3rd Infantry Division Operations - Fort Stewart - U.S. Army

44 3rd Infantry Division Operations
was efficient. It built confidence among Iraqi Security Forces
and the public alike.
This became the signature strategy for all operations under
emerging counterinsurgency doctrine, part of "holding" terrain
in the whole clear/hold/retain scheme. Securing the population
had priority over everything else. After the population perceived
that it was safe, jobs and investments came. The economy
improved and local governments could assume control.
Operation Murfreesboro was followed by Operation Okinawa
and featured the concerted efforts of a Marine battalion
and over 500 Iraqi police. Then, another Marine battalion was
attached so that infantry, working with Task Force 3-69 Armor,
could conduct Operation "Call to Freedom." During Call to
Freedom, multiple caches were cleared and the brigade established
a Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC) to provide
humanitarian assistance to the city. March 31st, the day after
Call to Freedom was completed, not a single attack or incident
occurred in Ramadi, something unheard of just six weeks earlier.
All indicators showed that something good was happening
in the Anbar province. The number of complex attacks, those
involving deliberate planning and multiple enemy weapon systems,
dropped dramatically. The ISF were finding nearly seven
out of every ten caches discovered. Naturally, ISF knew the terrain
and understood what right looked like and when something
was askew. Nine out of ten IEDs were found before they were
detonated thanks to tips from the public and alert, well trained
Iraqi and American Soldiers. Al-Qaeda was disrupted, and,
rather than attacking hardened coalition forces, it fled the city
and continued its murder and intimidation campaign against innocent
civilians living in rural areas.
The Raiders launched successive operations beginning in