The ‘Greywolf Brigade,’ 1st

cramped U.S. Army base called Scorpion, named for its creature inhabitants and the reason soldiers shake out their boots each morning, sits in the middle of a sprawling Iraqi army train- ing base about 12 miles south of Mosul. Surrounded by a perimeter wall, the base

34 ARMY I March 2010 A guard keeps watch at the Scorpion base gate as a nighttime logistics package convoy approaches to deliver supplies.

consists of two barracks buildings with a carrier deck, and life there requires strong mobile kitchen trailer parked in back. Its tolerance for the mundane existence of a parking area is crammed hub to hub with cloistered living revolving around mission mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) schedules, mealtimes, and late-night Inter- vehicles, Humvees and various other net and phone contact with home. pieces of equipment. Arrivals and depar- Scorpion, known by various designations tures require an exacting choreography over time—patrol base, combat outpost or akin to moving planes around an aircraft- joint security station—is nondescript (gray

March 2010 I ARMY 35 A soldier from D, SSG Walter Hoard, left, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry uses a flashlight to check Regiment (D/1-12 Cavalry), supplies delivered to 1st Cavalry Division, guides Scorpion base. a mine resistant ambush protected vehicle.

More than 115,000 American troops remain deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom, a significant force requested by the U.S. commanders to maintain a strategic bulwark against turbulence that might follow the next Iraqi na- tional elections, which are scheduled to take place this month. The political ground established by the last na- tional elections was the foundation for escalating sectarian clashes, a result of the new balance of political power among major sectarian factions and which culminated with an American troop surge to help quell the violence at its height. Apprehensions persist of attacks to disrupt the election or to undermine security preceding it (and Above, D/1-12 a rash of major bombings has recently Cavalry soldiers occurred in Baghdad) or a new round eat in the Scorpion of sectarian clashes following it, so base dining area. Below, soldiers at American forces remain in place to Scorpion watch a support Iraqi security forces if re- football game. quested. Meanwhile, U.S. units have filled in the gaps as allied nations re- duced their forces and then withdrew altogether. For example, U.S. forces took over area responsibility in south- ern Iraq, principally around Basra, as British forces left. American headquarters in Iraq concrete, tan trucks and a coating of dust) and not unique. were redesignated recently to reflect changes, both in Over the years, many American bases in Iraq have shared terms of allied participation and the fact that Iraqi security its isolation and austerity. Situated near the town of forces are independent of the U.S. forces and in charge. Haman Alil, Scorpion is important because it is one of a di- Multi-National Force-Iraq is now U.S. Forces-Iraq, and minishing number of small American forward bases in Multi-National Division (MND)-North, MND-Center and Iraq as agreements with the Iraqi government and chang- MND-South are now U.S. Division (USD)-North, USD- ing missions have resulted in consolidation of American Center and USD-South. forces on larger camps outside Iraqi urban areas. Currently, the U.S. order of battle in Iraq also is being

36 ARMY I March 2010 Military police (MP) soldiers attached to D/1-12 Cavalry provide overwatch for a traffic control point.

SPC Stephen LaBadie stands in the gunner’s hatch of a D/1-12 Cavalry vehicle while on patrol.

a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement. As 2009 drew to a close, Scorpion was home to Company D, 1st Battal- ion, 12th Cavalry Regiment (D/1-12 Cavalry), part of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT), 1st Cavalry Division, known as the Grey- wolf Brigade. It was about to be re- placed by a unit from the 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized); the 3rd In- fantry Division Headquarters had taken over responsibility as USD- North, and its brigades were deploy- ing as advise-and-assist formations. The roles and missions of outgoing 3rd HBCT units had been evolving throughout their deployment and made a seismic shift on June 30, when agreements called for Iraqi security filled by brigade combat teams that are augmented for and forces to take the lead in all operations and for U.S. forces focused toward the advise-and-assist mission, supporting to leave Iraqi cities. and training Iraqi security forces. All American “combat” Throughout the cities, combat outposts—established as forces are to be withdrawn by the end of August under President Barack Obama’s orders, with a residual force SGT Aris Duncan, a 204th MP Company of some 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops squad leader assigned to the D/1-12 remaining to conduct the support Cavalry task force. mission until American forces leave at the end of 2011 under current terms of

1LT Greg Gober, a platoon leader with the D/1-12 Cavalry task force.

38 ARMY I March 2010 CPT Brian Panaro, D/1-12 Cavalry commander, talks with an Iraqi policeman and store owners during a market check near Scorpion base.

a mainstay of the surge “clear and hold” strategy—were dismantled. Vari- ous local interpretations (and degrees of friction) concerning the Americans’ role followed as the new security working environment found footing. Many U.S. units were effectively re- stricted to waiting for a call from Iraqi security forces, and a call never came. Some units were given a more ac- tive cooperative operational role, es- nized cells and forced others to go to ground. Violent acts still occur in Iraq, and U.S. troops remain in danger, but American casualties in Iraq have de- creased significantly, and Iraqi secu- rity forces have taken the lead for maintaining security, which was the long-term goal of the Coalition effort all along. At Scorpion, soldiers adapt- ed to the new operating conditions and missions. “Initially, our mission was to inter- dict [insurgent] supplies going into Mosul,” explained CPT Brian Panaro, the D/1-12 Cavalry commander. It was CPL Brandy Brewer, 204th MP a high-operational-tempo mission that Company, directs traffic on the main kept his soldiers outside the wire to es- road linking Scorpion base and Mosul. tablish traffic-control points on roads leading to Mosul and screen lines to pecially in northern Iraq, where many surviving hardcore insurgent cells dis- placed by the surge had fled (chiefly al Qaeda in Iraq and its factions and disparate Sunni insurgent groups), bringing escalated violence to areas already experiencing a high level of strife. Subsequently, a series of U.S.- Iraqi operations were launched to capture, destroy or disrupt the insur- gents, which crippled several orga-

A D/1-12 Cavalry soldier watches a section of the perimeter as his platoon visits an outlying village.

40 ARMY I March 2010 watch open ground; they even inter- SSG Billy Watts, a squad leader in the dicted boats travelling on the Tigris D/1-12 Cavalry task force. River. Tasks included intelligence gath- ering and then conducting raids when the intelligence was good. One Com- pany D raid captured the number-two person on the regional most-wanted list, breaking up a vehicle-borne impro- vised explosive device (IED) cell that had plagued Mosul. The low point was the day last May when an Iraqi army soldier, an in- structor at the surrounding base, ap- proached the gate at Scorpion, shoot- ing soldiers guarding the gate and barging into the base’s parking area, firing at troops working there. He killed two American soldiers and A truck driver draws a fuel sample at the wounded three others in the moments oil distribution center. before he was gunned down. After June, Iraqi forces assumed the primary interdiction mission, and Company D soldiers operated under the new agreements, conducting joint operations and patrols and concen- trating effort on counterinsurgency- related operations such as initiating reconstruction projects, rapport build- ing and providing humanitarian assis- tance to Iraqi civilians in the sur- rounding area. The unit’s most mundane mission —which could prove to be its greatest contribution, considering the second- and third-order effects—was checking fuel quality at the nearby Iraqi oil dis- tribution center. It may not seem like much at first blush, but the inspec- tions addressed, and eventually cleared up, several major problems. Mosul and the surrounding region receive fuel by truck. Tanker convoys travel from the south and must stop at the distribution center to have the loads measured to ensure they arrive with the same amount of fuel in the tanks as when they started. Fuel had a habit of getting lost on the way to its destination. After the tankers started being measured, the problem was that fuel was still getting lost, but the vol- ume was being made to look right by dumping cheaper (and inferior) chem- icals into tanks to make up for fuel SSG Kirk Fuller tests a that had been stolen for eventual sale fuel sample at the oil on the black market. distribution center. The effect was felt on multiple lev-

March 2010 I ARMY 41 Left, SSG Ronny police [IP]. There was no investigation, Quinn distributes no follow-up, on an attack,” CPT Pa- heaters and blankets naro said. “But one of the biggest during a D/1-12 Cav- things I’m proud of now is the im- alry humanitarian provement in the IPs. The cooperation mission to an out- lying village. Below, and partnership level is up tenfold. soldiers from Com- When I first took over, it was a strug- pany B, 3rd Battal- gle to get anything from them, but ion, 8th Cavalry now they call me instead of the other Regiment (B/3-8 way around.” He noted that the secu- Cavalry), conduct a rity situation has improved so much patrol in Mosul to that he no longer hears the usual secu- familiarize their re- rity complaints. placements from the CPT Panaro said the other major 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regi- challenge concerned the local popula- ment, 3rd Infantry tion: “Changing their perceptions of Division (Mecha- who we were … took time; the first nized), with their couple of months were difficult. We area of responsibility. did a few [reconstruction] projects and gave out some micro grants, and they started coming around. They don’t give us dirty looks anymore.” Still, Iraqis ask for services and im- provements that the Americans can’t give them—things that the Iraqi gov- ernment will have to provide or they will need to provide for themselves. “We can only push the rope out so far; they have to pull it,” CPT Panaro said.

Final Days, Final Hours One must give credit to the soldiers of Company B, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cav- alry Regiment (B/3-8 Cavalry). They were working right up to the last tick on the transfer-of-authority (TOA) clock—the packing up, loading on the plane, leaving Iraq in one piece, going home clock. And it was round in the els. Citizens who bought fuel through the standard market chamber, going outside the wire kind of work, rolling into were cheated; their cars conked out, and it further under- the center of Mosul; it wasn’t the inventorying, cleaning cut their faith in the government to provide the simplest of weapons, staying out of the first sergeant’s direct line of services and protection. They not only blamed Baghdad of- sight work they were doing between missions. ficials, but also leveled some of that blame at American Part of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd HBCT and operat- forces, which tend to get part of all blame, warranted or ing from Camp Marez on the far fringe of Mosul, the com- not. Also, profits derived from black-market fuel were pany had been on the city’s streets for a year—the worst used to fund insurgent groups. parts of Mosul, routes that at times were practically a guar- When Company D started checking the fuel quality of anteed IED incident and neighborhoods where ambushes every truck, using the same handheld chemical identifica- erupted suddenly if not unexpectedly. tion devices used by explosive ordnance disposal teams, During the first part of the company’s deployment, Mo- the problem cleared up quickly as word got around. Citizens sul had been one of the most violence-prone areas in Iraq, started receiving decent fuel, and insurgents lost one of as insurgents and zealots driven north from Baghdad by their primary revenue sources, a loss that can only be esti- surge operations were running scared or in the throes of mated in the millions of dollars. making a last stand, both acts of desperation and, there- During the year at Scorpion, the overall situation in the fore, dangerous. company’s area of responsibility improved. “When I got The B/3-8 Cavalry commander, CPT Shane Aguero, vis- here, the biggest challenge was the proficiency of the Iraqi ited Iraqi federal police brigade headquarters to coordinate

42 ARMY I March 2010 2LT Marcus Harness, a B/3-8 Cavalry platoon leader, points out a route to an Iraqi federal police officer.

SFC Gregory Hererra, a B/3-8 Cavalry platoon sergeant, watches street activity in Mosul as his platoon makes a stop.

the missions and show his replacement the ropes of gain- ing cooperation under the post-June 30 restrictions on U.S. presence and activity in Iraqi cities—in a nutshell, not much presence, not much activity and never without Iraqi forces alongside. Company B’s missions in the last hours before TOA were not really presence patrols; they were reconstruction related, providing security for Civil Affairs teams conduct- ing surveys inside the city. Whether a security mission or patrol doesn’t make much difference, however—soldiers can see what’s going on in town whatever the mission is called. Working with Iraqis in the lead requires a good measure of patience. It takes time, sometimes hours, to make a linkup and get on the road. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. The Iraqis can shut down an American mission for hav- ing one too many vehicles or for having one too few—any reason they choose or no reason whatsoever.

Soldiers from B/3-8 Cavalry conduct a night patrol in a Mosul shopping area.

44 ARMY I March 2010 SSG John Nightingale, B/3-8 Cavalry, checks damage caused by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated at Mosul’s main train station. His platoon provided security for a Civil Affairs (CA) team making a site survey.

2LT Harness finds coordinates on a map before leading a patrol into Mosul.

The burst of final patrols wasn’t bravado. Besides sup- porting Civil Affairs efforts, the missions gave Company B’s ride-along replacements some measure of familiariza- tion with the area, showing them as much as possible the routes, layout, nuances and dangers before they assumed responsibility and giving them a better chance to stay alive. Back at the B/3-8 Cavalry command post, CPT Aguero said, “The difficult part of a TOA is trying to give them a year’s worth of knowledge without being a know-it-all and obnoxious, and without insulting their intelligence.” This deployment marked CPT Aguero’s third Iraq tour. On the first, he served as a platoon leader in Baghdad’s Sadr City section; on the second, he served with the reconcilia- tion program; this time, he served as a counterterrorism- targeting staff officer first, then shifted to take company command. “I’ve seen it at every level—platoon to echelons above corps. Individually, each is a valid view, but each is a scaled view. At the platoon level, you have the same view as at the theater level, but in microcosm. Nobody has a wrong view of the war, but nobody should view one thing as the whole,” he said. “Week to week, you may not see it: SSG Nightingale stands at the edge of a It’s only at the end of a tour that you can see how each ro- river of sewage in Mosul as a CA team tation has changed overall security.” assesses what can be done to help. His assessment of the security situation in Mosul at the end of his tour was that the major insurgent cells were pretty

46 ARMY I March 2010 An Iraqi federal police officer voices concerns to an interpreter as soldiers from B/3-8 Cavalry conduct a joint patrol in Mosul.

The sign on an American Humvee reads “assistance team authorized by the Iraqi government” to identify it for movement inside Mosul.

B/3-8 Cavalry commander CPT Shane Aguero coordinates a mission with an Iraqi federal police officer as required; U.S. soldiers must be accompanied by Iraqi soldiers or police. much whipped or had shed the mantle of freedom fighters and degenerated to their true core—criminals and thugs. The problem as he sees it now is to get regular crime under control. “Mosul is a crime-ridden city like … Rio de Janeiro. The [insurgency] situation is not what it was a year ago. AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] is not dead, but it is bleeding on the ground and los- ing the will to live,” CPT Aguero ob- served. “AQI is hurting. The trigger- pullers are still around, the low-level dudes. The big AQI guys have been skimming off the top of their own funds, so there have been a lot of rota- tions in leadership.” He noted that the insurgents’ main asset is their mobility on foot inside

SSG Tim Jalbert, a B/3-8 Cavalry squad leader, in Mosul.

48 ARMY I March 2010 2LT Harness on patrol. A suspect’s office is searched by an American soldier and his Iraqi counterpart.

“They have come a long way in be- coming an actual army.”

Helping Them Reach The Next Level LTC Loren Schriner, commander of SSG Trevor Hall, the 3rd HBCT’s 215th Brigade Sup- B/3-8 Cavalry. port Battalion and responsible for supplying and maintaining the bri- gade combat team, had a second job during the brigade’s deployment. He mentored and assisted the 2nd Iraqi Army (IA) Division and 3rd IA Divi- sion logisticians toward achieving a modern logistics system. The down- the old town neighborhoods, with “cellularity”—the abil- side was the commute: The more distant IA division head- ity to break into smaller and smaller cells for survival— quarters was situated more than two hours away by their second asset. “But the result is a cell of three or four MRAP, and he made a trip to visit one or the other division jihadists with 8,000 dinar and an AK. They have to rob about twice a week. stores, steal money, for attacks,” he ex- plained. On the other hand, CPT Aguero said the Iraqi security forces “have come a long way this year.” Military transition training teams have been successful in teaching planning and coordination, and American units aligned with Iraqi units have been successful in teaching them how to successfully execute plans. “They get it,” CPT Aguero said.

SPC Emily Laird, a medic assigned to Company C, 215th Brigade Support Battalion (C/215 BSB), instructs Iraqi policemen during combat lifesaver training at Camp Marez outside Mosul.

50 ARMY I March 2010 an American solution; it’s their sys- tem, and we just help them fix it,” he said. “That’s been unique during our rotation.” It is a significantly different environ- ment from his last deployment. “Dur- ing 2006–07, I was giving them food, water and fuel and fixing their vehi- cles for them,” he said. “I have not given them a gallon of gas or a single repair part in the past 11 months.” The thing the Iraqi army needs now is what it has needed most all along, SPC Gregory according to LTC Schriner: “Time.” Morgan, a C/215 BSB medic, cor- Guarded Optimism for the Future rects a casualty- Painted on a wall of the brigade carry position command group offices at Camp during combat lifesaver training Marez, a large yellow-and-black ren- for Iraqi policemen. dition of the 1st Cavalry Division patch remained, but the portable dec- orations had been removed and packed for shipment back to the 3rd HBCT’s home at Fort Hood, Texas. Transfer of authority to the incoming 2nd HBCT, 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized), would take place soon, and the 1st Cavalry patch would re- main visible only until enough blue and white paint was unpacked to cover it with the Marne patch. Unit decorations are temporary, but accomplishments are not. The Grey- wolf Brigade would leave a lasting ef- “This is my third rotation to Iraq, and the thing that is fect on Mosul and Ninawa Province, a chunk of territory different this time is steady improvement of the IA. This the size of West Virginia in northern Iraq and the 3rd rotation, they have gone from night to day,” he said. HBCT’s area of responsibility for the previous year. “Think about what we in the U.S. “When we came in, the fight to de- Army take for granted, such as using feat al Qaeda in Iraq and violent ex- the Internet to order parts. Well, the tremists in Mosul was still ongoing,” IA is doing that now, and that’s a ma- said COL Gary Volesky, the 3rd HBCT jor step.” commander. “We got in on the 19th of LTC Schriner explained that the IA January, so our focus was on setting divisions have established a “full-cir- conditions for the provincial elections cle logistics system,” which in over- that were going to occur on the 31st. simplified terms means that a unit or- After the elections, which went very ders a part, the order is accepted and well, we focused on clearing Mosul. processed by the various levels of the What was different was the methodol- system, and the part gets to the unit to ogy we used: Isolation of the neigh- complete the circle. “They don’t use borhoods; clearing the neighborhoods with the Iraqis in the lead; going in behind it with the humanitarian assis- tance drop; and then hiring military- Rows of Bronze Star Medals laid out for an award ceremony as the 1st Cavalry age males in that neighborhood to do Division’s 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat a project and get them out of the AQI Team (HBCT) prepares to transfer recruiting line because they didn’t authority and leave Iraq. have any money to feed their fami-

52 ARMY I March 2010 COL Gary Volesky, 3rd HBCT commander, gives the reenlistment oath to 3/8 Cavalry soldiers during a ceremony in Iraq.

lies.” Approximately 9,000 Mosul citizens would be em- “We’ve continued to reach out with quality-of-life and ployed on reconstruction projects over the next six months. essential-services improvements, and the result we’ve seen “That gained a lot of momentum as we started to put is that the insurgents have to move farther and farther some economic recovery and quality-of-life improvements away from Mosul to maintain freedom of movement,” into the city as well as working with our counterparts in a COL Volesky noted. clear, hold and build strategy. Mosul had been cleared a “AQI is disorganized now,” he said. “They’re trying to number of times, but what we didn’t have was the force to figure out how to get themselves back together because hold the gains,” COL Volesky explained. they are completely disrupted. Now we can target those “When we got here, there were a lot of insurgents driv- lines of effort, like financing, that we were never able to get ing to work out of the support zones—what we call the at because we were always fighting the insurgents. Now belts around Mosul—where they were able to store lethal that they are disrupted, we are able to find where they are aid and come into the city, conduct attacks and drive back. getting money. If you can strangle the money line, they We established a big presence, working with our counter- can’t operate. So now AQI has resorted to intimidation, as- parts, in the support zones [to stop it],” he added. sassination and extortion of big business to raise money, The U.S.-Iraqi security framework gave Iraq sovereignty and that is turning the population against the insurgency after June 30 along with responsibility for its own security, and giving more and more credibility to the Iraqi security and the 3rd HBCT made the transition from directing oper- forces.” ations to supporting operations. COL Volesky said the major challenge now centers on “It was not a significant change because we always improving Arab-Kurd relations and resolving some of wanted the Iraqis to be in front of us,” COL Volesky said. their major differences, something that is essential for the “So on July 1, we focused on enabler support—aircraft, northern part of the country, directly, and all of Iraq as a military working dogs, explosive ordnance disposal assets nation. “This can’t be solved at the local level. It can’t be and the like. When Iraqi forces took over Mosul, many solved at the provincial level. This is a national-level issue people thought—as they had during the provincial elec- that has to be solved,” he said. tions—that it wouldn’t go well. It did. A lot of people “Nevertheless, I am cautiously optimistic,” COL Volesky thought we’d have to run back in after June 30. We added. “The people here are better off today than when we haven’t. There have been a number of attacks in Mosul arrived. Recovery is ongoing. Streets are being paved. since then, and the Iraqi security forces have not asked us Schools are being renovated. Trash is getting picked up in to come back and help them.” the city now. We are working on electrical projects and wa- With Iraqi forces handling Mosul’s security, the situation ter projects. The stepping stones for Mosul are being freed greater numbers of U.S. troops to expand operations climbed. The province is better because today the people in the countryside and use the same tactics that had are starting to see the benefits of tying into the provincial worked in the city, expanding services and providing bet- government. I am cautiously optimistic that the pieces are ter security to villages throughout the province. being put in place.” (

March 2010 I ARMY 53