In Qaim, Marine tactic bears fruit

NEW UBAYDI, Iraq

The political debate over Iraq is focused increasingly on when and how to get American forces out of the country and back to the United States. But on Iraq’s border with Syria, U.S. Marines have reopened the military debate over how they can defeat the insurgency.

In the fall, the Marines swept through Qaim, a cluster of towns and villages along the Euphrates River, and wrested control from insurgent groups dominated by foreign jihadists.

Over the years and throughout Iraq, the Americans have followed up similar tactical successes by returning to large bases miles from the nearest major town. That distance from the towns and their people allowed insurgents to return and regroup.

In Qaim, Marines under Lt. Col. Julian D. Alford consolidated their position by spreading out, instead, to a dozen small bases inside towns and along major roads. The Marines’ constant presence among the civilian population has helped the Americans keep insurgents from re-establishing a large-scale presence in the area.

“You can’t give these guys sanctuary, and that’s what the big battalion [base] does,” said Col. Alford’s successor, Lt. Col. Nick Marano. “Wherever you’re not, that’s where they are.”

The assumption in most of Iraq is that a constant U.S. presence in Iraqi population centers fuels the insurgency and increases American casualties, but at Qaim, the result has been the opposite.

A ‘model’ for troops

Lt. Jon McClellan, who was sent to the area before the battle positions were established and returned this year, described a striking difference.

“You walked out in town, you’d get an IED or shot at or something,” he said of his Iraq deployment. “Now you can go have tea on Market Street.”

Col. W. Blake Crowe, who commands the Marines in western Anbar province, called Qaim “the model for where they want us to go.”

New counterinsurgency strategies seemed irrelevant early this year as speculation mounted that the U.S. military would begin substantial troop withdrawals. But the insurgency has proved its resilience in Ramadi, and an additional brigade is on its way to reinforce the Americans in western Iraq.

At Qaim, the Marines are expanding a tactic they think is working. Targeting an area the Marines say is a staging ground for attacks on Qaim’s larger towns, Col. Marano moves men into small villages that are seeing a U.S. military presence for the first time.

Capt. Greg Jones, who commands a company of Marines in eastern Qaim, said the insurgent response — a string of attacks with rockets and improvised explosive devices (IEDs ), such as car bombs — meant he and his men were looking in the right place.

Americans seek contact

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