City Changes From Wild Early Days
The atmosphere in Ramadi has changed considerably since the first days of the Fall of Saddam Hussein. The city was very unruly, with a lot of different factions and security issues including terrorists and insurgents, and a number of different criminal groups known to be in the city. Now, things are greatly improved, due to no little part from the Marine Corps presence and patrols in and around the city.
Members of the Marine Corps 4th BCT, 10th Mountain Division have patrolled and provided security, and now have largely handed off the job to different battalions of Iraqi soldiers who have studied and applied themselves to learn different security procedures.
Now the troops from Brigadier General Aamir and his National Army along with members of the Iraqi national police have pretty much began to assume the security concerns in and around the city of Ramadi. At first the transition was rocky, but now things are running smooth, leaving the Coalition Marine Corps soldiers largely in supervision and overwatch roles throughout the city.
The First Battalion of the 1st NP Division of the Iraq Army has planned and implemented a number of security patrols successfully in recent weeks, and the community and the citizens appear to be embracing their presence. At one point surrendering security to Iraqi Forces was a top concern, as the soldiers were largely untrained and didn’t know what to do.
Now, with better training and experience under their belt, the soldiers are reacting better, and are more confident. And this confidence is self sustaining, the more successes the Iraqi troops have the more the citizens begin to rely on and trust the Iraqi troop presence.
