From victories in Ramadi, Fallujah, and towns and principalities in between, the Iraqi army and its coalition allies have steadily rolled back the territorial gains made by the terrorist group ISIS over the past two years. On Sunday, the Iraqi Prime Minister announced the beginning of the campaign to wrest Mosul back from the Islamic State. The Cipher Brief talked with retired four-star General and Former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, John “Jack” Keane, to discuss the assault and the problems that may arise after Mosul has fallen.
The Cipher Brief: In your opinion, what is the current balance of forces in Iraq as we lead up to the impending campaign to retake Mosul?
General Jack Keane: It’s hard for us to determine the exact numbers, but the content of the force is primarily the Iraqi army, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) – often described as Shi’a militia – and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces from northern Iraq, with at least the nominal participation of the Sunni Tribal Force. Those are the major components of the campaign that will be taking on the attack on Mosul.
TCB: When we think about the Sunni Tribal Force, how numerous, how effective, and how well-trained are they at this point?
JK: They are the smallest in number, and what is disappointing is that we built this force during the Iraqi troop surge of 2007, to 109,000 men. Today, it is considerably smaller - I would estimate under 10,000. This is very disappointing, and it’s due largely to the failure of the Iraq government to reach out in a significant, inclusive way to encourage Sunnis to accept the political risk to participate in the military campaign.
The Sunnis did this once before when they stood up against al Qaeda in 2006, and most significantly, in 2007. At that time, the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki welcomed the inclusion of the Sunni force and promised them political representation, which did happen. However, after the U.S. pulled its forces out in 2011, that same Prime Minister purged the Sunni political leaders, who he believed to be opponents, and purged many of the Sunni military leaders who had distinguished themselves during the surge, - as a result, the Sunni political and military leadership has been very reluctant to take this political risk again after having suffered so terribly in the aftermath of the commitment they made in 2006-2007.
The only way to reverse this would have been outreach from the Abadi government to put in place some guarantors that political unity is truly something he’s trying to achieve. But now, the Sunnis are not convinced of that, and the Iranian government, with their representatives in Baghdad, have been working feverishly to make certain that this kind of political unity is not achieved again. The reason for that is obvious: what Iran wants is a politically weak Iraq, which is stable and dependent on Iran and not on the United States.
What’s also very disappointing is the lack of assertiveness by the United States government and its envoys in Baghdad to help to achieve this unity. A number of us have suggested, for over two years now, that it would be in the U.S. interest to return retired General David Petraeus and former Ambassador Ryan Crocker, both of whom helped to achieve this unity in 2007, to Baghdad to personally represent our President and try to regain that political unity. But this has not happened. Not only that, but Secretary of State John Kerry rarely ever goes to Iraq. Instead, he spends most of his time talking to the Russians [about Syria] and not accomplishing much of anything in doing so.
The reason I’m focusing on this is because once Mosul is taken, these political divisions in Iraq are going to rise in importance, and will challenge the effectiveness of the Iraqi government going forward. And we must understand full well that Iran has their hands all over preventing the reemergence of political unity.
TCB: What do you think the Iranians want to see in Mosul?
JK: They clearly want ISIS driven out of Iraq; it’s in their interest. They would also like the PMUs, and particularly the Shi’a militias that they back, to participate in the actual assault on Mosul itself. From what I’ve been advised, the PMUs will appear in a support role. In other words, the main effort of taking Mosul will largely fall to the Iraqi army and the Counterterrorism Force will lead that attack, as they did successfully in Ramadi and Fallujah. But there is a huge advocacy on the part of the Iranians for the PMUs to be a part of the assault on the city.
What gives everybody pause for using the PMUs in the city is that, when they have participated in past attacks – admittedly in much smaller towns – what has resulted is assassinations and genocide of Sunni populations. So there is huge pushback from the Sunnis for the PMUs not to participate in the assault on Mosul. Here, the United States is aggressive in working with the Iraqi government to prevent PMU participation, and the U.S. has a big card that it can play, which is U.S. airpower. the Washington is saying to the Baghdad government that they will not provide airpower to support an attack on Mosul if it involves a significant PMU presence. The final decision remains to be seen but that’s the concern, that hundreds if not thousands of innocent Sunnis would likely be killed by the wrath of the PMUs, as they have been in the past.
TCB: How will the Kurdish Peshmerga forces factor into the attack on Mosul?
JK: It remains to be seen how the actual attack will be coordinated, but the role of the Kurdish Peshmerga is also a supporting role. I understand some of the Peshmerga units may in fact enter in the eastern or southeastern part of the city, which will be fine. They will look at this as a military task to be accomplished, and they will go about their business, as they have in the past, trying to minimize the loss of civilian life. Certainly not trying to take any civilian life unnecessarily.
TCB: As you know, the Turkish presence at Bashiqa airbase in Kurdish northern Iraq, which the Turks partially justify as an attempt to ensure that the PMUs do not attack the Sunni civilian population of Mosul, has caused new tension in Turkish-Iraq relations. How will Turkey affect the “day-after” in Mosul?
JK: I think the Turks will keep their heads down during the conduct of this operation. They are having some positive impact against ISIS in Syria, north of Aleppo near the Turkish border, where they have actually introduced some of their forces into Syria, and have worked with the Syrian Democratic Forces – a U.S.-backed opposition coalition.
Just as background, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi only commanded several hundred fighters in 2011 and around the environs of Baghdad, hiding in the shadows and conducting classic terrorist attacks on a very small scale, trying to rise to the level of attacks that al Qaeda had done years prior and had been summarily defeated in 2007.
When he seized the opportunity created by the stalemate of the Syrian civil war - particularly when the United States made the decision not to support the Syrian moderates with sophisticated weapons to deal with Assad regime’s army - Baghdadi then moved in 2012 into northeastern Syria with the help and facilitation of the Turks, who kept an open border between Turkey and Syria and moved thousands of fighters into Syria from countries all over the world. Despite protests from the United States and many other governments, Erdogan kept the flow of those fighters going. He was opposed to the Assad regime, wanted Assad to fall, and he was supporting opposition forces who would do that.
So Erdogan created a monster in ISIS, in a sense, by permitting them to grow to that size and scale, so much so that it impacted his own interests. It gave the Kurds so much pause and concern that they had to grow their military capability to deal with ISIS. Erdogan did not want the Kurds to gain more military or political power, which in fact they did in Syria.
Erdogan was also backing Jabhat al Nusra, which is an Al Qaeda offshoot, for the same reason. He wanted these forces to take down the Assad regime. But as we know, that all backfired on him, because ISIS is less interested in taking down the Assad regime and more interested in establishing their Caliphate in Syria and Iraq, reaching out to other countries, and being able to influence them - so much so that somewhere in the neighborhood of 28 to 30 countries now have ISIS affiliates. The Caliphate that they built, particularly in Syria, is what allowed this expansion to happen. It was a huge geopolitical mistake on Turkey’s part.
TCB: Tactically, do Iraq and allied forces have what they need to achieve their objectives in Mosul, and what do you think the general timeline is for that campaign?
JK: I think the Iraqi forces, supported by coalition forces, particularly the U.S., have the wherewithal to retake Mosul. How long that will take and at what price depends on a number of things.
First, we know for a fact that the improvised explosive device (IED) defenses, mines, and tunnel systems are extensive in Mosul, and that will take some time to breach as we saw in Fallujah and Ramadi. Second, despite all that engineering work, it’s unknown how stiff a resistance ISIS will put up. The last time they truly defended in place was in Kobane, Syria, and they took staggering losses there. They truly have not done that since. They didn’t do that in other towns in and around northern Iraq, they didn’t do it in Fallujah, they didn’t do it in Ramadi. What they did is put up some resistance but commit the majority of their forces to depart, so that they could be salvaged to fight another day.
I think what intimidates ISIS the most is the idea of Iraqi ground forces fixing them in place with ground fire so that they are unable to maneuver, and then destroying them with air power. So how much resistance they’re going to put up is unknown.
The other variable is that we don’t know for sure how much support they are going to receive from the people in Mosul. We do know that when they first entered Mosul, many of the city’s people received them favorably, because as a Sunni community, they were fed up with being on the tail end of all the services and resources provided by a Shi’a-dominated government. So many of them welcomed ISIS, thinking that the Sunni group would liberate them from this suffering and enhance their quality of life. On the contrary, the opposite has taken place, because ISIS has imposed very restrictive Shari’a Law, which has changed the Mosul population’s everyday life experience rather dramatically.
While we know that’s been happening and we know that their attitude has likely turned against ISIS, we just don’t know for sure where that population will actually be, and how much support some of that population is willing to provide ISIS, which then makes the task inside the city more challenging, if you have the civilian population supporting the terrorists in their midst. Of course, some of that support will go on anyway because of intimidation and the threat of death, but it will be more powerful if the support is offered willingly.
