General mattis: we are winning in Iraq

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/06/22/news/top_stories/1_01_046_21_07.txt The increasing Sunni tribal cooperation with U.S. troops in Iraq's Anbar province has al-Qaida-linked insurgents on the run, General Mattis said. "I caution people that this is not irreversible," he said. "But at the same time, we are winning and the enemy is losing."Mattis' comments were echoed by Marine Brig. Gen. John Allen, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Anbar, who said Wednesday that insurgents have been pushed out of highly populated areas.During a December interview with the newspaper, the blunt-talking Mattis predicted such a shift as the Sunnis who dominate the region west of Baghdad became increasingly disenchanted with civilian killings.About 8,000 Camp Pendleton Marines are now in Iraq, including members of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which just arrived. The local Marines are the latest unit to join the troop buildup ordered by President Bush earlier this year, a decision made despite waning congressional and popular support for the war.Regarded by some as one of the most astute and aggressive generals in the Marine Corps, Mattis stressed that the U.S. is not directly arming any Sunni groups, as published reports have indicated.The Sunni groups have their own weapons, and rather than arming them, U.S. forces are helping train them as part of the security and police forces. Sunnis comprise a minority of Iraq's population and have been part of the insurgency since it first emerged in the summer of 2003.How it happenedIraqis who had been sympathetic to the insurgency became disenchanted as al-Qaida forces carried out murders of young boys and a local sheik who didn't respond to their overtures, Mattis said."These were mistakes," he said of those killings and how the incidents created an opportunity for the U.S. to make new alliances. "And war, at times, is decided by whoever makes the fewest mistakes."Marines in the vast Anbar region, where more of their forces have been killed and injured than any other in Iraq, now routinely get tips to the location of roadside bombs.As a result, a majority of the deadly devices are now being discovered before they are detonated, resulting in sharp reductions in troop deaths. Anbar residents also routinely report where the insurgents can be found, calling in the information to telephone tip lines that the military has established, Mattis said.Despite the progress, Mattis cautioned that bombs remain a constant threat."There are still going to be good days and bad days out there," he said. "We cannot get complacent, but at the same time, our progress is undeniable."If the violence continues to subside, Mattis said, Sunni forces can be redirected into job training programs. Disbanding those forces, as the U.S. leadership did with the Iraqi army shortly after troops reached Baghdad, would, in his view, be a mistake, the general said."As I recall, that didn't work out to well the first time," he said, referring to suddenly jobless soldiers taking up arms against coalition forces.Media portrayalSitting on one of two high-backed chairs that face a sofa inside his office, Mattis expressed repeated frustration over media portrayals of the war.Insurgent attacks are reported as "a car bomb went off in Baghdad today," he said. The general said the reports all too often do not actively pin the deadliness of the bombs on enemy forces.But when civilians are mistakenly killed by U.S. forces, the media portrays such incidents as examples of severe ethical failings, he said, citing recent examples of inadvertent civilian deaths from U.S. bombs and small-arms attacks."A (insurgent) bombing is reported like it was an act of God," said Mattis, whose job includes being the authority over two ongoing prosecutions of Camp Pendleton Marines accused of murder in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. "You can see the moral bye ---- the passive voice given to the enemy's intentional murder."The insurgency counts on negative portrayals of U.S. forces in Iraq and in the U.S., he said, adding that he believes the battle for hearts and minds is being played out in news reports."This enemy has decided that the war, the real war for them, will be fought in the narrative in the media."Who is Gen. Mattis?In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Mattis commanded Camp Pendleton's 1st Marine Division, and in 2001 led a combat force in southern Afghanistan, making him one of the most experienced combat commanders among Marine generals.Washington Post reporter Thomas Ricks wrote extensively on Mattis in his 2006 book, "Fiasco," that tells how the U.S. got into Iraq and the mistakes made in the subsequent occupation."Mattis is unusual in many ways, most notably in being one of the more intense intellectuals in the U.S. military," Ricks wrote.A bachelor, Mattis helped write a manual on how to fight an insurgency, and requires his officers to plow through an exhaustive reading list. And as Ricks reported, Mattis once owned thousands of books until he gave most away in 2005, reducing his personal library to around 1,000.During three conversations with the North County Times over the 12 months, Mattis routinely referred to Alexander the Great, Mao, and a variety of historical figures."Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face nothing new under the sun," he once wrote in an e-mail that was recounted in Ricks' book.His blunt style got him in trouble in late 2004, when he was quoted as telling a gathering a gathering of military contractors and officers in San Diego that "it's fun to shoot some people." That prompted a rebuke from the commandant of the Marine Corps, but it was during that same address that Ricks reported he made a more telling comment."Don't patronize this enemy," he also said that day. "They mean business. They mean every word they say."