Replies to post #234161 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[bulldzr]

Steph... the Iraqi forces out number ISIS by 70 to 1, and they had air support if they knew how to read maps and use radios and had used their training from the US Army, they should have won. They were cowards, imo. They don't want to stand up and defend their country... they don't even care about their country... they have no conception of "country"... that is why they lose.

Somewhat reminiscent of Viet Nam... the Viet Cong were Nationalist and they would die for the cause... that's why we lost Viet Nam. We trained and equipped the South Vietnamese but they were pussies, didn't care enough about their own country to hold it.

[PegnVA]

I take exception with anyone who criticizes Sec'ty of Defense Carter's comments and calls it a "gaffe" - Carter is the FIRST U.S. official since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 to call a spade a spade. The U.S. knew from 2003 - or should have known - Iraq was a country that would never stand on it's own two feet...The U.S. shipped billions of U.S. dollars to Iraq* beginning in 2003 hoping it would buy leadership in the Iraqi gov't and in their military, but it wound up in Iraqi pols bank accounts off-shore and, according to Risen's book, also in the lockers of some U.S. military commanders.
What we are witnessing in Ramadi today is a direct result of a lack of leadership and planning by the Iraqi military, coupled with a lack of leadership in Baghdad.

*PAY ANY PRICE by James Risen, investigative journalist for NYT

[fuagf]

Running out of bullets was reported yesterday on one tv news, and shortage of and inferiority of weapons as important problems for the ISF .. and we hear apparently few or no victories would be taking place without the Shia militias .. who then sometimes? proceed to do what they can to persecute and drive Sunnis from the freed populations .. what a mess .. many of the successful Shia militias are tied to Iraq political parties

If these hardline Shia political parties end up gaining seats in Iraq's parliament, they could effectively block any new policies
designed to address Sunni grievances. Victory over ISIS on those terms could, in the long run, end up looking like defeat, as well.
.. 2nd link from bottom of yours .. http://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8290165/iraq-shia-militias

So where to? .. wonder what's happening with al-Abadi's multi-sectarian state efforts .. hmm .. looks like not so good ..

2 Sunni Leaders Denounce Lack of Role in Iraqi Government

By MICHAEL R. GORDON MAY 11, 2015

WASHINGTON — One month after Iraq .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo ’s prime minister assured American officials here that his Shiite-dominated government was striving to build a multisectarian state, two leading Sunni politicians said Monday that Sunnis were being squeezed out of the country’s political system.

“Are we part of Iraq?” Rafe al-Essawi, a former deputy prime minister and one of the leading Sunni figures in Iraq, said in an address at the Brookings Institution. Sunnis are looking to see “if there is any benefit in political participation.”

Appearing at the same event, Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of the embattled Nineveh Province, complained that the Iraqi government had yet to provide weapons to thousands of Sunni fighters eager to join an eventual military operation to retake Mosul, the provincial capital, from the Islamic State militant group.

Related Coverage

Proposal to Arm Sunnis Adds to Iraqi Suspicions of the U.S. re APRIL 30, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/world/middleeast/proposal-to-arm-sunnis-adds-to-iraqi-suspicions-of-the-us.html

video Surviving an ISIS Massacre SEPT. 3, 2014 - http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/middleeast/100000003077656/surviving-isis-massacre-iraq.html

So wary are the Sunnis of the authorities in Baghdad that Mr. Nujaifi urged that Nineveh Province be granted autonomy if Islamic State fighters were evicted, though as part of an Iraqi federal system.

Graphic: How ISIS Captured Ramadi
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/the-iraq-isis-conflict-in-maps-photos-and-video.html

“What comes after the battle is crucial,” he said. “I believe that authority in Iraq should be split up, but not Iraq itself.”

When Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi came to the White House last month, President Obama praised him for reaching out to the Kurdish and Sunni minorities. But the parade of Iraqi visitors in recent months has put Iraq’s fractious politics on display.

In a visit here last week, Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq’s autonomous region, made clear it that the Kurds had delayed, but not shelved, their dream of independence. Underscoring that point, he said in a presentation .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/world/middleeast/kurdish-leader-agrees-to-accept-arms-on-us-terms-in-fight-against-isis.html .. at the Atlantic Council that the unity of Iraq was “voluntary and not compulsory.”

In his remarks on Monday, Mr. Essawi said that he did not believe that Mr. Abadi was overtly sectarian, an accusation that was often directed at the prime minister’s predecessor, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

“He inherited a very damaged political and security situation, “ Mr. Essawi said of Mr. Abadi. “He is a good guy.”

But the thrust of the Sunni criticism was that Mr. Abadi had been too weak to bring about long-promised power-sharing arrangements and that a stronger American hand was needed to encourage change.

The overdue reforms, they said, include the establishment of national guard units, a move that American officials have encouraged as a way to empower local Iraqis but that is still being debated by the Iraqi Parliament.

They also argued for dismantling the Shiite militias, particularly those that are advised and equipped by Iran. Given the weakness of the Iraqi Army, however, it is unlikely that the Iraqi government will get rid of most of the militias, which are known in Iraq as the popular mobilization forces.

Mr. Essawi said that Sunnis were poorly represented in the upper ranks of the Iraqi government and in the Iraq military. Legislation that would remove the barriers that prevent former ranking Baathists from playing a political role, he noted, has still not been passed.

During their visit to Washington this week, Mr. Essawi and Mr. Nujaifi plan to meet with State Department officials and lawmakers.

When Mr. Maliki was prime minister, Mr. Essawi became such a prominent voice of the political opposition that he was threatened with arrest and left Baghdad.

Even with the arrival of Mr. Abadi, Mr. Essawi is still cautious, splitting his time between the Kurdish city of Erbil and Amman, Jordan. The gestures that have been made to the Sunni population, he said in an interview on Sunday, have been more rhetorical than real.

“It’s like having a patient who needs 300 grams of protein to stay alive, and you give him one gram,” said Mr. Essawi, who was trained as a medical doctor and once served as the head of a hospital in Falluja, Iraq. “This is not a way of keeping him alive. You are just killing him very slowly.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/world/middleeast/2-sunni-leaders-denounce-lack-of-role-in-iraqi-government.html?_r=0

A couple on the influence of ex-Saddam boys in Daesh.

Saddam's Ex-Officer: We've Played Key Role In Helping Militants
Leila Fadel 2010 June 19, 2014 5:40 PM ET
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/06/19/323691052/saddams-ex-officer-weve-played-key-role-in-helping-militants

~~

Islamic State rounds up ex-Baathists to eliminate potential rivals in Iraq's Mosul

Tue Jul 8, 2014 1:30pm BST
BAGHDAD/MOSUL Iraq


A man purported to be the reclusive leader of the militant Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has made what would be his first public appearance at a mosque in
the centre of Iraq's second city, Mosul, according to a video recording posted on the Internet on July 5, 2014, in... Reuters/Social Media Website via Reuters TV

One night last week, Islamic State militants in an SUV with tinted windows pulled up at the home of a former Iraqi army officer, one of the men they see as an obstacle to their goal of establishing a caliphate from Iraq to the Mediterranean.

As the retired major-general was led away to the vehicle draped in the trademark black and white Islamist flag, his son and wife feared the worst.

"I have been asking the families of other officers and no one knows why they were taken," his son said by phone, breaking down in tears.

In the past week, Sunni militants who overran the city of Mosul last month have rounded up between 25 and 60 senior ex-military officers and members of former dictator Saddam Hussein's banned Baath party, residents and relatives say.

The crackdown potentially signals a rift in the Sunni alliance that helped secure Islamic State fighters swift victory when they rode in from the desert to capture Mosul last month. .. more .. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/08/uk-iraq-islamic-state-mosul-idUKKBN0FD1AA20140708

Not sure if i've seen that round-up rift content before.

Stephanie, your wsj link did not get me to the full article, so i searched it's headline and got in via this link .. http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-states-gains-reveal-new-prowess-on-battlefield-1432592298

LOL, IF that link does not work for me here either, and because the article is as you said a good
one which i'd like to be able to read again, i'll post the whole article as another reply to yours.

Oh, just a little more insight on the ex-Saddam officers who want to take back their country, so along the way are helping Daesh

In his later years Saddam, as US did v USSR in Afghanistan, courted hard-line extreme Islamists with his

Faith campaign .. Consequences

By the late 1990s the growth of Salafism in Iraq had seen not just regime ally's benefit, but also groups opposed to the Ba'athist government. This manifested itself in the late 90s in the form of a low level terrorist campaign, including the kind of car bombings and assassinations that would later characterize the Iraqi insurgency.

Part of the campaign had included attempting to infiltrate many mosques and Islamic organisations with security officials, however many of these individuals themselves became persuaded by Salafists teachings of the groups they had initially been sent to infiltrate.

Following the fall of the Ba'athist government as a result of the Invasion of Iraq, many former members of the security agencies, now imbibed with a more Ba'athist-Salafist ideology, went on to form various insurgent groups which would place a key role in the post-invasion insurgency, with people like Abdullah al-Janabi being key examples of former security officials turned Salafist insurgents. Ultimately a significant number of these individuals would later go on to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_campaign#Consequences

[fuagf]

How Islamic State’s Win in Ramadi Reveals New Weapons, Tactical
Sophistication and Prowess

.. link doesn't work for me .. it's a good article ..

Examination of Ramadi’s downfall reflects complex plans and new weapons


Islamic State said six suicide bombers, four of whom are shown above, were responsible for the initial
wave of attacks in Ramadi this month that prompted a retreat by Iraqi and U.S.-trained security forces.

By Margaret Coker
May 25, 2015 6:18 p.m. ET
249 COMMENTS

In late April, a commander for Islamic State said his forces were ready to launch an offensive to take Ramadi, and the group called for fighters to redeploy to Iraq from Syria.

Three weeks later, the jihadist group seized the capital of Anbar province .. http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-state-seizes-control-of-iraqi-city-of-ramadi-1431890438 .. after relentless waves of suicide bombings.

U.S. defense chief Ash Carter has blamed Ramadi’s fall .. http://www.wsj.com/articles/defense-secretary-opens-possibility-on-strategy-shift-on-iraq-1432480411 .. mainly on Iraqi forces’ lack of will to fight. But Islamic State’s battlefield performance suggests the terrorist group’s tactical sophistication is growing—a development the Iraqis and the U.S.-led coalition have so far failed to counter, said Iraqi officials, former U.S. officials and military analysts studying the organization.

An examination of how Ramadi fell indicates that Islamic State commanders executed a complex battle plan that outwitted a greater force of Iraqi troops as well as the much-lauded, U.S.-trained special-operations force known as the Golden Division, which had been fighting for months to defend the city.

Islamic State commanders evaded surveillance and airstrikes to bring reinforcements to its front lines in western Iraq. The group displayed a high degree of operational security by silencing its social media and propaganda teams during the Ramadi surge.

The group also churned out dozens of formidable new weapons by converting captured U.S. military armored vehicles designed to be impervious to small-arms fire into megabombs with payloads equal to the force of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Over the three-day surge in Ramadi, Islamic State fighters launched at least 27 such vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, or Vbieds, that destroyed Iraq security forces’ defensive perimeters and crumbled multistory buildings.

Military analysts said the new formidable weapon was the latest development showing how the group appears to be learning from battlefield defeats like the one in Kobani, Syria, last summer in pursuit of its goal to control the Sunni-majority areas of Syria and Iraq.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Defense of Democracies think tank and managing editor of the Long War Journal, which chronicles the U.S. war on terror. “These guys are showing a good degree of tactical awareness.”

IMAGE, too big - Iraqi security forces on May 14 defended their headquarters against Islamic
State attacks during a sandstorm in the eastern part of Ramadi. Photo: Associated Press

Some U.S. officials have described the performance of Iraqi forces in Ramadi as inadequate and chaotic because of a lack of overall command structure. Some government troops were Iraqi special forces, but the bulk were from the federal and local police. The Iraqi government said it was looking into who ordered the retreat.

Still, some U.S. officials have acknowledged in recent days that the Iraqis remained more organized and determined in Ramadi than they have elsewhere in recent months in the fight against Islamic State, and have also said the tactics and explosives used by Islamic State fighters in Ramadi were measurably more brutal and powerful.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi over the weekend said his forces had been overwhelmed by the enemy’s weapons.

“They have the will to fight, but when they are faced with an onslaught by [Islamic State] from nowhere.…With armored trucks packed with explosives, the effect of them is like a small nuclear bomb,” he told the British Broadcasting Corp.

MAP IMAGE, too big again.

Long before Islamic State declared a caliphate last summer, its supporters fought in Iraq’s Anbar province, piggybacking on local Iraqi Sunni grievances against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. The organization controlled more than half of the territory around Ramadi, and by the start of 2015, it had captured more, U.S. officials said.

By mid-April, the long-static front lines in Ramadi’s north and southeastern districts began tipping in favor of Islamic State forces, said Iraqi officials. At that stage, those lines were being defended by the Golden Division, as well as an Iraqi army division, federal police forces and a local tribal police force from Anbar province where Ramadi is based.

Islamic State hasn’t announced the size or name of its militias or commanders fighting in Ramadi. U.S. officials say there is no precise intelligence on the force strength.

After the mid-April victories in the Albu Faraj and Sijariyah neighborhoods, an Islamic State commander told Islamic State’s radio station, Al Bayan, on April 27 that the group was ready to embark on its ultimate goal of winning control of Ramadi’s city center, said Dan Milton, a professor at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, the U.S. Army’s military academy.

On the same day, Islamic State distributed a military order hundreds of miles to the north in Aleppo, Syria, calling for a redeployment of the group’s most devout fighters to the front lines in Anbar and Salahuddin provinces in Iraq. Written in the name of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the order called for expert and religiously dedicated fighters for a one-time assignment, implying they would be used in suicide missions, said Aymenn Al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who studies Islamic State’s religious and administrative decrees.

By the end of April, officials in Anbar were reporting a surge of cars passing into Iraq from the Al Qaim border crossing—which Islamic State controls—near Syria. Officials in Ramadi said Islamic State fighters started arriving in groups of two or three in nondescript sedans, instead of the Toyota pickup trucks group members used to favor, in apparent efforts to blend in with civilian traffic and stay off radar of U.S. surveillance planes.

From early May, the group enforced a blackout of its own media posts from Ramadi. That was in contrast to other battlefields in the country, such as Beiji and Fallujah, where Islamic State supporters continued to post propaganda about battles, said Charlie Winter, a researcher who studies extremist groups at Quilliam, a London think tank.

“They displayed admirable operational security,” said Mr. Winter. “They understand the element of surprise. And they understand how [the coalition] can track them.”

On May 5, Islamic State launched an attack on Ramadi’s city center, but Iraqi helicopters and the Golden Division repulsed the advance, Iraqi state media reported. Running battles along the bridges across the Euphrates River separating Ramadi’s southwestern Islamic State-held neighborhoods from the city center continued for days, with Iraqi forces holding their lines.

By May 13, Islamic State had established a team of snipers closer to where Iraqi police and army units were based, said Iraqi soldiers and state media.

The next day, Islamic State launched its surge by sending a single armored bulldozer to the concrete barriers on the outskirts of the government lines. The bulldozer worked unimpeded for close to an hour, removing concrete walls, Iraqi officials said. Once the road was cleared, Islamic State fighters drove about six Vbieds, including an armored Humvee and armored dump truck, into the government complex, said Iraqi and U.S. officials.

“It was incredibly devastating, just horrific, gigantic explosions that took out entire city blocks,” a senior U.S. official said.

Over the next 72 hours, the terrorist group set off at least another 20 Vbied and suicide bombs, U.S. officials said.

Islamic State took the government complex by May 15. The group launched another wave of vehicle suicide attacks on May 17, preventing Iraqi reinforcements from entering the city, said U.S. and Iraqi officials. The Golden Division, which had been cut off from the rest of the Iraqi forces, called for a retreat from town, said Iraqi security officials.

Once Islamic State’s black flag began flying from Ramadi’s city center, the group lifted its information blackout. It posted photos and eulogies for six suicide bombers it said were responsible for the initial wave of attacks.

One of the men was identified as a British Muslim who had once belonged to Syria’s al Qaeda affiliate before joining Islamic State. The other five were also foreign fighters from Arab nations. Most were pictured holding U.S.-made weapons or standing in front of the U.S. military vehicles they allegedly used to blow themselves up.

—Gordon Lubold, Dion Nissenbaum and Ali Nabhan contributed to this article.

Write to Margaret Coker at [e-mail]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/islamic-states-gains-reveal-new-prowess-on-battlefield-1432592298