The Marines Take Anbar

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PUBLISHED WITH THE MARINE CORPS ASSOCIATION

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The Marines Take Anbar

The Four-Year Fight
Against Al Qaeda

Richard H. Shultz Jr.

Foreword by Maj. Gen. Donald R. Gardner, USMC (Ret.)

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, Maryland

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Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
2013 by Richard Shultz
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shultz, Richard H., 1947The Marines take Anbar : the four-year fight to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq / Richard Shultz.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61251-140-5 (hbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61251-141-2 (ebook) 1. Iraq War,
2003-2011CampaignsIraqAnbar (Province) 2. United States. Marine CorpsHistoryIraq
War, 2003- 3. CounterinsurgencyIraqAnbar (Province) 4. Qaida (Organization) 5. Anbar (Iraq :
Province)Politics and government2003- I. Title.
DS79.764.A63S38 2012
956.7044345dc23
2012046621

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Printed in the United States of America.
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First printing

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Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Foreword

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction

Chapter 1.

This Is Al Anbar

Chapter 2.

2003: All the Wrong Moves

33

Chapter 3.

2004: Ugly Surprises

58

Chapter 4.

2005: Stalemate

104

Chapter 5.

2006: The Tipping Point

144

Chapter 6.

2007: Cashing In

184

Chapter 7.

Conclusion

231

Notes

245

Index

279

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Illustrations

Maps
1.1

Map of modern-day Iraq

1.2

Major population locations in Iraq based on ethnicity and religion

4.1

Iraq map of provincial stability

4.2

The location of named IIMEF clearing operations in 2005

23
27
108
120

Graph
4.1

Enemy-initiated attacks

107

Photos

Sheikh Ali Hatim Abd al-Razzaq Ali al-Sulayman

Fallujah city council members

21

General Tommy Franks and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

36

L. Paul Bremer departing Iraq

44

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway and Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis

60

Lt. Gen. James T. Conway discusses the end of major combat operations 61
Col. Joe Dunford, RCT-5 commander, with Maj. Gen. James Mattis

67

Col. John Toolan, the commander of RCT-1

72

A typical IED roadside bomb attack in Anbar

88

Marine and Army battalions attacked the city of Fallujah from north
to south

96

Marines fighting inside the House from Hell

101

Col. Stephen Davis, commander of RCT-2, examines weapons

121

Marines from 3/2 in action at al-Ubaydi during Operation Matador in

May 2005

123

|vii

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viii | I l l u s t r at i o n s
Marines from 1/6 in action during Operation Khanjar at Lake Tharthar
in June 2005

127

An aerial view of Anbars capital, Ramadi

129

The governor of Anbar Province, Mamoon Sami Rashid al-Alwani

137

Brig. Gen. James William

138

Iraqi citizens voting in Husaybah during the December 15, 2005 election 142
Runners prepare for the start of the Ramadi 5K race in September 2006 146
Maj. Gen. Tariq Yusif Mohammad al-Thiyabi, Anbars Provincial Director
of Police
149
Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer, Governor Mamoon Sami Rashid al-Alwani,
and Col. Sean MacFarland

155

Col. Lawrence Nicholson

161

Sheikh Aifan Sadun al-Issawi

165

Sheikh Abdul Sittar Albu-Risha and Col. Sean MacFarland

166

Sheikh Wissam Abd al-Ibrahim al-Hardan al-Aethawi, with Brig.

Gen. John Allen

168

A combat patrol in Ramadi in 2006

172

Lt. Col. William Jurney, commander of 1/6 in Ramadi in 2006

173

Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskin

185

Brig. Gen. John Allen with Sheikh Ahmed Bezia Fteikhan al-Risha

187

An IED removal unit in Anbar

192

Iraqi police and Marines on a training exercise in Fallujah in 2007

206

A school renovation project takes place outside al-Karmah in 2007

225

Maj. Gen. John F. Kelly

231

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Foreword

The United States Marines are warfighters! Our legacy includes Guadalcanal,
Iwo Jima, the Frozen Chosin, and Hue City. The Anbar campaign adds Fallujah
to those epic battles. As time passes and the events of the Iraq War come into
sharper focus, it is certain that scholars will consider the successful campaign to
secure and stabilize the countrys Anbar Province as an important turning point in
that conflict. As Iraqs largest province and a center of Iraqs Sunni population, the
vast region served as a major base of the anti-Coalition insurgency that gripped
the country following the collapse of Saddam Husseins Baathist regime in 2003.
From 2004 to 2008 the Marines of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and 2nd
Marine Expeditionary Force, with supporting units from the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy,
U.S. Air Force, Iraqi military, and other Coalition countries, conducted a vigorous,
hard-fought counterinsurgency campaign to defeat the al Qaedadominated insurgency throughout the province. During 2003 serious policy mistakes were made in
Iraq, and the Marines, in early 2004, were deployed to Anbar Province and ordered
to gain control and clean it up!
Richard Shultzs The Marines Take Anbar demonstrates how the Corps
nature as a versatile, tough-as-nails fighting organization allowed it to achieve success in Anbar. Throughout the campaign, Marines drew upon their long history of
fighting small wars and insurrections to adjust and adapt to the provinces complex
environment and devise novel and effective counterinsurgency tactics. The foundation for this success was a fundamental shift by the 1st Marine Expeditionary
Force to a counterinsurgency doctrine and realization that you could not win this
war with kinetic operations. The resulting cooperation between the Coalition and
Anbars tribes evolved into the Anbar Awakening. As Dr. Shultzs account reveals,
the Marines had little understanding of tribal engagement or the social and cultural organization of Anbar Province when first deployed to the troubled region.
However, over the course of the campaign the Marines quickly began to comprehend the critical role tribes played in the everyday lives of Iraqi citizens in Anbar
Province. Using this knowledge, general officers and small-unit leaders alike were
able to exploit divisions in the tenuous alliances formed between the tribes and
insurgent organizations, like Salafi Jihadists and al Qaeda, to convince these tribes
to fight alongside the Coalition. The tribes from the districts of Anbar Province

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x | F o r e w o r d
subsequently provided the Coalition with valuable intelligence, and more than four
thousand Iraqis joined police and security forces. The sheikhs were supporting the
Awakening, and were making a difference.
Throughout the Anbar campaign, reservists from the Marine Corps History
Divisions Field History Branch deployed to Iraq and collected interviews from
participants. These interviews were collected in the field, often shortly after important operations. Thus, they serve as a valuable source of information on Marine
Corps operations in the field, their deployments, and the Anbar campaign. These
important, timely interviews reveal not only the perspectives of commanders and
senior leadership, but also thoughts and observations of aviation, civil affairs,
infantry, and logistics Marines serving multiple tours in Iraq. Additionally, the
Field History Branch interviewed key Iraqis, gaining an even better understanding
of operations during the Anbar campaign.
Dr. Shultz is one of the first historians to utilize these interviews to assist
in documenting the Marines war in Anbar Province. The Marines Take Anbar
provides important insights and vivid descriptions of one of the most successful
counterinsurgency campaigns conducted by Coalition forces during the Iraq War
and provides numerous lessons that will be of interest to Marines, soldiers, sailors,
fliers, and indeed all who in the future will engage in counterinsurgencies or other
threats to the vital interests of the United States.
This exceptional work by Dr. Shultz represents a valuable resource on the
Anbar campaign, ranking with our earlier epic battles and the several small wars
of the Marine Corps.
Maj. Gen. Donald R. Gardner, USMC (Ret.)
President Emeritus
Marine Corps University

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Acknowledgments

This book could never have been researched and written without the encouragement and support of Maj. Gen. Don Gardner. The idea for a study on the Marine
Corps four-year campaign in the Anbar Province of Iraq has its origins in the early
fall of 2007, when I was having lunch with General Gardner, who at the time was
the president of the Marine Corps University.
During lunch the issue of Anbar came up in relation to the U.S. Surge in Iraq,
which had been initiated in the spring of 2007. Based on the application of new
counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, by the fall of 2007 the Surge was beginning
to show signs of success in the greater Baghdad region. This was receiving a great
deal of fanfare in the media. But what the COIN strategy and Surge were achieving
at that time, the Marine Corps had first initiated in Anbar in early 2006. And by
late 2007 they had defeated the al Qaedaled insurgency in the heart of the Sunni
triangle. But there was no media attention to this four-year campaign. It was the
best-kept secret of the Iraq war.
General Gardner proposed that the Anbar story needed to be told and offered
me the opportunity to tell it. He asked that I prepare a proposal that he would review
and then have me submit to the Marine Corp Heritage Foundation for research
support. The Foundation directors graciously decided to support the request, and
research began in the spring of 2008. Because of my teaching schedule at the
Fletcher School, where I am the director of the International Security Studies
Program, it was agreed that a book-length manuscript would be delivered by the
end of 2010. I came close, but it took a few more months, and the manuscript was
finished in March 2011. I want to thank the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for
its valuable assistance.
In addition to his role at the inception of this volume, General Gardner, as
president of the Marine Corps University, opened the door for me to conduct a
major part of my research under the auspices of the History Division of the U.S.
Marine Corps. In doing so, General Gardner put me in contact with the second
individual without whose support and encouragement this book would never have
been completed. The director of the History Division, Dr. Charles Niemeyer,
guided me through the primary sources that constitute the bulk of the evidence
used in this study. This included the vast body of end-of-tour oral history inter-

|xi

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xii | A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s
views conducted with Marine officers who served in Anbar during 20042008. It
is an amazing primary source that the History Division has completed under Dr.
Niemeyers outstanding leadership. I also had access to an array of other primary
sources such as command histories thanks to Dr. Niemeyer. Along with General
Gardner, I owe him a great debt.
In conducting the research I also had access to several of the Marine Corps
leaders who directed the campaign in Anbar. I want to thank Gen. Joseph Dunford,
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, and Maj. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson
for coming to Fletcher and sharing with me their insights and experiences in Anbar.
And I especially want to thank Gen. John Allen, who not only gave me valuable
interviews both at Fletcher and in Washington but also read and commented on the
manuscript. In all of my interactions with these Marine Corps commanders and
others not mentioned here, I count myself extremely fortunate.
At the Fletcher School I was privileged to have the help of a brilliant research
assistant, Lauren Dorgan. At the time, Lauren was completing her graduate studies
at Fletcher before joining the U. S. government. While she also read and commented on the manuscript as a whole, she was instrumental in researching and
drafting chapter 2, All the Wrong Moves. Her work on that chapter was of the
highest quality, and I want to thank her for her outstanding assistance. I also want
to thank all those talented Fletcher students with whom I was able to discuss Anbar
within the context of my seminar Internal Conflict and War.
The research for this book also greatly benefited from my involvement with the
Armed Groups Intelligence Project and the Adapting Americas Security Paradigm
Project of the National Strategy Information Center (NSIC) in Washington. NSICs
president, Dr. Roy Godson, was one of the first in the 1990s to identify the rise
of armed groups as a major security challenge. His insights guided my thinking
and understanding of nonstate challenges. He has also been instrumental in helping me grasp the systemic implications of these developments by involving me
in these NSICs projects. Without Roy Godsons intellectual guidance and friendship, I would never have completed either this volume or my earlier 2006 study
Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat.
The production of a manuscript like this one requires a manager who has a
number of special skills ranging from editing and proofreading various different
versions of the manuscript, to making the manuscript conform with the publishers
format requirements, to preparing all of the photos, maps, and graphs for insertion
into the manuscript. I have been so very fortunate that Freda Kilgallen, program
manager of the International Security Studies Program at the Fletcher School, carried out these tasks for me. In fact, this is the third major volume she has helped me
with, and I have greatly benefited from her professionalism, laser-like attention to

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A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s |xiii
detail, and exceptional thoroughness. Like with those other books, as well as with
numerous articles, Freda made this book better, and I want to thank her for all she
has done for me.
At the Naval Institute Press I want to thank Tom Cutler, director of professional publishing, and the members of his able staff for all of their assistance in
shepherding my manuscript through the production process. It was a pleasure to
work with them, and I am deeply grateful for all their efforts.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Casey, and my son, Nicholas, for all
their love and unwavering support. They are the centers of my universe, and I am
delighted to dedicate this book to them. They are the best and I love them dearly.

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Introduction

n March 2004 the Marine Corps deployed elements of the 1st Marine
Expeditionary Force (IMEF) back to Iraq, this time to Anbar Province in the
heart of the Sunni Triangle. The campaign plan IMEF drew up for Anbar left
little doubt that its leadership believed they were embarking on a stability operation. While they were likely to face some local hostility, there was no consideration
of the possibility that they would confront an organized resistance or insurgency.
Then-Col. Joe Dunford, the chief of staff, recalled that during the planning for the
Anbar deployment we were not talking about an insurgency at this point....The
word insurgency wasnt used in the early part of 2004.1
However, once on the ground IMEF quickly found itself locked in a bloody
test of wills with al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and other resistance forces. Anbar rapidly
turned into ground zero for a burgeoning and bloody insurgency. AQI made Iraq
the forward edge of its global battle with the United States. In doing so, it pulled
out all the stops in an effort to inflict a defeat of strategic proportions on America.
Iraq would become for the United States what Afghanistan had turned into for the
Soviet Union.
By the summer of 2006 the Marines fighting in Anbar were said to be losing, and there was almost nothing they could do to turn around that situation.
This was the overwhelming conventional wisdom at the time. Enemy violence was
skyrocketing, while almost every prediction for any U.S. success in Anbar was
plummeting.
But one year later, in the fall of 2007, the situation on the ground in Anbar had
been transformed. Violence was declining precipitously as the Marines cleared out
the insurgents and took control of the ground. And by the time IMEF returned to
Anbar in early 2008 for its third tour in the Sunni heartland of Iraq, its commander,
Maj. Gen. John Kelly, was taken aback by the dramatic changes he found. The province was remarkably different from the one he left after his initial deployment in
2004. At that time, Marines were embroiled in a rapidly escalating and bloody fight.
Kelly recalled that in early 2005, as he prepared to depart, there were roughly
four hundred violent events a week in Anbar. But when I returned in February
2008 that number was down to fifty attacks per week. And by the summer violent
actions were down to eight or nine a week. And that number held for the last

| 1

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2 | I n t r o d u c t i o n

fivesix months of the year. As a result, the general noted, AQI had to commute into Anbar to blow something up....If they tried to stay in a city the people
very quickly would identify them.2 The fight was over in Anbar.
How did the Marines do it? How were they able to learn and adapt in the midst
of war? And how were they able to do so one year before the successful execution of
the Surge in Iraq and the counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy on which it was based?
A common theme running through the texts on military learning and innovation is the axiom that learning and innovation come hard to large organizations in
general and to military organizations at war in particular.3 There are considerable
barriers that make change in those military organizations problematic.
For example, in a recent studyLifting the Fog of PeaceJanine Davidson
identified three reasons why this is so difficult.4 The first two reasons are drawn
from organizational and bureaucratic theory.5 Those utilizing the former to assess
military institutions find innate rigidity and strong resistance to change. This is
attributed to the formalized norms, standard operating procedures (SOP), and routine ways that large organizations do things. Those processes often serve as barriers to change. They throw up Chinese walls that constitute acute obstructions,
seriously hindering adaptation.6
Bureaucratic politics specialists find yet other impediments to change. Davidson
notes that military leaders, like the leaders of other large organizations, seek to
promote the importance of their organization and to preserve the organizations distinct organization essence or central mission. Challenges to that central mission
are likely to be resisted unless the leadership comes to believe that change will
enhance the importance and influence of the organization.7 More Chinese walls!
Finally, there are the constraints imposed by organizational culture. Specialists
on the topic such as Richard Downie find that institutional memory and history,
key factors that shape organizational culture, frequently impede the organizations
capacity to innovate and change. When the norms, SOPs, and doctrines of an
organization become widely accepted and practiced they will form...the organizations institutional memory. That memory is then socialized into its members
making the organization normally resistant to change.8 Yet more Chinese walls!
In spite of these impediments, large organizations, even military organizations, can learn to, and do, change. Davidson finds militaries change in response
to three catalysts: (1) external pressure; (2) the opportunity or need to grow and/
or survive, and (3) failure. But innovation does not happen easily or automatically, she adds, because militaries tie their cultural identities to specific roles or
have career structures that fail to reward (or even punish) new ways of thinking.9
In Anbar, the Marines bucked these impediments to change. Why were they
able to do so? Because the Marine Corps is steeped in tradition and over time has

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I n t r o d u c t i o n |3
developed an idiosyncratic culture that fosters change rather than the opposition
to it. A mainstay among the Corps traditions is the premium placed on learning
as a core competency. It shapes and facilitates the way Marines think and operate.
In First to Fight: An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps, Victor Krulak
underscored this commitment to learning. He did so through a number of historical
vignettes that run the gamut from imaginative changes in strategy and operational
concepts to the development of inventive weaponry and equipment. What stands
out in each example is learning.10 Krulak identifies several attributes that constitute the identity of the Marine Corps.11 Three of thesethe capacity to think and
reflect, to innovate, and to improvisereflect the tenets of organizational learning,
as described in the leading texts.12
Moreover, because Marines expect to be first in the fight, Krulak explains,
they assume they will find themselves initially engaged without a clear understanding of the context or the enemy. The war you prepare for, writes Krulak, is
rarely the war you get.13 As a result, Marines learn roles, methods, and modes of
behavior to respond to situations marked by ambiguity, uncertainty, and unforeseen challenges.
This approach is infused into training and professional education. James
Warren observes in his U.S. Marine Corps combat history how, beginning at the
Basic School for Officers, training exercises foster adaptability, boldness, and
self-criticism.14 And through formal and informal study of their history, Marines
learn that these core principles have served them well. The Marine Corps is
history-dependent and consistent with Barbara Levitt and James Marchs observation that a key part of learning involves encoding inferences from history into
routines that guide behavior.15
Davidson outlines the following steps in the process through which learning is
possible. It begins with members of the organization recognizing that there are performance gaps that can only be redressed through change. To make those changes,
the organization has to acquire and process information in order to pinpoint alternatives.16 Based on these developments, the organization assesses and interprets the discoveries or evaluations made by individual members, and if deemed
valid through consensus, explores options to resolve the anomalous situation.
Resolution of those anomalies will take the form of actions that adapt organizational behavior through changes in organizational norms, doctrine, or SOPs.17
The Marine Corps organizational culture seeks to emulate this learning process and embed lessons from its experiences into the Corps memory. Its history
is rife with examples of at first being caught in the fog of war but then, having
learned from knowledge gained in the fight, being flexible enough to make adjustments, overcome gaps in performance, and turn misfortune into triumph.

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4 | I n t r o d u c t i o n

The narrative that follows tells the story of how the Marine Corps was able to
successfully adapt and change by tracing the steps through which its campaign in
Anbar unfolded between 2004 and 2008. The study highlights those key junctures
where learning took place and change followed.
The narrative opens with an overview of Anbar. To fight successfully in such
irregular warfare situations, Marines needed a cultural understanding of the local
population. But those deploying there in March 2004 were not equipped with such
an appreciation. However, over the next four years they were able to gain an onthe-job understanding of Anbar and how to put it to good use. To appreciate what
they learned to turn the situation around the culture and traditions of the people
who live therethe Iraqi Sunni Arabsare highlighted.
Next, the narrative turns to the period between the fall of Saddams regime and
the arrival of IMEF in Anbar. Ill-conceived postconflict decisions during those
months, described in chapter 2, threw fuel on a budding resistance to U.S. occupation. Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, who played a key role in the campaign in Anbar
in 2007, described those policies as having created in 2004 a perfect storm across
Anbar, providing the perfect opportunity for AQ [al Qaeda].18 Washington made
all the wrong moves in 2003, and it was left to the Marines to pick up the pieces.
The heart of the narrative is the story of how the Marine Corps between March
2004 and September 2007 was able to successfully pick up those pieces. In 2004
IMEF found itself in the fog of war, not ready for the kind of insurgency emerging
in Anbar; subsequently, it suffered ugly surprises. In 2005 the situation became
increasingly worse. But the Marines were learning and gaining ground knowledge
from the fight. That knowledge was plowed into the development of IMEFs 2006
campaign plan.
This narrative presents the decisive details of how IMEF designed a counterinsurgency strategy contextualized for Anbar. That strategy, which consisted of
the COIN phases of clear, hold, build tribal engagement to expand the operating
force available to the MEFs to ensure local security, and targeted counterterrorism
aimed at degrading al Qaedas clandestine apparatus, was all critical to the Marine
success in Anbar. Implemented in 20062007 by IMEF and IIMEF, it culminated
in the situation General Kelly found when he returned to Iraq in early 2008.
The Marines had once more adapted and improvised. And in doing so they
will have added a new entryAnbarto the long list of the Corps other wellknown historical triumphs at Belleau Woods, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Peleliu, Iwo
Jima, Okinawa, Inchon, Chosin, Khe Sanh, and Hue City. The narrative that follows tells the story of the successful four-year campaign to defeat al Qaeda in
Iraqs Anbar Province.

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