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Subject:
Building the Iraqi Army the Hard Way
James Dunnigan
11/1/2005 11:27:59 PM
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In the last two years, an enormous effort has
been made to build a new Iraqi army. This is not easy, for the old Iraqi army
was widely considered (based on performance alone) to be one of the most inept
armys in the world. Despite spending over a hundred billion dollars on it,
Saddam was never able to build a force that could fight effectively. Without
the widespread use of chemical weapons in the 1980s, Iraq would have been
overrun by an army of poorly equipped Iranian amateurs. The main problem was
that the old Iraqi army was designed more for political, than combat,
reliability. That?s the main reason it was disbanded shortly after Iraq was
conquered in 2003.
Saddam?s army did have some troops who could fight effectively. That was the
Republican Guard, a force of about 100,000 troops selected mainly for loyalty,
but also given lots of training to make them effective fighters. Saddam wanted
effective troops, but only wanted them if they would be loyal to him. That
meant there were very few Iraqis he could find for such a force. But the
Republican Guard experience did prove that with the right training and
equipment, you could turn Iraqis into effective soldiers.
Equipping the new Iraqi army was the easy part. Just provide 700,000 uniforms,
210,000 sets of body armor, over 300,000 small arms, half a billion rounds of
ammunition, 20,000 vehicles (mostly trucks), and twenty new bases (including
five large enough to house a division.) Three divisions have already been
activated (1st, 3rd and 7th), although their units are mainly operating as
infantry battalions attached to American units. Some Iraqi brigades are being
formed to conduct larger scale operations. The U.S. (and Germany) have also
been training Iraqi staff officers, but no decision has been made yet on how to
deploy the divisions. Battalion and brigade officers are only now getting there
first combat experience with the current ops in central Iraq.
Over 500,000 Iraqis have joined the new army and security forces (many of whom
are paramilitary SWAT teams), and over half of them were dismissed (as
untrainable) or deserted. Those that remain serve in 115 battalions. The most
important thing about these battalions is that each of them have a ten man
American training team. These guys continue teaching, often by demonstrating
how things are done. For example, the old Iraqi army never stressed
marksmanship, or small unit leadership and combat drills. The American style
has the troops shooting lots of bullets at targets, with repeated instruction
on how to hold and aim the rifle properly so that you could hit what you were
aiming at. The infantry drills are demonstrated by American trainers, and U.S.
troops. Iraqi troops constantly see American soldiers and marines in action,
and the American training teams in each Iraqi battalion are always ready to
show the Iraqis exactly how it has done. The Iraqis are told they can be as
effective as the Americans, but they have to train hard to get there.
The hardest job is getting Iraqis who can, and will, serve as effective NCOs
and officers. In Saddams army, being an officer or NCO was seen as a form of
patronage, not a responsibility. It?s hard to change that attitude, as it has
been alive in Iraq for generations. Again, the Iraqis are reminded that if they
want to be super-troopers like the Americans, someone has to take on the
responsibilities of effective NCOs and officers. After two years of looking,
several thousand capable candidates have been found. But the training takes
time, and the American training teams spend a lot of time showing the officers
and NCOs the many little things that go into making a capable combat
leader.
All this has been a difficult story to report, leaving Americans with a vague
idea of what is happening with the Iraqi armed forces. Most journalists have no
idea about what the old Iraqi army was like, and what kind of changes have to
be made to create a new one. But the changes are being made, and every week,
more Iraqi troops become capable of fighting. They don?t have to be as good as
American troops, just being better than the terrorists and irregulars they face
will give them a decisive edge. And each week, more of them achieve the edge.
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