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Friday, November 4, 2005
Struggles to train Iraqis stymie 48th
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yusufiyah, Iraq — Six months after American soldiers began training Iraq’s budding army, Georgia National Guard trainers say the new force still lacks the equipment, leadership and discipline necessary to effectively combat a raging insurgency.
The Bush administration has repeatedly pledged to begin drawing down American troops as Iraqi security forces become self-sufficient. But there is little indication that will occur anytime soon in this Sunni-dominated region known as the Triangle of Death.
American advisers say the Iraqis are still outgunned by the insurgents, have problems getting even basic equipment from their defense ministry and frequently go months without being paid.
The Iraqis complain about the same things. Some lack the trust of their American trainers, who refuse to brief them about upcoming missions for fear they will tip off insurgents.
Louie Favorite/AJC
Iraqi soldiers ride in “Mad Max,” a civilian truck that has armor added to protect them, in Yusufiyah.
“It has been the most frustrating thing I have ever done, but when something successful happens you bounce off the walls,” said Lt. Col. Ben Sartain, 42, of Cleveland, Ga., who led the training by the 48th Brigade Combat Team in this area south of Baghdad. “If we could get them self-supporting, they would be able to take over their own battle space, which is the key to getting us out of here.”
Readiness a long way off
American military officials believe the unit they have been training, the 4th Brigade of Iraq’s 6th Army Division, needs at least another year of work before it will be able to operate on its own.
The 48th was responsible for that training until last month, when a brigade from the 101st Airborne Division replaced it. Among the biggest problems:
• Many Iraqi soldiers have no body armor or helmets, and those who have the protective gear often refuse to wear it. Others insist on patrolling in civilian clothes. Many wear masks for fear of being identified by insurgents.
• The Iraqis patrol in civilian pickup trucks that offer little protection against roadside bombs. Their U.S. trainers ride alongside them in armored Humvees.
• Some Iraqi soldiers have new pistols with no bullets. Others have night-vision goggles but no batteries.
• Some U.S. training teams didn’t have enough Arabic interpreters.
“When I came in, we had high expectations, and then we went back and started taking baby steps,” said Maj. Chris Voso, 38, of Marietta, who helped train the Iraqi 1st Battalion.
The trainers note the Iraqi brigade was formed only earlier this year and has demonstrated some progress. Iraqi soldiers guarding polling places Oct. 15 enabled more than 50,000 voters in this area to safely cast ballots on the proposed national constitution.
The 48th trained the Iraqis to shoot, patrol, search buildings and vehicles and set up traffic checkpoints.
They took the Iraqi brigade from a readiness level of “minimum” to “intermediary” in nearly six months. But the lack of decent supplies and communications systems is holding the unit back from the third and final step of “fully operational,” U.S. trainers said.
“Our military equipment is not sufficient compared to what the terrorists have, which is a big problem,” said Brig. Gen. Mahdi Chark Zier Kadim, commander of the Iraqi 4th Brigade. “Our soldiers are brave and courageous, but they need the equipment. With the weapons I have now, I cannot fight the terrorists.”
Louie Favorite/AJC
An Iraqi soldier guards an election voting site last month. Some troops lack body armor, bullets and helmets.
Some U.S. and Iraqi soldiers blame the supply problems on a corrupt Iraqi Defense Ministry, which was reorganized by American authorities following the 2003 invasion. Last month, Iraqi government officials issued an arrest warrant for former Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan and 27 other officials in the alleged disappearance of more than $1 billion from the ministry that was intended for weapons to modernize the army, The Associated Press reported.
Over the past six months, the ministry frequently rejected the brigade’s requests for supplies, Sartain said, so his troops ended up equipping the Iraqis.
“Working with the Iraqi Defense Ministry drives me nuts. You beat your head against the wall,” said Maj. Ray Bossert, 38, of Douglasville. “It’s frustrating. Calls are never returned. It truly takes U.S. generals to call and get involved, and it shouldn’t be that way.”
Supply woes to linger
Typical of the supply problems is that suffered by Mahmud Abdul Karim, 24, of Nasiriyah, one of the Iraqi soldiers trained by Bossert’s men. He is proud to carry his unit’s most powerful weapon: a grenade launcher captured from insurgents. But he has only one grenade for it.
Meanwhile, the Iraqis are not expected to receive armored vehicles until at least next year, possibly later, Sartain said. Yet, there are vast graveyards of captured Iraqi tanks and other armored vehicles at U.S. bases throughout the country.
“That was a big mistake. Now we are having to spend millions on equipment they could have just fixed up,” Bossert said.
But it is unclear whether the Iraqi soldiers would have the parts or the expertise to maintain the aging vehicles.
Partly because they lack armored vehicles, the Iraqis have a high casualty rate. In the 4th Battalion alone, 17 have been killed and 143 wounded since June 1, Bossert said, more than 25 percent of the unit.
Meanwhile, 424 soldiers in the brigade have not been paid for four months.
Pvt. Yunis Azaldeen Salih has not been paid for more than three months. A veteran of Operation Desert Storm, he rejoined the military to help support his pregnant wife and two children back in Kirkuk. Iraqi soldiers are paid roughly the equivalent of $300 a month, which is high for this farming community.
Salih, 41, suspects he is not getting paid because of corruption in the Iraqi Defense Ministry. He continues to serve because, he said, “I have nothing to do if I go back.”
Salih is among a small number of troops U.S. trainers consider dependable. At least once a week, an Iraqi soldier accidentally shoots himself, usually in the foot, the trainers said.
Many Iraqi soldiers are trigger-happy. After the polls closed Oct. 15, the Iraqis rode back into the base they share with U.S. troops with AK-47s blazing. The American soldiers scrambled for their gear, thinking it was an attack. Their commanders stepped in when they realized the Iraqis were only celebrating.
Lack of discipline noted
Some Iraqis become distracted while on patrol. During a night patrol in Lutayfiyah last month, U.S. soldiers repeatedly told their Iraqi counterparts to stop standing around chatting.
The lack of discipline frequently extends to the Iraqis wearing civilian clothes on patrol, which allows them to quickly flee if insurgents attack.
One day last month, Bossert spotted an Iraqi soldier at a checkpoint wearing a simple black T-shirt and shorts. “This is the civilian-clothing-is-optional checkpoint,” he joked.
Several U.S. trainers suspect Iraqi soldiers are cooperating with insurgents. So the Americans don’t fully brief their counterparts until just moments before they leave the base, if they brief them at all.
“There are informers,” Sartain said. “You have to keep them in the dark.”
The Iraqis told Bossert that U.S. authorities made a big mistake firing many officers from the former Iraqi military who were suspected of being Saddam Hussein loyalists. The 4th Battalion has a severe shortage of experienced officers. The unemployed officers are now suspected of cooperating with cash-rich insurgents.
Now, the Iraqi government is asking some junior officers who served in Saddam’s army to return in an effort to weaken the insurgency and bolster the ranks of the new military, several American newspapers reported this week, citing Defense Ministry officials.
When asked what would happen if the U.S. troops were to pull out of the country, the Iraqi officers laughed and joked they would flee to America.
But in a separate interview, their general offered a sobering response to the same question.
“The whole country will fall apart,” Kadim predicted. “And the terrorists will take advantage of that. These people are very well-armed. We don’t have the capability or the weapons to fight these guys.”
