BOOK REVIEW: Hunting the Caliphate: America's War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell
By Dana J.H. Pittard and Wes J. Bryant
Reviewed by Brian Raymond
Brian Raymond served as National Security Council Director for Iraq from 2014-2015. He participated in numerous meetings with President Obama in the Situation Room as the National Security Council weighed potential responses to ISIS’ march toward Baghdad in the summer of 2014. He now leads Primer AI’s National Security Group.
President Trump’s decision in early October to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria not only triggered conflict between Turkish and Kurdish forces, but also raised the specter of a resurgent Islamic State (ISIS). As hundreds of ISIS detainees to escaped custody, Americans contemplated the next chapter in our 15+ year war against AQI and ISIS.
In Hunting the Caliphate, Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, the Joint Forces ground commander, and USAF SOF Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) Wes Bryant provide a riveting firsthand account of the most recent chapters of this story, detailing their command’s efforts to defeat ISIS after the group came roaring back following approximately seven years of relative dormancy in Iraq.
Hunting the Caliphate represents an important contribution to the history of the counter-ISIS campaign by sharing the perspectives of its coauthors, a senior general officer and senior NCO who were both on the ground in Iraq. It is an engaging dive into the tactical-level challenges and successes faced by the counter-ISIS forces in the early days of the campaign. A significant portion of the book traces the personal and professional journeys of both men, beginning early in their careers and leading up through the counter-ISIS campaign. The story that unfolds is told from the firsthand perspective of each of the co-authors. While knowing their personal backgrounds help the reader better appreciate their story, the authors’ decision to exclude any information on the regional, historical, or political forces at play during that period leaves out important context that shaped the experiences they endured on the ground.
The book is at its best and most exciting in its accounts of the operational and tactical decisionmaking of the Baghdad Strike Cell and its parent organization, the Joint Forces Land Component Command-Iraq. Bryant provides thrilling firsthand accounts from within the Strike Cell’s life-and-death deliberations over whether or not to target suspected ISIS fighters. Pittard’s descriptions of his interactions with senior Iraqi military leaders, who were broken down and demoralized by their losses at the hands of ISIS, are incredibly compelling and a rich addition to what’s already been written about the counter-ISIS campaign.
The book also provides the best account to date of how constraints imposed by the Obama Administration drove the U.S. military to innovate in how it utilized JTAC’s—and by extension air power—to support partnered ground forces. Historically embedded among ground units, Bryant and his team of JTACs developed new approaches to operate effectively from remote locations (e.g. at the Baghdad Strike Cell located at Baghdad International Airport). Despite initial misgivings, Bryant’s team proved incredibly lethal in its ability to analyze intelligence collected from overhead sensors as well as partner forces on the ground (often via cell phone) to direct precision fires from aircraft positioned overhead.
As I made my way through Hunting the Caliphate, I gained a much deeper appreciation of the challenges our forces grappled with during that period on the ground in Baghdad or Erbil. However, my personal experience as the National Security Council Director for Iraq from 2014-2015 colored my frustration with the book’s lack of any meaningful discussion of the political, regional, and historical forces that framed the counter-ISIS fight during that period. Whereas the authors saw a gun-shy White House impeding their ability to take the fight against ISIS through resource caps and strict ROEs, they omitted any meaningful discussion of the political context for ISIS’ resurgence in 2012 and 2013, including the disastrous sequence of decisions undertaken by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that alienated Iraq’s Sunni Arab population from Iraq’s government and security forces. Their frustrations with the Administration were a consistent theme, but they never fully articulated (or directly challenged) President Obama’s strategic approach in 2014: 1) ISIS would be confronted by an international coalition, not just the U.S.; 2) local forces, not Americans, would be the ones doing the hard fighting on the ground; and 3) that there needed be an Iraqi government that the U.S. and Global Coalition could rally behind.
These challenges pertained directly to Iraq’s ability to field a government that could unite the country in defeating ISIS. In the spring of 2014 Iraq’s political parties were locked in protracted government formation negotiations, including an intense struggle among Iraqi Shia for control of the premiership. For there to be any chance for cross-sectarian power sharing over the long-term, and by extension, to address the conditions that fueled ISIS, political progress in Baghdad was a necessary condition for military support. It was through this lens that senior U.S. decision makers were reluctant to write the Shia-led Iraqi government yet another blank check from our military. Still today, Iraq’s political stability, and by extension its ability to cement the gains of the past five years, continues to be a key source of anxiety for U.S. national security leaders. Just in the past eight weeks, hundreds of thousands of protestors have rallied for fundamental reforms of Iraq’s political system and even sacked the Iranian consulate in Najaf, in protest of foreign interference in Iraq’s domestic political affairs.
Also missing is any discussion of the 80+ country coalition that came together to fight ISIS. They include passing mentions of allied air power, but don’t give our international partners the credit they deserve for rapidly stepping up to create a truly international coalition to fight ISIS. The authors also don’t delve into the uncomfortable, yet extremely important, geopolitical context in which they operated. Tens of thousands of Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Forces took up arms against ISIS, fighting on parallel fronts to U.S.-backed Iraqi Security Forces. Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani was in Iraq commanding ground forces in the Tigris River Valley during this period, and the book would have benefited from a more thorough treatment from Pittard on how Soleimani’s actions created impediments and opportunities for U.S.-backed forces.
For those interested in the history of the war against AQI/ISIS, Hunting the Caliphate fills in key gaps and includes important discussion on the evolving use of precision fire to support ground units. The book should be read for what it is, a firsthand tactical account by Pittard and Bryant of their successes, challenges, and frustrations in the initial months of the campaign against ISIS.
This book earns a solid three out of four trench coats.
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