Commanders hone battlefield diplomacy

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Col. Walt Piatt, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, left, meets with Abu Khalef, a sheik in the Bedouin al-Shamari tribe in ad-Dawr, a village outside Tikrit, Iraq on Feb. 28.


Commanders hone battlefield diplomacy
By Lara Jakes - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Mar 3, 2009 17:25:16 EST

DAWR, Iraq — Sheik Sabah Mutasher appreciated the Army’s efforts to build a school for his tribe. But he didn’t embrace the American mission until Col. Walt Piatt showed up in a dusty pickup truck for a spur-of-the-moment courtesy call.

The sight of a U.S. officer riding with locals instead of in a bomb-protected vehicle is a window into the future for American forces. With the end of combat operations fixed for August 2010, commanders will switch to support and training roles and are now sharpening their skills at street-level diplomacy.

It’s all part of the shift in Iraq to emphasize the soft power of the Pentagon, which can use its troops and armored equipment to move around the war-battered nation more quickly and easily than State Department or other American officials. But it’s also left the military grappling with how to task combat troops in Iraq beyond the end of combat deadline set last week by President Barack Obama.

“All soldiers are combat soldiers,” Maj. Gen. David G. Perkins told reporters Monday in Baghdad. “The focus is what is their mission. That really becomes the issue.”

In Piatt’s patch of north-central Iraq, the focus has increasingly shifted for his Hawaii-based infantry brigade: crop-growing, water projects, employment and helping local leaders navigate their new political system. Insurgent-hunting and other battlefield duties are mostly left to the Iraqis.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/03/ap_iraq_battlefield_diplomacy_030309/%2e