US special forces stand guard, rifles raised, as soldiers lug two stretchers into a building in this restive city northeast of Baghdad.

Not long ago the stretchers might have carried the dead and wounded from the latest suicide bomb attack or bloody skirmish with insurgents. Now, however, they hold nothing more sinister than colourful strips of dressmaking material for an Iraqi women’s conference. Pieces of fabric are given to each woman who attends the meeting in Baquba.

Providing security at a women’s morning contrasts with the more action-packed image associated with special forces operations, but it illustrates one of a range of softer tactics also being employed to crack the insurgency. The hearts-and-minds mission is particularly important in Diyala province, the scene of most of the 32 female suicide bombings in Iraq this year.

“We do five or six sets of operations, some are kinetic, some are not kinetic and some are mixed in between,” a special forces soldier told The Times, which was invited on the mission. “What we do is by, with and through [the Iraqis].”

The face of the US military effort in Iraq has changed in recent months as the violence has dropped to a four-year low and the Iraqi police and Army, ever more competent, increasingly take the front line in any fight. US soldiers, as a result, are more likely to be out sipping tea with local sheikhs and politicians than breaking down doors and arresting people.

Colonel Burt Thompson is the commander of a combat brigade of 4,100 troopers in Diyala, once the hub of al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. He spends his time trying to help the local government to execute budgets, build schools, prepare for local elections and reconcile different sects.

“Guys like me are comfortable with fighting,” Colonel Thompson said. “I am not too comfortable with this governance thing, because what is it? How do you measure it? I don’t get paid for that . . . oh yes, I do. I get paid for all of this.” He added: “My number one line of effort for this brigade is governance.”

More than 90 per cent of the commander’s combat power is focused on initiatives such as ensuring the local authorities carry out projects to build roads, dig wells and provide electricity to towns and villages across Diyala.

A mere fraction of the Alaska-based 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, is tied up with the “kinetic” operations; namely, helping the Iraqi forces to hunt down insurgents.

“In 2007 it would have been 99.999 per cent kinetic,” said Colonel Thompson, whose troops arrived in Diyala only in the past month. Relaxing at one of the small bases inside Baquba, soldiers on their second or third tour to Iraq reflect on how things have changed.

Corporal James Wilson lost his best friend when a roadside bomb tore through their combat vehicle in Baghdad on his first deployment, from 2005-07.

The 23-year-old from Ohio said the chance of attack this time was much lower. “I find it almost like a vacation.

It makes me feel good,” he said. The improvement in security will enable the US military to shrink its presence in Iraq this month to 14 combat brigades from 16, at least two months ahead of schedule.

Despite the shift in tempo, from combat action to coffee mornings, dangers remain. Two soldiers from the Alaska brigade were killed last month in a rocket attack on Forward Operating Base Warhorse, the main American base in Diyala.

A question mark also hangs over the US military’s future in Iraq beyond the end of the year, when a United Nations mandate authorising its presence is scheduled to expire.

Baghdad and Washington are continuing negotiations over the Status of Forces Agreement which they must sign before December 31, which could have a major impact on operations.

A timeline is expected to dictate that US troops pull out of Iraqi cities such as Baquba by next summer and leave Iraq completely within three years.

Colonel Thompson said he was ready to respond to whatever happened. “I have got a problem set. I have got a vision. I will stop, I will reassess. I will make a plan and we will get at it,” he said, emphasising that the key was to pass on more responsibilities to the Iraqi authorities to enable the US military to step back.

At the women’s conference this week, organised by a US civil affairs officer, a diplomat and a number of female Iraqi leaders, a lively exchange took place between the 60 or 70 women who turned up for the occasion.

Many walked away with armfuls of material to make their own clothes; a subtle attempt to encourage women to find new sources of income in a province that al-Qaeda has singled out as a recruiting ground for female suicide bombers.

The special forces soldier described the preventative strategy as “left of boom”; getting in front of the problem, reaching out to the women to offer a competitive alternative to the insurgency.

Mischievous manoeuvres

­ In mediaeval European siege warfare trebuchets were commonly used to fire dung, dead animals and beehives into castles, in the hope of weakening the resistance of defenders

­ In his recollections of the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell described attempts to unsettle hungry enemy forces by blasting from speakers detailed descriptions of the food his comrades were enjoying. It did as much psychological damage to his own, equally ravenous, allies

­ In the run up to D-Day, Allied tacticians scattered the south coast of England with inflatable tanks and plywood artillery pieces as part of Operation Fortitude, designed to force the Germans to stretch their defences more thinly

Sources: Eastern Oregon University; Times archives

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