Will The U.S. Win A Second Chance At A Sunni Awakening?
Five years after the U.S. ended its combat mission in Iraq, the Obama administration is ramping up the U.S. presence there. The White House announced last week that it will send 450 military advisers to Anbar province to support Iraqi forces fighting the so-called Islamic State.
It's a complicated choice for President Obama, who in 2007 as a senator, raised concerns about sending more forces to stabilize Iraq.
But things went well in Anbar that year because Sunni sheikhs, fed up with al-Qaida, started fighting alongside the U.S. It was called the Sunni Awakening, and U.S. military officials say it was a big part of what turned the war around.
Now the U.S. is sending troops to Anbar again to try to wrest control from an enemy force — this time from ISIS.
This week on For the Record: A Second Chance for a Sunni Awakening.
We hear from three Americans who helped build the alliance between the Sunni tribal leaders and the U.S. government during the height of the Iraq War.
Kael Weston, State Department political adviser to the Marines in Iraq
Kael Weston remembers what it was like back in 2006, when the violence in cities like Fallujah and Ramadi was really bad.
"The tribal sheikhs would walk in and say, 'You know, we have tribal members who are tired like you of fighting, and maybe there's a way we can work together against Al-Qaeda,' " Weston says.
Retired Lt. Col. Mike E. Silverman
Most of the U.S. troops in Anbar were Marines. Mike Silverman was with one of the only Army units that served there. He began working with the sheikhs in 2007.
"Almost every day, I sat either in a sheikh's meeting hall, or an Iraqi police station, or with an an Iraqi army unit, and talked about partnership," Silverman says. "I represented the entire strength of the United States government to those people when I met with them."
Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte
In 2007, John Negroponte was deputy secretary of state. While Silverman and Weston worked on the ground to build trust among the sheikhs, Negroponte would fly in from Washington to show that the government was taking this partnership seriously.
Ultimately, the Sunni leaders came to an agreement with US officials. They would direct their tribal armies to fight with the U.S. against al-Qaida, but in return they wanted political influence in the new central government in Baghdad, and they wanted guns, artillery and cash.
"Yes," says Weston, "it was transactional. Yes, there were short-term deals that were cut left and right, up and down in Euphrates River Valley. But at the same time, we started to understand each other better."
With the help of the Sunni tribes, the U.S. was able to push the al-Qaida-backed groups out of Anbar. But Silverman remembers that by 2011, the Sunnis were still locked out of the Shiite-run central government, they weren't getting the resources they needed and accused the U.S. of breaking its promises.
"I had sheikhs and police officers and Iraqi security force leaders call me and beg me for help," he says. "They said to me, 'Hey, Silverman, you made promises to us.' Try as I could, I contacted the people that I knew, but unfortunately at that point our government was not willing to live up to the promises that we made."
Fast-forward to today, and U.S. troops are going back to Anbar province with 450 military advisors, who will train the Iraqi national forces working to push back ISIS, or ISIL, as U.S. officials call the group. Many Sunni tribal fighters are still undecided about whether they will join.
Negroponte believes another Sunni awakening is possible.
"I think success is possible," he says. "In fact, I think that it's imperative that we be successful. I think it would be a terrible tragedy to leave Iraq to the mercies of ISIL."
But Silverman and Weston say the chances of a second awakening are slim.
"I'm not sure that that strategy is going to be a winner," Silverman says. "In some ways ISIS has become so much more brutal than al-Qaida in Iraq that it's going to be that much harder to get people to stand up against it. It is a terrifying proposition."
Says Weston, "I have a Marine friend, [Maj. Gen.] Larry Nicholson, who coined I think a very important phrase, which is, 'You can't surge trust.' I think some of the challenges we have now is that we're surging weapons and drones and anti-tank missiles, but what we are doing about regaining some of that trust that took years and years and years and a lot of American lives to build?"
My Three Takeaways
First, the U.S. officials and military officers we spoke with told us about the promises that were made and broken as part of the Sunni Awakening, especially the U.S. promise to get the Sunnis more say in the central government in Baghdad.
The U.S. also promised Sunni leaders money. Those promises were largely kept. According to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report in 2011, the U.S. spent more than $300 million on the Sunni Awakening, paying Sunni leaders for their loyalty in order to secure the future of Anbar and ultimately of Iraq as a whole — a future that is most certainly in question now.
Second, the work that the military did in building a relationship with the Sunni leaders in Anbar was impressive. At a Marine Corps base in Anbar in the summer of 2007, I remember meeting an officer whose sole job was to map out the complicated network of family relationships that knit the Sunni tribes together. He spoke several of the local dialects and was steeped in the history of this part of Iraq.
At the same time, Marine Corps generals were traveling long distances several times a week to meet face-to-face with Sunni leaders in hopes of winning their trust and loyalty. Weston says that turning Anbar away from ISIS today may require a similar effort, which would require sending far more troops to Anbar than are there now — an even tougher call for a president who came into office pledging to end the war in Iraq and bring all U.S. troops home.
Third, it's never easy to get U.S. troops in Iraq or Afghanistan to weigh in on the value or purpose of what they're doing. For one thing, it's not their job to judge policy decisions, so they just don't want to wade into those kinds of conversations. But secondly — and this is just my opinion — I think it can make their job more difficult down the road, because sometimes the victories are reversed. That's what we're seeing in Iraq, and in particular, Anbar province. Many U.S. troops who fought vicious battles in Anbar in 2005 and 2006 told themselves they were fighting to secure a stable future for Iraq, and that in turn would create a more stable world.
The ISIS flag now flies over government buildings in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar. Those U.S. troops who fought and died in Anbar a decade ago did so because that's what they were told to do. But if those troops convinced themselves that they were fighting for a lasting peace in that part of the world — today they are sorely disappointed.
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Transcript
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This is For the Record. Five years after the U.S. ended its combat mission in Iraq, the Obama administration is ramping up the American presence there. The White House announced this past week, it will send 450 military advisors to Anbar province to support Iraqi forces fighting the so-called Islamic State. It's a complicated choice for President Obama, who in 2007, as a U.S. senator, raised concerns about sending in more U.S. forces to stabilize Iraq. Here he is, questioning then U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRES BARACK OBAMA: The question, I think, that everybody is asking is, how long will this take? And at what point do we say enough?
MARTIN: That same year, General David Petraeus took control of the U.S. military in Iraq. Here's then CBS news anchor Katie Couric.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KATIE COURIC: The man who will report to Congress next week choppered us to Fallujah in Anbar province, once the most dangerous place in all of Iraq, a place that he says is now a snapshot of what's going right.
MARTIN: Things were going right in Anbar because Sunni sheikhs, fed up with al-Qaida, started fighting alongside the U.S. It was called the Sunni Awakening and U.S. military officials say it was a big part of what turned the war around. Now, the U.S. is sending troops to Anbar again to try to wrest control away from another enemy force. This time, it's ISIS. Here's White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSH EARNEST: The president is confident that the announcement that he made today to establish, essentially, a fifth base in Iraq will bolster the capacity of both the Iraqi security forces as well as the Sunni tribal fighters in Anbar.
MARTIN: For the Record today, a second for a Sunni Awakening. We're going to hear from three Americans who helped build the alliance between the Sunni tribal leaders and the U.S. government back at the height of the Iraq war. First, Kael Weston. He was with the State Department and served as a political advisor to the Marines working in Iraq.
KAEL WESTON: Altogether, I spent almost four years there. Three of those years were in Anbar.
MARTIN: He remembers what it was like back in 2006 when the violence in cities like Fallujah and Ramadi was especially violent and exhausting.
WESTON: The tribal sheikhs would walk in and say, you know, we have tribal members who are tired, like you, of fighting and maybe there's a way we can work together against al-Qaida.
LIEUTENANT COLONEL MIKE SILVERMAN: My name is Lieutenant Colonel, retired, Michael E. Silverman.
MARTIN: Most of the U.S. troops in Anbar were Marines. Silverman was with one of the only Army units that served there.
SILVERMAN: I was a Battalion Commander, so for my first, about, 45 days in country on that tour, we took part in an operation called a freedom. Once Ramadi was liberated, that was really the first time that I began to work with the sheikhs. So that was probably early April of 2007.
MARTIN: And our third voice, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte. In early 2007, he was back in Washington working as the deputy secretary of state.
JOHN NEGROPONTE: It was the time of great sectarian violence. It was the time that we had the long internal debate about the surge. It was always front of mind.
MARTIN: Lieutenant Colonel Silverman and Kael Weston were both there, on the ground in Anbar, helping build trust between the U.S. military and the Sunni tribal leaders.
WESTON: They would walk in, in their white flowing robes and thick gold watches and rings and big black beards, and we would sit down at a table and offer them tea while we drank coffee and try and work out an arrangement.
MARTIN: Lieutenant Colonel Silverman was doing the same thing.
SILVERMAN: Almost every day I sat either in a sheikhs' meeting hall or an Iraqi police station or with an Iraqi army unit, and talked about partnership. I represented the entire strength of the United States government to those people when I met with them.
MARTIN: And every once in a while, a VIP from Washington flew in to make sure the sheikhs knew the U.S. government was taking the partnership seriously, like the Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
I happened to have been in Iraq in 2007 in that summer. You paid a visit to Anbar, you were in a room...
NEGROPONTE: I think you attended a meeting that I attended.
MARTIN: Indeed. So, I guess - I realize it's been many years, but how do you plop yourself down a circle of those sheikhs, introduce yourself and start to build a relationship.
NEGROPONTE: Well, it's not that easy, but I think in my particular instance, I was somewhat of a known quantity, since I'd been Ambassador there a couple of years prior, so these people at least knew me by name. And a number of them I had actually previously met. But, you can't. You can't just blow into a place, shake a few hands, have a one-hour conversation and expect to have overwhelming influence.
MARTIN: But, ultimately, the Sunni leaders came to an agreement with U.S. officials. They would direct their tribal armies to fight with the U.S. against al-Qaida. But, in return, they wanted political influence in the new central government in Baghdad - they wanted guns and artillery. And, as Kael Weston told me, they wanted cash.
WESTON: Yes, it was transactional. Yes, there were short-term deals that were cut, left and right, up and down the Euphrates River Valley. But, at the same time, we started to understand each other better, and I think that they started to understand that the American people aren't a very patient people.
MARTIN: The U.S. wanted results fast, and it happened. With the help of the Sunni tribes, the U.S. was able to push the al-Qaida-backed groups out of Anbar. But Lieutenant Colonel Silverman remembers that by 2011, the Sunnis were still locked out of the Shiite-run central government. They were not getting the resources they needed, and they accused the U.S. of breaking its promises.
SILVERMAN: I had sheikhs and police officers and Iraqi Security Force leaders call me and beg me for help. You know, they said to me, hey, Silverman, you made promises to us. And, you know, try as I could, I contacted the people that I knew. But, unfortunately, at that point, our government was not willing to live up to the promises that we made.
MARTIN: Fast forward a few more years, and U.S. troops are now going back to Anbar province; 450 military advisors, who will train the Iraqi national forces working to push back ISIS. They'll also be working with the Sunni tribal fighters, many of whom are still undecided about whether this is a fight they want to join. I asked John Negroponte if another Sunni awakening is possible.
NEGROPONTE: Yes, I think another awakening of sorts is possible. I think success is possible. In fact, I think that it's imperative that we be successful, and I think it would be a terrible tragedy to leave Iraq to the mercies of ISIL.
MARTIN: All three of the people we spoke with - John Negroponte, Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman and former State Department rep Kael Weston - believe the U.S. military should have left a residual force on the ground in Iraq, which they believe would have prevented the ISIS takeover in Anbar. Unlike Negroponte, though, Mike Silverman and Kael Weston say the chances of a second awakening are slim. Here's Silverman.
SILVERMAN: I'm not sure that that strategy is going to be a winner. In some ways, ISIS has become so much more brutal than al-Qaida in Iraq, that it's going to be that much harder to get people to stand up against it. It is a terrifying proposition.
MARTIN: When Kael Weston thinks about what's happening now in Anbar - and he's been thinking about it a lot these days - he remembers something other a close colleague told him when he was in Iraq.
WESTON: I have a Marine General friend, Larry Nicholson, who coined, I think, a very important phrase, which is, you can't surge trust. And I think some of the challenges we have now is that we're surging weapons and drones and anti-tank missiles, but, you know, what are we doing about regaining some of that trust that took years and years and years and a lot of American lives to build?
MARTIN: That was former U.S. State Department official Kael Weston, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Mike Silverman and former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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