Iraq: Strategic Reconciliation, Targeting, and Key Leader Engagement
Authored by Captain Jeanne F. Hull.
September 2009
56 Pages
Brief Synopsis
Discussion of Key Leader Engagements (KLE) as a nonlethal option for countering insurgent organizations. Outreach to insurgent organizations through KLE can be both an economy of force measure and, in some circumstances, could be more effective than engaging insurgent organizations with lethal force. The challenge with insurgent outreach to KLE, though, is that it must be tied to a legitimate host-nation government effort towards reconciliation or, at a minimum, accommodation with the insurgent organizations in question.
Through the lens of the Multi-National Forces-Iraq Force Strategic Engagement Cell (FSEC), the author illustrates how KLEs can be incorporated as targets in the U.S. military’s targeting process. FSEC’s mission to reach out to Iraq-based insurgent organizations who sought reconciliation with the Iraqi government was entirely based in KLE-related targeting. FSECs activities, therefore, present a suitable case to study how including KLE as “targets” within the targeting process can maximize the utility of the relationships commanders and diplomats alike establish during counterinsurgency and nation-building operations. The operations of this strategic engagement cell also demonstrate the employment of KLE as a part of Information Operations, and the challenges associated with developing and refining intelligence to support KLE targeting. The other challenges FSEC personnel dealt with highlight some additional difficulties commanders and diplomats face with respect to KLE operations with emphasis on managing expectations, continuity, capability, and synchronization of effort. Finally, FSEC’s endeavors in Iraq underscore the utility of outreach to both local leaders and insurgent populations in counterinsurgency operations.
Summary
When discussing new approaches to the insurgency in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus emphasized that his experiences in Iraq had reinforced the notion that “You cannot kill or capture your way out of an insurgency.” That statement acknowledges that success for U.S. forces in counterinsurgency operations is the result of a combination of persuasive and coercive measures applied against insurgent organizations and their bases of support. Some of the key principles behind that statement also suggest that the “bad guys” can possibly be or become the “good guys,” in that some insurgent leaders and groups can transition from violence and dissention to constructive activities. That transition requires that the insurgents be encouraged to reconcile their differences with the establishments they are resisting. Setting the conditions for those transitions at all levels of a conflict requires skillful, nuanced negotiations between leaders or representatives of insurgent groups, legitimate government forces, and representatives of a neutral or intervening force as appropriate.
Coalition military outreach to Sunni shaykhs working with al-Qaida in Anbar province revealed how Key Leader Engagement (KLE) with members of the insurgent population could be a useful, if not necessary, tool for commanders in Iraq. Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) Commander General Petraeus subsequently supported the establishment of a cell specifically designed to conduct KLE with other Iraqi insurgent organizations at the strategic level. The mission of that strategic-level KLE cell, the Force Strategic Engagement Cell (FSEC), required it to conduct KLE with members of Sunni and Shi’a resistance elements and leaders to bring them into a political accommodation with the Iraqi government—a first step towards reconciliation.
FSEC’s establishment and subsequent operations did not want for challenges or detractors. To begin with, many seasoned commanders and diplomats viewed outreach to insurgent organizations as a dangerous and untested new enterprise. In reality, that type of outreach had been used in previous insurgencies and other conflicts effectively, to include Vietnam. In addition, although U.S. military training centers had begun to introduce the topic of negotiation in preparation for combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, no template or structure existed for incorporating the routine or special engagements that military leaders conducted with members of the host nation who had the ability to impact their area of responsibility into other operations. By the same token, most of the Coalition personnel assigned to FSEC had little or no preparation for conducting strategic engagements and/or brokering dialogue between Iraqi insurgents and the Iraqi government. In response to these challenges and others, the FSEC leadership applied some precedents from other theaters and both principles and doctrine of counterinsurgency and conflict resolution that appeared to suit the mission requirements to construct processes and mechanisms to assist them in achieving their objectives.
This Letort Paper uses FSEC’s operations in Iraq from 2008-09 to illustrate how KLE can be incorporated into existing targeting, information operations, and intelligence doctrine for counterinsurgency operations. It opens with a description of the principles of counterinsurgency and conflict resolution that form the basis for effective insurgent outreach and thus FSEC operations. It further highlights how FSEC’s employment of the U.S. military’s targeting process and how other U.S. agencies—including the U.S. Department of State—involved in counterinsurgency operations might incorporate those processes into their own engagements abroad. The paper then identifies some of the challenges and risks associated with FSEC’s mission and recommends how insurgent outreach and other KLE operations might better be incorporated with concurrent operations in counterinsurgency.
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