Iraq: A Fragile Area

Army Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, commander of Multinational Division-North and the 1st Armored Division in Iraq, refused three times to answer what he thought of the draw down of the troops during a live remote briefing held in the Pentagon. “You’re asking me to speculate on that, and I won’t,” he said. Hertling also said he did not like the use of the term “draw down,” and pointed out that a year ago, there were over 1800 attacks per month in the region that he is in charge of, and compared that to the mere 108 attacks that occurred only a month ago.

A year ago, Hertling said, the unemployment in the area was staggering, and the Iraqis seemed to be taking one step forward for each two steps back. Calling the area “fragile,” he said that now they seem to be taking more of a “three or four steps forward,” for each step back. Elaborating on the word “fragile,” Hertling said there is an “evil and committed enemy” in the area, and that when they got there “nothing works right.” There are no democratic process, he continued, no rule of law procedures, no capabilities to hold people accountable for contracts, and that there are agricultural concerns, and budget execution issues, adding that the enemy affects all of it. He mentioned that the accounting offices, although functional, are actually using paper ledgers to account for millions of dinars.

Agreeing readily that there have indeed been three incidents originating in the north, [two of the three individuals are subsequently on trial for murder (the third having been killed while in the act of murdering other soldiers)], Hertling brought up a story about a soldier that drowned trying to save another man. Iraqi soldiers that didn’t even know the victim searched the freezing waters for over four hours trying to find the body, Hertling said. Those three incidents, he said, are not representative of the sixty thousand Iraqi troops that serve with American troops, every single day.