The Redhunter

COL. KIEVENAAR:...The Warhorse Brigade is responsible for the Najaf province, as well as southern Babil. Covering such a vast area is only possible due to the dramatic improvements in the security situation that the Iraqi police and the Iraqi army are providing to their citizens. This is my third OIF deployment, and I can tell you from my previous experiences that the Iraqi Security Forces have greatly improved and on a day-to-day basis provide the security that their population currently enjoys.

We work hard every day to professionalize the ISF leaders and to help them develop sustainable systems to ensure that the security forces can provide security well into the future. The focus of their training is no longer on individual soldier skills, but is on small unit tactics, on battle command, logistics, intelligence analysis and combined operations.

As I stated, the Iraqi security forces have made great progress. My first deployment in OIF was as a squadron commander in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, and we operated out in the Al Anbar province. I returned to Baghdad in 2006 as the division G3, the operations officer for the 4th Infantry Division, which was Multinational Division-Baghdad.

The progress of the Iraqi security forces from then to now is amazing and rewarding, because I've seen it from the beginning. The Iraqi police and the Iraqi army are conducting complex operations, both unilaterally and then some with our assistance. We've conducted combined operations with the Iraqi security forces; have targeted, identified and captured high-value targets. The Iraqi security forces, partnered with our forces, have captured six of our top 10 high-value targets....

When we go out on patrol, they are all combined with the Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqi security forces are in the lead, with our forces providing assistance. Instead of having 10 U.S. soldiers to every one Iraqi soldier or police officer, we see a much more balanced ratio.

Iraqi security forces taking the lead is something we've heard in recent briefings by other commanders. We know it's working because levels of violence are not going up.

On to the Q & A. The big question everyone is asking in the U.S. is "when can our troops come home?" On the one hand we certainly want to draw down as much as possible. On the other we do not want to lose all that we have gained. As such, we need to understand that withdrawal needs to be in stages. We are, after all, fighting a counterinsurgency war, and things don't end all-of-a-sudden World War II style.

Al Pessin gets to the heart of the matter. Typically, he asks a followup question to make sure he's getting all of the information. This time he asks two. Pessin is one of the more astute journalists and asks the hard questions.

Q Colonel, it's Al Pessin from VOA. Just to follow up on that thought, what impact do you anticipate then from the June deadline if any? And what preparations are you making?

COL. KIEVENAAR: What I expect is that by June, the JSSs and COPs that we are in; we will have withdrawn and handed those back over to the Iraqi security forces. And that was part of the plan even without that strategic agreement.

We are currently in two JSSs and a COP, well, correction, two COPs at this point. We have Iraqi army, Iraqi police. We have joint command and control. And that's where we do our joint patrolling from.

They have moved from, when we first got here, with very few forces there, to a much more robust presence and command and control capability. They are now the ones planning the operations.

We will continue to work through those and help them, to get through the election period that is the end of the month, and then reassess.

But we believe at that point we will be ready to start to back out of those, because they no longer require us to be there, and that they are -- both the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police -- working very effectively together in joint command and control for their own country.

Q To follow that, then, where will your troops go? I mean, how far away will they go? And how would you describe their role after they've withdrawn from the urban areas?

COL. KIEVENAAR: Well, they won't go very far. I mean, all that will happen is, is they will withdraw back -- as a basing piece -- back to the FOBs that we're in. In terms of the operations, they'll -- we'll continue to do joint operations with the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police.

We are working on what we call professionalizing their security forces. That's focused on their leaders, their NCOs, and teaching them how to train, how to sustain themselves; working with the battalion leadership, the brigade leadership and the division leadership on how to do effective targeting -- instead of doing a sweep operation or a cordon and search, doing precise targeting -- and how to integrate both the intel with your maneuver.

And so we are working all of those things and we'll continue to work all of those training objectives with them as well as joint operations. It just means we won't live in the town as we currently do in those COPs and JSSs.

It being somewhat hard to translate into civilian-speak just what exactly the colonel means, Pessin asks a clarifying question:

Q So you'll continue to do joint operations with the Iraqis, including operations in the cities, but you just won't live there. Is that right?

COL. KIEVENAAR: Yes.

Thankfully Col Kievenaar kept his answer simple this time. I googled for "JSS" and "COP" but couldn't be sure I found the right definition.

Another question dealt with the upcoming elections.

It has become somewhat easy to set up reasonably fair elections in most non-Western countries. The hard part is setting up a second set of reasonably fair elections. Even harder than that is getting incumbents to relinquish their seats. All too often "one man, one vote - one time" has become the watchword across the world.

It is all very fine that we have Hamid Karzai elected as President of Afghanistan, and Nouri al-Maliki elected as Prime Minister of Iraq. The question is what will they do if they lose the next round. Equally important are provincial governors in Iraq, which is what the next round of elections in Iraq are all about.

To his credit, Col. Kievenaar is not shy about discussing this challenge. Here's an excerpt from the following exchange:

Q And Colonel, it's Andrew Gray from Reuters, here. Can you give us your assessment of the security situation around the provincial elections? Are you anticipating incidents? Are you making plans to make any changes to take account of the elections?

COL. KIEVENAAR:...Where we think the critical period is, is between those that get elected and those that do not. And if I was the governor and I was in power and then I did not get reelected, this country has not gone through a peaceful transition of power. And so that's what we're looking at. That's what we're trying to help them with. And that's where we see the greatest friction point.

And we use our election that just happened with the -- for president as a great example of how there was a change from one party to another, in terms of who's going to lead the country, and how the current incumbent is working very hard to hand over the reins of power, to the incoming president, and how that is being done peaceably and amicably versus what they're used to, which has been a coup, how they have changed power in the past.

I'll certainly be looking to see how the Iraqis react to any close voting results.

Lastly, we'll catch up on the state of the Iraqi Army and police, and then we'll assess the threats in the Warhorse Brigade's provinces.

Q Colonel, Bill McMichael, Military Times. You called the progress of the ISF, since your last tour in OIF, amazing and rewarding. I wonder if you could be a little more specific and tell us how far the Iraqi military and separately the Iraqi police, in your area of operations, are from operating completely independently.

COL. KIEVENAAR: Okay. I'll start with the Iraqi army.

The Iraqi army, from my last rotation, was really just forming itself and did not have really good battle drills and really good individual soldier skills to execute the COIN (counterinsurgency) operations we were asking it to do.

It was trying to grow, train and execute at the same time, and the tempo that it was facing really didn't allow itself to train properly.

What I see now is an army that is fully capable on its individual skills, is capable of unilateral operations, especially in a COIN environment, and is now focused on also training itself while it is doing that, and now has a -- at least in the province that I'm responsible for, the enemy level is low enough now that they have the ability to train -- cycle forces off to train while they're executing operations.

From the police perspective: One, there's a lot more. Two, they are much more proficient. It was a challenge the last time I was here to get them to conduct patrols, to man checkpoints. And if we weren't there or we didn't take them out on the patrols, they wouldn't go. That's not the case now....

So far so good, but what I'd also liked to have heard about was logistics, which has been a big problem for the Iraqi Army, as it is for armies in third world countries in general. In many of these briefings we've heard about the inability of the central government to supply all that is needed, though it does seem to be getting better.

Here's the exchange on the threat levels in Kievenaar's AOR (Area Of Responsibility):

Q Colonel, it's Mike Mount with CNN. Just briefly, you sort of answered it a little bit earlier, but what exactly is the threat level in your AOR? Are you looking at -- and who's involved? Is it mainly AQI or is it thuggery or -- and it seems to, down the road, tend to get worse. Do you have any confidence in the Iraqi army, Iraqi police since it has been a relatively quiet area that they would be able to actually control it without the help of the U.S., or with limited help of the U.S.?

COL. KIEVENAAR: To answer the kind of the overall piece, it's, yes, I think they can control it. In April, March and April of last year, this was not a very calm place. And the Iraqi army conducted an operation they call "Lion Bounce (ph)" in which they got rid of a lot of the significant JAM influence that existed in Diwaniyah province. Since those operations, there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of events that occur. Now, we don't have a huge al Qaeda presence in the province that -- or the provinces that I'm responsible for. It is mostly what we call JAM special groups or criminals.

What we have right now is a situation where your low-level fighters, those guys that would then go out and do something if somebody gave them money, gave them direction and gave them resources, they're still around. But they're not doing anything because none of their leaders are here. Their leaders have been targeted, picked up or they're hiding in a neighboring country. And every time they come in, try to come back into this country, they're effectively targeted and picked up. The example is the six HVTs that we picked up since we came into the province.

Without that leadership, without the money and without the resources then they basically return to their normal lives. And so we have a very safe and secure environment right now and I don't see anything on the horizon that their security force, both the police and the army, cannot handle.....

Nothing shocking or terribly new in this briefing, which is a good thing.