FOB Marez, Mosul --- We’re packing up to leave Iraq.
Tony and I were thinking back today to the first mission we covered in Baghdad about a month and a half ago. We ran out of the Stryker, crouching and ducking behind walls, half expecting bullets and rockets to be flying everywhere. That’s not the way it is here, although a sniper did shoot at us that first day.
Much of the time it seems calm on the streets of Iraq. It becomes almost routine and you have to make a conscious effort not to let your guard down. Soldiers say the same thing. You have to remind yourself that most Americans don’t die here in big gun battles. The danger is a hidden bomb or single shot from a figure concealed on a rooftop.
I’m glad we had a chance to go on missions in both Baghdad and Mosul. I don’t think people at home realize this, but they are really two completely different wars. Baghdad is a vicious, no-holds barred war zone where even America’s supposed allies, the Iraqi police and army, often can’t be trusted.
Everything there is about the Shiite-Sunni death match.
In Mosul, there are many more cars on the streets and shops that are open. The Iraqi army seems far more motivated here. I think a lot of that is due to the fact much of the army in this city is made up of Kurds whose families were gassed and buried alive under Saddam.
They have a different outlook on the American presence in Iraq than the Arabs who make up the majority of this country’s population. There are tensions between Arabs and Kurds in Mosul, and I’ve heard of Kurdish families fleeing the city because of threats. But it hasn’t risen to the level of open warfare as in Baghdad.
The police in Mosul do have corruption problems, but they seem a lot more effective than the ones down in Baghdad. The Mosul police have certainly improved since 2004, when they fled their posts en masse and this city of over 2 million was a violent mess.
A correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, Robert Kaplan, wrote an article on Mosul this spring entitled, “The Coming Normalcy?” Kaplan gave the credit for cleaning up this northern city to the 1-25 Lancers from Fort Lewis, who deployed here from 2004 to 2005.
“Mosul is a success story, although the success is relative, partial and tenuous,” Kaplan wrote.
I can definitely see what Kaplan was saying. Baghdad, though, remains a completely different problem.
-- Sean Cockerham