.
officials now charged with supervising the checkpoint.
"Why would they willingly change to doing things on the up-and-up when
they could go on doing things the way they have for centuries and get
money out of it?" asked Hector Noriega, a U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officer who recently was brought in to train Iraqi border
workers.
On a recent morning, Noriega was skeptical about the possibility of ever
sealing the Syrian border. Some positive steps had been made, such as
bringing in technology that remotely X-rays trucks approaching the Rabia
checkpoint. But that does not dent the other problems, such as foreign
fighters who reportedly use false passports to cross into Iraq.
"Look at this place," Noriega said, motioning to the chaotic checkpoint,
where people milled over the border freely. "We haven't even begun to
deal with teaching them things as advanced as false documents."
Other than Tal Afar, most cities and villages in the region have not
been insurgent hotbeds, and the United States has not maintained a
military presence here.
Unemployment is staggering. U.S. troops say well over half the
population is without work, a situation that creates other problems.
"It's all about the Benjamin here," said Capt. Craig Olson, the
regiment's top intelligence officer, using the slang expression for $100
bills. "This is a smuggling economy. If you've always made your money
sneaking goods across the border and suddenly someone is willing to pay
you $150 to let a foreign fighter hide overnight in your house or to
hide some weapons in a wagon full of vegetables, I don't think many
people are going to refuse."
Troops acknowledge that a crackdown on what essentially is the region's
No. 1 industry is bound to infuriate those who depend on smuggling. But
they believe they don't have the luxury of treating the cigarette
smuggler more leniently than the arms smuggler.
"I don't want to be the guy who disrupts or shuts down the entire
economies of entire villages of already impoverished people," said Capt.
Jason Whitten, whose engineering company is in charge of the Rabia
border checkpoint. "But how do we know that the money made smuggling
cigarettes doesn't eventually go to supporting the insurgency?
"And maybe even more than that is the idea that the kind of country we
are trying to help the Iraqis create is not supposed to be a place that
is built around bribing border agents and breaking laws and dismissing
the rules of the elected government."
Soldiers in Nineveh also worry that if their mission is not synchronized
with the Marines in Anbar, it could create a situation in which one
region cracks down and the smuggling simply moves to another area. Then
a few months later, the situation repeats itself.
"It's been described as the Pillsbury Doughboy phenomenon," Olson said.
"You poke hard in one place and cause a ripple effect somewhere else."
For now, soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are moving along
the Nineveh border and training the Iraqi Border Patrol. American
soldiers know the border never will be impenetrable.
But the stakes are high.
"If you get just three to five people slipping past each day, that's
potentially 90 to 150 suicide bombs in hot spots like Mosul each month,"
Olson said.
On a recent afternoon, Capt. Fortin visited Sinjar, a largely stable
city at the base of Sinjar Mountain.
He ate lunch with Gen. Shallan Thyab Hamad, the commander of the
region's border patrol. Hamad told an alarming story about a Syrian man
who was caught sneaking across the border a few days earlier. When Hamad
interviewed the man and asked him why he was sneaking into Iraq, the man
unabashedly said, "I am coming to kill Americans," the general recalled.
"Yes, we're very afraid they will start using this border," Fortin said.
The general burst out laughing. "They are using it now," he said.
Interesting account of the challenges faced in border control in
Iraq. Sounds as if, unless the Iraqi army quickly rises to the
task and is provided with the right equipment, etc., it is going to
be an almost impossible task to accomplish.
|
That also applies to our won borders which seem to be in even worse shape.
| Quote: |
Since the U.S. will not
or cannot send more troops, the Iraqis will have to be able to
maintain the security of their own country.
|
Hopefully, they will eventually, and our boys and girls can come home.
| Quote: |
I wonder if there are any plans afoot to generate jobs for the people
in this area who now rely on smuggling? Seems a many headed task to
change a pattern that has existed so long. Somehow it seems the locals
need to be co-opted to go along with the program.
Basically the same problem the US has with smuggling across the Mexico and |
Canadian border? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Jerry Okamura
Guest
|
| Posted:
Fri Jul 01, 2005 9:45 pm Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
"Rita" <nitany_98@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:5noac1tnkerj8kmk3feg0oet1frnbuja74@4ax.com...
| Quote: | On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
Now that is somewhat shocking, isn't it? Why do you suppose the
U.S. has failed to provide the Iraqi soldiers with what they need
to do a proper job? Why no night vision goggles, no reliable
weapons?
I have read so many accounts of how the fledgling Iraqi army
is not provided with the same equipment U.S. forces have.
Why do you suppose this is? If they are to take on this
monstrous job should not providing the best in and enough tools
to do it be a priority?
|
You could ask the same question about what the US is doing to pretect our
own border. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Earl Anthony
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:04 am Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
Rita wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
The well-worn footpath snakes across the Syrian desert, over a small
mound of dirt that serves as the feeble barrier between Iraq and its
western neighbor and juts through a wire fence that long ago was slashed
to leave a 3-foot gap. The trail then meanders into the Iraqi
countryside, toward sun-baked villages that U.S. authorities say are
hideouts for Islamic extremists, former members of Saddam Hussein's
regime and foreign fighters.
U.S. Army Capt. Eric Fortin shook his head as he surveyed the terrain.
"You need to understand something," he told the dozen Iraqi Border
Patrol soldiers gathered around him. "The U.S. forces are currently
conducting major operations just south of here, in Al-Anbar province,
where the bulk of the foreign fighters and weapons have been coming into
Iraq. In the coming weeks, that border will effectively be sealed off.
The insurgents are going to be looking for the new weak link in the
Iraqi-Syrian border, and we are very afraid it is going to be here."
The Iraqis smiled and nodded at the sunburned American officer. Again
and again they promised that inshallah - God willing - the border would
become a no-go zone for terrorists.
But the mission here is expected to be so complicated that even the most
inspired of pep talks and military plans could fail to keep out the
people, guns, ammunition and money that fuel the insurgency. Gen. John
Abizaid, the top American commander for the Middle East, acknowledged to
Congress last week that "there are more foreign fighters coming into
Iraq than there were six months ago."
The challenges here, on this nearly 180-mile stretch of border in Iraq's
Nineveh province, are daunting.
Smuggling has been a vital industry in the region for centuries, and the
people are very good at it. They smuggle sheep and cigarettes, fuel and
vegetables. According to top military commanders on the ground, if the
well-established supply routes are used for nefarious purposes, they
have the potential to be at least as successful as the ones in Anbar
province, where U.S. Marines have been fighting and dying for weeks.
But stopping all smuggling in the region could alienate the local
populace, whose economy is greatly dependent on bringing illegal goods
across the border. Iraqis who are sympathetic to U.S. forces - or, at
minimum, neutral - could be tipped in the opposite direction.
All of this falls at a time when U.S. forces have been told that their
fundamental mission is to support Iraqi security forces. For example,
Fortin's soldiers are not supposed to spearhead the mission along the
border but to encourage and train the Iraqis to do it on their own.
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
"That border is the equivalent of the New Jersey Turnpike for
insurgents," said Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the Army's 3rd
Armored Cavalry Regiment, which assumed control of the region about a
month ago. "They come up, they pay their bribe or even just walk through
without that, and they go off to do what they do."
The 3rd Armored Cavalry was shifted to the region from Baghdad when it
became apparent that the U.S. Marines' crackdown on insurgent
strongholds in Anbar could have a ripple effect in Nineveh, the province
directly north of Anbar. When McMaster's soldiers arrived here in May,
one key city, Tal Afar, already held an estimated 500 insurgents -
including an entire tribe said to be closely tied to militant leader Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, according to local leaders.
The province's Iraq-Syrian border security is largely a shambles.
At its one authorized border crossing, at the town of Rabia, U.S.
soldiers arrived in May to find that inspection agents were
independently hiring untrained people to supervise the border operation
while the employees slept.
And virtually anyone who was caught bringing illegal goods into Iraq -
either at the official crossing at Rabia or along any of the illegal
footpaths - could simply pay a bribe and continue on, said U.S.
officials now charged with supervising the checkpoint.
"Why would they willingly change to doing things on the up-and-up when
they could go on doing things the way they have for centuries and get
money out of it?" asked Hector Noriega, a U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officer who recently was brought in to train Iraqi border
workers.
On a recent morning, Noriega was skeptical about the possibility of ever
sealing the Syrian border. Some positive steps had been made, such as
bringing in technology that remotely X-rays trucks approaching the Rabia
checkpoint. But that does not dent the other problems, such as foreign
fighters who reportedly use false passports to cross into Iraq.
"Look at this place," Noriega said, motioning to the chaotic checkpoint,
where people milled over the border freely. "We haven't even begun to
deal with teaching them things as advanced as false documents."
Other than Tal Afar, most cities and villages in the region have not
been insurgent hotbeds, and the United States has not maintained a
military presence here.
Unemployment is staggering. U.S. troops say well over half the
population is without work, a situation that creates other problems.
"It's all about the Benjamin here," said Capt. Craig Olson, the
regiment's top intelligence officer, using the slang expression for $100
bills. "This is a smuggling economy. If you've always made your money
sneaking goods across the border and suddenly someone is willing to pay
you $150 to let a foreign fighter hide overnight in your house or to
hide some weapons in a wagon full of vegetables, I don't think many
people are going to refuse."
Troops acknowledge that a crackdown on what essentially is the region's
No. 1 industry is bound to infuriate those who depend on smuggling. But
they believe they don't have the luxury of treating the cigarette
smuggler more leniently than the arms smuggler.
"I don't want to be the guy who disrupts or shuts down the entire
economies of entire villages of already impoverished people," said Capt.
Jason Whitten, whose engineering company is in charge of the Rabia
border checkpoint. "But how do we know that the money made smuggling
cigarettes doesn't eventually go to supporting the insurgency?
"And maybe even more than that is the idea that the kind of country we
are trying to help the Iraqis create is not supposed to be a place that
is built around bribing border agents and breaking laws and dismissing
the rules of the elected government."
Soldiers in Nineveh also worry that if their mission is not synchronized
with the Marines in Anbar, it could create a situation in which one
region cracks down and the smuggling simply moves to another area. Then
a few months later, the situation repeats itself.
"It's been described as the Pillsbury Doughboy phenomenon," Olson said.
"You poke hard in one place and cause a ripple effect somewhere else."
For now, soldiers from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment are moving along
the Nineveh border and training the Iraqi Border Patrol. American
soldiers know the border never will be impenetrable.
But the stakes are high.
"If you get just three to five people slipping past each day, that's
potentially 90 to 150 suicide bombs in hot spots like Mosul each month,"
Olson said.
On a recent afternoon, Capt. Fortin visited Sinjar, a largely stable
city at the base of Sinjar Mountain.
He ate lunch with Gen. Shallan Thyab Hamad, the commander of the
region's border patrol. Hamad told an alarming story about a Syrian man
who was caught sneaking across the border a few days earlier. When Hamad
interviewed the man and asked him why he was sneaking into Iraq, the man
unabashedly said, "I am coming to kill Americans," the general recalled.
"Yes, we're very afraid they will start using this border," Fortin said.
The general burst out laughing. "They are using it now," he said.
Interesting account of the challenges faced in border control in
Iraq. Sounds as if, unless the Iraqi army quickly rises to the
task and is provided with the right equipment, etc., it is going to
be an almost impossible task to accomplish.
|
No one said it would be easy, but it can and will be accomplished.
| Quote: |
Since the U.S. will not
or cannot send more troops, the Iraqis will have to be able to
maintain the security of their own country.
|
That should be Iraq's goal, don't you think?.
| Quote: |
I wonder if there are any plans afoot to generate jobs for the people
in this area who now rely on smuggling? Seems a many headed task to
change a pattern that has existed so long. Somehow it seems the locals
need to be co-opted to go along with the program.
|
There appears to be a ready-made job for the locals, protect the border. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Earl Anthony
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:04 am Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
Rita wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
Now that is somewhat shocking, isn't it? Why do you suppose the
U.S. has failed to provide the Iraqi soldiers with what they need
to do a proper job? Why no night vision goggles, no reliable
weapons?
I have read so many accounts of how the fledgling Iraqi army
is not provided with the same equipment U.S. forces have.
Why do you suppose this is? If they are to take on this
monstrous job should not providing the best in and enough tools
to do it be a priority?
|
Training and supplying Iraqi military and security services is a crucial
element to the defeat of the Iraqi insurgency and the establishment of a
secure Iraqi nation. Senator Biden said it could take two years for
Iraqi forces to be able to operate independently. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rita
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:28:16 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: |
I wonder if there are any plans afoot to generate jobs for the people
in this area who now rely on smuggling? Seems a many headed task to
change a pattern that has existed so long. Somehow it seems the locals
need to be co-opted to go along with the program.
There appears to be a ready-made job for the locals, protect the border.
|
And you have information that they will be paid for this? I had not
read anything about such a program, other than getting Iraqis to join
the army. Is that what you are talking about? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rita
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 12:05 am Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:28:41 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Rita wrote:
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
Now that is somewhat shocking, isn't it? Why do you suppose the
U.S. has failed to provide the Iraqi soldiers with what they need
to do a proper job? Why no night vision goggles, no reliable
weapons?
I have read so many accounts of how the fledgling Iraqi army
is not provided with the same equipment U.S. forces have.
Why do you suppose this is? If they are to take on this
monstrous job should not providing the best in and enough tools
to do it be a priority?
Training and supplying Iraqi military and security services is a crucial
element to the defeat of the Iraqi insurgency and the establishment of a
secure Iraqi nation. Senator Biden said it could take two years for
Iraqi forces to be able to operate independently.
|
Two years at minimum, I would think. Since it is apparent Bush is
determined to stay in Iraq, I hope he provides the Iraqis with all
they need so they can defend themselves and U.S. can leave. And I
hope the Iraqis have the will to do what is necessary.
But why so lagging in providing them with proper equipment? What
prevents that from happening now? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Earl Anthony
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 7:08 am Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
Rita wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:28:41 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
Rita wrote:
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 09:59:15 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
"We cannot do this for you," Fortin told the border patrol. "This
mission is yours."
Yet the Iraqis have many obstacles to overcome. Though most smuggling
happens after dark, the Iraqi soldiers do not have night-vision goggles.
Their forts are so poorly constructed and so widely spaced that they
cannot watch most of the border. Each of the forts, spaced about one to
four miles apart, has only one large automatic weapon, and most of these
are not reliable.
Now that is somewhat shocking, isn't it? Why do you suppose the
U.S. has failed to provide the Iraqi soldiers with what they need
to do a proper job? Why no night vision goggles, no reliable
weapons?
I have read so many accounts of how the fledgling Iraqi army
is not provided with the same equipment U.S. forces have.
Why do you suppose this is? If they are to take on this
monstrous job should not providing the best in and enough tools
to do it be a priority?
Training and supplying Iraqi military and security services is a crucial
element to the defeat of the Iraqi insurgency and the establishment of a
secure Iraqi nation. Senator Biden said it could take two years for
Iraqi forces to be able to operate independently.
Two years at minimum, I would think. Since it is apparent Bush is
determined to stay in Iraq, I hope he provides the Iraqis with all
they need so they can defend themselves and U.S. can leave. And I
hope the Iraqis have the will to do what is necessary.
But why so lagging in providing them with proper equipment? What
prevents that from happening now?
|
BAGHDAD, Iraq (Army News Service, June 30, 2006) – The Iraqi Army
activated its 5th Brigade, 6th Division during a ceremony at Muthana
Airfield June 29.
Iraqi soldiers in the eight-week long program received tactical and
strategic training to allow them to defend their country against enemy
threats.
“This is an important day for the people of Iraq,” said Maj. Gen.
William G. Webster Jr., Task Force Baghdad commander. “These men before
you are all volunteers and have sworn to defend Baghdad.”
“All of the TV stations are here so that the people can see the
ceremony,” said Iraqi Army Col. Mohamed Hashim Al-Musawy, the 5th
Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army. “As our training goes on, the citizens, houses
and the streets of Iraq will be safe. If the U.S. forces keep helping us
in our training, we will control the Iraqi streets and we’ll protect the
citizens from the explosions the terrorists make against the Iraqis.”
The newest Iraqi Army brigade will be responsible for defending the
Green Zone and surrounding areas in Baghdad.
“I think they will play a vital role in the freedom of Iraq and Baghdad.
With these Soldiers, they will show the American and Iraqi people that
they are up to the task and can handle the job,” said Command Sgt. Maj.
Robert Taylor, 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment.
The brigade, made up of more than 2,500 Iraqi Soldiers, began training
April 18 at Muthana Airfield. Soldiers from 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry
Regiment and Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion, 64th
Armor Regiment worked with the fledgling Iraqi Soldiers.
“They have trained hard and worked hard to get where they are at today.
The activation ceremony was a turning point for the brigade from
training to actually doing patrols and securing the Green Zone,” Taylor
said.
Soldiers were trained on a variety of tasks that they will use on the
streets of Baghdad, such as reflexive fire, basic marksmanship and
clearing rooms.
“I feel proud that the Iraqi soldiers can defend the country of Iraq,”
Mohamed said. “I hope God will make them brave and keep them safe. We
have soldiers that are very young, and we thought that they might fail,
but because of the Americans that gave us good training they made it.”
Mohamed added that the Iraqi Soldiers now feel proud to be a part of the
Iraqi Army.
“In the past they were scared to be one of the Iraqi Army Soldiers so no
one from the terrorists would kill them, but now, there are many
volunteers,” Mohamed said. “I learned from our training that they have
high feelings (morale) about their training and they’ve proved it during
the operations that they’ve had in Dora and Haifa Street, Abu Dasheer
and Karada.”
“They may not be as good as American Soldiers today, but one day they
will be just as good,” Taylor said. “They put their lives on the line
every day, either at checkpoints or on patrols, and they are right
beside us doing the same things we’re doing.”
Mohamed said that the Iraqi troops have been successful in these areas
because of the U.S. Soldiers training and they will continue to get better.
“I hope the same unit will train the next brigade,” he said, “so the new
soldiers will receive the highest level of training,” |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Earl Anthony
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 8:03 am Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
Rita wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:28:16 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
I wonder if there are any plans afoot to generate jobs for the people
in this area who now rely on smuggling? Seems a many headed task to
change a pattern that has existed so long. Somehow it seems the locals
need to be co-opted to go along with the program.
There appears to be a ready-made job for the locals, protect the border.
And you have information that they will be paid for this? I had not
read anything about such a program, other than getting Iraqis to join
the army. Is that what you are talking about?
|
Why would they not be paid? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Rita
Guest
|
| Posted:
Sat Jul 02, 2005 4:02 pm Post subject:
Re: Troops prepare to plug `new weak link' on Iraqi-Syrian b |
|
|
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 23:37:47 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Rita wrote:
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:28:16 -0500, Earl Anthony <earlanthony@hotmail.com
wrote:
I wonder if there are any plans afoot to generate jobs for the people
in this area who now rely on smuggling? Seems a many headed task to
change a pattern that has existed so long. Somehow it seems the locals
need to be co-opted to go along with the program.
There appears to be a ready-made job for the locals, protect the border.
And you have information that they will be paid for this? I had not
read anything about such a program, other than getting Iraqis to join
the army. Is that what you are talking about?
Why would they not be paid?
|
I was asking you for information you have that such is being
planned and implemented. Your opinion is not policy -- where did
you read about paying Iraqis on the border to defend it? If
you have none, then just say this would be a good idea, but you
know of no plans to actually do this. Quit avoiding my question. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Memberlist
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in