New Dawn

American combat operations have ceased and our work in Iraq has shifted to a support role under a new operation name. Now, with the departure of the last combat battalion, the effort will change to Operation New Dawn.

When LTG Thomas Metz, CG of The Phantom Brigade, began preparations for the final fight to free Fallujah in 2004, he named the US military Operation – Phantom Fury. Generals Metz and Casey worked very hard to bring the Iraqi Army on board. They wanted the new Iraqi Army to become a partner in Operation Phantom Fury and to help bring peace and stability to Fallujah.

When the Iraqi Army made the commitment to participate, they assigned their own name to the Operation – Al Fajr or “The Dawn.” Al Fajr is a passage in the Koran. It speaks of wrongdoers returning to the graces of Allah and of a “New Dawn” of peace and enlightenment.

I could have easily named my book “The Dawn,” but I took literary license and used NEW DAWN. There has never been an operation named “New Dawn.” The 2004 attack on Fallujah was Operation al Fajr.

Earlier this year, after reading an advance copy of New Dawn, General David Petraeus requested that the name of America’s operations in Iraq be renamed. Today, the Iraqis are free to forge their own destiny and Operation Iraqi Freedom is over. Many wrongdoers have returned to the graces of Allah and there is a New Dawn of hope for the Iraqi people.

But, in the words of one of the 21^st Century’s foremost experts in counterinsurgent warfare, David Kilcullen, ““In modern counterinsurgency, ‘victory’ may not be final…”