Army Brigade Commander: U.S. Is ‘Winning’ in Iraq but Hard Work Remains

A U.S. Army commander whose brigade recently deployed home from Iraq said the U.S. is winning there from a military standpoint, but victory depends on whether the international community can help rebuild devastated areas.

“What we are doing, I categorize as winning from a military standpoint,” said Army Col. Brian Sullivan, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, at an Army briefing at the Pentagon on Wednesday. But, he said, “that only gets you so far.”

“I think that’s where a lot of the hard work remains, for the international community to invest in the future of Iraq, to restore essential services, to rebuild and help the politics and the economics, restore the failed social contract that has existed between the government of Iraq and the Iraqi people, which has proven, really, the root cause and incubator for ISIS ideology,” he said.

After U.S. forces withdrew in 2011, then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki allowed the U.S.-trained Iraqi military to atrophy and for the Shia-dominated government to persecute the Iraqi Sunni minority. Sunni grievances allowed for ISIS, a Sunni extremist group, to gain a foothold in the country, and successfully seize territory across Iraq the summer of 2014.

U.S. forces deployed again to Iraq in June 2014, and began to rebuild, train, and advise Iraqi forces to push out ISIS. On December 9, 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi declared the defeat of ISIS in Iraq.

But Sullivan said that did not mean “victory.”

“I think we’re winning, but…I don’t think there’s anything such as victory in today’s global environment, because anytime you win something, as we saw on 9 December [2017] when Prime Minister Abadi made his declaration,” he said. “It simply opens the doors to new challenges.”

Sullivan and his soldiers arrived in Iraq in the fall of 2017, shortly after U.S.-backed Iraqi Security Forces retook Mosul. They helped Iraqi forces retake other key cities, and began basic stabilization efforts such as restoring water, health services, and electricity, as well as disabling improvised-explosive-devices (IEDs) left behind by ISIS.

He said the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is working directly with contractors on projects to rebuild Iraq.

Sullivan said his soldiers recognize that even if they helped to defeat ISIS in Iraq, the fight is not yet over.

“They recognize they are indeed in an era of persistent challenges, and even as we redeploy and we are part of what I think was a significant victory, we recognize that that was fleeting and the challenges for the American soldier is how do we continue winning.”

It was the brigade’s sixth deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan.