Perspective: Counterinsurgency takes center stage in Iraq

Members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division on patrol

WASHINGTON - When Col. Ralph Baker commanded an Army brigade combat team responsible for a volatile area of Baghdad, he found that one of his most effective weapons was the handbill.

That's right, handbills. Fliers. Paper. In the United States, they're generally toss-aways, ads for hair salons or Chinese food. In Iraq, they can be an important way to disseminate information.

In Baker's unit – the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division – every mounted patrol carried standard handbills at all times. They passed out polite ones that apologized for any inconvenience during routine house-to-house searches. They distributed condemnatory ones in affected neighborhoods after bomb explosions or other insurgent attacks.

The fliers helped drive a wedge between the insurgents and local residents, and they often resulted in intelligence that US units could act upon, wrote Colonel Baker in a recent review of counterinsurgency techniques issued by the Army's Combined Arms Center.

Read the rest at the Christian Science Monitor