Naval postgraduate school monterey, california thesis approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq
, 106-107. 
100
Michael Howard, “Main Sunni Party Pulls Out of Iraqi Election,” The Guardian, 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1380191,00.html (accessed December 9, 2007). 

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contentious city right now inside Iraq.”
101
After thirty-three U.S. military personnel 
died in Anbar province in August 2006, the Marine Corps chief intelligence analyst, 
Colonel (COL) Pete Devlin, recognized as one of their best intelligence officers, filed an 
“unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing [the] Anbar province are 
dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and 
social situation.”
102
The report outlined how the Sunni dominated province was devoid 
of any functional local security apparatus or government, which allowed insurgent groups 
such as al Qaeda to fill the vacuum. This was not an isolated assessment either. An 
anonymous Army officer reported that “we haven’t been defeated militarily but we have 
been defeated politically – and that’s where wars are won and lost.”
103
Others, including 
flag officers who found the report too pessimistic concur that Anbar might be lost, and 
suggested that the prospects for the rest of the country were less dire. However, given 
that Anbar encompasses over 30 percent of Iraqi land mass and borders Syria and Jordan, 
the loss of the province by the U.S. military would likely have had a significant influence 
on the political and security environment in the rest of Iraq.
The military was left with few options. The report acknowledged that a shortage 
of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers left it unable to maintain security beyond the perimeter of its 
Forward Operating Bases. One option was a complete transfer of security to the 
fledgling Iraqi security forces. However, that would set the conditions for a full blown 
civil war. Another option was to reinforce Anbar province with an additional military 
unit slated for another area of Iraq, which would leave other commanders scrambling to 
fill the void in other parts of the country.
104
By September 2006, one man recognized the need change strategy, and identified 
a third option. U.S. Army Colonel (COL) Sean MacFarland, commander of First 
101
“DoD News Briefing with Brig. Gen. Ham from the Pentagon,” GlobalSecurity.org, 
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2006/05/mil-060523-dod01.htm (accessed December 
9, 2007). 
102
Thomas E. Ricks, “Situation Called Dire in West Iraq,” The Washington Post, 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/AR2006091001204.html (accessed 
November 21, 2007). 
103
Ricks. 
104
Ricks. 

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Brigade, First Armored Division responsible for the Sunni dominated city of Ramadi 
“was willing to try just about anything to win over the population and reduce violence in 
Ramadi.”
105
In this case, anything meant engagement with Sunni militias. The strategy 
included stationing his units in vulnerable combat outposts instead of consolidating 
forces in heavily fortified Forward Operating Bases (FOBs). He felt as if he “was going 
the wrong way down a one way street” since his approach did not reflect the operational 
military strategy Sunni and Shia dominated provinces of Iraq.
106
In contrast to the 
prevailing strategy that focused on kinetic military operations, COL MacFarland opted to 
negotiate with Sunni sheiks. Based on MacFarland’s initial success, the engagement 
strategy was adopted in Anbar province as a whole, dramatically improving levels of 
security and stability in less than twelve months.
107
105
Jim Michaels, “An Army Colonel’s Gamble Pays Off in Iraq,” USA Today, 
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-30-ramadi-colonel_n.htm (accessed November 18, 
2007, 2007). 
106
Michaels. 
107
Petraeus, 
Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq
, 1-13
.

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