Stryker soldiers shift to reconstruction in Baqouba

BAQOUBA, Iraq – Stryker brigade leaders played a central role in organizing a key meeting of politicians, locals and military this week in an attempt to restore the political process and basic services to the Iraqi city of Baqouba.

Meanwhile, a peace accord was signed between 25 Sunni and Shiite tribal leaders who agreed to work together to keep al-Qaida in Iraq from returning to the city it once declared as its headquarters in the country.

The agreements might be one of the few pieces of good news coming out of Iraq as the Stryker brigade’s Baqouba operation, Arrowhead Ripper, moves toward its third month.

On Monday, four soldiers from the unit – the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division – were killed when a booby-trapped house exploded in the city of some 200,000 people, 35 miles north of Baghdad.

Despite this loss and the fact that most U.S. soldiers are still busy securing and clearing the city, the operation has shifted into a reconstruction phase.

Baqouba has been without basic services and aid from Baghdad since Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, proclaimed Baqouba his center of operations last year.

Military leaders and Iraqi community leaders, known as muqtars, say the city was fertile ground for recruiting Sunni men plagued by 70 percent unemployment who accepted money to plant improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. But strict enforcement of Islamic law, along with fear and intimidation tactics, eventually alienated the locals.

Baqouba citizens began to take back their city in March and fought the terrorists for eight days before running out of ammunition.

By June they were supported by U.S. troops in the 10-day heavy combat phase of Arrowhead Ripper. To date, a brigade spokesman said, 183 enemy combatants have been captured and 83 confirmed killed.

Capt. Ben Richards, the Fort Lewis Stryker commander in the area, said locals pointed out terrorists and even pulled explosives out of the ground themselves.

“Children were cutting the command wires in IEDs that were buried around their school,” said Richards, who leads Bravo Company of the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment.

Now that security has improved, 3rd Brigade commanders are focused on restoring political authority and basic services such as food, fuel, health care and education.

This week, Lt. Cols. Fred Johnson and Avanulus Smiley crammed into a small, stuffy room in an old Iraqi government office building with 40 or 50 others: muqtars; Iraqi security force members; and representatives from the Baqouba Guardians, who fought against the U.S. before realizing that al-Qaida did not share their vision for Iraq.

Johnson is the brigade’s deputy commander, and Smiley leads one of the infantry battalions – the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment.

They were joined by Abdullah Ahmed, the newly elected mayor of Baqouba, as they spent three hours discussing problems with water, food, power and security.

Recently, after repeated failures on Baghdad’s part to send food to Baqouba, the mayor of the Sunni-dominated city showed up at the warehouse just outside the capital’s Shia-dominated Sadr City. The mayor, a short man with a quick smile, was refused.

He returned with Johnson, six Stryker vehicles, 16 flatbed trucks and aerial support. After much haggling and arguing – and what Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, deputy commanding officer for U.S. forces in Northern Iraq, called “sheer force of will” – they succeeded in loading the trucks.

Reconstruction has a long way to go, but when Johnson makes his weekly visits to the neighborhoods, he finds streets that were deserted a month ago are bustling with open markets.

He said most locals seem pleased to see him; some complain, others say the situation is gradually improving and many voice disbelief that anything is arriving in the warehouses.

When a large supply of kerosene failed to appear on schedule last weekend, it didn’t help Johnson’s case. That changed a few hours later when 85 truckloads of food, cooking oil and powdered milk showed up unexpectedly.

For now there is enough visible progress to encourage Shia and Sunni sheiks to publicly swear on the Quran that they will jointly protect their neighborhoods. There is enough faith in the process for the muqtars to meet and voice both problems and solutions.

While the mayor of Baqouba relied on intervention by the Fort Lewis colonels to control this week’s meeting, Johnson said he’s optimistic that steps such as Saturday’s food convoy will bolster the mayor’s credibility over time. And this will help give him the authority he’ll need before U.S. forces can leave.

The 3rd Brigade is scheduled to return to Fort Lewis next month.

“As long as the mind is open,” Johnson said, “there’s a solution in Baqouba.”

Leader vows to remember losses

Col. Steve Townsend, the commander of 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, said he has a clear memory of the four soldiers who died this week in Baqouba, Iraq.

Staff Sgt. Jacob M. Thompson, Sgt. Nicholas A. Gummersall, Spc. Juan M. Alcantara and Spc. Kareem R. Khan were killed Monday when a house they were searching exploded.

Townsend watched the four men distribute food to poor Iraqis in Baqouba the day before they were killed. He said he admires their commitment and added their names to a personal list he keeps of every soldier lost under his command.

“I pull it out ever Veterans and Memorial Day and read the list,” Townsend said. “I try to remember their faces and tell my sons a story about each of them.”

The brigade has lost 47 soldiers since arriving in Iraq in June 2006. It is scheduled to return to Fort Lewis next month.