It was a quiet winter. Attacks were low, and we'd only been rocketed three times since November. Even the EFP attacks had dropped. We hadn't had a serious casualty in weeks. We were counting down the days to the end of tour. Less than 50 now...can almost taste it.
Then it went straight back to last summer. Then worse. Muqtada al-Sadr and his Jaiysh al Mahdi militia finally lit the fuse on Basra. The JAM Special Groups used Basra and some ambiguity in al-Sadr's statement renewing the cease-fire to kick the war here in Baghdad back into full gear. Soldier Boy here again. Still alive and kicking, if rather more tiredly than last summer. If I can borrow a moment of your time from the candidate wars and the latest revelation of illegal doings in the White House, follow me over the fold for a report from the real war. You remember it, don't you? It was on page 7 last week.
I haven't slept more than three hours in a row all week. Every time I lay down, there's not 4 hours together where the "INCOMING INCOMING INCOMING!" alarm doesn't go off. We bolt out of bed, all of us sprinting for the concrete 'SCUD bunkers' at the end of each row of trailers, most of us barefoot and not fully awake until we're already there. We pile inside, then stand there panting as we count the impact crashes of the usual 107mm rockets, trying to gauge distance and bearing to guess if they've landed on the FOB or off. I get a count of my guys in there with me, then sprint bunker to bunker until I've accounted for them all, and report such to the company CP. Some guys, the lucky ones who were awake and had a second, pull out PSPs or iPods to kill the time. We wait the 45 minutes...the hour...however long it takes command to feel that no further rounds are immediately due, before we are released back to our beds. Not to sleep, not for me anyhow. That was the third alert tonight. Or the fourth. I can't tell any more.
Every time I'm on the point of falling asleep, I think I hear the alarm again, and jar awake. The sound of a police siren in the distance transforms into the curiously cartoony 'Zoop!' noise the rockets make as they shoot overhead. Too many months of this. And its been like this all week, and shows few signs of easing yet. The surge is succeeding. Right. I wish Kagan, or Kristol, or dear Rummy, or any of the other idiots who said this would be easy were here, so I could kick them in the constituency and throw them outside of the bunker. I'd sell my pants for a uninterrupted night's sleep right now. Or an hour with my wife. I haven't seen her since October.
It had been quiet. November-December was the nadir, but ever since Muqtada al-Sadr called his unilateral cease-fire in August, attacks had been sharply declining. Citywide, attacks had dropped by better than half. We'd have days were there'd be only a single attack, maybe two. Al Qaeda mass-casualty attacks on markets and such still happened, but the main fight we'd been having, with al-Sadr's Jaiysh al-Mahdi (and their more extreme Iranian-controlled brethren in the Special Groups) tapered off to very little. Even a 'surge' of EFP attacks in January didn't last more than a couple of weeks, though it made for a very interesting couple of weeks.
But now its all back on, and worse than ever. Attacks are a quarter higher than the worst days of last summer. The Green Zone is being hit with rockets even more than we are. The positions on the north side of our sector can hear them passing overhead all day. And hear the missile and chain gun fire of the Apache teams as they strike back at the launchers, or back up Stryker platoons on the ground that have run into another RPG ambush, or swoop to the rescue of a besieged checkpoint or Joint Security Station.
Some of the IP and NP checkpoints have been overrun. Some of them when the IPs simply abandoned their posts or lost a fight. We've come across some of their CPs in our sector where they're all manning it in civilian clothes. We ask why, and they say its so they can melt into the crowd to get away when they get attacked. Not the attitude we were looking for. The IA are in better shape. They're stepping up to man the abandoned CPs, and for the first time in weeks we don't have to constantly nag them to wear their body armor and helmets when its hot.
Its not so bad in our sector, which has a good IA presence, a good size Sunni population (no friends of JAM), and the rest of the peninsula controlled by JAM's arch-enemy Badr Corps. But to our north, against Sadr City, its chaos and old night out there these days. RPG and small-arms ambushes on all major routes, every CP, JSS, and FOB under attack at least once a day, bigger bases like ours rocketed every few hours. One JSS, up by Sadr City, was subject to a 3 hours sustained attack attempting to overrun it yesterday. It took near-constant Apache coverage and AT-4 fire to break the attack. As is typical in such attacks, the bad guys suffered for the attempt, at least a couple of dozen casualties. We've had lots of injuries, but few deaths, thankfully.
I doubt al-Sadr meant to start things up in Baghdad like this, but once the fighting started in Basra, it would have taken specific, strong public declarations against it to get the JAM of Baghdad to stop. Especially since JAM Special Groups haven't been to good about adhering to the cease-fire at all, and were looking for an excuse to start things up again. Combine that with the wide rumor that the cease-fire had been lifted, and add in the misunderstood exception for self-defense against US or Iraqi security forces attacks, and you've got a perfect storm of Shi'a violence. I expect Al Qaeda to try and get some licks in against a civilian target soon, just to keep things boiling.
The reports that the IA in Basra is making slow to zero progress against a dug-in JAM that is motivated and ready for them is not making things easier. Nor is the word that some of the IP and NP units sent as part of the counterattack have mutinied or deserted. We're getting into it with airstrikes and artillery, and I expect with logistical support soon as well, since that remains the IA's weakest aspect. But if this drags on for long, things will get bad here.
We're so close to going home, but I know that if this goes on the chances that we'll be extended to help out are strong. That will hurt. We're one of the few tank battalions around, and have a well-deserved reputation (both among the Army and the Iraqis) for being a veritable tide of destruction when unleashed. Which means we always get handed the worst snakepits to handle. So if someone decides that a small Thunder Run into Sadr City is called for, there's a good chance they'll come looking for us. And a very experienced battalion that's already here is something they'll be reluctant to give up if things stay bad as well. Joy to the world.
The IA tries, but they're miles from being truly independently effective yet. We, the "Coalition Forces" are the only thing holding this country together. If not for us, I think fragmentation would be the inevitable result. A free Kurdistan, a Shi'a Iranian client state, and perhaps a rump center, probably dependent on the Syrians or the Saudis for support.
I re-enlisted for three more years in September. I've got an all too good chance of being here a third time. I'm not looking forward to that. Two tours in this place is pushing my luck enough. That rocket back in August came down just 25m from me. But I don't see a solution on the horizon. We're not putting the kind of numbers on the ground here we need to stop it by main force, and we've spent 7 years giving our allies the finger, so we're not going to get help there. And as this week shows the whole world, reconciliation is a long, long way off.
Day 385, second tour. Greetings from Baghdad, Kossacks. See you later, if I've got a chance.