Thanks. I have two other questions if you don't mind.
- Did Shia militias supported you at first and attacked you once Saddam lost or were they hostile from in the beginning.
- Did you have contact with Kurdish soldiers? If yes, what was their point of view to the (new) Iraq?
Sure, not a problem.
I don't think there were any shia militias initially in the months following the invasion. As a caveat I must say my dealings with shia were limited. A vast majority of my time in Iraq was spent in majority sunni areas. I know in the weeks following the fall of Baghdad ALL Iraqis seemed to be happy that we were there. It was probably the best time I spent in that country. People were coming up to us from all different sides congratulating and expressing their happiness. But, as time went by, and the looting and failed infrastructure continued, relations became tenuous to say the least. By May of 03 I was in Al Anbar province which was hostile from the begining. A unit from the 82nd Airborne had gone through Fallujah before us and opened up on a crown of protesters after taking fire from the crowd. Even though we were one of the first Coalition units to enter the city after this incident, the state of the entire areas was dismal...it only got worse as the summer got hotter and lack of basic utilities caused the locals to resent us more and more. It seemed that the a majority of the Iraqis believed that since we were Americans, we could simply fix their multitude of problems in an instant. Obviously this was unrealistic...but in their minds, we toppled the very regime that held them imprisoned for 30 years in a month. They assumed we could fix anything...That coupled with our lack of understanding of the culture or the country caused a lot of heartache.
While that was going on I do remember Sadr city blowing up which was a prodominantly Shia neighborhood in Baghdad. The regional government was made to reflect the population which included a shia majority. Sadr at the time was trying to make a move for power and controlled thousands within his militia that seemed to grow exponentially during the summer of 03 into 04. The Shia majority government caused the Sunnis to boycott anything to do with the "new Iraq" and exacerbated the hostilities in the areas I operated out of. Remember, the sunnis had been in control of Iraq since the days of the Ottamans. They were not willing to give up that power and they felt the coalition was out there to subjugate them and empower the shia. We were simply clueless...of course, at the time I was a E-4/E-5 so I hardly saw the strategic implications at the time nor appreciated the history of the entire conflict. It wasn't until I went to university and after reading dozens of books did I realize how our "good" intentions resulted in US forces alienating themselves from the locals.
It was my understanding that the Shia militias were initially aligned with the coalition and only after the Abu Gharib scandal and growing casualties (on both sides) of 03 going into 04 did they start to turn against the US forces. Again, I must reiterate, I was in Al Anbar province from mid 03 all the way from mid 05 with a 6 month reprieve back home, so most of my experience with the begining of the war is limited to that area.
I have extensive experience with the Kurds. My last tour had me operating out of COS Warrior which was situated just outside of the city of Kirkuk. Kirkuk was a unique city by the time I got there because there were multiple factions working within the city to provide security for the region. There were ESU, IP, and Assayish all working within the city. The ESU were the Iraqi emergency service unit and were essentially the "best" of the Iraqi police force. The IPs were just your local police that were normally situated throughout the city at local checkpoints. The Assayish were the intelligence apparatus of the Peshmerga, or the Kurdish Army. I worked mainly with the ESU and the Assayish during the time I did patrols within Kirkuk. The ESU in Kirkuk was about 70% Kurdish and they were mostly really good guys. The Assayish were awesome. Although they weren't acknowledged by the GOI, they provided about 80% of the actionable intelligence ALL ISF worked off of in Kirkuk province. I wasn't supposed to talk to these guys, but I did anyways because they were reliable and they absolutely loved Americans. I could count on an Assayish platoon to be at my location within 10 minutes of being hit in Kirkuk whereas it took my own US QRF at least 30 minutes to respond to any situation where I would have needed them.
The Kurds were unique. They would be perfectly happy just being left alone from Baghdad and even more content having their own Kurdish country. The way they see it, they are being pushed from all sides. Iraq, Turky, Syria, nor Iran wants the Kurds to have their own country because all have huge Kurdish populations within their borders and that means all are afraid that if the Kurds get their own "country" then the large Kurdish minority within these countries will have deal with their Kurdish populations demanding a land of their own within their respective countries. They're the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country numbering conservatively at 30 million and as much as 50 million.
As far as their point of view on the new Iraq, they have taken the ball and run with it. Kurdistan is the model that we WISH the rest of Iraq would follow. Their cities are modern with clean streets and security. Not ONE US soldier was killed in any of the three Kurdish provinces throughout the entire duration of the Iraq war. US soldiers could even go there without their weapons or body armor. It was THAT secure. The Kurds revered the freedom they had provided to them by the US military. I must say the best feeling I have out of the whole Iraq mess was that at least the Kurds got it right.
Unfortunately, today as well as the time I was there in 2011, the epicenter of the insurgency and conflict was centered in this area. 80% of Iraqs oil in underneath Kirkuk province. There is a lot of bad blood between the GOI and the KRG. Kirkuk has always been ethnically Kurd. Saddam kicked out numerous Kurds in the 80s and 90s to "arabize" the province. This would give the Arabs a claim to the area so they could control the oil. Before, Kirkuk province was about 75% Kurd, 20% Turkoman, and 5% sunni arab. Now it's about 1/3 all the way around. There is a lot of tension about the whole thing because when the US took Iraq, thousands of Kurdish families returned to the province with deeds to the land they were kicked out of stating "this was our land, we want it back". Meanwhile, the Sunnis who had been living there for 20 years or more also had deeds to the land issued to them. The US declined to take sides in the debate so it has gone largely undecided. There was supposed to be a province wide census in 2009 to decide once and for all who would represent who within the GOI. This census has not happened because of stonewalling by the GOI because they know they will lose their claim to Kirkuk....As you might expect, sectarian violence has been problematic ever since.
The first picture is me with some of my ESU counterparts before a patrolin Kirkuk.
The second is with a Turkoman terp I had that was one of the best terps I ever had during a patrol towards the end of my last tour in 2011.
