CAMP LIBERTY, Iraq -- U.S. Army, Europe Soldiers are sweeping Baghdad's East
Rashid district "going after the bad guys and doing very, very well and trying to give a
little hope to the Iraqis … so they don't have to live in fear any more," Col. John RisCassi
told journalists and bloggers during a conference call from Iraq Oct. 12.
RisCassi commands USAREUR's 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment from Vilseck, Germany, currently assigned to Multi-National Division - Baghdad. The Strykers are tasked with detecting and diffusing
improvised explosive devices and destroying terror cells in a troubled community near
Baghdad's heavily fortified International Zone.
"We have a populace down there that is basically being bullied into doing things they don't want
to do, harboring al Qaeda or
thugs or bad guys -- whatever you want to call them," RisCassi said. "I talked to an older
gentleman a few days ago, and he's been living there for 25 years, and he just called them
bad people, and (said) this was a bad place with bad people in it."
Those bad people have planted plenty of IEDs, the colonel said. In their first 72 hours on
the ground here, 2nd Stryker Soldiers located 30 devices. "That is a weapon of choice
around here … and we take it very serious," RisCassi said. "We go as slow as we need to,
to figure this out."
It starts with thinking like a terrorist, the colonel said. "First of all, we do a good analysis
by saying, 'Hey, if you were the bad guy, where would you put these things?'"
The second part comes from befriending and enabling Iraqi citizens. "We're working hard
with the local nationals; the people that live there. They don't want these things on their
streets, either. So we have tips lines. We have sources, and they come forward, and they
tell us where they are," he said.
While roadside bombs are familiar foes, RisCassi said his Soldiers are alert to another
emerging threat as well -- houses rigged to explode.
The colonel said his troops check houses in the area "very, very hard" and employ
explosive-sniffing dogs and other methods to try to identify booby-trapped houses. But
the best intelligence comes from Iraqi citizens, he added. "The most tell-tale sign is
someone (when) tells you, 'That's a bad house, and there's something in there,'" he said.
The Stryker Soldiers are barely a month into their mission, but are already preparing
Iraqis to take over, RisCassi said, starting with local citizens who have volunteered to
assist coalition forces.
"That's the big key of success here, doing what we do and then turning it over as quickly
as we can to put an Iraqi face on it so the Iraqi people can see their own securing and
taking care of them," he said.
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