Codel Davis 17 Feb 2004
We had an early start this morning - hotel departure occurring at 0800 - takeoff from the collate airport at about 0830. Our method of travel was the ever reliable C-130, a very durable and loud aircraft.
We again made a tactical landing into Baghdad Airport, with a rapid descent from 22,000 ft. immediately over the airport but touching down without so much as a bump on the threshold of the runway. This was particularly remarkable because the back of the aircraft was occupied by a Bradley fighting vehicle, which surely was of considerable weight.
In addition to the members of our party, there were 18 servicemen as well as a crew of six. The crew was from the Illinois National Guard and the pilot of our aircraft was Troy Roberts.
On my previous visit to Baghdad, we departed the airport in Black Hawk helicopters for the Coalition provisional authority headquarters. Today, however, we were taken to the CPA headquarters in a convoy of suburbans. The intention had been for us to meet with Ambassador Bremmer, but he was detained in northern Iraq. As a consequence with were met by his deputy Mr. Richard H. Jones.
Ambassador Jones discussed with us some of the events that have occurred since the capture of Saddam Hussein. While the former leader himself has not been forthcoming with much information about insurgents and foreign letters in the country, the documents seized along with Saddam that day have proven to be a very valuable resource in identifying insurgent groups and their tactics. The Coalition continues to be successful in exploiting information from these documents.
Consistent with the information we have seen and newspaper for the past several days, Ambassador Jones related to us that the current game plan of the insurgents and foreign fighters was to direct their attacks against innocent Iraqi civilians and Iraqi police. Their desire is to render Iraq a lawless area that could then become a haven for the professional Jihadist. Additionally, the documents obtained from the Courier of an individual named al Zachawi revealed a strategy for driving a wedge between the various sects in Iraq.
The Ambassador did have some discussion about the political issues facing the country and some of the difficulties involved with dealing with the Shia majority as well as outside influences from other countries such as Iran. Currently Ambassador Bremmer is involved with negotiations between the various religious sects, the Kurdish population and the Sunni minority. Transitional Administrative Law is currently what is under debate with attention being given to providing a robust Bill of Rights and protections for minorities and women.
Following this was a meeting with some of the members of the Iraqi governing council where a variety of opinions were discussed.
After lunch, we left Ambassador Bremmer's home and were taken to the CPA headquarters. We were there met by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez who has always provided a rather comprehensive and thorough briefing.
Just as he had last August, general Sanchez reiterated the central mission for the military in Iraq which was to capture, kill and defeat those who meant harm to the Iraqi population and to defend the Coalition forces. They are also working to hand-off control of the country to the Iraqi civil authority when it is ready to accept this obligation.
The General stated that October and November were the peak of insurgency from the beginning of Ramadan until the end of the year. This was the most intense activity that had occurred since May 2003 representing coordinated attacks and over 40 engagements per day. The highest intensity was 53 engagements that occurred on November 15. The General described their response as being “heavily kinetic."
At that time, their intelligence, particularly the human intelligence, was beginning to show positive results. This coalesced in December with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent exploitation of the documents he was holding with him. A much clearer picture of the operational leadership in Baghdad was obtained as a result of studying these documents. Additionally, there were significant benefits from follow on interrogations of individuals who were already in captivity, but with the advantage of this new information shared with Saddam Hussein.
Saddam Hussein was providing intent, funding and strategically was standing up the beginnings of a military bureau to organize insurgency against coalition forces. In fact there had been some success against the fourth infantry division to three forces in the immediate Baghdad area. Now with the inability to take information from capture documents there has been an immediate takedown of individuals, a degradation of enemy sales and deterioration of the operational structure that was beginning to take shape prior to Saddam's capture. It is believed that the foreign element is on the defensive but not totally defeated. Terrorists and extremist elements are responsible for some recent rather spectacular attacks against the Iraqi security force coalition members, Kurdish nationals and the Iraqi police force.
General Sanchez pointed out that there were now 38 member nations involved in the Coalition, and that the Coalition itself remains solid. Despite methods being used by the insurgents to isolate the coalition partners from themselves and from Iraqis, the Coalition remains resolute.
As far as absolute numbers the General could not be precise, the feeling is that there were approximately 4,000 core members of the Baathist party remaining. Terrorist groups accounted for another 100 members and foreign nationals accounted for between 100 and 1,000 members.
A tremendous discussion occurred about the unavailability of equipment for the Iraqi police force, particularly communications equipment, weapons and vehicles. Additional discussion with member of the USAID group shed some light on this problem.
There will be a facility on our trip tomorrow.
We did have one final meeting with Mr. Abdullah al Roumi and several of his associates. Again there were multiple stories of the sacrifices made by Kuwaiti citizens during the Iraqi occupation in 1990 and 1991.
All in all this was a very profitable informative day. Clearly one could spend a good deal more time in this country evaluating the status of the reconstruction. I was disappointed that we could not return to the hospital I had seen the end of August, but there may be an opportunity to visit a health care facility on our trip tomorrow.
Later that same afternoon we took to a site visit to the electrical plant in Baghdad which was undergoing renovation. This plant was seriously damaged in the 1991 Gulf War as well as during the Iran-Iraq war. Interestingly, there was no structural damage and during the recent military activity but the plant remains operating at only 25% of capacity. This is the result of the significant degradation of the machinery over the past 20 years. Virtually no maintenance had been performed during that time. Currently, one turbine was operational and three were in significant stages of disassembly attempting to bring them up to normal operating standards.
This was followed by a visit to the troops stationed at Baghdad Airport, the first armored division which is now being replaced by the first cavalry. We have on our schedule to visit tomorrow.
Later, we had dinner with the troops and had a good chance to hear their concerns as well as thank them for their service and relate to them help round everyone at home was of them. It was a significant amount of socialization and camaraderie, and the soldiers expressed great appreciation for our visit. Obviously we had returned the appreciation in admiration which we had for our troops.
After asking them to remain safe, we returned to the departure area of the Baghdad Airport. We returned to Kuwait City aboard the C-130. As it was now quite late, our takeoff was accomplished in darkness. I had the privilege is sitting in the cockpit with the crew as we made our exit from Baghdad.
From the cockpit, it was clear that the establishment of electrical power to the city was progressing well. The city was well lit as we left the Airport, quite a contrast from the darkened landscape that I saw six months ago on a similar flight. There is always concerned for ground fire when taking off from the Airport, but the crew did an excellent job and our return was without incident.
