Yesterday, 60 Minutes did a segment (see that segment HERE) on the military effort to retake Tal Afar, Iraq. President Bush is calling the operation in Tal Afar as a model (White House press release)for how Iraqis can retake towns from Al Qaida. The story of Tal Afar is quite interesting in that it was a major transit point for aspiring jihadis to enter Iraq via Syria and join up with Al Qaida in Iraq. There were several military operations in Western Iraq up to and shortly after the September 2005 Tal Afar operation, but I have not read one report of a major military excursion in Western Iraq since Tal Afar was ridded of Al Qaida and the Iraqi military was moved into secure and hold the city.

The fine line that is waged among political circles on whether or not the war in Iraq is noble or a disaster seems to hinge on the great unknown. Are Iraqi soldiers being trained? Are the Iraqis insistent on ridding their land from Al Qaida? Does the U.S. military plan have an escape clause? Is the nation in a state of civil war? And one question I heard over the weekend on local radio, is living under Al Qaida really that bad?

We have an answer of the last question that is finite. Colonel H.R. McMaster describes the scene in Tal Afar prior to the operation in the 60 Minutes segment.

“They fired mortars indiscriminately into playgrounds, into school yards, across the marketplace to kill innocent civilians. What they really wanted to do was incite fear,” explains McMaster,

Asked what life was like for the inhabitants of Tal Afar, McMaster says, “Life was horrible in the city. They would leave headless bodies in the street. They kidnapped a young child on one occasion, killed the child, put a booby trap inside of his body and waited for the father to come claim the body to kill the parent.”

Masked gunmen led by al Qaeda roamed the streets of Tal Afar at will, publicly executing and kidnapping people. Col. McMaster told 60 Minutes some of the terrorists were foreign fighters, but many were Iraqis from the area. Pictures of their attacks were circulated in videos like one in which you can hear them chanting a call to jihad.

“They had schools for snipers. They had kidnapping and murder classes that were attended by people on the best techniques,” says McMaster.

Clearly Tal Afar was a recruiting, indoctrination and training ground for Al Qaida. The sniper schools are particularly interesting based upon the widely circulated videos of the sniper known as Juba. The communiques and Internet postings portrayed Juba as a sole Al Qaida sniper and the videos released contain footage of several sniper shots from accross Iraq. “Juba is everywhere” the communiques told us.

It is more likely Juba is a name for all Al Qaida snipers. The name Juba is derived from former slaves held by Muslims in the Juba River Valley in Somalia. These slaves converted to Islam to break away from slavery because it was against Islamic law for a Muslim to enslave other Muslims. The reference is that these snipers are breaking away from the slavery of the Coalition and converting to Islam to carry out Allah’s will; that will being to murder innocents and attack the former “slave holders.”

As is seemingly always the case with reports out of Iraq, which is paramount to why most Americans really don’t know what is going on in the nation, U.S. military leaders paint a different picture than what most media outlets portray. In the case of Tal Afar though, the mayor of the Iraqi town wrote a thank you letter to the U.S. military (via Blog Lizards).

Our city was the main base of operations for Abu Mousab Al Zarqawi. The city was completely held hostage in the hands of his henchmen. Our schools, governmental services, businesses and offices were closed.

Our streets were silent, and no one dared to walk them. Our people were barricaded in their homes out of fear; death awaited them around every corner. Terrorists occupied and controlled the only hospital in the city.

Their savagery reached such a level that they stuffed the corpses of children with explosives and tossed them into the streets in order to kill grieving parents attempting to retrieve the bodies of their young.

This was the situation of our city until God prepared and delivered unto them the courageous soldiers of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who liberated this city, ridding it of Zarqawi’s followers after harsh fighting, killing many terrorists, and forcing the remaining butchers to flee the city like rats to the surrounding areas, where the bravery of other 3d ACR soldiers in Sinjar, Rabiah, Zumar and Avgani finally destroyed them.

Indeed it was the Iraqi intervention that led to most of the offensives in Western Iraq in the first place. As we reported countless times, it was pleas from Iraqis in these Western Iraqi towns and cities that encouraged the U.S. military to launch an effort to rid the area of Al Qaida terrorists. It was also local militant groups that were already waging a war against Al Qaida in many of these areas. It appears Tal Afar was beyond the help of the locals, and they called in the U.S. military.

Tal Afar is a model of how the Coalition seeks to take control of any and all Al Qaida outposts. They key to Tal Afar was not the might of the U.S. military nor even the local population, but that the Iraqi military was ready to step up and assist in the operation and secure the town afterwards. Like a broken record, President Bush maintains as Iraqi forces step up, Coalition forces will step down. Tal Afar is a shining example of that concept and that it is working.

World Tribune also reports on a development that is vastly important and incredibly underreported, if at all.  The past few military operations have had Iraqi soldiers in the lead with the U.S. military playing a background role and that of commander.  This is both good and bad, depending how U.S. military commanders are executing the operations.  For the foot soldiers and the first line of Iraqi military leaders, this is great news.  But in order to continue to train the Iraqi military so that the Coalition may leave Iraq under good control, top-level Iraqi commanders must be trained as well.  I suspect we’ll see high-ranking Iraqi commanders taking a greater role in future operations.
Operation Swarmer is an extension of this concept as well. Many journalists concluded after the first day or two of operations that Operation Swarmer was only an excercise and a media show. It was that, but it was also to secure the area northeast of Samarra. You can train Iraqi soldiers until they are blue in the face in bases, but they are still green until you take them out on operations similar to Operation Swarmer.

This area was certainly no Tal Afar, thankfully, but this was more than the glitz and glamour media show we were told over the weekend. Iraqi military uniforms, car bomb factories, IEDs and weapons caches were found during the operation. Multiple suspects were apprehended for questioning and, using Tel Afar as a model, the Iraqi military is ready to step into the area and hold the fort down.

While we are bombarded at home with questions of whether or not Iraq is in a state of civil war, including the former Prime Minister of Iraq, Ayad Allawi, concluding Iraq is in a civil war, it is important to keep things in context. Allawi’s statements certainly support the idea there is a civil war raging in Iraq, but as always there seems to be more to the story.

The President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, doesn’t believe the nation is in a civil war. England Defense Secretary John Reid said the reports of Allawi’s insistence Iraq is in a civil war is different than what Allawi told him Saturday night. Of course the politicos differ on whether Iraq is in a civil war or not, but they would depending on what particular party support them or what issue they wish to advance.

Wretchard at The Belmont Club writes on what the signs of a civil war would include.

A civil war is a visible event whose indicators includes the insubordination of armed units, mass refugee flows, the rise of rival governments, etc.

Also see Bill Rogio’s list of things we would see in Iraq if the nation were in a civil war. Add to Wretchard’s list that there must be at least two governments in place that are recognized by outside governments. One could argue Al Qaida in Iraq is a government and that the Shura Council is the government’s leadership, but there is not one nation that recognizes the Shura Council as the government of Iraq. Not even Iran nor Syria recognize the Shura Council as is evident in Iran’s continued talks, most of the time covert, with Muqtada al Sadr.

So in the discussion of whether or not Iraq is in a civil war, the answer is a resounding no, at least not how civil war has been defined over time. There are clearly heinous acts of killing along racial lines, but there has been in Iraq for decades. Has the killing increased in the past three years? No one could answer that question because we don’t know the true destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime nor what went on in Iraq prior to Hussein’s downfall. Anyone who says otherwise is disingenuous at best.

Wretchard also makes the important note that the dialogue in this nation has changed in the course of a few months. Last fall the question was whether or not Sunnis would participate in the Iraqi government or if they would rebell and aide Al Qaida in Iraq. The December 2005 elections proved that line of thinking was incorrect, and right now in Iraq it is the Sunnis who are banding together with the Kurds in order to try to form the new Iraqi government. Most of the blame for the post-election standstill in the Iraqi government has been placed upon, fairly or unfairly, the Shiite elected officials. It is also the Shiite bloc that has the majority of seats in the new Iraqi parliament, and the minority blocs have banded together in order to try to work things out.

The future fate of Iraq does not rest in Al Qaida, the idea or concept of a civil war in Iraq nor the continued killings along racial lines. By and large, the Iraqis have proven they can put up with a bunch of problems and stay resolute. Maybe Saddam Hussein’s reign taught them that? Whether Iraq succeeds or fails depends entirely on the elected politicians and whether or not they want Iraq to succeed.

Operations such as the ones in Tal Afar and Operation Samarra will do a great deal to continue to put Al Qaida in Iraq on the defensive, thus hopefully defeating their chances to launch massive attacks, but Al Qaida in Iraq can never be fully defeated. They can be so devestated that the organization ceases to exist, but spinoff groups will always spring up as long as there is a shred of sympathy for their cause among the populace there and, yes, even at home.

The final formation of an Iraqi government will deliver a crippling blow to Al Qaida in Iraq, even more crippling than the continued training of Iraq soldiers and the success of Tal Afar, and it will be just one more political bomb thrown on the hopes and dreams of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s everywhere. It will show when people are faced with the choice of an elected government versus Islamic law and bombs under children’s dead bodies, they choose Democracy. That is the goal of the Bush Doctrine, and Tal Afar is a testament that that doctrine can work.