Filed from Mosul, this story originally ran in the Dec. 19, 2005, issue of the News-Miner.
While Mosul commonly smells of rubbish or burning trash, the smell of fresh-baked bread wafts through the air of the small community of Tall Kayf.
The tactical unit of the 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Alpha Troop visits this town several times a week to meet with the police chief. The smell of baking bread isn’t the only comfort Capt. Matt Eberhart and his soldiers find in an area that has given them and Iraqi forces little resistance.
Tall Kayf is on the edge of Kurdish territory. The ethnic group is predominantly supportive of coalition and Iraqi forces and the insurgency isn’t as strong here.
While Eberhart received an intelligence briefing Sunday from Iraqi police, soldiers from his troop wandered the neighborhood. A horde of children followed the soldiers as they handed out small stuffed animals. The crowd walked down a recently paved thoroughfare that Sgt. Frank Colleado said a week ago was just a large mud pit.
The soldiers stopped by the local bakery where they often buy fresh bread when they come to town. The racks were empty already Sunday morning, even though the aroma remained. Roosters and cattle shared the streets and two young men were shepherding a flock of sheep through an empty lot to graze.
Tall Kayf was the second of two essentially political visits made by the 4-14 on Sunday. Eberhart said the majority of his time is spent traveling to towns in his area, visiting local leaders. Sometimes he gathers intelligence from them or gets a briefing on possible terrorist activity or movement, as he did at the Tall Kayf police station.
Other times he and his Iraqi counterparts talk politics, culture and eat a meal, as they did during Sunday’s visit to Camp Kodiak.
Eberhart said other soldiers in the Alpha Troop still spend time working reconnaissance and tracking down terrorists. But he said everyone’s role in the unit has shifted dramatically the four months the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team from Alaska has been in Iraq.
He said when they arrived, his job was 80 percent chasing down the enemy, 20 percent mingling and meeting with local leaders to establish support and confidence in security forces.
“Now, those numbers are completely reversed,” Eberhart said.
Another sign of stability was the success of last week’s elections. Earlier Sunday, Eberhart visited Camp Kodiak, where the Iraqi Army has been securing ballots at a regional location since Thursday’s election.
He commended the Iraqi troops for the security efforts during the elections. He asked if they had estimates of voter turnout. The soldiers said they had heard the turnout was 70 to 80 percent, a number Eberhart said was impressive by U.S. standards.
“It’s good for people like us to come over and see how much democracy is appreciated when you didn’t use to have it,” Eberhart said. “We as a coalition don’t care who wins. We just want the system to work.”
The captain also asked if the officials thought the outcome of the election would be peacefully accepted. He said coalition forces had distributed pamphlets urging citizens to respect the vote.
“God willing, God willing,” the officials said in unison, using a common Arabic phrase.
Stretching the conversation into hours, the men continued talking politics, culture and eccentricities while drinking first coffee, then tea punctuated by an occasional cigarette.
Fadeel presented Eberhart with two traditional Kurdish headdresses, a woven woolen cap called a darsouk, and a kullif, a scarf men commonly wear wrapped around the head.
Eberhart asked the officials why any official he visited around the region, police or army or mayor, always had the television on. He wondered if television was relatively new for Iraqis.
Eberhart’s translator explained that during Saddam Hussein’s rule, only those channels and news programs faithful to the Baath Party were allowed.
“If you were found with a satellite receiver you would have been jailed or killed,” said the translator, who goes by the name Sammy.
Lengthy visits are not unusual for Eberhart. But spending time supporting Iraqi forces is the best way to continue creating communities like Tall Kayf, he said.
“That ultimately is what is going to beat the terrorists– the Iraqi security forces,” Eberhart said.