Ok, while the notion of increased security is an important one in this context, one as to admit, this doesn’t sound good: (via the NYT) Iraqis Plan to Ring Baghdad With Trenches
The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.
When one has to dig trenched around the capital city and funnel traffic through highly controlled checkpoints, then I am afraid one is not engaging in policy innovation, one is engaging in desperation.
And, one has to wonder if Fortress Baghdad will even work:
It is unclear whether Baghdad can really be sealed off, given the city’s circumference of about 60 miles. With so much terrain, guerrillas might find areas that are unconstrained by the trenches and checkpoints. On the main roads, traffic could be snarled for miles, especially in the final days of Ramadan, when people travel to celebrate with their families.
Apparently, and I was unaware of this, the model is one used elsewhere in the country:
Similar perimeters have been set up around troubled cities that are much smaller than the capital.
The most prominent example is Falluja, the insurgent stronghold in western Iraq that had 300,000 residents before a Marine-led siege in November 2024. Since then, the American military and Iraqi security forces have run the city as a mini police state, with people who want to enter required to show identification cards at checkpoints.
The American military built dirt berms with limited entry points around Samarra in the north and Rawah in the western desert.
None of that sounds are extensive as what is planned for Baghdad, however.
In reading all of this, I continue to think back to the chaos that was allowed to reign across the country post-invasion. Had we actually fully secured the country in the first place, and then worked towards erecting a new state, we wouldn’t have to capturing it city-by-city, province-by-province and creating “mini police state[s]” now.
[…] Yesterday, it was digging trenches around Baghdad, today (via the NYT: Iraq Stumbling in Bid to Purge Its Rogue Police) it’s the dysfunctional security apparatus: The new interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani, who oversees the police, lacks the political support to purge many of the worst offenders, including senior managers who tolerated or encouraged the infiltration of Shiite militias into the police under the previous government, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials who work with the ministry and the police. […]
Pingback by PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » The Ongoing Problems of State-building in Iraq — Sunday, September 17, 2024 @ 7:16 am
When one has to dig trenched around the capital city and funnel traffic through highly controlled checkpoints, then I am afraid one is not engaging in policy innovation, one is engaging in desperation.
At least this plan will be able to quell suburban sprawl!
Comment by Ratoe — Sunday, September 17, 2024 @ 7:42 am
“Had we actually fully secured the country in the first place”
Wow. That is a laughably naive view of warfare.
Comment by joe — Sunday, September 17, 2024 @ 8:14 am
Joe,
I am not asserting that we could have totally secured the country. However, we did not even try to do so. The real naivete was that we thought we could come in, knock Saddam out, but not actually have to control territory. You can make glib comments all you like, but the bottom line is that we did not work to establish order after the invasion.
We moved through Iraq in a mad dash to take Baghdad, and did very little to secure the country and create stability. (This a critique that those on the ground, including a friend of mine in the Army, have made).
A very visible example of this was the looting the should never have been allowed in Baghdad immediately after the invasion.
We did not secure the country, and even attempt to do so.
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, September 17, 2024 @ 8:41 am
To put it more succinctly: what is more militarily naive, the idea that the best place to start establishing order is at the point of invasion or years later after chaos has been allowed to reign?
Comment by Dr. Steven Taylor — Sunday, September 17, 2024 @ 9:14 am