OUR OPERATIONAL AND TACTICAL OBJECTIVES AND CENTERS OF GRAVITY

America’s Strategic objective in Iraq is a free and independent state that will not pose a threat to its neighbors or the rest of the world. The strategic center of gravity is the American will to see this project through to completion. So what are our operational and tactical objectives and our center of gravity for each?

Our operational objective is Iraqi security. To achieve this, unless we are willing to stay indefinitely, we need to stand up an Iraqi force capable of securing its own borders, fighting crime and killing terrorists. Our operational center of gravity is the Iraqi security forces. This is why the terrorists are targeting Iraqi police stations and recruiting places. The terrorists know that once Iraqis are largely responsible for their own security, the terrorist have a huge problem. It will no longer be occupying US forces pursing terrorists but the average Iraqi citizen.

That makes a huge difference. Right now Iraqi forces are being portrayed as occupation force collaborators. They are seen as no better than the Coalition forces. Once they gain their strength and confidence, they will begin to operate on their own. This poses three major problems for the terrorists. One, they will be killing more and more Iraqi citizens and fewer and fewer Americans. Two, the Iraqi forces are not likely to be as constrained as American forces in dealing with the terrorists. Three, Iraqi forces will be better able to exploit available human intelligence from the Iraqi people. We will be able to tell that we are winning operationally when Iraqi forces begin to shoulder more of the load, as in Fallujah, and their casualties begin to increase.

Our tactical objective is the terrorist leadership. These terrorists forces tend to center around charismatic leaders. Al Zarqawi and Sadar are two such leaders. While the latter has been somewhat neutered, the former is still at large inciting terrorists activity against coalition forces. Since US forces tried to find Manual Noriega in Panama, we have known the difficulty in finding one man in a city let alone in a country the size of California. Our forces simply cannot go door to looking for Zarqawi. We have to rely on timely actionable intelligence. Intelligence gathering is our tactical center of gravity. Terrorist’s cells are extremely difficult to penetrate. Even if successfully penetrated, the cells are extremely compartmentalized which makes it difficult for even an inside man to see the forest for the trees.