Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

symbolism and decisiveness of the moment.

(Brown, p. 3 from 3rd Army History Group report as of 8 April)

NATION BUILDING

World War II concluded with unconditional surrender by both Germany and Japan. U.S. and allied forces in those two countries began occupation duties and set conditions for eventual peaceful and orderly transitions to new governments. The occupation of Germany officially concluded in 1955 after ten years. It concluded in Japan in 1952 after seven years.

Transition in Iraq would follow a different course. Combat formations rapidly transitioned to this new phase. The 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment (Colonel Dave Teeples) and 1st Armored Division (MG Marty Dempsey) joined formations already there also rapidly and with great skill and courage adapting to a new mission. In addition, the U.S. Army deployed its new Stryker Brigade, the 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team. This formation had gone from a concept in the Army's vision announced in the fall of 1999, to a combat-ready brigade in four years, an impressive feat of Army transformation. This phase would also include combat operations even as soldiers reached out to help Iraqis regain control of their country and to improve their way of life. U.S. and allied forces would adapt quickly with tactics of their own to counter resistance while also helping rebuild Iraq. The U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority sought to rebuild infrastructure and worked to transfer national control to free Iraqis on 30 June 2004. It is an impressive operation both for the courage of U.S. Army and allied soldiers and for their selflessness and ingenuity in performing their mission. To provide security, to help set conditions for that transition, and to assist in nation building, Coalition Forces are conducting new missions, increasingly with our new partners, the Iraqis themselves, in an inspiring display of versatility and adaptability. MG Dave Petraeus, CG 101st Airborne, calls attention to four qualities in leaders and soldiers during the attack to Baghdad, and this phase of the operation: initiative, determination, innovation, and courage (Patraeus, MG, US Army, notes 02/04).

If you go on any given day to almost any sector in Iraq you find normalcy. You find schools open and children attending, you find teachers paid more than under Saddam's regime, and you find most of the propaganda removed from new textbooks and classrooms. You find health clinics and hospitals open, medical supplies available and doctors and medical personnel paid more than under Saddam's regime. You find freedom of expression on street corners, in town squares by demonstrators, in newspapers, and on television. You find local governments at work. You find local Iraqi police at work. You find the infrastructure of water, sewage, electricity, road repair, and public transportation at least as good as pre-war and perhaps better. You find Americans and allies, mostly soldiers and Marines, reaching out to Iraqis in ways that inspire us all with their ingenuity and compassion. You find Americans, who are there because they believe in what they are doing. And you also find Americans, who wonder when the Iraqis are going to get tired of the thugs, extremists, and former regime loyalists who disrupt their lives and who hold the country back, and make the effort to get rid of them.

This phase, as much as any part of this war, is a test of wills and of ideas.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Reflections

WAR OF WILLS

In a commencement speech at Albright College in my hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania, on 14 December 2003, I said about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,

'This is a war of wills and resolve as it is of force and information and other means. I believe in the steel in the will of our people and our nation's leadership as we just saw when President Bush visited our troops in Baghdad on Thanksgiving and said there, 'I bring a message on behalf of America: We thank you for your service, we're proud of you, and America stands solidly behind you.' I know as VII Corps commander during Desert Storm in 1991, in our attack, we could feel the steel in the will of our President and the American people right to our individual tank crews. Many of us had been in combat in Vietnam, and did not then feel that steel in the will, that resolve. That steel, that resolve on Desert Storm, was combat power and made the difference then, and it is making the difference now, not only to our military but also to all those engaged in this wholly different campaign. That resolve makes up our national character…

I like what then Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall said in a commencement address at West Point in 1942 early in World War II,

' 'We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.' '

I believe his thoughts still apply.

Our enemies have always underestimated the strength and will of the American people when our basic freedoms are attacked. That we rise up in a steel-fisted resolve to defend those freedoms in ways that our enemies never understand is a given in history. That we conduct those campaigns in ways that strengthen what we believe in and that leaves the world better in the end is also a fact of history and a reflection on our national character and our service. Around the flagpoles at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., is this inscription: 'Americans came to liberate, not to conquer, to restore freedom and to end tyranny.'

Our soldiers know this well across the generations. I have been privileged to hear these thoughts of service from our wounded soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq recently in visits with them in Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Who gripped my hand… and told me with passion how strongly they believe in America and this noble cause. They represent the very best of America, strong, committed, the very personification of duty, honor, and country. I am inspired and strengthened to be in the same room with them as a fellow soldier and fellow American.'

This world war will continue to be waged by force, and by other means of national and international power. It will also be waged with ideas. When force is the chosen instrument of power, that will be done by an Army and military that used the period of the 1990s to continue its remarkable rebirth, its transformation begun in the mid 1970s. It continues today and it will into the future. Just as we go from the 1970s to the force that fought so successfully in Panama and Desert Storm, so did our military get from the early 1990s to the force that fought again so decisively and continues in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. I am certain the military will continue that trend so it is 'relevant and ready,' trained, manned, and equipped to fight future battles and win. It will fight those battles true to our values as a nation, so important in the war of ideas as it is a reflection of our own national character. The U.S. Army is a learning organization, constantly changing itself, transforming, in order to be of service to the Nation, to be 'relevant and ready.' The rest of this chapter is devoted to reflections on some of those factors of the 1990s that aided this continuing rebirth: versatility; experiments and continuity; people, training, and Leader Development, and the Army profession.

VERSATILITY