Princes of War Read Online Free PDF Page B

battalion. Now they operated from Humvees as an armored mobile security unit, essentially a police-army hybrid thought more appropriate for counterinsurgency.
    His platoon’s area of responsibility covered nearly 200 square kilometers. “Your area to patrol, understand, and secure,” was the way his company commander, Captain Ben Baumann, summed it up. Each of the three platoons in Delta Company had an area comparable to that of the Wolfhounds. Estimates had the Iraqi population in the area at 35,000 to 45,000. That meant 19 Americans responsible for a medium-sized town. By Iraqi standards, much of the population was middle class. The area had electricity three to four hours a day on average. Most of the home construction was densely packed two- and three-story concrete block multi-family units. The far south of their area was lower class, the people scratching a living out of nothing. Their housing was primitive. Mostly dirt roads. No electricity or public water. No sewer. No government services.
    Wynn needed to know more about the area than any other American alive in order to conceivably do a first-rate job. It was a common joke in military that by the time you got proficient at your job, you rotated back to the States. Five more months to go.
    Rarely did other American forces enter his battlespace other than other military convoys passing through. Sometimes battalion aerial assets, both manned and unmanned, worked over it. When necessary, the platoon called in other special assets, like EOD teams. Since the Wolfhounds had occupied the battlespace, a special operations team had twice conducted unannounced raids. One such operation nabbed a financier identified by Baghdad intelligence assets. The other raid followed up on a residual WMD lead. That was a false alarm. A box dressed up like spent uranium had been nothing more than a box dressed up that way.
    His platoon was expected to be as self-sufficient as possible. If other American forces came into the Wolfhounds’ area, it meant those assets weren’t available elsewhere. If he operated independently and kept the violence down, his superiors were happy. He frequently felt like a town mayor. That was fine; he didn’t complain. The independence and responsibility fired his pride. Nevertheless, the burden weighed heavily. A wag commentator had called the whole American-Iraqi enterprise “playing three-dimensional chess in the dark.”
    The convoy passed an Iraqi government building. An elderly man sat on the entrance steps reading a newspaper. Wynn wondered whether anyone was working inside. Army leaders spoke like the Iraqi government was operational, but that was overstated. What local government did exist was fractious. Traditional sources of authority, like the tribes, were more important than they had been under Saddam. New fiefdoms—like criminal networks of smuggling and extortion—were active. The remaining government offices were corrupt, inactive, or worse. In Bejanas, the Coalition had attempted to set up a governing council with representatives from various Iraqi ethnic groups, more or less a mirror of what was being tried at the national level. But the council operated fitfully, lacked resources, competence, and real authority.
    Wynn noticed a green crescent painted on a building, symbolizing a medical facility, similar to the Red Cross. Medical care in Iraq was very poor. Professionals throughout Iraq, including doctors, were leaving the country. Too many had been murdered, kidnapped, or threatened. One hospital on the eastern side of Bejanas was now closed due to damage and looting. Both remaining hospitals were several kilometers east of the Wolfhounds’ battlespace.
    The remaining Iraqi police, whom the Americans called the IP, were largely ineffective. Many were untrained, crooked, unreliable, or all of the above. Many areas had no police coverage. The Iraqi Army, or IA, was in the early stages of rebuilding.
    To his left, he noticed several green