Battle Centers on Surge

By JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—Though the fighting appears to be over for U.S. troops in Iraq, the battle still rages over how those forces brought the country a measure of stability.

More than three years after the U.S. mounted a surge of forces in a bid to rein in widespread chaos, military officers and analysts still debate what part of that campaign was decisive—some component of the military's move to suffuse Iraq's cities and countryside with troops, or Iraqi sects' own decision to lay down their arms.

It isn't an academic debate. The surge's architect, Gen. David Petraeus, is now in charge in Afghanistan. With the final combat units from President Barack Obama's Afghanistan troop buildup arriving now, Gen. Petraeus has begun conducting a great experiment to discover whether the Iraq surge tactics will work there, too.

Gen. Petraeus has said many times that Afghanistan isn't Iraq. Afghanistan isn't mired in a sectarian civil war, as Iraq was. Afghanistan has a more of a classic insurgency, in which militants, led by the Taliban, are fighting the government for the allegiance of the people. The country is also more rural and less educated, lacking Iraq's tradition of a strong central government and military. That means some of the tools the U.S. used for leverage during the Iraq surge are absent in Afghanistan.

In the Taliban's birthplace, the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, giant concrete barriers have gone up to protect marketplaces and neighborhoods from insurgent attackers, much as they did in Baghdad in 2007.

Efforts to organize and train Afghans willing to stand up against the Taliban have accelerated under Gen. Petraeus, an attempt to emulate the program to entice Iraqi Sunnis to lay down arms that some view as the critical part of the surge.

As America prepares to withdraw its troops from Iraq, Farnaz Fassihi and Chip Cummins look back at the war's impact on Iraq's people and discuss whether the U.S. can rightly claim victory.

Across Afghanistan, the U.S. has dramatically increased its training of police and army units and expanded the partnership between Afghan units and the allied military. During the Iraq surge, the addition of some 125,000 Iraqi forces eventually allowed the country's government to exert control.

There isn't agreement within the military on the Iraq surge's most important factor. But a leading view is that the strategic shift to push U.S. troops into Iraqi neighborhoods and establish tight control of the rural areas around Baghdad was critical.

Soon after leaving Iraq, now-retired U.S. Army Col. Peter Mansoor, who had served as the executive officer to Gen. Petraeus, said those moves had catalyzed two pivotal events: Sunni tribal revolts against al Qaeda in Iraq cells operating in their midst, and the cease-fire from Shiite militias.

At the end of 2006—with the Democratic takeover of Congress, the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the failure of the military strategy to stem the sectarian civil war—most people in the U.S. and Iraq expected troops to begin withdrawing. Instead, President George W. Bush put more forces in, a surprising doubling down of the American effort.

A Look Back

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Lt. Col. Richard D. Heyward, left, of Illinois, and Sgt. Nick Wysong, of Washington, right, kept watch as the 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment of the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division crossed the southern desert of Iraq on Aug. 17, 2010. Theirs was officially designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq.

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"The Iraqis responded to the surge because they believed the United States was not just reinforcing its effort, but willing to engage Iraq over the long term," Col. Mansoor said.

Some officers believe credit lies elsewhere. Charles Dunlap, a retired Air Force major general, said it is often overlooked that during the surge, thousands of insurgents were captured or killed by American special operation forces and airstrikes. "I do believe, firmly, that the much-derided killing and capturing actually was the key to success," Gen. Dunlap said.

Gen. Dunlap notes that during the Iraq surge, airstrikes increased to five times previous levels. In Afghanistan, current rules aimed at eliminating civilian casualties have dramatically cut the number of airstrikes, a decision Gen. Dunlap views as a mistake.

U.S. military officers in Afghanistan say special-operations raids since last year have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of militant leaders, but they say the restrictions on airpower have saved Afghan lives and improved relations with the Afghan government.

Others, particularly left-of-center military thinkers, say Iraqis themselves deserve the credit for the reduction of violence—Sunni insurgents for turning against al Qaeda, Shiite militias for embracing a cease-fire.

Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, says the Sunni rebellion against al Qaeda made the difference.

While not discounting the importance of the so-called Sunni awakening movement, many scholars argue it began in Ramadi, where U.S. forces had been increased and commanders had implemented the very counter-insurgency tactics—such as supporting Sunni tribal leaders' rebellion against al Qaeda—that Gen. Petraeus would later spread around the Iraq.

Stephen Biddle, a scholar at the Council of Foreign Relations who has advised Gen. Petraeus, points out that before the surge, the Sunni minority was defeated by Shiite militias during what amounted to an intense urban battle in Baghdad during 2006.

When the Sunnis laid down their arms and look for new allies, U.S. forces pushing deep into Iraqi cities were ready to protect them. Those additional forces also undercut the power and support of thuggish Shiite militias, pushing radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to call a cease-fire, rather than rise up again against the U.S. military presence.

Changing of the Guard

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"I don't think the surge did everything," Dr. Biddle said. "You needed the Sunni awakening; if the Sunnis didn't want to realign you couldn't force them to. You also needed the surge to protect the realignment and allow it to survive."

Gen. Petraeus has said he learned long ago that the truth isn't found in any one school of thought, but in debate and discussion.

James Dubik, a retired lieutenant general who oversaw the training of the Iraqi military during the surge, said that in Baghdad, Gen. Petraeus had tried to apply cumulative pressure on the insurgency. "The decisiveness of the surge came from an aggregate of factors—more like a thunderstorm than a single cause and effect," he said. "In Afghanistan, I believe he will look for the same aggregate effect."