G.I.’s Learning to Stand Down as Iraqis Step In

KIRKUK, Iraq — The soldiers of Battery B were on a routine walk through a downtown market when they heard the noise: a low crack that was followed by a plume of black smoke 500 yards away. The soldiers’ attention sharpened, their assault weapons swung at the ready. A few months ago, they would have been on the move by now.
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But Lt. Christopher Freeman ordered them to stand down.

“They want us to stay away,” he said, referring to his counterparts in the Iraqi police force. Under an agreement that went into effect on July 1, the American forces could not go to the scene unless the Iraqis asked. So the soldiers continued their canvass, the smoke streaming in the near distance.

“You want to react,” said Lieutenant Freeman, of the Third Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery. “You want to make sure no one’s hurt. But this is how we do things now. It’s not our fight.”

For American soldiers in most of Iraq — even here in one of the nation’s most unsettled cities — this is the new reality since July 1, after United States forces pulled out of urban areas and changed their role from conducting combat missions to aiding the local police and the military. Soldiers here recited the new mantra: they were here just to support and train; the fight belonged to the Iraqis now — the essential condition, after nearly seven years, for American troops to go home.

Training local troops was an early goal in Iraq and is now the linchpin of President Obama’s plan to begin to withdraw soldiers from Afghanistan in 18 months. It is one of many similarities between the wars, though many conditions are different.

Here in Iraq, training has proved difficult and often chimerical. The Bush administration had hoped to hand over security to the Iraqis almost immediately after the invasion in 2003, only to find that Iraqi troops were ill equipped and often either targets or instruments of sectarian violence.

Now, as America prepares to remove most troops by next summer, routine missions like Battery B’s illuminate the sometimes creaky progress of the forces on whom Iraq’s future security rests. But at some point, Americans and Iraqis alike had to decide what was good enough.

The battery’s new support role marked a philosophical shift from 2007, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the top American commander here, made protecting the populace the highest priority. The new priorities are more diffuse: to enable local forces; to enhance their standing in the community; to spur economic development; and to improve inter-ethnic relations.

Soldiers in B and other units said they now had a role for which they were not trained, with more down time, limited movement outside the base and missions that often consisted of standing around while their officers exchanged notes with Iraqi counterparts.

Some itched to go to Afghanistan, where the small number of trained local troops still meant an active combat role for Americans. Others battled boredom.

On a recent mission, soldiers from the Fourth Squadron, Ninth Cavalry Regiment drove cautiously through an intersection.

“That right there is the peak of our excitement, trying to flag the traffic to a stop,” said Staff Sgt. Homero Bazaldua, of San Antonio. The unit had not seen combat since arriving in Kirkuk in July.

For a fighting force whose members enlisted during wartime or re-enlisted after active tours, the new footing has required adjustment.

“I stopped trying to explain what we do, because it’s almost impossible to explain,” said Lt. Eric Dixon, also of the Fourth Squadron. “Everyone has in their head an idea what’s going on, and then when you tell them what’s really going on, they say, that doesn’t make any sense. It’s the Iraqis completely in the lead and us just in support.”

Asked if it was better this way, Lieutenant Dixon, of Anacoco, La., said: “It’s hard to explain. Like this mission — we like it, but it’s boring to us. But this is a much more rewarding mission than kicking down doors every day.

“We get to see the progress of what we’re doing,” he said. “There’s times we’ll go on missions and they’ll say, ‘We don’t need you. We’ll take care of this and give you a report.’ There’s no better measure of success than that.”