Editing 1st Armored Division (United States) (section)

==== Ready First ====
The division's 1st Brigade deployed again to Iraq in January 2006 under the command of Colonel [[Sean MacFarland|Sean B. MacFarland]] after months of intensive training in Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels, Germany. Many of the soldiers who fought with units like 1–36 Infantry ("Spartans"), 2–37 Armor ("Iron Dukes"), and 1–37 ("Bandits") during the invasion of Iraq returned for a second tour. Most of the 1st BCT was initially deployed to Northern Iraq in [[Nineveh Governorate|Nineveh province]] concentrating on the city of Tal' Afar. In May 2006, the main force of the 1st Brigade received orders to move south to the city of Ramadi in volatile Al Anbar Province.<ref name="Michaels2010">{{cite book|last=Michaels|first=Jim|title=A Chance in Hell: The Men Who Triumphed Over Iraq's Deadliest City and Turned the Tide of War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b_M80NRlBeIC&pg=PA89|year=2010|publisher=St. Martin's Press|isbn=978-1-4299-5051-0}}</ref>

[[File:Tank in Ramadi.jpg|thumb|1st BCT employed tanks in the city of Ramadi to push out Al Qaeda in Iraq.]]

Since 2003, Al Anbar served as a base of operations for the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda.  Ramadi, its capital, had neither a government nor a police force when the brigade arrived.  Most military strategists inside and outside of the Bush administration believed that the war in Anbar had already concluded unsuccessfully.  Al Qaeda in Iraq publicly announced Ramadi as the capital of their new caliphate and the city alone averaged more than twenty attacks per day; the province was statistically the most dangerous location in the country, and the insurgency enjoyed free rein throughout much of the province.<ref name="Filkins">{{cite news|last=Filkins|first=Dexter|title=U.S. hands back security of Anbar Province|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/africa/01iht-iraq.4.15798614.html?_r=0|access-date=18 September 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=1 September 2008}}</ref>