Quick-Look Teams
DANA PITTARD
July 2014
We’d been on the ground in Iraq less than a week when we received an additional mission tasking from President Obama and the National Security Council. They wanted CENTCOM to conduct a formal assessment of the fighting capability of the Iraqi Security Forces.
Of course, I felt that we already knew that answer. But I also knew that taking time to conduct formal assessments would help buy time for the Obama administration to figure out what to do to thwart ISIS without giving the impression that the United States was supporting the abusive Shia government of Prime Minister Maliki.
The formal assessments, called “Quick Looks,” would build on the foundation already established by the work of our ten-person assessment team led by Colonel Eric Timmerman back in May, and would be accomplished primarily around the greater Baghdad area.1 That made sense because over 70 percent of the Iraqi Security Forces were in the area to safeguard the capital city.
Special Forces teams dispatched under the Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) would visit individual Iraqi battalions, brigades, and divisions in the area. Simultaneously, my U.S. Joint Operations Center leadership would assess Iraqi senior commands.
We worked closely with the Special Forces teams from Navy SEAL Commander Black’s task force to support their ground movements throughout the Baghdad area as they assessed the Iraqi units. Major General Mike Nagata, the SOCCENT commander, had been able to bring in senior special operations officers—Army Lieutenant Colonels and Navy Commanders—and senior NCOs to augment the CRF. That helped with the assessment effort. Wes Bryant’s JTACs from the special operations task force were attached to the teams for added firepower in case ISIS got bold and the teams ran into trouble.
The “Quick Look” teams were escorted throughout the greater Baghdad area by an elite Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service patrol. A U.S. quick reaction force (QRF) was also on standby. We did not want to take any unnecessary chances since the situation in the Baghdad area was still very precarious.
In the end, there were no major roadblocks to the assessments and no firefights with ISIS ensued. However, the assessments were not without their hiccups. On a mission to the Iraqi 25th Brigade, 17th Division, one of our Special Forces teams encountered hostile Shia militias and there was a brief standoff. Luckily, it was deescalated with the help of the accompanying Iraqi CTS forces as well as a show of presence (SoP) by one of our F-16 fighter jets—a fly-over controlled by the JTAC to warn the Shia militias that we weren’t to be trifled with.
For another assessment to an Iraqi military base near Taji, one of our Special Forces teams was forced to cancel the mission last minute because they observed suspected Shia militias while soaking the area with drone coverage prior to pushing out. We had to avoid some of the militias because we knew that teams of Iranian Quds Forces were in Iraq embedded with and enabling Shia militias with arms.2 Interaction with the Quds Forces could have created an even more convoluted situation.
The contact with the Shia militias had caused alarm bells to go off throughout ARCENT in Kuwait and at the CENTCOM and SOCCENT headquarters back in Florida. But I wondered if we were slightly overblowing the potential consequences of any contact with Shia militias. Suddenly, it seemed that we were saying all Shia militias were bad. Having worked successfully with some in Diyala Province ten years earlier—primarily the Badr Corps—I knew that all Shia militias were not the same. I concurred that groups like Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) and Hezbollah (KH) absolutely hated us and we could probably never trust or work with them. However, I felt like the largest Shia militia—the Badr Corps—could actually find common cause with us against ISIS.
The Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) staff in Kuwait turned all the “Quick Look” reports into a coherent, formal assessment for LTG Terry to present to General Austin. The final assessment went to the highest levels of the Pentagon and the White House. Overall, we concluded the Iraqi Security Forces could, and would, fight to defend Baghdad.
As expected, one of the most important outcomes of the report was that it gave President Obama and his advisors much needed time to figure out what they wanted to do about ISIS, and how to encourage a change in Iraqi civilian national leadership. But those decisions didn’t come right away.
In lieu of further orders, we began working in parallel with the staffs of CJTF in Kuwait and CENTCOM and SOCCENT in Florida. We needed to have a campaign plan against ISIS ready to go—one that we could launch as soon as we got a thumbs-up from Washington.
1 Cheryl Pellerin, “Hagel: All Assessments Needed for Full Picture in Iraq,” U.S. Department of Defense, July 10, 2014, accessed April 24, 2018, https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/602849/hagel-all-assessments-needed-for-full-picture-in-iraq/.
2 Janine Di Giovanni, “Nemesis: The Shadowy Iranian Training Shia Militias in Iraq,” Newsweek, November 27, 2016, accessed April 24, 2018, http://www.newsweek.com/2014/12/05/nemesis-shadowy-iranian-training-shia-militias-iraq-287610.html.