Michael Yon has another of his fine dispatches up telling of what’s going on in Baqubah.

Right now Michael is in Singapore getting some much-needed rest.

In the first of two parts he tells of some of the things going on in Baqubah. The first quote is something from the Al Qaeda Islamic State. Propaganda. Michael quotes their statement and in the brackets and bold tells the truth as he witnessed it:

“The strongest kinds of explosives are awaiting them on the streets and in the allies(sic). [This was true: we lost a soldier to an IED. But our guys caught most of the bombs, in many cases when local Iraqis pointed them out. Others that remain hidden will be neutralized by our engineer and EOD teams in a thorough, methodical process that will continue until the city is cleared.] Snipers of the Islamic State of Iraq are going ahead hunting down dozens of soldiers. They are in control of the high-rise buildings [They were until our guys killed them], and ambushes and traps are awaiting them everywhere. [This was true: there were ambushes and traps everywhere. But our guys killed them, ran them off, or foiled the ambushes in nearly ever case. We did lose one Stryker and one Bradley.] The American Army, in spite of its numbers and equipment, could not penetrate the region except for a couple of minutes to film so as to sell the photographs to the lying media. [The penetration was persistent and pervasive and eventually complete, something captured on film by dozens of reporters who finally embedded for the initial days of the operation. A minor point: the military’s own photographs and videos are always available free of charge to media agencies.] It is during those few minutes that a great number of airplanes were downed. [Completely false.] We are announcing this good news to the nation as the soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq are basking in their victory in all parts of this and the rest of the provinces [It would be dangerous for al Qaeda to celebrate here in Baqubah, or in Anbar, or up in Mosul, or down in Basra, or in Sadr City. In fact, they are running out of places to peek out from, let alone bask in.], while the Crusaders will not escape this fierce battle but with slit throats and a defeat, the likes of which has never been witnessed.” [There are many American soldiers on FOB Warhorse in Baqubah. They’ve extended their invitation for al Qaeda to come visit.]
4-2 SBCT Daily Intsum

Al Qaeda is using the lack of food as a weapon against the civilians in this area, figuring if they are hungry they will re-join them.

Michael Yon tells how the food was obtained by Americans and Iraqis:

In the days just after the start of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, I reported that Baqubah had not had a food shipment in 10 months and concerns about a possible humanitarian crisis were emerging. When it comes to the battle of perceptions, a full belly trumps an empty stomach every time.

Iraq has an interesting food distribution system. The short version is that each family gets a stipend from the Iraqi government, and some of that money is automatically deducted for food. In a sense, the people of Baqubah had been paying for food for 10 months, but not getting any. People weren’t starving in Baqubah, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t care that the food shipments they were entitled to receive, and for which they’d already paid, were being held back in Baghdad. Digging deeper into the system, I learned that there are “food representatives” who represent a certain number of families (for instance, one food-rep may cover 200 families), and each family has a voucher.

Al Qaeda, like many serious terrorist organizations, uses food as clout and for pocket money. They had seized the food warehouse in Baqubah. The authorities in Baghdad responded by cutting off food shipments to Baqubah because they would fall into the hands of al Qaeda. This is where al Qaeda’s plan truly was working in the invisible ways—unlike but in addition to the very visible mosque bombings, for instance—because they had effectively cleaved Baqubah off from Baghdad. The mostly Shia government in Baghdad became the bad guy for cutting off the food.

But it gets worse; we are only getting started. As part of its ongoing effort to stoke the civil war, al Qaeda at first allied itself with Sunnis (until they started raping and murdering Sunni and burning down their homes) and tried to increase the hostilities between the Sunnis and the Shia. Civil war is undoubtedly the best method for running the Coalition out of Iraq—one need only follow US media to figure that out—one which would leave al Qaeda with, ahem, a David vs. Goliath glory.

The sectarian divide here was not manufactured by al Qaeda. Most countries have societal fissures that can be exploited, and the Sunni-Shia divide is like a tectonic plate. It’s actually somewhat stable, except for al Qaeda stuffing bombs in the cracks. The new government in Iraq is Shia dominated, and the Food Warehouse is in Sadr City, basically dead-center for Shia-land. Baqubah, on the other hand, is a Ba’athist haven. And so there you have it: Al Qaeda drove a multi-dimensional wedge using the food as one of those quiet bombs that never popped up on the radar, but nonetheless had a real impact on this war.

Because the one thing that definitely can run us out of here is the civil war, it follows that disrupting al Qaeda is like taking the blowtorch off the curtains. And for the beleaguered people of Baqubah, something nearly every family could see instantly as a positive sign would be the renewal of regular food distribution. There are many other shortages and problems for military and civilian leaders to sort through, but a food shortage is something that could be immediately ameliorated. Iraq is a breadbasket: there’s plenty of food here, it only takes trucks to move it around.

That, as it turned out, was just one part of the problem.

The Mayor of Baqubah, and all the king’s horses and men, were afraid to try to get that food from the warehouse next to Sadr City. The Mayor told me that when a representative from Baqubah went to another warehouse to get medical supplies, he disappeared. And then the Mayor told me flat-out that he knew if he went to the food warehouse, he would be killed.

There is much more to this dispatch than what I have quoted, including his famous photos. Please go to his site and read the entire dispatch.