[RowansDad]

If you're military/military family, you may not want to read this:

"The reconstruction of Iraq's security forces is the prerequisite for an American withdrawal from Iraq. But as the Bush administration extols the continuing progress of the new Iraqi army, the project in Baiji, a desolate oil town at a strategic crossroads in northern Iraq, demonstrates the immense challenges of building an army from scratch in the middle of a bloody insurgency.

"Charlie Company disintegrated once after its commander was killed by a car bomb in December. And members of the unit were threatening to quit en masse this week over complaints that ranged from dismal living conditions to insurgent threats. Across a vast cultural divide, language is just one impediment. Young Iraqi soldiers, ill-equipped and drawn from a disenchanted Sunni Arab minority, say they are not even sure what they are fighting for. They complain bitterly that their American mentors don't respect them.

In fact, the Americans don't: Frustrated U.S. soldiers question the Iraqis' courage, discipline and dedication and wonder whether they will ever be able to fight on their own, much less reach the U.S. military's goal of operating independently by the fall.

"I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full time after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."

More here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...902245_pf.html

If one got into a time machine and traveled back 35 years to Vietnam, this would sure sound like U.S. military types talking about ARVN troops.

 

[RowansDad]

Good parallel piece:

'Good and honest' Iraqis fighting US forces

"A senior US military chief has admitted "good, honest" Iraqis are fighting American forces.

"Major General Joseph Taluto said he could understand why some ordinary people would take up arms against the US military because "they're offended by our presence".

"In an interview with Gulf News, he said: "If a good, honest person feels having all these Humvees driving on the road, having us moving people out of the way, having us patrol the streets, having car bombs going off, you can understand how they could [want to fight us]."

More here:
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/Reg...ticleID=168406

 

[RowansDad]

Good interview on NPR with reporters Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru, authors of the article in the OP:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=4698396

 

[RowansDad]

According to Dubya Inc., this stuff is the key to when our troops can get the hell out of there:

As Iraqi Army Trains, Word in the Field Is It May Take Years

"A small but telling test of Iraq's fledgling army came recently in this troubled farm town south of Baghdad, when a group of Iraqi soldiers, ending a house raid and rushing to board pickups they use as troop carriers, abandoned the blindfolded, handcuffed man they had come to arrest.

"They left the detainee," an astonished American soldier said, spotting the man squatting in the dust along a residential street. "They just left him there. Sweet."

"The Iraqi troops were on their seventh house raid of the morning, part of a cordon-and-search operation in an area of towns and farmland so dangerous that American soldiers call it the Triangle of Death. Prompted by the soldier, the Iraqis ran back for the detainee, and managed much of the rest of their mission effectively, rounding up 13 insurgent suspects in three hours without having to call for direct involvement of the watching American troops.

"Such limited successes stand against a backdrop of American disappointment with many of the Iraqi units, whose effectiveness is crucial to a future American troop withdrawal.

"Despite the Bush administration's insistent optimism, Americans working with the Iraqis in the field believe that it could be several years, at least, before the new Iraqi forces will be ready to stand alone against the insurgents."

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/in...gewanted=print

 

[RowansDad]

More disturbing information on the training of Iraqi security forces:

"A former Pentagon official, journalist, and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Leslie Gelb, a man with considerable political and military knowledge, came back from a fact-finding trip in Iraq talking about the ''gap between those who work there, who were really careful of every word they uttered of prediction or analysis, and the expansive, sometimes, I think, totally unrealistic optimism you hear from people back in Washington."

"In a report to the council, Gelb was scathing about America efforts to train an Iraqi army. ''If you ask any Iraqi leader, they will tell you these people can't fight. They just aren't trained. And yet we're cranking them out like rabbits." As for plans to train a 10 division Iraqi army by next year, Gelb was scathing. ''It became very apparent to me that these 10 divisions were to fight some future war against Iran. It had nothing to do, nothing to do," with taking Iraq over from the Americans and fighting the insurgents.

"Americans have statistics for everything in Iraq, yet little of it reflects reality. ''The information seeps in, and you wonder about its reliability," Gelb said. " You wonder if you really know what's going on, because essentially what you have are the statistics. It reminds me so of the Vietnam days."

More here:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/edi...n_iraq?mode=PF

 

[RowansDad]

Good grief.....

Iraq has single self-sufficient battalion, U.S. generals say

"The Iraqi military has only one battalion - about 500-600 soldiers - capable of fighting on its own, U.S. commanders told lawmakers Thursday.

"Many Iraqi police are not being paid, and insurgents are infiltrating Iraqi police and military forces, the commanders acknowledged. Even so, Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. general in Iraq, said U.S. troops could start leaving next year if Iraqi voters back a proposed constitution and form a government.

"I do believe that the possibility for condition-based reductions of coalition forces still exists in 2006," Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"But U.S. troop withdrawals depend on the ability of Iraqi forces to quell a stubborn insurgency. The changing estimates of the strength of Iraqi forces led Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to ask whether talk of withdrawing troops was premature."

More here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...tm?POE=NEWISVA

 

[CanOBeans]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RowansDad ''It became very apparent to me that these 10 divisions were to fight some future war against Iran. It had nothing to do, nothing to do," with taking Iraq over from the Americans and fighting the insurgents.

:

 

[RowansDad]

Pentagon Says Iraqi Forces Are Improving, but Still Can't Fight Alone

"Iraqi security forces are growing steadily more capable, a Pentagon report made public on Thursday said. But senior American officers say the Iraqis remain at least a year away from being able to take over primary responsibility from American troops for fighting the insurgency.

"The report, a quarterly assessment required by Congress of the capabilities of the Iraqi armed forces and police, concludes "there has been steady progress" since June at getting Iraqi units to undertake counterinsurgency operations "with minimal direct support" from American forces.

"But a senior American officer in Iraq, while acknowledging that cooperation in combat is improving, said that other shortcomings prevented the Iraqis from operating without the help of American troops.

"Our assessment is that the Iraqi Army will not be ready for autonomous operations for at least another year," said the officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because his views are less optimistic than those of his superiors. "We are very, very effective in combined operations, but that is because we can compensate for their lack of capability in critical areas and provide them with leadership, mobile protected firepower, command and control and logistics that are lacking in their formations and still under development."

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/14/po...gewanted=print

 

[RowansDad]

Playing Den Mother to a Fledgling Iraqi Army

"I don't know why the hell they tried to jump the curb," said the captain, Christopher Center of the First Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, as he gazed out into the Baghdad night from his seat behind a computer screen in an armored Humvee. "This amazes me sometimes. The I.A. needs to get out of Baghdad to border areas. They should be securing the borders."

***

"Sgt. Christopher Bush, seated behind Captain Center, shook his head. "They try so desperately to be like us," he said. To the point of driving a jury-rigged goods vehicle over a median because, hey, a Humvee can do it.

"Sergeant Bush clambered out. Twenty minutes later, the Iraqis were back on the road.

"This is true Iraqi-American cooperation," Captain Center said, rolling again into the western Shula district of Baghdad. "This is how it all comes together. They're great guys, they mean well, they just sometimes don't have the equipment."

"Captain Center had regained his can-do composure. But almost three years into the United States effort to remake Iraq, the scene on the bridge was not encouraging: a bunch of guys, Iraqis and Americans, in a spooky place, unable to talk to each other without an interpreter, trying to attach a cord to the stranded truck of an embryonic army."

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/we...gewanted=print

 

[RowansDad]

Iraqi Desertions Complicate U.S. Mission

"Just two days before a mission to send hundreds of Iraqi soldiers after insurgents in this troubled western part of Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi commanders confronted an untimely problem - an Iraqi battalion commander was suddenly fired for incompetence.

"The commander's soldiers, a third of those assigned to the mission, would be absent for an operation designed in part to introduce the unit to residents in this town between the troubled cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, about 50 miles west of Baghdad.

"The missing battalion underscored what U.S. commanders call the Iraqi army's most glaring weakness in this restive part of the country: a shortage of soldiers able to take on their own "battle space," or areas where they are primarily responsible for security.

"The lack of Iraqi troops has complicated not only the operation in Bidimnah early Sunday, but also the broader mission here in Anbar province."

More here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060131/...E0BHNlYwN0bWE-

 

[RowansDad]

U.S. Report on Iraqi Troops Is Mixed

"The number of Iraqi army battalions judged by their American trainers to be capable of fighting insurgents without U.S. help has fallen from one to none since September, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

"But the number of Iraqi battalions capable of leading the battle, with U.S. troops in a support role, has grown by nearly 50 percent. And the number of battalions engaged in combat has increased by 11 percent.

"The Pentagon says its short-term goal is to train more Iraqi units to a level where they can lead the fight, because that allows U.S. troops to focus on tasks besides combat and could reduce U.S. casualties.

"In the longer run, however, Iraq's military will have to reach a level of full independence so it can take over the battle against the insurgency and allow the Bush administration to withdraw U.S. troops eventually."

More here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...401816_pf.html

 

[RowansDad]

Performance of Iraqi security forces mixed in shrine bombing crisis

"U.S. officials have hailed the performance of Iraqi security forces as the only silver lining in the spasm of violence after the shrine bombing. For the most part, however, Iraqi forces did not engage the rioters - waiting until clerics had calmed the situation before taking to the streets.

"That raises questions whether the Iraqis could stop a new round of even bigger violence that many fear is inevitable. It is now up to American commanders to decide whether to take that risk and recommend major U.S. troop cuts starting this spring."

More here:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/w...uritytest.html

 

[RowansDad]

Filling a void, Iraqi militias assert authority

"In the ranks of the Mahdi Army militia, the deadly sectarian fighting that took Iraq to the verge of civil war wasn't so much a crisis as an opportunity. Thousands of Mahdi fighters loyal to firebrand Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr seized mosques and stormed through Sunni neighborhoods in a show of force that emphasized the wide extent of Sadr's political influence and his ability to provoke mayhem.

***

"The role of armed groups in the spate of revenge killings and mosque attacks also highlighted the stark contrast between the thriving militias and the Iraqi Security Forces, still struggling to stand on their own and unable to check paramilitary power through much of Baghdad and the Shi'ite south.

"In many areas, like the Sadr City district on the edge of the capital, where 2.3 million mostly poor Shi'ites live, it is militias -- and not occupying US forces or Iraqi police -- who hold sway.

''When you stop terror, and get the occupation out, then you will find us servants to the law," said Abu Barah, 26, who quit his job as a hotel security guard a year ago to work full time as an office manager for the Mahdi Army headquarters in Sadr City.

"He laughs dismissively at the prospect of the Iraqi government or the US military enforcing the law that prevents militias from carrying weapons."

More here:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/mid...hority?mode=PF

 

[RowansDad]

U.S. Is Seeking Better Balance in Iraqi Police

"The United States faces the possibility that it has been arming one side in a prospective civil war. Early on, Americans ceded operational control of the police to the Iraqi government. Now, the police forces are overseen at the highest levels by religious Shiite parties with militias, and reports of uniformed death squads have risen sharply in the past year.

"The American military is trying an array of possible solutions, including quotas to boost the number of Sunni Arab recruits in police academies, firing Shiite police commanders who appear to tolerate militias, and sending 200 training teams composed of military police officers or former civilian police officers to Iraqi stations, even in remote and risky locations.

"There is no quick or painless fix. The efforts risk alienating Shiite politicians, who have fiercely resisted attempts to wrest away their control of the security forces. The moves may appeal, though, to recalcitrant Sunni Arabs, whom the Americans want to draw into the political process."

More here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/in...gewanted=print

 

[JessicaS]

Every soldier state side is using every bit of influence they have to avoid getting that assignment.

 

[RowansDad]

Quote:

Originally Posted by abimommy Every soldier state side is using every bit of influence they have to avoid getting that assignment.

Can't imagine it being a plum rotation.

U.S. Expands Training to Address Iraqi Police Woes

"U.S. officials have revamped and expanded training programs for Iraqi police units amid mounting concern that their focus on fighting insurgents, and not protecting citizens, has created an unaccountable force plagued by corruption and rights abuses.

"The police units are under the Iraqi Interior Ministry, led by Bayan Jabr, a Shiite Muslim with ties to a sectarian militia. The predominantly Shiite force has become highly politicized and is accused of torture and death squad operations against Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.

"Those concerns were reinforced Wednesday by the State Department, which highlighted Iraq's "climate of extreme violence in which people were killed for political and other reasons" in its annual global human rights report."

More here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...eadlines-world