December 17, 2004
Civil Affairs Soldiers
Force Multipliers in Operation Iraqi Freedom
by Joseph Morrison Skelly
Private Papers

In military terminology, force multipliers are defined as assets that enhance an army’s effectiveness in combat. They include operational concepts such as tactical mobility, tactical surprise, information warfare and an efficient command and control system, as well as specialized units like military intelligence, signal battalions, aviation support, and civil affairs teams. Force multipliers partnered with front-line combat troops are a winning combination on the battlefield, they add to an equation where the whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts. In twenty-first-century warfare, force multipliers are essential to victory. In Operation Iraqi Freedom, they are critical to success.

The 411^th Civil Affairs Battalion, an Army Reserve unit based in Danbury, CT and recently deployed to Iraq, is a case in point. In the province of Diyala, situated Northeast of Baghdad along the Tigris River, Alpha Company of the 411^th is working closely with its lead element, the 3^rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1^st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One” of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge). Like other civil affairs detachments across the country, it is now engaged in a wide array of missions along the full spectrum of combat operations. The sum total of these experiences validates the integral role of force multipliers in modern warfare. They may also be transforming the standard conception of civil affairs, just as the army itself is adapting to the new demands placed on it by the war on terrorism.

On the one hand, Alpha Company is engaged in classic civil affairs missions. Its soldiers, under the command of Army leadership at brigade and division levels, are working closely with Iraqi experts and administrators, American diplomatic officials, and international NGOs on complex projects geared towards stabilizing the province of Diyala. These tasks include assessing the infrastructure in towns like Khanaqin and Khalis, streamlining the electrical grid near the Iranian border, restoring the provincial telecommunications network, reconstructing primary and secondary schools in Muqdadiya, and enhancing civil-military relations in Baquba, the provincial capital. These missions are more commonly understood as “winning the peace” or “winning hearts and minds,” which they surely do. Their success is facilitated by the unique civilian skill sets that these Reservists bring to a combat environment. City planners, accountants, policemen, teachers, lawyers and businessmen in the civilian world, they are force multipliers in the military theater.

On the other hand, since the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom Army civil affairs units have moved beyond their traditional sphere of activity and ever closer to the forward edge of battle. They have played important roles in Najaf, Samarra and, more recently, Fallujah. An American journalist reported from the latter site how “civil affairs specialists moved their offices into Fallujah, even though the many residents who left have yet to return and the city still crackles with gunfire…Explosions still thundered from the next block, where holdout insurgents were pursued with high explosives, [while] the civil affairs assessment team moved out with a spring in their step.”

These new responsibilities are part and parcel of the nature of the war on terrorism, where the once clearly defined lines of opposing forces common to conventional fighting have transformed into the coiled battle space of insurgency warfare. In Iraq and Afghanistan combat support units such as transportation and logistics, military police, and engineer battalions can be carrying out their standard missions one minute and then find themselves on the front lines the next. A convoy of supply vehicles may have to respond suddenly to an ambush; MPs at a checkpoint may have to engage in an unexpected firefight; engineers building a bridge may have to neutralize snipers on nearby rooftops.

Civil affairs soldiers in Iraq are prepared for all of these contingencies. Their years of military education and advanced Army instruction have been reinforced by months of extensive combat training before deployment, in places like Fort Irwin, California, Fort Hood, Texas and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They have qualified on a range of weapons, rehearsed infantry tactics, prepared for urban street fighting, cleared rooms and houses, driven on convoy after convoy, and reacted to various IED scenarios. Many of them have combat experience in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and earlier rotations in Iraq. Civil affairs soldiers are versatile warriors. On any typical day they are prepared to engage enemy insurgents in the morning and to liaise with Iraqi sheiks and mayors in the afternoon.

The experiences of soldiers from Alpha Company encapsulate the agility required of civil affairs troops today. Several of them stationed at the Civil-Military Operations Center (CMOC) in Baquba are supervising a range of projects designed to enhance life in Diyala. For example, one is coordinating the reconstruction of two local colleges damaged during fighting in June 2004, when insurgents commandeered nearby buildings. Another is helping athletes in Diyala achieve their goals by securing funding from the U.S. government’s Office of Transitional Initiatives (OTI) for the renovation of a soccer stadium in the town of Al-Jaddit. One specialist is supervising a public works program for unemployed Iraqi military veterans in the city of Kanan – also funded by OTI – which is assisting these soldiers from the previous regime to adjust to life in a free and democratic Iraq. A medical branch officer is overseeing the distribution of health care supplies to hospitals throughout the province. An NCO is working closely with local officials to rebuild several fire stations that fell into a state of disrepair during the Saddam Hussein regime. Renovating and re-equipping them will enhance the safety of Iraqi citizens—and may even save their lives one day.

On November 15^th, meanwhile, the troops at the CMOC had to contend with some real fires of their own. These civil affairs soldiers quickly shifted gears into combat mode when insurgents launched a series of attacks against Iraqi and Coalition targets in Baquba. As the CMOC came under sporadic mortar fire, they assumed their battle stations, completed their pre-combat inspections, maintained communications with elements of the 3^rd Brigade Combat Team on the compound, and provided timely assistance to members of the Iraqi National Guard. Their military training was put to the test. Soldiers first, they were force multipliers that day. The CMOC remained secure.

Civil affairs units elsewhere are helping to stabilize Iraq by combating insurgents and winning hearts and minds. A Defense Department spokesman recently summed it up best: Army leaders now “recognize the important role of civil affairs and are incorporating civil-military operations into their battle plans from the earliest planning stages. Trained civil affairs staffs now are an integral part of every command staff.” Or in other words, they are force multipliers on the twenty-first-century battlefield.

Joseph Morrison Skelly, an assistant professor of history at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in New York City, is currently serving with the 411^th Civil Affairs Battalion in support of the 3^rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division in Operation Iraqi Freedom. A version of this essay appeared on the website of the 1^st ID: www.1id.army.mil