Lessons for Combat in Mosul, From a Trio of Watchdogs

In the seventh required quarterly report on American support for anti-ISIS operations in Iraq, three inspectors general offered key lessons from recent combat in the region. The report comes as attacks heat up to pry Islamic State forces from the key city of Mosul.

The review of ongoing U.S. aid to other Near East regional troops in Operation Inherent Resolve offers commanders recommendations for successfully removing enemy troops from the ISIS stronghold. It also covers issues such as combating fraud and procurement rule compliance.

The report, prepared jointly by the IGs for the Defense and State departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development, includes interviews with ground commanders drawing lessons for taking Mosul and eventually Raqqa in Syria, based on previous battles in Fallujah and Ramadi. 

The auditors have released 18 reports and are engaging in 57 ongoing or planned oversight projects of an operation dominating the foreign news coverage and in which several U.S. troops have been killed. There were 55 ongoing OIR-related investigations, with 75 percent of them involving possible procurement or program fraud, the report said.

Lt. Gen. Sean McFarland, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve from September 2015 to August 2016, said he expected the fight to expel ISIS from Mosul to have “some of the characteristics of the Fallujah [battle], some of the characteristics of the Ramadi fight” and that “Raqqa will resemble Manbij in many respects.”

The overall U.S. strategy is threefold, he said:

• Stand up well-trained local fighting forces that are backed by U.S. and coalition advisers, Special Operations forces, and U.S.-led Coalition air support;
• Create a large, local “holding force” made up of tribal fighters capable of controlling the city and surrounding areas after an area has been captured from [ISIS]; and,
• Ensure that preparations for humanitarian assistance for internally displaced persons are in place.

Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk told the IGs that planning for the governance of Mosul post-ISIS was a challenge because “every stakeholder involved has an idea for who should be in charge.” Plans are under way, he said, to put in place a Stabilization Task Force for Ninewa Province, where Mosul is located, made up of the provincial governor, the Iraqi government, the Kurdistan Regional Government, the UN Development Programme, and the U.S. and German embassies.

U.S. officials “cautioned that Mosul would be more difficult than previous campaigns because the city, with a population of over a million, is far larger than Ramadi (home to some 180,000),” the report noted. “Similarly, lessons learned through the liberation of Manbij in Syria would need adjustment for Raqqa, in part because Raqqa (with a population estimated at 220,000 in 2012) is larger than Manbij (75,000)."

Also laid out in the report were 24 planned projects from the three lead IG agencies and their partners. For example, the Defense IG plans to audit contracts and grants involved in the Defense Logistics Agency’s disposition of equipment at facilities in Kuwait. The State Department IG will audit fuel acquisition and distribution at its support facilities in nearby Jordan. The  USAID watchdog is planning four audits related to humanitarian assistance. And the Naval Audit Service is planning to verify that the Navy’s obligations and disbursements in support of overseas contingency operations comply with applicable laws and regulations.