Briefing snippets
- In total we are about 8,000 U.S. personnel, over 6,000 of whom are in the Stryker Brigade combat team. In addition to U.S. forces, we have an Albanian commando that serves alongside us, and we’re most grateful for their role.
- We have over 12,000 Iraqi security force members who are under my operational control and perform missions throughout the north.
- We do have some indications of cross-border operations. Small unit infiltrations -- individual infiltrations, I think, would be more accurate. We focus our collection efforts to try to detect those and intercept those as we are able.
I think you’ve seen in recent days renewed emphasis on border operations. Principally, this is the Iraqi border police responsibility, and we work closely with them to try to increase their capability.
- There are training, organizational and equipment shortfalls in the Iraqi security forces. There’s no question about that. Our job is to help them through that, to find for them the equipment, to provide for them the training, and to advise them so that they can become ever increasingly responsible for their own security.
In my view, the principal shortfall, however, is not tactical but it is in the culture of a people trusting their security forces. Remembering that we are in a place where previously, Iraqi security forces were an oppressive element of the regime, to now convert that and foster in the people of Iraq a trust and confidence that these security forces are their security forces, they are here for the good of all the people, I have found that to be quite a challenge up in the north.
I’m very confident that we will -- through equipping and training and advising, over time develop in the Iraqi security forces the operational capability that is required. Changing the mindset of the people, in my view, will be a little more difficult.
- The peshmerga are a militia. It is very clear from statements from the administrator, from the commanding general of CJTF-7, and it is now encapsulated in the transitional administrative law that militias that are not under the federal structure are not helpful to the future of Iraq.
We have -- we are looking for ways to increasingly incorporate peshmerga forces into legitimate Iraqi security force structure, whether this be taking former peshmerga units and forming them under the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, or whether this is individual members, former members of the peshmerga serving in the Iraqi armed forces or in another security force construct. It is clear that that is the role ahead for the former peshmerga forces, is with Iraqi security force operations.
So do we conduct operations with peshmerga? No. Do we conduct operations with ICDC that were formerly peshmerga? And the answer is yes.
- We do see intelligence reports that indicate that there is a PKK presence along the northern border area. We have not had any contact with any of those forces, have not had any engagement with them, and do not at this time have any plans that are focused in that direction.
- The Army designed the Stryker Brigade Combat Team to be a very agile and adaptive force. I think it is that. I think the soldiers of the Stryker brigade have demonstrated that. While I have been and Task Force Olympia have been officially in charge of the AOR only since the 5th of February, it is important to note that the Stryker brigade began operations under the command and control of the 4th Infantry Division in early December of 2003. So they had some very good experience under their belt before they moved into the northern sector.
I think what we see with the Stryker Brigade Combat Team are soldiers who are very comfortable in the ambiguous situations that we find ourselves in. They are comfortable with junior leaders making very important decisions at the tactical level, based on incomplete information, based on their interpretation of the tactical situation. What the technology of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team allows them to do -- first of all, with the Stryker vehicle, it allows them to move very, very quickly, very stealthily at night, in mass combat forces, mostly just mounted infantry at the point of decision. They also have a suite of situational awareness equipment that allows them to see one another across the entire sector that we operate in so they have great -- they understand where one another are all the time and are able to thereby coordinate their operations much more quickly, much more decisively.
I think, though, the greatest lesson learned that we have seen for the Stryker Brigade Combat Team is that when the Army forces are equipped with the most modern equipment, when they are provided ample training opportunities and when they are empowered at the junior officer and junior non-commissioned officer level to train and make decisions and operate the way we would like them to, the result has been very, very satisfactory.
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