Amid threat, U.S. heightens security at its Iraq bases

The U.S. military has beefed up security at some of its bases after a threat that an Iranian-backed militant group was planning to attack, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said Tuesday.


Men from Kataib Hezbollah, a Shiite group that U.S. officials say is trained and funded by Iran'sRevolutionary Guard Corps, crossed into Iran for training and returned to conduct attacks just as U.S. troop levels plummet over the summer, Gen. Ray Odierno said. By September, only 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq.

"In the last couple weeks there's been an increased threat," Odierno said in a briefing to reporters. "We've increased our security on some of our bases. We've also increased activity with the Iraqi Security Forces. This is another attempt by Iran and others to influence the U.S. role here inside Iraq."

So far the threat has not manifested, he said.

Odierno said the Iranian-backed militant groups seem focused primarily on attacking U.S. troops, and don't pose a long-term threat to the Iraqi government.

The Kataib Hezbollah group is plotting to use powerful rocket-propelled bombs called Improvised Rocket-Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs, Odierno said. The short-range projectiles are propane tanks packed with explosives and launched with 107 mm rockets, often off the back of pickup trucks.

In the past seven years there have been a total of 16 attacks on U.S. bases with IRAMS, including five in the past year, the U.S. officials said. With the U.S. military moving from smaller bases to larger, more densely populated bases as part of the ongoing drawdown, the IRAMs could be particularly lethal.

"There is a very consistent threat from Iranian surrogates operating in Iraq," Odierno said. "Whether it's connected directly to the Iranian government? We can argue about that. But it's clearly connected to" the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.






Iran has been an influential and sometimes nefarious neighbor to Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003. Iraqi officials often fly to neighboring Tehran for consultation, and the Islamic republic is a top trade partner for Iraq.

U.S. officials say Iran still funnels weaponry to Shiite militia groups in Iraq, although it does so much less frequently than it did in years past. Overall, Iran is pursuing more of a "soft power" approach in Iraq, Odierno said, trying to exert influence through economic investment and political pressure so as not to alienate the Iraqi people.

"The Iranian-supported surrogates have always been a larger threat to U.S. forces" than to Iraqi security forces," Odierno said. "They target specifically U.S. forces. In my mind they are not a threat to the government of Iraq or the formation of the government of Iraq."

Odierno reaffirmed that the U.S. troop withdrawal remains on track even though Iraq has yet to form a new government, more than four months after the national election. There are currently about 74,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. At the height of the U.S. military surge there were more than 165,000.

Iraq doesn't need more troops now, Odierno said; it needs political and economic support.

"For us it's about eliminating the environment that allows extremism to exist. We haven't eliminated that environment. That environment will get eliminated through economic and political progress," Odierno said. "We're not leaving tomorrow. We're going to have 50,000 American soldiers on the ground here. . . . We're not abandoning Iraq. We're changing our commitment from military-dominated to one that is civilian-led."

US troops killed in Iraq and Kuwait

Army Capt. Michael P. Cassidy


The last time Michael Cassidy was home on leave — two weeks in the middle of his deployment to Iraq — he took the daughters who his wife said were the "apples of his eyes" to the Carowinds theme park in South Carolina.

"Of course, I had a lot of errands for him to run and things to fix around the house," said Cassidy's wife, Johanna. "We just enjoyed being together."

It was extra special for his daughters, 10-year-old Catherine and 9-year-old Amber.

"He loved being a dad. He did everything for these children," Johanna Cassidy said.

The Army Captain died June 17 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries not related to combat. He was assigned to Fort Stewart.

He started life as a computer specialist and later went to Sherman College in South Carolina to become a chiropractor. But then he joined the National Guard as a medic, and he decided to make it a career after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Others who served with Cassidy remembered him in an online memorial as a consummate soldier.

"He was such a shining light, someone who knew where he wanted to go and never waivered," said Amber Gloria, who had served with Cassidy in 2005.

___

Army Spc. Jacob P. Dohrenwend

While serving as an Army specialist in Iraq, Jake Dohrenwend sometimes used his money to buy items for Iraqi children.

"He always tried to lift the spirits of those around him, even in the worst of circumstances," said his mother, Shannon Abernathy.

Dohrenwend, a Milford, Ohio, native, enlisted in 2008, the same year he graduated from Milford High School. He kept in touch with one of his teachers, Allison Willson, and sent her a letter from Iraq in October after receiving a package from her.

"I'm just doing my part and serving the country I love," he wrote. "I'm thankful for the praise and the care packages, but it's really unnecessary because I would do this job even if no one knew or cared."

Dohrenwend, 20, died June 21 in Balad, Iraq, from injuries unrelated to combat. His death is under investigation. He was assigned to Fort Riley.

He also leaves behind his father, Jim Dohrenwend.

Dohrenwend left a message for friends and family to be read in the event of his death.

"I do not regret dying for a second," he wrote. "I only regret we did not have more time. This isn't really a good-bye, but a temporary distance between us."

___

Army Pfc. Bryant J. Haynes

Bryant "B.J." Haynes didn't write much on his Myspace profile. He let the pictures do the talking.

First on the list is his pit bull terrier, Flesh. Then come the photos of an athletic football player. In one, he's nearly upside down as he takes a hard tackle "for the team," as his caption puts it.

He's among a sea of red jerseys walking out of a giant animal's mouth onto the football field, "ready for whatever."

"He was a very selfless player who loved his teammates and his school," said John Carr, who coached Haynes at Ouachita Parish High School. Haynes had played for Carr as a wide receiver.

Haynes, 21, of Epps, La., was killed in a vehicle rollover June 26 in Al Diwaniyah, Iraq. He was based with the Army National Guard in Alexandria, La.

Haynes left his school and football team before graduating because he wanted to get his GED and serve in the military.

"He was a loving young man," said his stepfather, Tony Collins. "He was caring and respectable."

Haynes is survived by his mother, Linda Toney Collins; his father, Fredrick Nichols; fiancee, Lakeidra Taylor; and nine brothers and four sisters.

___

Army Sgt. Israel O'Bryan

Israel "Izzy" O'Bryan found love in the military.

Not necessarily with his career, but with the woman he wound up marrying — Brenna — who had been a soldier in the same brigade as O'Bryan. They had a son together, 1-year-old Turner.

His dedication to his family is evident on his Facebook page: "My life revolves around benefiting my family in any way that I can even if I have to do something that I hate."

O'Bryan, 24, of Newbern, Tenn., was killed by a suicide bomber June 11 in Jalula, Iraq. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

An obituary published online said O'Bryan graduated from Dyer County High School in Tennessee and attended the University of Tennessee-Martin for a time. He enlisted in the Army in 2006.

The obituary says he was active in boxing, soccer and baseball and also "enjoyed a good shopping day!"

While his Facebook page indicates how seriously he took his duty to his wife and daughter, it also suggests a sense of humor. One of the quotes he posted reads, "Nobody worries about rearranging the seats on the Titanic."

Among others surviving O'Bryan are his mother, father, stepmother and stepfather.

___

Army Spc. Christopher W. Opat

Christopher Opat wasn't afraid to break a sweat, even as a youngster.

"He was always a really, really hard worker," said his brother, Jason Opat. "He would pick rock and bale hay when he was a kid."

He was a gentle person with an adventurous spirit and enjoyed pulling a good prank on his brothers every now and then, relatives said.

The military said only that the 29-year-old Iowan died June 15 in Baquah, Iraq, of injuries from a non-combat incident that was under investigation.

His hometown was listed as Spencer, in northwestern Iowa, but his family said he grew up on a farm near Lime Springs, in the northeastern part of the state. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, served three years in Germany and had been deployed twice.

He had joined the Army to serve his country and to get money for school, Jason Opat said.

Christopher Opat graduated in 1999 from Crestwood High School in the northern Iowa town of Cresco and went on to earn an associate's degree in construction at Iowa Lakes Community College.

Survivors include his parents, Leslie Opat Sr. and Mary Katherine Opat, two other brothers and two sisters.

___

Army Sgt. Steve M. Theobald

Steve Theobald was remembered as a great leader that one soldier called the kind of officer he wanted to have with him on a deployment.

"He knew how to instill confidence in any soldier and I would have gone anywhere with him," Army Spc. David B. Emigh, who first met Theobald during training in Indiana, wrote in an online message board. "I hated that I was sent to Afghanistan and he stayed in Kuwait. 'Theo' will be missed by us all."

Theobald, 53, of Goose Creek, S.C., was killed June 4 near Kuwait City, Kuwait, in a vehicle roll-over. He was based in Livingston, Ala. The military is investigating what caused the crash.

Theobald was a highly decorated soldier who graduated from several military schools, according to the Summerville (S.C.) Journal Scene.

He first enlisted in the military in 1975 and served for three years. He then joined the Army Reserve in 1984 and had served ever since. He was on his second tour overseas, having served from 2003-2004 in Iraq.

He was born in Pensacola but lived in South Carolina with his wife and three children.

___

Army Spc. William C. Yauch

William Yauch was an outgoing guy who loved life and his country, relatives said.

"He very much loved the U.S. Army and was doing what he believed in and wanted to be doing," said his stepmother, Debbie Yauch.

The 23-year-old from Batesville, Ark., died June 11 in Jalula, Iraq, of wounds from a vehicle-borne explosive device. He was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Debbie Yauch said her stepson was scheduled to come home in less than two months.

"Chris," as he was known, is being remembered for how he enjoyed a good game of paint ball, his passion for riding his motorcycle and his love of tinkering with his car.

"He was a friendly young man, pleasant to be around, just an all-around good guy," said principal David Campbell of Batesville High School, where Yauch graduated in 2005.

He enlisted in the Army in 2007 and married his wife, Mallory Rhodes, in February of the following year.

Other survivors include his mother and stepfather, Lucretia and Dennis Robertson; his father, Kurt Yauch; and four stepsisters, Jenny, Rachel, Barbara and Brenda.

'Tough talking' general picked to oversee Iraq, Afghan wars

A controversial and leading U.S. general is in line to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis -- if he wins presidential and Senate approval -- will move from being the outgoing commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command to leading the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. The command also monitors Iran.

He would take over the post left open by the departure of Gen. David Petraeus, who was asked to take over command of the war in Afghanistan.

Mattis was an effective leader in the Marine Corps, in the eyes of the Pentagon, while commanding troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Known for his straight talk and hard-core leadership of Marines in the 2004 battle of Falluja, Iraq, Mattis is considered a dark-horse pick by many in the halls of the Pentagon.

His blunt talk has gotten him in trouble: In 2005 he said, "It's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them," referring to Afghan fighters.

Asked if the general would be an effective leader for the Central Command region with the shadow of the comments still lingering, Gates said Thursday, "Appropriate action was taken at the time. I think that the subsequent five years have demonstrated that the lesson was learned."

"Obviously, in the wake of the Rolling Stone interview, we discussed this kind of thing. And I have every confidence that General Mattis will respond to questions and speak publicly about the matters for which he is responsible in an entirely appropriate way," Gates said.

The Rolling Stone interview led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, then the commander in Afghanistan, because of negative comments about Obama administration officials made by him and his aides.

Mattis' comment in 2005 was made when the then-three-star general was in a panel discussion before an audience.

"Actually, it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," he said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling," he said.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," he said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

The commandant of the Marine Corps at the time, Gen. Michael Hagee, counseled Mattis about the remarks but defended him publicly, calling him "one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders."

"While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war," he said in a written statement. "Lt. Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candor."

Mattis also was the commanding general overseeing the case of the now-infamous slayings of civilians by Marines in Haditha, Iraq.

Some 24 civilians were killed on November 19, 2005, in what a human rights group and military prosecutors said was a house-to-house rampage by Marines after a roadside bomb killed one of their comrades.

Eight Marines were charged, and all but one were cleared, some of them by Mattis.

Mattis also was the overseeing authority in the murder case involving eight Marines found guilty of taking part in a plot to drag an Iraqi man from his home, kill him and then make it look like the man was an insurgent. That incident occurred near the western Iraqi town of Hamdania in April 2006.

Mattis later cut the sentences of at least two of the Marines involved in the plot.

Mattis had been preparing to retire after finishing his latest command, Gates said.

"General Mattis is one of our military's outstanding combat leaders and strategic thinkers, bringing an essential mix of experience, judgment and perspective to this important post," Gates said.

"General Mattis has proven to be one of the military's most innovative and iconoclastic thinkers. His insights into the nature of warfare in the 21st century have influenced my own views about how the armed forces must be shaped and postured for the future."

2 Iraq tours, a tailspin _ and a tragic end

Coleman Bean went to Iraq twice, but his father remembers a stark difference in his son's two parting messages.

Before his first tour, his father recalls, his son said if anything happened to him, he wanted to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Before his second, four years later, he said he didn't want that any longer.

"He still was very patriotic, he believed in duty," Greg Bean says. "But he had sort of lost his commitment to what we were doing over there. His first tour ... had changed him."

Bean enlisted in the Army six days before the 9/11 attacks. He parachuted into Iraq in the first chaotic weeks of the war. When he returned a year later, he offered PG-rated, sanitized versions of his experiences.

"We got glimpses," the elder Bean says. "He didn't give us a lot of details."

Only later on, the elder Bean says, did he learn from Coleman's friends and Army buddies that his son was among those who'd witnessed a horrifying bus explosion across the street from a safe house in Iraq where he and other soldiers had holed up. Several Iraqis, including children, burned to death before their eyes.

There also was the shooting death of an Iraqi child riding in a car that inexplicably ran a roadblock. "Several shots were fired," the elder Bean says. "There was no way to know who killed the child."

Bean spent the remainder of his tour in Fort Polk, La., training soldiers about to deploy to Iraq. When his hitch ended in 2005, he came home to New Jersey.

He started displaying classic post-traumatic stress symptoms.

"He had trouble with his temper, he was drinking too much, he had trouble focusing, trouble sleeping," his father says. He worked as a bartender and a bouncer; he also considered college. Nothing clicked.

Bean's worried parents encouraged him to seek help.

In 2007, Bean went to a veterans hospital in New Jersey, which resulted in a PTSD diagnosis and a recommendation he enter a residential program or have outpatient counseling. But his father says when officials realized he was still active duty, they said he was under the Army's care and they couldn't help.

Bean didn't get any treatment and was ordered back for a second tour that summer. He was part of the Individual Ready Reserve, one of thousands of soldiers who no longer report to bases but who may be deployed to fill vacancies.

"He was scared, worried, apprehensive as the time got closer," his father recalls.

He offered his son an out.

"I'm a child of the '60s," the elder Bean says. "I said, 'We'll jump in a car and go to Canada. You don't have to go. We'll do whatever it takes.' He said, 'I signed up for it, I trained for it. I've got to go. ... If I don't, someone else will have to.' In the end, he believed he had an obligation. He sucked it up and went back."

Bean's second tour seemed to go better. He was promoted to sergeant. He helped guard convoys, and though that was dangerous, he was living on a base, a far more secure arrangement than his first deployment.

Bean had a positive attitude when he returned and talked about going back to college. But within months, the same troubling patterns emerged. He started drinking heavily, lost his temper, couldn't sleep and suffered panic attacks.

"We kick ourselves at this point," his father now says. "We probably should have been proactive. But he was a grown man with two combat tours. He didn't have to do exactly what mom and dad said."

It was only later, his father says, that he and his wife discovered confidential counseling programs that are appealing to soldiers who are reluctant to identify themselves and seek help in the federal bureaucracy.

On the first weekend of September 2008, Bean got drunk with friends, wrecked his Jeep Cherokee car and was arrested for driving under the influence. Bean was taken to a hospital, then rode home in a cab.

He had to break into his apartment because he didn't have his keys.

He also broke into his locked gun case.

Bean didn't call anyone or leave a note before he turned the gun on himself.

On Sept. 6, 2008 — seven years and one day after he enlisted — Sgt. Coleman Bean died. He was just 25.

American soldier dies in Iraq

The U.S. military says an American soldier has died in Iraq of injuries unrelated to combat.

A military statement says the soldier from United States Forces-Iraq died on Wednesday. The name of the soldier is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Thursday's statement also says the incident is under investigation. It provided no further details.

The death raises to at least 4,376 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. That's according to an Associated Press count.

Remote Iraq post outfitted with golf clubs

The soldiers serving at Joint Security Station Aqur Quf had a problem: They had a hitting mat and tens of thousands of golf balls, but only two clubs.
Thanks to the kindness of News Tribune readers, that’s not a problem anymore.

The donors are people such as Zoeanne Hondle of Tacoma, who sent numerous clubs and a hard-top bag. Vic Peterson of Tacoma shipped clubs including a Callaway Big Bertha, plus a note saying his distance record with the driver was 325 yards.

The newspaper ran a story Dec. 23 about the small outpost in western Baghdad province where soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord take a break from the grind of their yearlong deployment by teeing off from the roof of the motor pool building.

But these Stryker soldiers from the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division had only two clubs, and both were woefully short.

Dozens of readers responded and shipped sets of clubs – old ones, new ones, cheap ones and expensive ones. They did it at their own expense so the soldiers could take golf swings in style.

“They’re great,” said Sgt. Christopher Bergevine, who works in the motor pool at Aqur Quf and is one of the outpost’s regular duffers.

The gifts also have become a tool of international relations. When the first batch of clubs arrived in early January, two Iraqi army officers appeared and received a crash course from their Lewis-McChord counterparts.

It all started shortly after the soldiers came to Aqur Quf in September. They discovered a shipping container with 50,000 golf balls and two clubs – the latter of which appear designed for shorter people. But they set up the driving mat and sent balls over the wire as a stress reliever.

“Sometimes the guys in the guard tower will radio the (tactical operations center),” Spc. Clois Seely told The News Tribune in December. “They’ll tell them, ‘The mechanics are throwing things at us again.’”

New shipments of clubs first arrived last month at the 4th Brigade public affairs office, a cozy room made even cozier by boxes of golf gear. Four full sets have already been sent to the soldiers at Aqur Quf, with additional sets distributed to the brigade’s other battalions across Baghdad province.

Boxes arrive almost daily. Brigade commander Col. John Norris plans to send thank-you notes and a certificate of appreciation to those who donated.

Thirteen boxes sat in the corner of the public affairs office Jan. 18, when Capt. Chris Ophardt and Spc. Luisito Brooks ripped into the packages to see what had arrived.

The first three boxes were from Zoeanne Hondle of Tacoma, who sent irons, woods, drivers and that hard-top bag. Vic Peterson mailed woods and irons, in addition to that long-yardage Big Bertha driver.

William Barton of Tacoma mailed a box of drivers. Gail Deason of Lakewood mailed irons and wooden drivers, including the not-often-seen 21/2- and 41/2-wood clubs.

Other boxes – donations from concerned readers in Tacoma, Lakewood, Bonney Lake, Steilacoom, Fox Island and elsewhere – still awaited opening.

A Well-Written War, Told in the First Person

Brian Turner was focused on staying alive, not poetry, when he served as an infantry team leader in Iraq. But he quickly saw that his experience — “a year of complete boredom punctuated by these very intense moments” — lent itself to the tautness of verse.

The result was a collection called “Here, Bullet,” with a title poem inspired by Mr. Turner’s realization during combat patrols that he was bait to lure the enemy.

If a body is what you want,

then here is bone and gristle and flesh,

... because here, Bullet,

here is where the world ends, every time.

“Poetry was the perfect vehicle,” said Mr. Turner, who had a master’s in fine arts from the University of Oregon before joining the Army. “The page was the place where I could think about what had happened.”

Mr. Turner is a literal foot soldier in what might be called the well-written war: a recent outpouring of memoirs, fiction, poetry, blogs and even some readable military reports by combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Soldier-writers have long produced American literature, from Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs about the Civil War to Norman Mailer’s World War II novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” to Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” about Vietnam.

The current group is different. As part of a modern all-volunteer force, they explore the timeless theme of the futility of war — but wars that they for the most part support. The books, many written as rites of passage by members of a highly educated young officer corps, are filled with gore, inept commanders and anguish over men lost in combat, but not questions about the conflicts themselves. “They look at war as an aspect of glory, of finding honor,” said Mr. O’Brien, who was drafted for Vietnam in 1968 out of Macalester College in St. Paul. “It’s almost an old-fashioned, Victorian way of looking at war.”

The writers say one goal is to explain the complexities of the wars — Afghan and Iraqi politics, technology, the counterinsurgency doctrine of protecting local populations rather than just killing bad guys — to a wider audience. Their efforts, embraced by top commanders, have even bled into military reports that stand out for their accessible prose.

“The importance of good official writing is so critical in reaching a broader audience to get people to understand what we’re trying to do,” said Capt. Matt Pottinger, a Marine and former reporter for The Wall Street Journal who is a co-author of the report “Fixing Intel,” an indictment of American intelligence-gathering efforts in Afghanistan released last month. “Even formal military doctrine is well served by a colloquial style of writing.”

The report, overseen by the top military intelligence officer in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, is an anecdote-rich argument against intelligence officers who pursue secrets about insurgents but ignore data for winning the war right in front of them — local economics, village politics and tribal power brokers. The report compares the American war in Afghanistan to a political campaign, “albeit a violent one,” and observes, “To paraphrase former Speaker of the House Thomas P. ‘Tip’ O’Neill’s famous quote, ‘all counterinsurgency is local.’ ”

Another report, an unreleased Army history about the battle of Wanat in July 2008 — the “Black Hawk Down” of Afghanistan — unfolds in stiffer prose but builds a strong narrative. Written by Douglas R. Cubbison, a military historian at the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the draft report lays bare the failures of an American unit to engage the local population in a village in eastern Afghanistan — “these people, they disgust me,” one soldier is quoted as saying — and graphically tells the story of the firefight that killed nine Americans.

Most of the writing by combatants has been memoirs that bear witness to battles of their own. Craig M. Mullaney, a former Ranger and Army captain, writes in “The Unforgiving Minute” of a 2003 ambush on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that killed one of his men, Pfc. Evan W. O’Neill.

“Small-caliber rounds dented the Humvees around me, but it was strangely silent, as if someone had pressed the mute button. ... All I could remember were those eyes, glacial-blue, like my brother’s. There’s no way O’Neill’s dead. This wasn’t a game or an exercise or a movie; these were real soldiers with real blood and real families waiting back home. What had I done wrong?”

Mr. Mullaney, who has left the Army and is now a Pentagon official handling policy for Central Asia, said he wrote his book in part as catharsis, and as a way of telling Private O’Neill’s parents what had happened to their son. “I had a lot of ghosts I was still wrestling with,” he said. “I thought by writing I could make some sense of this jumble of experiences and memories and doubts and fears.”

Nathaniel C. Fick, a former Marine officer who wrote of taking heavy fire during the 2003 invasion of Iraq in “One Bullet Away,” had his own troubles coming home. Mr. Fick, now the chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, a military research group in Washington, also appears in Evan Wright‘s book (and the HBO miniseries) “Generation Kill,” based on Mr. Wright’s experience as a Rolling Stone reporter embedded with Mr. Fick’s platoon.

Mr. Fick, a Dartmouth graduate who applied to graduate school after leaving the Marines, describes getting a call from an admissions officer.

“ ‘Mr. Fick, we read your application and liked it very much. But a member of our committee read Evan Wright’s story about your platoon in Rolling Stone. You’re quoted as saying, “The bad news is, we won’t get much sleep tonight; the good news is, we get to kill people.” ’ She paused, as if waiting for me to disavow the quote. I was silent, and she went on .... ‘Could you please explain your quote for me?’ ...

“ ‘You mean, will I climb your clock tower and pick people off with a hunting rifle?’

“It was her turn to be silent.

“ ‘No, I will not. Do I feel compelled to explain myself to you? I don’t.’ ”

Other books started as soldier blogs, at least before commanders shut them, among them “My War” by Colby Buzzell, a former machine gunner in Iraq. Another soldier’s blog, shut by the Army in 2008 but to be published as a book in April, is “Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War,” by Matt Gallagher, a former Army officer in Iraq.

There are far fewer books by women, but one of them, “Love My Rifle More than You” by Kayla Williams, an Arabic-speaking former sergeant in a military intelligence company, is particularly critical of the military. (Ms. Williams writes of how she was instructed to verbally humiliate a naked Iraqi prisoner in Mosul.)

So far there are relatively few novels, although “The Mullah’s Storm” by Tom Young, a flight engineer in the Air National Guard, is to be published in the fall. The story is about a soldier shot down in Afghanistan.

Mr. O’Brien, whose own memoir, “If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home,” was published in 1973, said that the dearth of novels did not surprise him. His first war novel, “Going After Cacciato,” was not published until 1978. “The Things They Carried” was published in 1990. Soldiers need more time to explore “what happened inside,” Mr. O’Brien said — suggesting that the flow of their war books will not stop anytime soon.

Clinton 'heartened' by Iraq move to reinstate candidates

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday she is "heartened" by an Iraqi decision to reinstate Sunni candidates and urged all parties to do nothing to undermine the legitimacy of elections.
"We were heartened by the decision earlier this week to reverse the deletion of the 500 names from the list for the upcoming election," Clinton told reporters.
An appeals panel ruled Wednesday in Baghdad that more than 500 candidates barred from Iraq's March 7 general election could stand after all. They were allegedly linked to former dictator Saddam Hussein.
But Iraq's premier Nuri al-Maliki convened parliament for Sunday to debate what his government branded an "illegal" decision to reinstate candidates with alleged links to ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
The chief US diplomat said she wanted to make sure the election is free and fair.
"We do very much encourage all the parties ...in Iraq to ensure that nothing is done that undermines the legitimacy of this election," Clinton said.
Clinton's spokesman Philip Crowley on Thursday gave a similar reaction to the latest developments in Baghdad.

US soldier dies in Baghdad

The US military has confirmed the death of one American combat soldier of injuries sustained in a non-combat related incident in Baghdad.

The US military central command in Iraq said the soldier died on Friday but failed to offer any further details.

According to an AFP count, his death brings to 4,155 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

US Marines refuse to testify in Iraq prisoner death trial

Two US Marines facing murder charges in connection with the deaths of Iraqi prisoners in Fallujah in 2004 were declared in contempt of court Friday after refusing to testify against a former comrade on trial.

Lawyers for Jermaine Nelson and Ryan Weemer said the Marines would not give crucial evidence for the prosecution against Jose Nazario, despite assurances their testimony would not be used against them in their military trials.

Nelson and Weemer are both charged with unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty for their roles in the killing of four unarmed Iraqis taken prisoner during fierce fighting in Fallujah four years ago.

Nazario, 28, is being prosecuted in a US Federal Court on charges of voluntary manslaughter, assault with a dangerous weapon and discharging a firearm. It is the first time a military veteran has been tried by a civilian jury for actions that occurred during combat.

Nelson's lawyer Joseph Low and Weemer's counsel Christopher Johnson told Judge Stephen Larson that neither soldier would give evidence against Nazario.

The refusal to testify came despite Larson informing lawyers that the military prosecutor overseeing their courts martial at Camp Pendleton had said in a letter that Nelson and Weemer's testimony would not be used against them.

"There is no doubt in my mind as a matter of law, nothing that is said in this courtroom could be used in Camp Pendleton. Period," Larson said.

However Low said lawyers were skeptical that the letter would carry enough protection, noting that it had not been signed by the Marines' top commander.

"Why is it the one person who could sign it won't do it?" Low asked the judge. "It's suspicious, sir."

Both Weemer and Nelson were jailed earlier this year for contempt after refusing to testify against Nazario during a grand jury hearing.

However Larson declined to jail the two men on Friday, instead ordering them to return to court on September 29 to begin contempt proceedings.

On Thursday, prosecutors told the jury that Nazario had ignored clear rules about how to treat prisoners and ordered the execution-style killing of four "unarmed, submissive, docile" detainees during a house search.

Nazario is alleged to have shot dead two of the captives himself before ordering subordinates Weemer and Nelson to kill the others.

The case came to light after Weemer, 25, underwent a background screening for a job in the US Secret Service in 2006, and gave details of the incident after being asked if had ever taken part in an unjustified killing.

The revelation triggered an investigation by the US Naval Criminal Intelligence Service which saw Nazario's squad mates questioned.

However without Weemer's testimony to the events in Fallujah, the prosecution's case appears to have been weakened.

"This is the 'no' case -- no bodies, no evidence, no identification of alleged victims, no witnesses," defense lawyer Joe Preis told AFP on Friday.

Asked what effect Nelson and Weemer's refusal to testify would have on the trial, Preis replied: "It's our position that it has no impact on this no case. (But) It doesn't hurt us for sure."

raq clings to a rickety calm between war and peace

The departure this month of the last of the 28,500 extra troops sent in a U.S. military buildup leaves Iraq in a rickety calm, an in-between space that is not quite war and not quite peace where ethnic and sectarian tensions bubble beneath the surface.

Politicians and U.S. officials hail the remarkable turnaround from open civil war that left 3,700 Iraqis dead during the worst month in the fall of 2006, compared with June's toll of 490, according to Pentagon estimates.

Signs abound that normal life is starting to return. Revelers can idle away the hours at several neighborhood joints in Baghdad where the tables are buried in beers and a man can bring a girlfriend dolled up in a nice dress.

Despite the gains, the political horizon is clouded: Shiite Muslim parties are locked in dangerous rivalries across central and southern Iraq. Kurds and Arabs in the north compete for land with no resolution in sight. U.S.-backed Sunni Arab fighters who turned on the group Al Qaeda in Iraq could return to the insurgency if the government does not deliver jobs and a chance to join the political process.

Bombings, assassinations and kidnappings still occur almost daily. And those out enjoying Baghdad's night life feel safe only because they are staying inside their own districts in a city transformed into a patchwork of enclaves after years of sectarian violence.

Whether the quiet endures hinges on many factors, including the results of yet-unscheduled provincial and national elections and whether Iraq's religious and ethnic factions can find a fair power-sharing formula.

The country is bedeviled by the question: What happens as the U.S. military vacates outposts in Baghdad neighborhoods, where it has stood as a buffer and occasional arbiter between Sunnis and Shiites and even arrested police and army commanders suspected of sectarian agendas?

The same question is being posed in the United States. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, acknowledged Sunday that he had failed to anticipate how much violence would decrease this year in Iraq, and stressed the importance of compromise among Iraqi politicians. His likely Republican rival, John McCain, touted his early support for sending extra troops to Iraq.

Stephen Biddle, a Council on Foreign Relations defense expert who advised Army Gen. David H. Petraeus at the start of the troop buildup early last year, has cautioned that Iraq resembles splintered states such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, where an international force is still in place 13 years after the conflict ended.

In April testimony to the Senate, Biddle warned: "A substantial outside presence will be needed for many years to come to keep such a peace. If U.S. withdrawals leave us unable to provide the needed outside presence, the result would be a rapid return to 2006-scale violence, or worse."

From Mosul in the north to Basra in the south and Baghdad itself, Iraqis are adjusting to a reality far safer than what came before, but nonetheless a perilous one. People tread carefully. They know no one has been declared victor in the battles that will decide Iraq's future.

The militias and the cops

Abdul sits before a checkered red-and-white tablecloth. Even at the height of the civil war, he never shut his Karada restaurant. During religious holidays, he covered wine glasses with napkins, so as not to offend the Shiite militias in the Baghdad neighborhood.

Fighters with the Mahdi Army militia loyal to cleric Muqtada Sadr would come by and threaten Abdul, warning him to close his shop.

Then they offered a second option: Pay us $500 and a case of beer.

But that was nothing compared with the shady policemen who frequented his establishment.

His troubles started in late August when men dressed in camouflage uniforms drove up in the GMC trucks associated with the Interior Ministry national police, a force seen as a proxy for Shiite militias who ran secret prisons and killed with impunity. They told him he needed to raise $50,000 or deliver them a shipment of handguns.

Abdul was convinced one of his customers, an official at the Interior Ministry, had put them up to it. The officer had always refused to pay for food or drinks.

At first, Abdul -- who, like other Iraqis interviewed for this report, was afraid to give his full name -- went into hiding. By fall, Baghdad was less violent and he thought he could find some elements in the police to support him. He stood up to the men. It worked. Afterward, the Interior Ministry official still came to eat in the restaurant, but he paid his bill.

"He is my enemy, but now he fears me," Abdul says. The official even tips. Abdul does not dare to throw him out and remains polite. "These men are gangsters. They are dangerous."

He has no illusions about the future. "There will be more troubles," he says and glances at the mirror with its view of the street for unwelcome visitors.

Sadr City

Kadim Mohammed, an employee at the Education Ministry, watches thousands pray on a Friday outside the nondescript stucco offices of Sadr's movement. He's living on the front line of the battle among Iraq's Shiite political factions. The government has erected concrete barriers partitioning Sadr City and sent army officers in to man checkpoints in this Baghdad district of 3 million people.

Mohammed gazes at the Iraqi army trucks just down the road from the prayer gathering. Black flags flutter for the dead. Cars clog up at the checkpoints surrounding the walls. Millions of dollars have been promised to Sadr City, but nothing has materialized since clashes ended in May between the Mahdi Army and the U.S.-backed government forces.

Mohammed expects the worst with elections to come. He watches the prayer-goers shake their fists and denounce the Americans, and he spots posters of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki in a beret, fashioned after those worn by the late Saddam Hussein.

Sadr has declared a cease-fire for his fighters, but they are volatile.

Death threats have cropped up on walls against those collaborating with the Iraqi government. Some residents have derisively taken to calling the district Rafah -- a city in the Gaza Strip walled off from the world.

Mosul

In the northern city of Mosul, Khalaf Mahmood doesn't know who is his enemy and who his friend. He feels trapped between Sunni Arab militants and Kurdish security forces in the contest to shape the boundaries between Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of the country.

Mahmood, a Sunni Arab professor of fine arts, lost his 14-year-old nephew in June, seven months after his own brother died in a mortar attack. The boy had been playing on the street one night when a group of men grabbed him and shot him 30 times.

"He was just a child. He was even scared of guns," Mahmood says. Rumors spread that Kurdish fighters were behind the shooting, but Mahmood says he doesn't know who wanted to kill a teenager obsessed with soccer.

Mahmood says he just wants to paint impressionistic landscapes and portraits of women. But such ambitions seem fanciful in Nineveh province. A ballyhooed campaign launched in May to rout Al Qaeda in Iraq has failed to calm the city, and the province's population is polarized along ethnic lines.

"Innocent people are being killed because of false accusations and feuds among young people and some families," Mahmood says.

The painter defends the Kurds as good people, but then grows angry over the Kurdish-dominated army units and the presence of Kurdish peshmerga fighters throughout Mosul and the surrounding suburbs. "The situation will get better if the Kurds withdraw. Then everything will be settled," he says.

Sunni paramilitaries

Graffiti in Adhamiya are reminders that the Sunni district of Baghdad was once the lair of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now, the members of a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary group patrol the riverside neighborhood's winding alleys and 19th century buildings.

Their leader, Abu Abed, sits in his dark office on a nondescript street. More than a dozen young men, sprawled out in his waiting room, lean Kalashnikovs against the wall. Abu Abed reminds all who listen that he calmed the neighborhood but the government has not rewarded him. He says only 160 of his 800 men have been hired into the national police.

Abu Abed says his group wants to participate in local elections. It has refused to be affiliated with any of the established Sunni political parties in Iraq.

He is honest about his movement's flaws, that his men are prone to gunfights. U.S. officers have compared them to the Sopranos, and one Iraqi living in Adhamiya has called them "the best of the worst."

If unemployment continues and his men are not given jobs, he warns, Al Qaeda in Iraq will make a comeback.

Already, militants are trying to kill his men. Three died in a bombing Thursday. "They are penetrating our base and threatening us. The support from the government is cut, we are weaker," he says.

"Terrorists and militias depend on poverty," he says. "If Adhamiya gets no support, they will return."

Basra

Abu Ali's barbershop stays open till late in the evening in the southern port of Basra. Four months ago, cutting hair was a treacherous business as the city lived under the rule of armed gangs affiliated with Shiite religious parties. Now, after a spring Iraqi army offensive prompted a return to law and order, Abu Ali cuts hair freely, not worried that fanatics might be on the prowl for barbers with a fondness for Western coiffure.

"The climate of fear is broken, and people are not afraid of the gunmen any more," he says.

As Abu Ali labors in his cologne-scented shop, army officers and fighters from the Mahdi Army are not so sure Basra's worst times are behind it.

They warn that many of the worst militants, from splinter factions of the Mahdi Army, had escaped to Iran and were likely to come back more dangerous.

But Abu Ali is happy. He adorns his shop with pictures of fashionable models. He wants his country to move on. "God," he says, "has given us the ability to forget."

Charges dropped against Marine sniper in Iraq shootings

The Marine Corps on Thursday dropped all charges against a Camp Pendleton sniper accused of wrongly shooting two men he thought were planting roadside bombs in Iraq.

Sgt. John Winnick II, 24, of San Diego, had been charged with involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and dereliction of duty in connection with the June 17, 2007, incident near Lake Tharthar in western Iraq.

Prosecutors contended Winnick had violated the rules of engagement by shooting too hastily at a truck driver carrying a satchel and his three passengers. The four men got out at an intersection where roadside bombs previously had been planted.

Winnick and several other snipers had been staking out the crossroads.

All four men were wounded, two fatally, but no bomb-making materials were found.

Winnick said he believed he was protecting his fellow Marines from insurgent bombers.

Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, followed the advice of the pretrial hearing officer in dismissing the charges.

McCain denies he misstated timing of Iraq surge

Republican John McCain is pushing back against Democratic criticism that he misstated the timing of the buildup of troops ordered by President Bush in early 2007. He says parts of the new strategy began months earlier.

The Arizona senator has told reporters during a stop at a super market in Bethlehem, Pa., that what the Bush administration calls "the surge" was actually "made up of a number of components." McCain says some components of the surge began before Bush ordered more U.S. troops into Iraq.

McCain says U.S. Col. Sean MacFarland started carrying out elements of a new counterinsurgency strategy as early as December 2006.

Candidates' positions on Iraq differ less than you'd think

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office a few days ago when the call came from the U.S. Embassy, demanding that he "clarify" his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

(Photos, left to right - In March: Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham landing in Baghdad / Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Allen, Reuters; On Monday: Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus in Baghdad / Ssg. Lorie Jewell, AP)

Not only did that boost the credibility of the Democrat's plan, it contradicted President Bush's position that there should be no timetable for a U.S. pullout. A few hours later, U.S. officials transmitted al-Maliki's statement that his remarks to the German magazine Der Spiegel had been "misunderstood (and) mistranslated."

Problem fixed? Apparently not. On Monday, as Obama visited Baghdad, al-Maliki's spokesman defiantly repeated the timetable idea, in English this time, saying the Iraqis would prefer to have U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2010.

This tense back-and-forth was a vivid reminder that as conditions improve in Iraq, the U.S. is losing its ability to dictate terms to the sovereign government it has worked so hard to put in place. Less noticed is that the rapidly shifting events are beginning to make the presidential candidates' debate over Iraq seem oddly out of sync with reality.

Obama and Republican John McCain are maximizing their differences when they talk to voters, but in practical terms there's less and less daylight between them.

Rhetorically, Obama backs a fixed timetable for withdrawing American troops while McCain wants to stay as long as "victory" takes and beyond. But if the Iraqis want the U.S. out and they prove capable of taking over, both ideas lead to the same end on about the same schedule.

It's difficult, for example, to imagine a President McCain insisting on keeping U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely if Iraq's government demands that they leave. Al-Maliki is acknowledging the reality that most Iraqis and most Iraqi politicians want U.S. forces out, at least as soon as they are confident that their own government can protect them.

At the same time, it's equally difficult to imagine a President Obama insisting on an inflexible withdrawal timetable if that means squandering security gains won with great American sacrifice. Though Obama has repeatedly insisted on a timetable, he has pointedly not said that every U.S. troop will be gone when the timetable ends. In fact, he has promised to leave a "residual force" of undefined size in Iraq, and carefully left himself an escape hatch in case the situation worsens. "You've got to make sure the country doesn't collapse," he says.

Thanks largely to the troop surge that Obama opposed, violence has lessened to the point that a timetable seems less and less unthinkable to its fiercest opponents, provided that it's linked to success on the ground. President Bush has signed on to a "time horizon" for withdrawing U.S. troops, and McCain said Monday that U.S. troops "could be largely withdrawn" within two years because the war is being won. That's remarkably close to what Obama wants.

So while the candidates demonize and distort each other's positions, reality is drawing them closer and closer. Both also support sending additional troops to Afghanistan.

The wild card is whether U.S. forces can hand off the fighting to their Iraqi counterparts, and here the news is promising. Lt. Gen. James Dubik, who until recently was in charge of the Army's effort to build Iraqi forces, told Congress earlier this month that Iraqi units would be able to take over front-line fighting as soon as April, allowing U.S. ground troops to shift to a support role.

The presidential debate over Iraq needs a reality check. Voters would do well to understand that the familiar differences echoing from the campaign trail are less significant than the new reality emerging in Iraq.

In Iraq, senator finds support for troop pullout plan

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama conferred with senior Iraqi leaders, US officials, and military commanders yesterday, as a spokesman for the Iraqi government declared that it would like US combat forces to complete their withdrawal in 2010.

The comments by spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh marked the second time in recent days that a senior Iraqi had endorsed a timetable for US withdrawal that is roughly similar to the one advocated by Obama. Dabbagh suggested a combat force pullout could be completed by the end of 2010, which would be about seven months longer than Obama's 16-month formulation.

Dabbagh made the statement after Obama's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has recently faced pressure from the White House to clarify published comments that he supported Obama's 16-month plan.

Dabbagh declared that his government was working "on a real timetable which Iraqis set" and the 2010 deadline was "an Iraqi vision."

The White House responded quickly to Dabbagh's remarks, which, along with Maliki's earlier comments, have been a thorny political problem for an administration that has opposed attaching firm dates to troop withdrawals as it negotiates the future US-Iraqi relationship.

"We don't think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, suggesting that Dabbagh was responding to domestic pressure.

Dabbagh said Maliki did not discuss troop withdrawals with his visitor. "Senator Barack Obama is a candidate, and we are talking to the administration which is in power," he said. But in many ways - from the red carpet rolled out at Maliki's residence to Obama's seat of honor next to Maliki during formal consultations - he was treated like a visiting head of state.

The White House has said that Maliki and President Bush had reached an agreement to set a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of US combat troops. But administration officials have steadfastly declined to indicate what that time horizon might be.

"Obama is closer to Iraqi opinion on the issue of withdrawal of US forces," said Ali al-Adeeb, a top official in Maliki's Dawa Party. "We don't know him personally, but we like his opinion and his calls to set a timetable to withdraw forces."

The presumptive Democratic presidential candidate arrived in Iraq yesterday morning, traveling as part of a congressional delegation that includes Senators Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, both critics of the war.

Obama and the other senators released a statement late yesterday noting that Iraqis want an "aspirational timeline, with a clear date," for the departure of US combat forces.

"Prime Minister Maliki told us that while the Iraqi people deeply appreciate the sacrifices of American soldiers, they do not want an open-ended presence of US combat forces. The prime minister said that now is an appropriate time to start to plan for the reorganization of our troops in Iraq - including their numbers and missions. He stated his hope that US combat forces could be out of Iraq in 2010," the statement said.

The senators also acknowledged a significant decline in violence in Iraq but added that while there has been some forward movement on political progress, reconciliation, and economic develop- ment, there has not been enough to bring lasting stability to Iraq.

Obama, a first-term senator who is seeking to convince voters that he has enough foreign policy experience to succeed in the Oval Office, is scheduled to travel to Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and Britain by the end of the week.

Interviewed on NBC's "Today" show yesterday morning, Obama's Republican rival, Senator John McCain, said he "was glad" Obama was meeting with General David Petraeus, the top US commander, and hearing firsthand about the buildup of US troops over the last year.

"I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation, and that he was wrong when he said the surge wouldn't work," McCain said.

The US delegation's first stop in Iraq was the southern city of Basra, where the Iraqi army - with support from British and US troops - recently wrested control from extremist Shi'ite militias. The senators did not venture into the city center, where 30,000 Iraqi soldiers patrol the streets.

In Baghdad, a red carpet with yellow trim was unfurled at 1:50 p.m. outside Maliki's residence.

Ten minutes later, the senators and their entourages arrived, accompanied by US Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and David M. Satterfield, the State Department's Iraq coordinator. After meeting for nearly an hour with Maliki, Obama declined to say what they discussed.

Obama's convoy arrived next at the residence of the Iraq president, Jalal Talabani, who was with chief of staff Naseer al-Ani and two other senior advisers.

Army's History of Iraq After Hussein Faults Pentagon

A new Army history of the service's performance in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein faults military and civilian leaders for their planning for the war's aftermath, and it suggests that the Pentagon's current way of using troops is breaking the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.

The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," is an unclassified and unhindered look at U.S. Army operations in Iraq from May 2003 to January 2005. That critical era of the war has drawn widespread criticism because of a failure to anticipate the rise of an Iraqi insurgency and because policymakers provided too few U.S. troops and no strategy to maintain order after Iraq's decades-old regime was overthrown.

Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, who authored the report along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, conclude that U.S. commanders and civilian leaders were too focused on only the military victory and lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like following that triumph.

"The transition to a new campaign was not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began," write Wright and Reese, historians at the Army's Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post-Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect."

The results of those errors, they add, were that U.S. forces and their allies lacked an operational and strategic plan for success in Iraq, as well as the resources to carry out a plan.

Their analysis is to be released tomorrow, but the 696-page document was posted last night on the Army's Combined Arms Center's Web site. The New York Times first reported the study's findings yesterday.

The study also calls into question the focus of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on issues such as a modernization of the U.S. military, rather than on the war.

"The intense desire to continue DOD's transformation to smaller and lighter forces, to implement a perceived revolution in military affairs in the information age, and to savor the euphoria over seemingly easy successes in Afghanistan using those techniques seemed to outweigh searching through the past for insights into the future," the study reports.

It also reports that Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers have demonstrated in Iraq and Afghanistan that they "are a fully capable, and indeed, an absolutely essential part of the Army." But it warns that "the price paid by reservists and communities to sustain the long and repetitive mobilizations, however, may not be sustainable in the future."

The Army study is a follow-up to "On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom," which looked at the initiation of combat operations in Iraq through April 2003. The new work picks up from the moment President Bush announced the end of major combat operations on May 1, 2003, and goes through the January 2005 Iraqi elections. The authors make clear that the Army never thought it would need such a study, largely because few people believed the war would last much beyond 2003.