DISQUS

To those that read this particular article---this is a telling comment from John Robb who has been psuhing the concept of Open Source Warfare as a core element as to why the speed factor in the Iraq insurgency occurred and why the Army did not see it coming. The comment that the Army is both fighting the insurgency and leading the counter insurgency fight should wake a few people up but I doubt it will.



Thursday, 07 February 2008

OPEN SOURCE COUNTER-INSURGENCY?

What's left (as an option for the US in Iraq)? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting IBM's embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using (Shiite and Kurdish) militias as a counterinsurgency.



John Robb, October 2005, in a New York Times Op-Ed. (if you add Sunni militias to the mix, a gross oversight on my part but implied in the approach, it is spot-on analysis).

The Sunni Tribal Awakening (rather than "the surge") has radically slowed violence in Iraq by bringing it back to the levels of activity seen in 2005. That's a good thing, but the Awakening has been wrongly attributed to a new (resurrected) counter-insurgency doctrine (COIN). Here's why. The main objective of United States COIN doctrine is to enhance/extend the sovereignty and legitimacy of the host nation. Everything that is done is slaved to this top level goal. Unfortunately, the development of legitimacy is a long and slow process that takes decades of effort (if it can be accomplished at all). In contrast, everything about the Tribal Awakening is diametrically opposed to this. It arms and trains militias and groups that aren't loyal to the host nation and thereby diminishes the host nation's legitimacy by undercutting its monopoly on violence and its control over sovereign territory.



What did happen with the Awakening, and the speed of the transition should be a clue to this, is that the US military opportunistically embraced the insurgency (in a move akin to IBMs embrace of open source development in the 90's). This embrace showered autonomy, weapons, money ($300 per month x 60,000 participants), protection (from Shiite militias and the Iraqi government), and training on insurgent groups. By doing so, it replaced the ISI (Islamic State of Iraq, an al Qaeda affiliate) as the leading participant in the insurgency. The only "cost" to these insurgent groups, which were under extreme pressure from Shiite militias due to overreaching by the ISI, was to sacrifice the ISI. They rapidly complied.



Where this goes from here is problematic since (and I say this to get you thinking and not to shock you) the US is now leading both the insurgency and the counter-insurgency in Iraq.

Sean---will shift to your email for the other documents---will send them over the coming week or so. Sorry for not responding by have been busy writing templates.



The development speed that the insurgency had from the year 2003 to mid 2005 is an interesting one. Just how could relatively untrained, and seemingly disconnected groups of fighters be able to actually take on the only superpower left in an organized way.



I spoke with a Sunni fighter (cell leader) that we captured in late December 2005 who had been wearing a blast belt and who claimed that he had actually been recruited by an IIS officer into a Salafi movement in late 1996 in Amarra. They had prayed regularly (no hint of jihad) until the US arrived and then their conversations before and after prayer turned to jihad. The IIS officer had been based in Amarra and then with the US arrival he disappears to Baghdad but maintains close ties to the cell leader and still comes on occassions after 2003 to pray in Amarra. Then he calls in mid 2005 to see if the cell leader was ready to conduct jihad-- the cell leader immediately answers the call and is into the fight after a two week indoctrination period with 30 others in Baghdad.



I would suggest that in fact Saddam and the IIS knew of and had a serious internal Salafi movement problem that we knew nothing about prior to 2003--probably a spin off of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Iraq. I would further suggest that the very same IIS officers who were tasked to watch the Salafi movement are the same ones who later setup the various insurgent groups and were the driving force behind the various groups thus shortening the lead time needed to launch an organized full blown insurgency.



The US military in Iraq spends way to much time focused on al Qaida and not the Islamic Army of Iraq (IAI) which has historically spun off six different Sunni insurgent groups and was in fact founded by former IIS officers and Iraqi Army officers.



Couple the existence of well organized small groups that had learned to survive in the underground being hunted by the IIs to the concept of "open source warfare" then the critical mass is reached far faster than ever thought possible in the realm of unconventional warfare.



If you are interersted in the concept of "open source warfare" as the key in the evoluntionary speed of the Iraqi insurgency here is an interesting link run by John robb who has written the Brave New War.



http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerr...

Sean---here is something to think about while you are there.



If Mao is the theorist behind the three phase insurgency concept-just how did we go from a phase one in 2003 to a full blown phase three in mid 2005 when Mao himself envisioned the phase three itself taking upwards of 10-15 years to develop?



The answer is actually simple it is just that we still today are not willing to see the answer.



It goes to the heart of how the insurgency is able to evolve their TTPs so fast.

Sean---then stay safe for the remaining time there---I have about several more trips to Iraq and a handfull of rotations then it is off to southern France where I can finally forget COIN after 40 plus years.



Just finished up my book Drinkiing Tea in Iraq-War of Perception and have finished the Sprial Questioning Article for CALL with one to follow on Tactical Questioning. Will send you the electronic copies if you are interested---it summarizaes alot of what we had spoken about over the last few years.



Have a number of articles in the pipeline concerning the global Salafi movement and the global jihad coming out in the next few months on a global security site that has a large number of influencers.





Stay safe----

Sean---could give you an equally long email on why the Marines are ahead of the Army in COIN---maybe they learned some important lessons during Fulluja 1 and 2 and Ramadi 1 and 2. Could be they learned that the insurgency was just as good at counter sniper and hunting down Marine sniper teams. Maybe they learned to understand the deep Anbar tribal culture for which a US Army LTC who became the world's leading SME on Anbar Tribal culure could never get promoted past LTC due to his years of intensive research which are still not part an parcel of USA tribal culture training (many did not like his messaging).



Key though was their shift to company level operations---the theoritical debate had been lead by a retired USMC LTC Michael Poole with his books on Battle Tactics of the Cresent Moon--or the theories put forth by another USMC retired LTC on 4G warfare. The theoritical debate has taken most of their rotations in Iraq to get correct---but they rotate every 7 months not 12 or now 15 months on the USA side so maybe it is easier to discuss and decide if one is not gone for a total of 39 months out of 56.

Sean---good to see that you are back into the fight at Fulluja-hope things have changed there a bit from 2005--to answer some of your questions.



I have had the opportunity to observe the MI effort for 16 BCT rotations and everything that you and I ever complained about at Ft. H is still going on in Humint and MI with no improvement. Still hundreds of young interrogators coming out of Ft. H with little or no understanding of 1) what the heck is a phase three insurgency or war of movement or what are the insurgency battle tactics or how many insurgents are on a mortar team and what are their functions during an attack or what is a swarm attack, 2) or what the heck is spiral questioning and let's not tell them about it because they are to young and inexperienced to handle it and 3) let's not teach it to the combat arms as a way of lowering the over all number of detainees as we are at what number in the TF 134 system--33, 34 or 35K which is up from the number of 13K prior to the surge. And by the way the concept of JUMPs does not get it and is a total failure, but what the heck let's continue to teach it anyway because someday we might be fight a HIC not LIC.



Oh by the way the EAIT side finally opened up some class seats for BCT interrogators---it does make a difference---spiral questioning the Tiger Team concept is what they take back with them as the two most important things they learned there.



Reference the Marines---they have undergone their own long internal discusssion of driving all COIN combat operations in an insurgency environment at the company level with the company being the tip of the spear, the spear itself and the thrower of the spear. Try to bring that conversation to a BCT Cmdr at the O6 level. I have spent the better part of a year in getting via straight personal influence and based on my long years of experience a total of seven BCTs to devolve MI to the company level and the message is taking hold. The Ft. H solution is 260M dollars and the first gradute of the IST concept is FY11--does not help the BCTs going now in the least bit.



The concept of teaching spiral questioning which you know all to well yourself--- Ft. H does not like me teaching it to the combat arms-why because the standard answer is that it is a difficult concept for young soldiers to grasp, but quess what they get it in a big way and the 3 ID has been using it well in southern Baghdad.



Rapport building may have been a thing in 2004 and 2005, but it disappeared from all BCTs in 2006 and 2007 because we were to be transitioning Iraq to the ISF so why did we need it--- until the surge BCTs got there it had all but disappeared.



The additional troops had two impacts that are vastly underdiscussed 1) they provided a limiting factor on the unimpeded movement of the insurgency groups---which until the surge came they could move at will---it is harder now to dodge the countless TCPs and flash TCPs and 2)they allowed a certain amount of "balanced" fairness in keeping the Sunni and Shiite apart in basically what was Shiite cleansing of all Sunni districts in Baghdad in the drive to make Baghdad the capital of a democratically elected Shiite State.



The fight is not in Baghdad, nor Fulluja or Ramadi---it has been and always will be in Diyala Provence especially Baqubah which is the stated capital of the ISI and QJBR. So goes Diyala so goes the war---after countless largescale 10K plus operations in Diyala (in 2007 and 08) and it is still not under control.



Sean-good to hear from you, stay safe, will be in country for a Humint visit in the coming months-let me know where you are exactly.

General Caldwell is absolutely correct in the use of battle videos by the insurgency. This war is and has always been about perception.



The problem that I see is that insurgent videos are used for a number of things such as; 1)recruitment, 2) motivation,3) I/O operations and 4) the videos are used to pass battle TTPs (tactics, techniques, procedures) to other Sunni Salafi global jihadists. It would be tough for us to follow suite---trying to get soldfiers to produce their videos and to get them in the internet is a logisterical nightmare.



Richard

Rapport building was in fact a surge by product as it was being taught to the surge BCTs extensively both during LTP and in the desert in intensive sessions prior to the troops hitting the desert rotations.



As the trigger pullers while understanding maybe the high side of the concept pulled into their JSSs and COPs in Iraq and were running their 5 day dismounted patrols the concept seemed to take off on it's own. Coupled with a new form of cultural training not seen in the rest of the CTCs or for that matter Ft. H we have in fact been able to send BCTs into Iraq that are performing at a level which has caused the IRC to recently voice their wonder at the sudden shift in the Army---we have seen a definite improvement in EOF incidents and in detainee handling causing the IRC to wonder just what we changed.



Our surge BCTs now understand what wearing sunglasses while speaking with Iraqi's now culturally means or that there are deep cultural items that have to be respected even during detainee operations that affect the overall Iraqi perspectives of Americans. They now understand that the concept of Iraqi silence was getting them killed-once they understood that everything else fell into place.



HUMINT still has not taken off for a long number of reasons-internal to the MI as a whole and issues out of Ft. H. We still are facing the massive belief that hey if we can just throw more technology and more analysis at the problem and everything will work.



Regardless of what one thinks or for that matter does not think of the surge--we have a massive increase of Iraqi's willing to talk to us for the first time in 5 years which is in fact point 8 of the MNF-I Patreaus letter. Get the Iraqi's off the fence.



We are still struggling to get BCTs to understand point 5 of his MNF-I letter which is that all intel is driven bottom up not top down which is where most of the technology being fielded today is sitting.



A bulk of the successes which are in fact there are being driven by rapport building with both the local Sunni and Shiite sides and a solid amount of long hours at what I would call "community policing".



Again based on long conversations with the surge BCTs they are rating rapport building as the single key to a lot of their captures and the calming of their JSS neighborhoods.



As to the Engagement and Reconciliation side of the problem---we did not force anyone into the "awakening" movement---think about it the Sunni insurgency was by mid 2007 fighting a three front war---1) with us, 2) with QJBR, and 3) with the Shiite militias. If you are a Sunni fighter offered 300USD to patrol your area to keep it quiet and you are the problem then in fact your neighborhood is going to be quiet and you can sleep at night knowing you will not be raided by the US. Secondly you can rebuild your own organization knowing the final Shiite fight is coming and lastly if QJBR is not having the perception that they "won" the war then you will not have to send your fighters to Afghanistan or Algeria as a "blood debt" payment for their winning your war.



There are solid recent developments that in fact the surge phase has allowed for a total reconstituion of all Sunni insurgent groups and in fact the battle tempo is slowly but steadily climbing again. QJBR is again in full IO glory on the jihadi websites and a recent battle video that was released was lead off by QJBR and as the last insurgent group on the video IAI-now what does that say.



But to get back to the rapport building comments---from Oct 2007 through to the initial surge BCTs in March not a single soldier nor a single BCT ever attempted to use rapport in the desert. Again only after extensive training and deep cultural training --rapport is understood by even the junior LT as the inherent part of every conversation they carry out with Iraqi's---what we refer to as the Love Bank and is the corner stone to the COIN COG process.

Concerning SAVAK---ask any Iranian student studying in Germany at the height of the Shahs' rule what they thought of SAVAK. While SAVAK was well known in European political circles there was little or no reporting on them here in the US during the same timeframe.



The irony of SAVAK was that for some strange reason they overlooked a little known Shiite Mullah during his Friday prayers in Paris, France. Even the CIA somehow felt that this particular Mullah was not a threat to Iran and for that we can thank the CIA for getting into the current Iranian mess.



Even the Europeans knew that the CIA was training their little brother and that torture was in play then with reports that CIA operatives were at least watching key SAVAK "interviews" with Iranian dissidents.

To all--what is getting lost in the debate is that torture gets one absolutely nowhere on the Humint side of the house. In the world of Humint collection and all source fusion it is amazing to stop and think that after a waterboarding session the CIA interrogator would even trust the gained information unless confirmed by other sources.



So if they had other sources of information why turn to waterboarding?



This whole debate has sidetracked the one main concept that has come out of the Iraq "surge"---a new style of tactical questioning that educes information via rapport building. Nothing fancy but for those that understand this field the term cognitive dissonance is the key and this is where the CIA always goes astray.



To drive cognitive dissonance one has to understand the culture of the individual and we Americans tend to not want to do that as it takes to much time or we simply do not know the culture or we feel that knowing the culture makes you one of the "enemy".



We are in a few more weeks into the fifth year of the Iraq war and I sense that even after five years the intel community still does not understand the global Sunni jihad.



For those that really want to gain some insight into a number of interesting items that get little or no coverage checkout the book Brave New War.

This is an interesting article as the Intelligence Science Board's recommendations were first presented to Congress and then to the Ft. Hauchuca Intelligence Training Center in 2007. There has been no attempt on the part of the Ft. H Interrogator Training Center to incorporate those recommendations.



There is though a questioning technique called spiral questioning that if used as the basis for interrogations or tactical questioning goes to the heart of the "educing information" concepts presented by the ISB. This concept was originally developed in the early 70s and used daily at the Joint Refugee Operations Center Berling with great success---and never once do you have to use force or the threat of force.



I have used it extensively at Abu Ghraib and in Diyala in 2005 and 2006 and the results as the young generation says were "massive" when compared to a young Army trained interrogator relying on the school house doctrine.



I was taught years ago and still teach two things 1) treat detainees the way you would want to be treated in the same situation, and 2) rapport, rapport, rapport.



We older generation interrogators take our jobs seriously--- the issues of Abu Ghraib and the CIA black interrogation centers has damaged the US and interrogators in the eyes of the Muslim world to such a degree that our jobs are now 20 times harder. Even the CIA new generation interrogators in Iraq are no comparison to even young Army interrogators just out of school.



Perception is everything---the CIA never got it nor will they ever get it.



Kleinman is correct no one really wants "educing information" as the new generational form of interrogation---there are to many defense dollars going to several key defense contractors who if they had to change to the "educing information" concept would be out of a job as it is easy to teach and highly effective. Retired DEA and ATFE agents after being show the concept of spiral questioning were totally surprised and stated that was in fact what they had been doing for years, but did not know the name for the technique.



When you are an interrogator in Iraq you are in fact the defense lawyer, judge, jury, and DA all roled into one person---humanity is the only thing you have hold on to if you are true to yourself and want to see yourself in the mirror in the mornings.