LAT: 'Gated communities' planned for Baghdad

[DeepModem Mom]

'Gated communities' planned for Baghdad
New U.S. strategy calls for creating zones of safety in the Iraqi capital, then working outward.
By Julian E. Barnes, Times Staff Writer
January 11, 2007

WASHINGTON — The military's new strategy for Iraq envisions creating "gated communities" in Baghdad — sealing off discrete areas and forcibly removing insurgents, then stationing American units in the neighborhood to keep the peace and working to create jobs for residents.

The U.S. so far has found it impossible to secure the sprawling city. But by focusing an increased number of troops in selected neighborhoods, the military hopes it can create islands of security segregated from the chaos beyond.

The gated communities plan has been tried — with mixed success — in other wars. In Vietnam, the enclaves were called "strategic hamlets" and were a spectacular failure. But counterinsurgency experts say such zones can work if, after the barriers are established, the military follows up with neighborhood sweeps designed to flush out insurgents and militia fighters.

The strategy, described in broad terms by current and former Defense Department officials, is an attempt to re-create the success military units have had in smaller Iraqi cities, most notably Tall Afar.

For the last two years, the military has been focused primarily on training Iraqi security forces. But under the new plan, the primary mission of American combat forces in Baghdad will be to protect Iraqis living in the city....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-military11jan11,0,1685855.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Um.. Mortars and rockets can go over gates...

And grenades, etc.

And vans filled with plastique can sometimes go through gates, yadda yadda...

Is it just me or is the "stupid" meter about to break on this one?

[Big Pappa]

2. Nice

After billions of dollars, this is the plan for winning the war?

[VegasWolf]

3. Well, these ARE the ONLY kind of neighborhoods that Bush is familiar with. nt

[Kikosexy2]

4. What is it ...

with Bubble King and isolated environments?....sucks to be him though...

[PlanetBev]

5. I guess they'll be "Eatin' good in the neighborhood."

What about the rest of Iraq, you bastards?

[bobthedrummer]

6. Another possibility: "Baghdad 2025: The Pentagon Solution to a Planet of Slums"

by Nick Turse
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0108-29.htm

[HuffleClaw]

7. think: warsaw ghetto

what a nightmare

[coalition_unwilling]

9. Think: Indian reservations - n/t

[Paulie]

11. Or the walls in Belfast

Separating the catholic and protestant neighborhoods.

[ellisonz]

20. But with RPG's and an enemy that isn't starving/fighting to the death...

Stalingrad works too.

[Eugene]

8. This is a kinder, gentler version of the cordon and search tactics already in use.

One huge problem was that the Iraq government would not stand up
to the Sadrists when they protested cordoning off Sadr City.
In effect, the cordon and disarm program was applied mostly
to the Sunnis. The insugents eventually trickled back in.

The only new twist here is that U.S. troops intend to stay
in the neighborhoods this time, risky to say the least.
This is otherwise the same pacification strategy U.S. forces
have tried and failed for the past five months.

[Solly Mack]

10. From July 2006 in Ramadi

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2371081&mesg_id=2371081

"Now, American commanders are trying something totally new," the article continues. "They are going to get rid of it, planning to bulldoze about three blocks in the middle of the city and convert them into a "Green Zone," a version of the fortified and largely stable area that houses the Iraqi and American leadership in Baghdad."

Creating mini "green zones" or "gated communities" within Baghdad , aside from the bulldozing, is basically the same thing they were talking about doing in Ramadi back in July of 2006.


From July 2006

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Solly%20Mack/53

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2371081&mesg_id=2371104

[liberal renegade]

12. Hmmmmmmmmmmm!

The Pearly Gate Zones or The Pearly Gates Estates

[TexasLawyer]

14. New and Improved Strategy!

Sounds a lot like the old and failed strategy. A lot of our guys are still getting kiled in Ramadi.


'Gated communities' planned for Baghdad
New U.S. strategy calls for creating zones of safety in the Iraqi capital, then working outward.

[Nihil]

21. Guaranteed to recruit hundreds to the Iraqi resistance.

> "They are going to get rid of it, planning to bulldoze about three blocks
> in the middle of the city and convert them into a "Green Zone" ...

Has it not occurred to the genius who drafted this up that those "three
blocks in the middle of the city" would have been the homes and total
possessions of a lot of people?

How do you think they will feel about this?
How do you think they will react?

[Solly Mack]

22. There was also a "surge" back in Oct of 2006 in Baghdad

that the "Generals on the ground" deemed to be "simply not working"

"The spike in U.S. deaths has also had a sobering effect on military commanders, who for the first time this week admitted that the plan to bring more U.S. troops into Baghdad to pacify the city is simply not working, and needs to be re-thought."


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=3091528&mesg_id=3091528

The plan then was also to "pacify the city"...just as the same plan Bush promoted in his "surge" speech the other night.

and Yes, you're right, I think...it will recruit more "insurgents"

[daleo]

13. Weren't these called "safe hamlets" in Viet Nam

And didn't that fail? (maybe it was "strategic hamlet")

I listened to Gates and Casey for a bit today. If you just mentally replaced "Iraq" with Viet Nam, "Baghdad" with "Saigon", and so on, their speeches could have been written in 1967.

[Neshanic]

15. They will look like "Tasty Acres" in that Lily Tomlin movie.

[struggle4progress]

16. Oh, thank goodness! All the Iraqi millionaires will be safe!

[PurityOfEssence]

17. The new feudalism, a Republican's dream

Why shouldn't the "quality people" benefit more? Regardless of what they put into the system, they should be sustained as paragons of virtue.

[truthisfreedom]

18. "In Vietnam, the enclaves were called "strategic hamlets" and were a spectacular failure."

How reassuring.

3000 more will die, bushco will leave office, and the next president will begin the withdrawl.

[ellisonz]

19. The comparison to the strategic hamlet program is actually a poor one...

In the tactical sense, although it does have some strategic significance.

"Strategic hamlets" were primarly in rural South Vietnam and not in urban zones. Also the SH program was from 1961-1965, relatively early in the American phase of it, as opposed to a "last ditch" effort.

The problem with this concept is that Tal Afar was a city of 150,000 and Sadr City alone has 1 million people. So the scale they want to do this on makes no sense because 21,500 more people on top of the 50-70 thousand soldiers in Baghdad is still not enough to actually do the job of cordon in search. If they actually try to carry out this plan our troops will be sitting ducks. All you have to do is look at the map of Baghdad to see how irregularly planned the city is and then realize that there are an inumerable amount of allyways and damaged buildings, which provide excellent hiding places and passageways. It's a game of whackamole, and we're the mole. Forget the IED's, the insurgents are just going to switch back to sniping and hit and run attacks. Crud.

There is no military "solution" in Baghdad, much less Iraq.

:(