I could sense that the window of opportunity to avoid a full-blown fight was closing rapidly. The highways and ratlines from Syria were wide open for foreign fighters. We had very few reliable local Iraqi forces, and we were still developing informant networks. The terrorists were coming together for attacks and then falling back into safe houses in the city. Very few civilians would dare inform against them, and even if someone wanted to inform, they didn’t know which Iraqi officials could be trusted not to betray them, and we Americans hadn’t proved that we would stick around.
