Like parole officers, but with better 'intelligence'

Shehabi, a town in Salah Ad Din province, used to be crawling with insurgent activity but this week soldiers of Archangel Platoon of the 2/320th battalion rode in with boxes of school supplies instead of battering rams.

(Soldiers talk to the son of one of the city councilmen.)

The platoon visited the home of former insurgents, but instead of kicking in doors, they greet the brothers and a neighbor who were just released from the infamous Buka prison with a hand shake and the word, “Salam”.

Staff Sgt. Jacob Murphy, 28, of San Francisco and Sgt. First Class Jonathan Mudgett, 33, began by asking whether the men were having any problems on their farm.
With the small talk over, the two sergeants took each of the men out of earshot of their wives and children to question them on their activities since they’d been released.

(A little girl looks up at the Sergeant and interpreter as they speak with one of the former insurgents.)

“We try to hit anyone released from Buka,” Staff Sgt. Murphy said. “We make it a point to stop in, say hey we know you’re out, kind of like a parole officer.”

“We’ve been chasing those people for three years,” said ‘Tom’ the interpreter, incredulous to see the former insurgents standing around and talking to U.S. soldiers. “They were ghosts. Now I see them face-to-face.”

Murphy acknowledged that a lot of the bigger time insurgents have been detained and since then violence has died down around Shehabi, but now that some insurgents are being released there is always the risk violence might increase again.
(Pvt. William Ingram, 22, of West Plains, MO pulls guard duty on the edge of the former insurgents' farm.)

That’s where the quality of intelligence comes in. Lt. Mike Handlan of the 2/320th said, “We’ve been successful in the Southern part (of our area) because we’ve started understanding the COIN (counterinsurgency) fight,” which he said includes giving jobs and gathering local intelligence.

"Smart intelligence,” Major Timothy Frambes calls it, is listening to the Sons of Iraq, who are from the local communities and paid by Army contracts. The SOI often give the Army information on new insurgents in the area and have even conducted their own patrols, Sgt. Murphy said.

Much of the mistrust of whether these guys are giving us information to settle old scores has washed away with the constant Army presence in the local communities, Frambes said.

Tom the interpreter said he has been with coalition forces since 2003 and not without risk. He puts himself in danger every time he visits his old Baghdad neighborhood, he said.

It’s hard to imagine much being accomplished without these native speakers who are embedded with almost every platoon that goes outside the wire. In turn the U.S. soldiers treat them like friends and brothers.

Many of the interpreters, whose uniforms are a patchwork of past Army units they’ve worked for, wholeheartedly believe in the mission, even the rougher ones. But as Tom said, "It's a good area right now."
(Local children clearly enjoying the attention of the visitors.)