Diyala Offensive Part One: 'A Whole Lot of Gray'

The vast and desolate countryside of Iraq's southern Diyala province, midway between Baghdad and the Iranian border, can be an eerie place when the idling engines of U.S. Army vehicles are shut off, when the radios are silent, and the soldiers pause in conversation.  All one hears is the hot wind blowing across a terrain so dry that the dust clouds can make you feel like you're about to suffocate.  If the wind is still, there is no sound at all.  The flat terrain of crumbling dirt and occasional spots of sickly vegetation stretches to what seems an infinite distance.  The only signs of life are clusters of mud-brick dwellings, the occasional modern home, and packs of farm animals led by a shepherd to some far off grazing spot. 

It is here that a vehicle may need to use its windshield wipers to clear dust off the front windows, where a soldier once joked he'd inhaled so much dirt he wasn't hungry anymore, and where salt lines quickly form on your arms and neck from sweating in 115 degree heat.

It is also here that just after midnight on July 25, American and Iraqi soldiers launched what commanders said was the largest air assault in Iraq over the past 11 months.  Units from the Second Brigade Combat Team, First Armored Division, lifted off in Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters only to land fifteen minutes later ready for the push into their first objectives under a nearly full moon.

The goal was to occupy a portion of southern Diyala described as a "seam" where insurgent forces have been able to operate with no presence of Iraqi or coalition forces.  The operation was part of a larger offensive throughout the province tasked with the goal of clearing the region of Al Qaeda and other anti-coalition groups. 

Iraqi government officials say 50,000 Iraqi troops are now engaged in the operation through the province.

"We're a holding force, not a strike force," said Lieutenant Colonel Rich Morales, commander of the U.S. Army battalion that landed along the "seam" on the morning of the 25th.  His task was to secure the area with American and Iraqi forces long enough to allow more Iraq Army soldiers to move in and establish permanent operations.

This area has seen little sustained U.S. presence over the course of the war.  Soldiers and residents often referenced two past American operations that were quick, violent, and sometimes resulted in arrests of family and acquaintances.  The residents were, as Morales expected, nervous and weary of another U.S. presence.  At the same time, the small populations of scattered villages and towns meant to American commanders that nearly everyone must have at least some knowledge of whatever insurgent activity was occurring.

"At best their level of involvement is being complicit," Morales said on the eve of the operation.  Two days later, as his soldiers began sweeping the countryside for weapons caches and anti-coalition forces, and as the number of Army vehicles disabled by roadside bombs increased at an alarming rate, Morales took a cue from author Joseph Conrad when he characterized his area of operations in another way: the heart of darkness.

For soldiers of Alpha Company 1-35, lead by Captain Jamal Williams, the greatest adversity on the morning of the 25th was not a well organized defense by insurgent forces, but the desert sun that rose after a full morning of searching farm houses and digging in.  The incoming supply convoy was delayed and soldiers were running out of water.  Body bags full of water bottles had been dropped by helicopters, but were so far from the soldiers' fighting positions that many returned from fetching the bottles on the verge of collapsing.  The company medics began administering IV's, and one end of the small mud hut set up as the command post became crowded with soldiers laying down with needles in their arms.

Captain Williams let his men take it easy on this first day, and a helicopter re-supply was scheduled for nighttime.  Soon the soldiers were rested, hydrated, and a majority had settled into a small stone building and its surrounding courtyard roughly thirty feet from the mud hut headquarters.

Alpha Company's closest neighbors were not the Iraqi civilians they'd come to question and eventually administer to, but nearly twenty malnourished cows drinking from a nearby rusted water tank, whose excrement littered the ground where the soldiers walked.  Beyond these animals, lived the residents of two small compounds of more mud huts and bare yards where laundry hung, and long disabled farm equipment sat rusting.  There were children of all ages, women dressed in black abayas, and one old man.  But, to quote Army terminology, there were no military-age males to be seen.

Each Army unit participating in this operation found the same lack of men in each of their own areas.  This was one of the first tips to commanders that things in this seemingly quiet and isolated stretch of desert were not all they may seem.

Two days after arriving, Williams took a small patrol of American and Iraqi soldiers to the home of the old man.  The soldier's had been there on the previous day, but Williams was taking his interaction with the locals at a slow pace.  Initially, he'd told the residents why the U.S. Army was in the area, and inquired as to where all the young men were.  The old man said they would be back, that they'd gone to get water and machine parts.

For this second visit, the introductions having already been made, Williams again planned to try and gather intel on the makeup of these small villages.  The patrol walked the 50 yards from the company headquarters to the old man's house, and entered the courtyard as soldiers fanned out to once again secure the area.  Williams' interpreter called for the old man who appeared in the yard wearing a light brown robe, and greeted the soldiers with a half-smile and a throaty "salaam alaikum."

Williams once again asked the man if there was anything the family needed.  Water, said the man—the well water was not good.  And, electricity was only a rare occurrence.  Other than that the family was fine. 

Then the issue of anti-coalition forces in the area was raised.  Captain Williams received no straight answer.

"I'm an old man trying to give you hospitality," said the man.   "But I will be honest, if they come and see I am talking with Americans they'll have no mercy."

"It's your home, I understand that," said Williams.  "I don't want you to do anything that would endanger your family."

The report between the soldier and the resident was amicable and respectful.  Children peered from doorways, or stood between the soldiers looking up and following the conversation.  Williams had taken his helmet off, a sign of respect most soldiers show when speaking with someone in their home.  The man answered Williams' questions without hesitation, gesturing with one hand as he talked.

The captain again asked about the absence of young men in the village, as he had on the previous visit.

"Do you know how many sheep these men have to take care of?" the old man said.  "The only people who left, left to get parts for their machines."

The man's answer was the same as on the previous day, and indeed, similar to many answers other nearby villagers would give the soldiers in the coming days: the absence of these young men was simply work related, and had nothing to do with anti-coalition activities.

Walking back to his headquarters at the end of the patrol, Williams discussed whether or not the old man was telling the truth.  He knew the man knew something, but it would take time and a foundation of trust before truly useful information was gained.

"There's a very little bit of black, a very little bit of white, and a whole lot of gray," he said.