Christopher A. Lawrence - America’s modern wars : understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam

Published in the United States of America and Great Britain in 2015 by
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS
908 Darby Road, Havertown, PA 19083
and
10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EW

Copyright 2015 Christopher A. Lawrence

ISBN 978-1-61200-278-1
Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-279-8

Cataloging-in-publication data is available from the Library of Congress and
the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in
writing.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

For a complete list of casemate titles please contact:

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (US)
Telephone (610) 853-9131, Fax (610) 853-9146
E-mail:

CASEMATE PUBLISHERS (UK)
Telephone (01865) 241249, Fax (01865) 794449
E-mail:

Dedication

T his book is dedicated to my father, Colonel William A. Lawrence, who served two tours in Vietnam. It is also dedicated to all those who died in the Vietnam War, including his friends Captain Robert Maluenda Caliboso and Major Robert William Arnold. It is unfortunate that the sacrifice of almost 60,000 U. S. servicemen and women had not been better used to educate future generations on the problems of fighting insurgencies.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all the people who helped me in the various insurgency studies. First and foremost are my predecessors at The Dupuy Institute, the late Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy (USA) and Major General Nicholas Krawciw (USA, ret). If not for them, I would not have been in a position to do this work to begin with.

All of our work came about as a result of a series of government contracts. Therefore, of equal importance are E. B. Vandiver, former Director of the Center for Army Analysis (CAA) and Andrew Marshall, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Net Assessment. Also of importance is the contractual support we received from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), courtesy of the National Intelligence Council (NIC). In particular, I would like to thank Major General John R. Landry (USA, ret.), military advisor to the NIC.

This work could not have been done without the able assistance of the staff and consultants of The Dupuy Institute. They include Richard C. Anderson, Alexander Dinsmoor, C. Curtiss Johnson, L. Jay Karamales, Nicolas Klapmeyer, Ciro Pabon, Dr. Victoria Plamadeala-Johnson, Nicolas Reinhart, Dr. Dmitri Ryabushkin, Susan Sims, Blair Trimble, Eugene Visco and Dr. Shawn Woodford. As this book was based upon a series of a dozen reports that we did, almost by default some sections of this book were effectively co-authored by our staff, especially Curt Johnson and Richard Anderson.

We would also like to thank others who helped along the way, including Dr. Andrew Birtle, Dr. Ivo Feierabend, Dr. Andrew D. Hossack, Dr. Michael Spagat, Robert Smith and Chad Yost.

Introduction

When we found those boys in that bunker with their equipment, it became a whole new ballgame. The way these guys fight is different than the insurgents.PFC Troy Langley, TF 2-2, 1st Inf. Div., during the Second Battle of Fallujah, November 2004

O n 4 April 2004, the U.S. Armed Forces deployed 2,000 troops around the smallish city of Fallujah in Iraq. This was a turning point in a developing insurgency in Iraq. Four days earlier, on 31 March 2004, four American contractors had been ambushed and killed as their convoy passed through the town. They were then pulled from their SUVs by a crowd, and their bodies burned; two of the bodies were hung on a bridge in the center of town. The gruesome ambush was tailor-made for television, and of course, images of it were broadcast around the world. Until that point, the developing Iraqi insurgency, which some U.S. leaders denied was an insurgency, had cost the U.S. 304 troops killed in combat over approximately 11 months.

The U.S. felt it had to respond and that response was to take Fallujah. Earlier that week the U.S. Army had also lost five soldiers in nearby Habbaniya, but it was the broadcast deaths of four U.S. Blackwater contractors that galvanized the administration to take in a city and against an insurgency that it previously all but ignored.

To accomplish this, the U.S. Marine Corps initiated Operation Vigilant Resolve. On the night of 4 April, Fallujah was surrounded by about 2,000 troops, including Iraqi allies. The Marines attacked the following day, and after three days of fighting, had secured about a quarter of the city. They then declared a ceasefire and began negotiations with various Iraqis in the area. Their own Iraqi allies had deserted at the start of the fight, and so a new Iraqi militia was formed to police Fallujah. On 1 May, the U.S. forces withdrew from Fallujah, handing over control of the city to the thousand or so new militiamen. The First Battle of Fallujah was a confused, unresolved affair that had cost the U.S. at least 39 killed.

Meanwhile, in the comfortable, idyllic offices of The Dupuy Institute, I hammered out an unsolicited proposal entitled Proposal for Casualty Estimation in the Iraq War. It was emailed to the U.S. Armys Center for Army Analysis (CAA) on 20 April 2004. The director of CAA, E. B. Van Vandiver, immediately responded and the contracting process was initiated.

At The Dupuy Institute we had been watching the developing Iraq situation with some concern. We noted the statement of General Eric Shinseki on 25 February 2003, that the U.S. needed several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq. We noted the deployment initially of less than 125,000 troops into Iraq. This deployment did not include either of our two military police brigades.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, began on 19 March 2003. The violence of the conventional the war effectively ended on 14 April 2003, after a loss of 103 killed in combat and 27 non-combat deaths. During the following four weeks, there were only four U.S. troops killed in action in Iraq. From the middle of May until the middle of July (two months), the combat was slightly more intense31 combat deaths. Still, we remained concerned.

On 17 July 2003, I requested that my office manager start assembling a database of U.S. losses in Iraq, as I dont think this is over yet. Nine months later, I was ready to send out a proposal to look further into what we might be facing in Iraq. The contract for that work was awarded effective 24 August 2004.

But, the battles for Fallujah were not over. The U.S. again moved against the city on 7 November This time, in a well-telegraphed offensive, U.S. forces first surrounded the city using over 10,000 Marines and Army troops under command of the Marine Corps. The insurgents left a holding force in the city, while many fled elsewhere. The U.S. initiated its attack, Operation Phantom Fury, the following day. Fallujah was entered carefully and each block was systematically cleared while the insurgents bravely fought a futile defense. By 12 November, it was claimed that the U.S. held 80 percent of the city. The U.S. began pulling forces out of Fallujah in January 2005, but maintained control of the city through the autumn of 2007.

The counterinsurgent leadership pounced on this news to proclaim victory in Fallujah as early as 15 November 2004. This included the interior minister of Iraq, and the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), Lt. General John F. Sattler. By 19 November, the MEF commander was effectively declaring victory in The optimism now was not just a political facesaving effort on the part of U.S. senior civilian leadership but included the declarations from many elements of the U.S. military, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the senior command in Iraq and the commanding general at Fallujah.