'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

Implementing those 'permissive ROEs' already?

To what degree have the US forces on the ground in Iraq already started implementing the "permissive" Rules of Engagement (ROE) described in this slide presentation from White House staffers last week? (That's a PDF file. I picked out the essentials of it in this JWN post.)

It seems they've already started.

Today's WaPo has this article in which Sudarsan Raghavan reports from Baghdad on the way US commanders there describe and analyze the difference between the (failed) attempt they made last August/September, under "Operation Together Forward", to work alongside Iraqi army units to seize control of the whole of Greater Baghdad, and the new, 'surge'-reinforced campaign they are planning now, with once again the same goal in mind.

As I've noted previously, only one of the new elements in the new plan will be the increased force size. The other is the more permissive ROEs.

Raghavan writes this about Lt. Col. Fred Johnson, deputy commander of the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division:

Johnson [said] that Operation Together Forward was a "deliberate cleanup" that telegraphed U.S. strategy to insurgents, who fled neighborhoods with their weapons days before U.S. and Iraqi forces swept in. This time, he said, the emphasis would be more on targeted strikes against leaders, which are already underway.

Raghavan also, quite hilariously, quotes Lt.-Gen Peter Chiarelli, who was recently in the second-in-command slot in Iraq that has just recently been taken over by the pugnacious Ray Odierno, as saying,

"This conflict is so complicated that now we have to start talking about things like cultural awareness and language training."

Now they need to "start" talking about things like cultural awareness and language training?

These guys truly are about as organized as the Keystone Cops-- though about about a million times more lethal.

(The rest of Raghavan's piece makes pretty interesting reading, too.)