Kevin Charter of Mount Shasta, a United States Marine Reserve Major, returned safely from Iraq in November after completing his second year-long tour there training Iraqi police in the city of Ramadi.
An investment counselor for Edward Jones in Mount Shasta, Charter says that even though no weapons of mass destruction were found, the mission has greatly improved the lives of the Iraqi people.
“What we did was so much bigger than WMDs,” said Charter, who was an advisor to the Iraqi army near Ramadi during his first tour in 2005-06. “You have to have been there to truly know the impact the coalition forces have had. Under Saddam Hussein, you were either loyal, dead or just trying to survive. You can make a good argument for our efforts on humanitarian reasons alone. Now people feel a cloud has been lifted. The Iraqis have hope, direction and opportunity.”
Charter believes that Hussein was involved with WMDs. “I still truly feel that Saddam was acquiring or planned to make them,” he said.
Charter commanded 196 Marines and Sailors of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 23rd Marines. Their mission was to do security patrols and train Iraqi police.
One of the most important missions was teaching the Iraqis how to operate under the rules of law, using legal procedures we take for granted, Charter said.
“The Marines opened the largest judicial center in the country. We oversaw a prisoner release program that required the Iraqis to provide evidence against an accused, and a warrant signed by a judge,” he said. “We released 10 to 40 prisoners a month. If there was no concrete evidence, we let them go. They had to make a legitimate legal case as opposed to the past chaos.”
Charter said that coordinating the Iraqi takeover of the police forces from the Marines involved constant meetings with local leaders.
“Every day I would meet with some combination of police officials, city council members and tribal Sheikhs sharing and gathering information and discussing security that included the whereabouts of high value targets,” he said. “I was in a unique position to hear each entity with a different perspective.”
One of the officials Charter liaisoned with was the head of the Ramadi police force, Colonel Ahmed.
“When Ramadi was under Al Qaeda control, Ahmed’s family was threatened by Al Qaeda. If you didn’t join you were told you would be killed. Ahmed went block by block establishing police stations, rooting out and eliminating Al Qaeda with no US military help,” Charter said. “They fought Al Qaeda by night and hunted them by day. What was good about this was that it was the Iraqis standing up on their own.”
Charter said he saw a dramatic difference in Ramadi, one of Iraq’s largest cities with a population of 400,000, from his first tour in 2005 to now.
“Ramadi was a deserted city controlled by Al Qaeda in 2005, he said. “Most people had left or were holed up in their homes. Now, it’s a bustling city of hundreds of thousands. People are shoulder to shoulder. Everything is open. It is amazing. It is a normal functioning city.”
Charter said the Iraqi people have learned to survive under extremely difficult conditions.
“The Iraqis learned under Saddam to lie and steal. It was not a negative as we see it from our context. It’s accepted,” he said. “They live for family and tribe. They did what it took for their family to survive.”
He said Al Qaeda still operates in Iraq, using crowds as shields when throwing IEDs at US soldiers.
“They would throw a type of grenade from behind a crowd so we could not identify where it came from,” Charter said. “We went to great lengths to make sure the rules of engagement did not kill civilians. Al Qaeda would like nothing more than to have a video of US soldiers spraying fire into a crowd of innocent Iraqis.”
Rules of engagement such as escalation of force, positive identification and hostile intent were reviewed before every patrol, four to seven forays per day, Charter said.
“How do you determine hostile intent? It’s very difficult. Soldiers had to make a decision in one second,” Charter said. “It left them vulnerable, but extremely judicious.”
Charter considered it a miracle when one of his Sergeants survived a sniper shot. “A sniper bullet penetrated the back of his helmet, entered the skin, traveled up next to his skull and exited through the top of his head,” he said. “They stitched up his scalp. He’s a member of a rare club that has survived a sniper.”
In a related announcement, the Iraqi Marine command has issued a statement officially declaring the Marine’s mission in Iraq at an end as of Jan. 21.
“After six years, over 850 Marines and Sailors killed in combat and another 8,800 wounded we have completed our mission,” the statement says. “Words can’t begin to explain the magnitude of effort and sacrifice our Marines and Sailors have gone through to help the Iraqi people.”
Although he stresses that he has never been to Afghanistan, Charter says the situation there is “very different” than Iraq.
“Afghanistan is a completely different place,” he said. “NATO is involved with many countries. There are many constraints on what they can do. Iraq has road infrastructure, hospitals and electricity. There are areas in Afghanistan that have never, ever had electricity, and you would be hard pressed to convince them they need it. There are hard challenges ahead.”
Mount Shasta, Calif. —
