From: "Hoch, Timothy D MAJ MIL USA FORSCOM"

Subject: Hello Again from Diyala

Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:58:36 +0300

Hi all.  It's been a while since I sent a note letting everyone know what's
going on.  I got home on leave during January and quite a few folks reminded
me that I haven't sent an update in months.  I apologize.  So, once again,
just an update on what we've been doing and some of my own personal views.

So what's been going on here?  Well, a lot.  I think probably the biggest
news story is the effect that the surge has had on the security situation
here and the effect that the security has had on the local population.  A
couple of weeks ago, civilian leaders elected a new mayor of our area.  All
14 of the city council members came to LTC Jamal's office along with the
mukhtars of the city and a few of the high ranking tribal sheikhs.  LTC
Jamal and LTC Zuham, the Iraqi Police chief, led the voting with my
"oversight and legitimacy."  Voila.  We have a new mayor who pledges to
start improving our area immediately.  Our last mayor, by the way, was a bad
man.  We finally got enough solid evidence on him to make him disappear in
the middle of the night.  He is currently in jail and being dealt with by
the Iraqi justice system.  Everyone was happy to see him go.

It is weird for me to be the mediator of old Iraqi men.  As an American Army
officer, I bring "legitimacy and fairness" to anything that I am present
for.  LTC Jamal always wants me to put my signature next to his signature on
documents that he sends to the provincial government in Diyala, and a lot of
the time I do just that.  There is a lot distrust amongst Iraqis in the
government, the police, and the Army.  Somehow, the word of an American
soldier trumps all.  A lot of the sheikhs who come to see us try to get me
to settle their arguments by choosing a side or to vouch for them, but I
never do.  In reality, regardless of how close we may be as friends, I just
can't trust any of them completely and don't know what their motives are.  

For example, our city council members have not shown up to work for the last
year.  They are reported by multiple sources to have sworn allegiance to Al
Qaeda (AQI).  Apparently, 2/3 of their government paychecks have been going
directly to Al Qaeda leaders for the last year.  Who knows why. ideology or
fear?  They know that we would never come to their homes, drag them out in
front of their families, torture them, and then publicly execute them.  Not
the same with AQI.  I almost can't blame them.

After the election, one of the sheikhs that I really like stuck around and
confided to me that he and all of the city council members had, in fact,
been paying AQI.  They did so out of fear and he hates AQI, he said.
Because AQI is weakening now, there is less fear and the people want to
break free of their grip.  We believe that he is telling us the truth on
this, but you never know why he is telling us this.  Since the entire group
of sheikhs has decided to start working with us, is he trying to gain favor
ahead of the rest?  Is he trying to gain our trust only to manipulate us
somewhere down the road?  Probably so, but that's the environment you accept
and that's the way things are here in Iraq.  Everything has to be taken with
a huge grain of salt and looked at with the most stringent cynicism.  You
can't look at people through an American lens here.  Everyone has some sort
of hidden motive somewhere; we treat them all like double agents.

The good news is that for the first time in over a year, these men have all
come to sit down with us.  We know that the majority of them, if not all of
them, have either been active in AQI or AQI sympathizers.  These men know
who the bad guys are in our area.  They know where the AQI emirs (high
ranking bad guys) sleep at night.  They know where the homes are of the AQI
foot soldiers that are out there shooting at us and attacking us with IEDs.
These men probably don't have blood on their own hands, but they certainly
know the ones who do.  But, it's called reconciliation.  Despite all of the
bad things that these guys may have done, we can't possibly move forward
without them.  These men are the sheikhs and tribal leaders in our area.
Whatever they say or do, their people will follow.  These sheikhs think
things can get better now that they are seeing the fearless terrorists
disappearing and running for their lives, so we're trying to bring them on
board with the program.

I see a lot of talk on the news about whether or not the surge is working.
The answer from way out here where all of the bad guys are is YES.  Without
the additional combat brigade out in this area, none of this would have been
possible.  Here's how it has worked.  U.S. and Iraqi soldiers go in force
into bad areas to get rid of the insurgents.  Once we have cleared the bad
neighborhood, we stand up robust neighborhood watch programs called
Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs) or Sons of Iraq (SOIZ).  The men of the
tribe occupy check points controlling the entrance to their villages and
other key infrastructure as determined by the local U.S. and Iraqi
commanders. The SOIZ are also able to communicate directly with the Iraqi
Army and the U.S. Army for help when bad guys show up.  Of course, not all
of these SOIZ are great guys either, but if you can see a young man standing
at a check point drawing a paycheck to control the entrance to his village,
you know that he is not out getting paid to emplace an IED.  Eventually, he
goes to police training or army training and becomes an official member of
the Iraqi Security Forces.  Furthermore, the sheikhs are directly
responsible for their area and for any bad thing that happens there. they
can no longer use the excuse of "we can't defend ourselves."  The SOIZ have
made a huge difference in this area, but it is certainly not tidy and easy.

The thing that is creating all of this is the increase in security in the
area.  Security in the area improves every time we get rid of an AQI cell or
an AQI emir.  We have been able to eliminate these high ranking insurgents
because of the surge of combat brigades out here and the willingness of the
people to share information as a result.  When we first got here, we had
attacks almost daily and it was extremely dangerous.  It is still dangerous
here and we have a good bit of work left to do, but it is nowhere near as
bad as it was about 10 months ago or even 4 months ago.  With the local
leaders now at the table and working with us, at least the endless cycle of
violence in this area has a potential end state.  We don't trust some of
these sheikhs any further than we can throw them right now, but it's a case
of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.  As they work with
us, things improve and they realize that we will lead them to a better life.

Most importantly, we are eliminating the conditions in which an insurgency
thrives.  By improving security, we are allowing governance to occur.  The
government, in turn, provides essential services.  We are moving forward
with economic and infrastructure development.  At the ground level, this
means that the mayor and city council show up at their office and actually
work for the people because their fear of assassination has diminished.
This means that the trash guys, the electric station workers, and the
teachers can show up to work without fear of having their families attacked
or kidnapped.  This means that our citizens come to the local market without
fear of a bomb detonating.  This is happening at the city, district and
provincial level around Iraq right now.  The trick is getting the selfish
and sectarian leaders at the national level to get on board with this.
Since the Iraqi government is soviern, we can't seem to directly influence
the obvious problems with the national government.  As an aside, it's ironic
to me that most Iraqis tell me that they want the U.S. military to get rid
of the government and take control again.  They definitely think that we
turned over control to them too soon.  Most Iraqis tell me that they can't
wait for the next elections to occur so that they can replace the national
government with men who will serve the people.  I agree.

I was home on leave in January and it was great.  Having no stress and not
being responsible for anyone but myself for just a while was a tremendous
relief and a well needed break.  One thing that I noticed that irked me
while I was home was the news.  There is nothing good coming out of the news
and it really bothers me.  It is very hard to capture the improvements that
are being made out here.  I arrived home with first hand knowledge of a
major operation currently in progress to root out one of the last AQI
strongholds in Iraq.  The operation was extremely successful.  Of course, I
saw nothing reported about the success of the operation.  In fact, the only
main stream media report of the operation came when a house rigged with
explosives killed 7 American soldiers.  What about the other three weeks of
the operation which eliminated scores of AQI insurgent cells, or the entire
communities who have openly turned against the insurgents, or more
importantly, the people gladly taking control of their villages and cities
in the aftermath and working with the local government and U.S. forces to
move forward and improve their areas?  You can't capture that in a blurb in
the nightly news, and the media certainly doesn't even try.  Why was the
Iraq war the lead story for the previous years while the insurgency reached
a peak, but now gets no coverage as the insurgency is being systematically
defeated?  I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I don't like standing on the
soap box, but the American public only gets the picture that the media wants
to paint.  Enough of that.

The guys on the team are doing well.  We eat lunch with our Iraqi
counterparts almost daily and we no longer think twice about eating off of
dirty trays or consuming bread that is stored in a file cabinet and recycled
if it is left over from the previous meal.  Drinking chay from a glass that
has been cleaned by river water or shared by dozens of men is nothing.
Dipping a dirty cup into a community bucket for a drink of tangy "white
stuff" is just part of doing business.  Our immune systems have adapted well
and nobody has been violently ill from food since the first month here.
Cleanliness is clearly overrated and unnecessary.  That said, we are
extremely thankful for the dozens of shots that we complained about getting
prior to deployment.  

We can carry on rudimentary conversations in Arabic, and giving other men
air kisses on the cheek is normal now - although I don't think I'll ever get
completely comfortable with feeling another man's stubble against my face
while getting a strong whiff of his aftershave (really, it is a huge sign of
respect and friendship when an Arab pulls you in for the "man kiss").  We've
learned that "yes" means maybe, and "insh'Allah" means probably not.  You
never get told "no" directly.   We have made great friends and we have
mourned the loss of some of those friends.  I hate to say it, but death is
as normal to us now as it is to the Iraqis.  We have learned to be
incredibly cynical as a survival technique.  "TII" is what we say when
something crazy happens now - "This is Iraq."  "Nothing is easy here" is
what we tell each other when we get let down.  All in all, it has been an
experience and a challenge almost impossible to describe.

We're pretty "short" right now and if all goes well, I should be sitting in
my living room with my beautiful wife 2 months from now.  The hardest thing
right now is keeping our guard up everyday.  When you first start conducting
operations in your area, every place you go is new and there is always that
small fear of the unknown.  Fighting insurgents is just a lot of
uncertainty.  Ironically enough, there is absolutely no fear once you find
the bad guys and the excitement begins - probably because that uncertainty
disappears instantly, adrenaline kicks in, years of training takes over, and
you can methodically get down to the business which you're good at.
Unfortunately, after hundreds of patrols and operations, you know exactly
where you're going and you think you know roughly what is going to happen.
That little bit of fear prior to every mission gets smaller and you don't
have butterflies in your stomach when you know you probably should.  You
need that little bit of fear to keep you sharp and focused.  So, one of my
main efforts during the next month will be fighting complacency with my guys
and making sure that they respect the bad guys enough to still have that bit
of fear in their guts everyday.  We know that we're close to coming home,
but we're not looking past what we have to do tomorrow.  

Thanks to all who have sent me care packages and letters.  The Christmas
season was crazy on mail delivery days and I really appreciate your thoughts
and your support.  The coffee, movies, tuna fish, beef jerky, Gatorade,
cereal, protein bars, etc., were great!  I guess now is a good time to say
please don't send any mail after March 15th.  

I have orders to report to the Command and General Staff College in July, so
Holly and I will be headed out to Fort Leavenworth sometime this summer.
Between now and then, Holly has to sell our house, plan the move, and finish
her school year teaching 1st graders.  No pressure.  Hopefully, our house
sells as painlessly as possible and leaves us some time to travel after
Holly finishes the school year and before we have to report to Leavenworth.
We hope to travel this summer during the interim and hope to see many of
you.  Until then, take care.



Tim