Marines living 'outside the wire' on Syrian border see progress
Jim Higgins
http://stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=37874
OBEIDI, Iraq - One month ago, out in the far western corner of Iraq, the
Marines set up a new forward operating base. Navy Seabees wired it for
electricity. Air conditioners were installed. And a platoon of Marines moved
into the desert encampment.
It was the latest of 15 small camps - mostly manned by a platoon of
Marines - that are dotted among the villages and desert roads near the
Syrian border.
A year ago, most of the Marines here were living inside nearby Camp Al Qaim,
but today, the vast majority of the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines live "outside
the wire," inside vacant homes, abandon school houses or other so-called
Firm Bases.
Like traditional neighborhood beat cops, the Marines now focus on foot
patrols and cultivating support among locals, securing the towns and
villages block by block and aiming to prevent insurgents from gaining even
the smallest foothold.
"There's no other way to do it other than to be out there," Lt. Col. Nick
Marano, the 1-7 commander, said from his office at Al Qaim. "Too many
Americans think you can drive through a village and you've actually
accomplished something. You have to be on foot."
Marano articulates a strategy that the Marines employ up and down Euphrates
Valley, where the number of Marines bases has increased exponentially during
the past year.
The large American bases in places like Fallujah, Haditha and Al Qaim are
now serving as the logistics center for a hub-and-spoke network of bases
that reach out into the cities, villages and farmland where insurgents had
operated openly.
The method runs counter to the strategy employed by many U.S. Army units
elsewhere in Iraq, where commanders are closing down smaller bases in an
effort to "reduce the footprint" and consolidate U.S. forces on a few large
bases.
Yet Marine commanders say their strategy is essential to winning a fight in
Anbar province, where a relatively small population is spread out along a
green ribbon of arable land that spans a 200-mile-stretch from Fallujah to
the Syrian border.
"The sheer tyranny of distance out here requires a decentralized fight. You
have to be where the people are. Sitting on a huge base like Al Asad gets
you nothing," Lt. Col Robert Jones, the executive officer for Regimental
Combat Team 7, said from his office at Camp Al Asad.
The strategy is not a new one - just carrying it out is. After more than two
years in Anbar, the Marines are finally putting into place their original
plans for the region.
Those plans were stalled in 2004, when the full-blown uprising in Fallujah
demanded a large-scale attack on the city, draining troop levels in the rest
of the region, Jones said.
"This is really 'General Mattis original campaign plan in 2004,' " Jones
said, referring to Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded the 1st Marine
Division during the initial attack and early occupation of Iraq in 2003.
"But then you had the battle of Fallujah and it pulled us away from these
population centers in order to focus on Fallujah."
"Now we're implementing what the original plan was," Jones said. "We are now
where we need to be physically."
Many Army officers are planning for declining troop levels and closing
bases, in part because they do not want the Iraqi government and security
forces to become too reliant on American assistance.
But the Marines say their fight in Anbar is still fierce and the Iraqis'
training remains limited, making the current, aggressive approach the best
option.
"It doesn't foster dependency, it allows them to ride with some training
wheels before you totally let go," said Lt. Col Larry White, who heads a
civil military operations office in Al Qaim.
"The Iraqi police and the Iraqi army cannot take the lead if they are
getting whacked every day."
Or, as one Marine intelligence officer said: "You have to reduce the
insurgency before you can reduce the footprint."
Attacks in the Al Qaim area have dropped significantly during the past six
months, when the initial network of bases was set up and the Marines moved
to a more neighborhood-based strategy.
"It's all about security," Marano said. "All the grand ideas we have about
creating police and civil military projects, if at the end of the day you
can't provide security, they don't mean anything."
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your best, last and only line of defense-a Cohort of Roman Heavy Infantry