These U.S. Raids In Iraq Look Real, But They Aren't

[donsu]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB117453091050845051-lMyQjAxMDE3NzI0MjUyMzIwWj.html


The Purpose Is to Check Up
On Aid to Small Business;
Help Must Be 'Invisible'


In one of the oddest raids of the war in Iraq, a convoy of U.S. Humvees rolled to a stop outside a small printing plant here one afternoon late last month. Twenty U.S. soldiers in dark goggles moved through the two-story building with assault rifles, forcing the plant's workers against an outside wall for questioning, then conducting a room-by-room search.

Because an office door was locked, the soldiers radioed Army Capt. Dan Cederman, who was leading the raid, to ask whether they should knock it down. "I told them that would kind of defeat the purpose," Capt. Cederman recalls. "We'd have just had to come back out the next day to fix it."

The strike, after all, wasn't meant to find insurgents or weapons. Its real purpose was to covertly measure the progress of U.S.-financed renovations to the company's offices.

-snip-

But given the hostility toward the U.S., officials aren't advertising their role. "The only way things will work is if the U.S. contribution is totally invisible," says Maj. Christina Nagy, a civil-affairs officer from the 82nd Airborne Division. "I have people with higher ranks than me always wanting to have a ribbon cutting. I just listen and think, 'Sure, if you want the companies to get immediately shot or blown up.' "

The raids are the brainchild of Capt. Cederman, an 82nd Airborne reservist from upstate New York who studied robotic engineering in college and works in Target Corp.'s logistics department when he isn't deployed overseas. This is his second tour in Iraq, and many of the contractors he worked with during his first tour in 2003 have since been killed by insurgents, he says.

-snip-

Last summer, Dr. Noori approached the Americans with a creative alternative. He was planning to offer courses in fashion design and tailoring and asked the Americans to help him establish a small textile factory where students from the vocational school could help design and manufacture items for sale. A portion of the profit from the clothes would then be used to offset the costs of running the school, he said.

The Americans liked the idea and agreed to give Dr. Noori more than $300,000 to renovate an abandoned building and purchase new equipment and supplies, the U.S. officers say.

With the work well under way last fall, Dr. Noori asked Capt. Cederman to see the renovations for himself, both men say. But the Iraqi stressed the importance of keeping the U.S. role secret. "Can you come in without anyone seeing you come in?" Dr. Noori remembers asking.

That didn't seem possible. Another option: Hide in plain sight. "I thought, 'Why don't we just raid the place?' " Capt. Cederman recalls.
-snip-
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madness

[Drum]

1. FUBAR. nt

[blogslut]

2. No shit

I mean, I give props to the cleverness but seriously, how fucked up is that?

[Fridays Child]

3. That tactics like this are necessary is an absolute admission of failure.

eom

[Robbien]

4. So you anger and embarrass a lot of Iraqi workers

just to avoid hostility.

What?

Create tons and tons of more hatred just so you can avoid getting dirty looks today? Chase men with your guns. Force them to line up against the wall. Yell at them in a foreign language. Barge into their property and trample all over their things all the while men are holding guns to their backs.

And the military brass thinks this is a good thing?

[lyonn]

5. According to this article the U.S. would be better off leaving Iraq

We are in the cross hairs of all factions in Iraq. Anyone associated with us seems to be a target in that country, be it Sunni or Shiite.

How about we give the Iraqis financial aid instead. This article verifies how hated we are over there as they must act like they are searching for weapons when actually they are admiring the advances this company has made due to our help??!! This is all too unbelievable or an unbelievably dumb article.

[indie_voter]

6. Insane

And we're being told we can WIN this war?

WTF?!