Marines Try More "Carrots than Sticks" on Detainees

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,150411,00.html?ESRC=marine.nl

Iraq Detainee Chief Undercuts Insurgents
By Christian Lowe | September 25, 2007

It may not be the most dramatic operation going on to defeat the insurgency and weed out al Qaeda in Iraq, and it may not grab the biggest headlines. But one Marine general is waging his counterinsurgency fight by attacking the battlefield of the mind, rather than kicking in doors and blowing up buildings.

In a corner of the sprawling Baghdad International Airport, just a harrowing armored bus ride from the Green Zone, Maj. Gen. Doug Stone is implementing a novel plan to undercut the insurgency by drying up its base of hardened fighters.

With a combination of vocational education, religious "enlightenment" courses and more carrots than sticks, Stone is working to send detainees captured in U.S. raids back into society with a mission of building a unified Iraq, rather than tearing it down.

"Victory ... is to establish an alliance with and to empower the moderate Iraqis to effectively marginalize the violent extremists," Stone told Military.com in a Sept. 21 interview from Camp Cropper, Iraq. "We're trying to build this society inside that would reflect victory on the outside."

 

Marines never stop looking for a way to "win".