The reality was that a battalion of American soldiers probably could have done whatever they wanted in the Korengal, but they didn’t have a battalion—they barely had a company. In a war that had been undermanned and underestimated from the very beginning, military commanders were constantly making decisions about where to put their scarce manpower, and by the end of 2009, it became clear that the Korengal was never going to be pacified with the troop strength that was available.
