Can election help turn tide against insurgency?

RAMADI, Iraq - “I could sit tight right here, until I go home,” quipped one of the Marines in the back of the heavily armored “7-tonner” pickup truck, specially designed to absorb roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

He laughed as he peered over the thick sheets of iron, his weapon locked and loaded as we pulled out of Hurricane Point, in western Ramadi, and headed into the city. “This baby has got to be the safest spot in town!”

The mission was simple, but daunting: To provide security on Election Day.

Two days later, the Marines of the Second Battalion, 5^th Regiment see the light at the end of their deployment — only two months left in their seven-month rotation — and some combat troops admit that every four-minute ride from their base to central Ramadi, along a highly exposed road nicknamed “IED Alley,” is getting harder.

Test case for Sunni Triangle
“Ramadi is the Sunni Triangle’s best-kept secret,” said Golf Company's Capt. Chris Perkins, with more than a little irony. “All you hear about is Baghdad or Fallujah. Those are cakewalks compared to this.”

With one other Marine battalion and five Army battalions, the 2/5 Marines patrol one of Iraq’s most hotly contested areas — the 35 square miles around Ramadi, the capital of Al Ansar province and one of only two provinces that the U.S. military deemed could be too dangerous for meaningful elections to take place.

Slide show   Iraqis vote Iraqis turn out to vote amid reports of bomb attacks.

As a result, they believe that the direction of the political winds in Ramadi will largely gauge the direction of Iraq as a whole.

“Ramadi is a test case,” said the military's media briefer, operations officer Maj. Steve Alexander.

“Unlike Fallujah, Ramadi is not an insurgent stronghold. Unlike Baquoba or Samarra, the people of Ramadi have never bought into any system or regime, not even under Saddam (Hussein), who paid off their leaders with huge sums of money and advanced their soldiers up the ranks.

"They are extremely tribal, independent and mostly illiterate. The insurgents try to control them through intimidation. We are trying to win their trust and confidence. The jury is out, and the stakes are extremely high.”

Daily attacks
About 500,000 people live in Ramadi’s rambling, dusty complex of mostly single-floor compounds and palm trees. At least one fortified company of Marines (around 200 troops) patrols the city at any given time.

U.S. forces come under daily mortar, rocket-propelled grenade and small-arms fire at all of their three bases here. There are no safe zones. Some streets have become front lines for pitched battles between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, with local residents often killed or wounded in the cross fire.

During Saddam’s days, the town was a military bastion protecting against invasion from the West — and home to a division of Republican Guards.

Today’s insurgents are led by those former Republican Guard officers, as well as members of the local branch of Saddam’s military intelligence. The “FRE” (former regime elements) are professional, clever, and have vast financial resources to launch coordinated attacks, according to the U.S. military.

They have “co-opted” a number of other groups, including Iraqis and foreign “jihadis” (holy war fighters), common criminals and local tribesmen willing to take up arms and fight any “foreigner” for a price, American officials say.

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