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DEL.ICIO.USStruggles 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.”
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Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By Tom
November 4, 2005 06:54 AM | Link to this
Please consider not using split infinitives, e. g., “…to effectively combat a raging insurgency.”
By Delores
November 4, 2005 08:23 AM | Link to this
Thank you Jeremy for this truthful article. It should be picked up and placed on the front page of every newspaper in America so that people will know the problems that continue in Iraq. Amd by the way, I don’t care if a sentence you wrote is not gramatically correct. Tom’s comment offends me. The information you are providing to the families and friends of the 48th is what is important. Get a life Tom, I wish that was all I had to worry about.
By np
November 4, 2005 12:57 PM | Link to this
Thank you Tom for that most insightful comment.
Good reporting Jeremy, the information is appreciated.
By Judy
November 4, 2005 01:08 PM | Link to this
AMEN, Delores!!!
Keep ‘em coming Jeremy. We need to keep our soldiers and their mission alive in the public eye. While the hurricanes and their awful damage was horrendous, they are over. Our soldier’s are still working and in harm’s way daily. They need our attention and our prayers. Thanks!!!
By Ty
November 4, 2005 01:10 PM | Link to this
Our guys have been saying for months there is not enough equipment. A sad thing is, our own American troops do not have enough equipment over there either. I enjoyed the article and I do not care how you wrote it as long as people get the idea.
By John's ex-wife Maria :-)
November 4, 2005 01:58 PM | Link to this
You are doing the best you can do Ben Sartain, hang in there, don’t get discouraged.
By Good Info
November 4, 2005 06:04 PM | Link to this
Really, TOM! I understood what Jeremy wrote. It flowed quite well, too.
Thank you for the article, Jeremy. It is educational. You write well. No him and I; no her and I; no present tense verbs for things that have already happened, etc.,,,,,,, Good for you!!!!!! God bless you.
By gamongrel
November 5, 2005 06:52 AM | Link to this
It gives me great hope that Iraqi volunteers are willing to risk their lives for their country’s fledgling democracy despite their lack of equipment, ammunition and armored vehicles.
I believe I’ve read accounts about other areas of Iraq where the local police and new army are taking the lead in day-to-day operations and the US acts mainly in support.
I expect that the state of readiness of local forces varies wildly. In southern Iraq and Kurdish territory, I expect the relative calm has greatly aided our ability to train the Iraqis to keep the peace. Most of the issues we hear about in the news are taking place between Bagdhad and Syria. Lots of relative strife and conflict there.
I would have liked to have read in this article about what successes the Iraqi local police/army have achieved to help balance the perceived hopelessness of getting the Iraqi’s trained/equipped.
And who’s to say that the Iraqi’s must have armor and helmets to combat the insurgency? If they have guns and ammo - they can and will still take the fight to the enemy.
They apparently don’t lack for ALL types of ammunition based on this article’s reporting weekly self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Their likely is a supply problem with ‘exotic’ ammunition like grenades for grenade launchers and not the ubiquitous Ak-47. And pistol ammunition? Again, why are they not using the AK-47? Even the officers? Or is the pistol, minus the ammo, their backup weapon.
And keep in mind, we don’t need the Iraqi forces trained to handle the Cold War Soviet Union. We need them ready to take on the local and foreign terrorists.
By Patsy
November 5, 2005 10:21 AM | Link to this
The entire civilian population of America needs to read this article very carefully. Mother of a soldier in the 48th.
By Bill
November 5, 2005 10:57 AM | Link to this
Tom, You could have phrased your comment in a much better way, perhaps you could write in more complete sentences. You need to get a life and some perspective in your criticism of someone’s grammar. Are you really that shallow and over educated that you would be that picky and critical about someone else’s minor grammatical error? I personally found the article extremely well written and informative. I normally try to give out complements not criticism however I have made an exception in your case.
By Ben Sartain
November 6, 2005 02:25 AM | Link to this
Maria, Thanks for the kind words. I talk to Chico often and will tell him about this. Hope that all is well.
I appreciate all the support that the people back home have provided. We have stood down the MiTT Teams and moved on to bigger and better things. This really was one of the most rewarding things that I have done in my life and everyone should be proud of the people that worked with me in MiTT land. This truly is our ticket out of Iraq. See ya on the high ground.
By SFC Hayes
November 6, 2005 02:28 AM | Link to this
You have shed some light on a complicated situation but let me shed another one for you. I am in 2-7 Inf brigade, 3 Infantry Division,by the way AJC dont cover as much, also assigned as a trainer to the 1st Brigade, Tikrit, Iraq, the birthplace of Saddam. Some of the problems are there, but not all is as it seems. For the last year alot of the problems facing the 48th is fixable. Soldiers leaving in civilian cloths on patrol, is not properly trained platoons on pre combat inspections, which is why 48th is there. You can not complain about the lack of experience, you are the experience and you teach and train. This brigade can stand on its on because we have put the time in trained this unit and held iraq soldiers to standard and put there feet to the fire. They wear mask here on patrol, why, because insurgants attack there home if they do not, but that does not make them any less effective on patrol. We have little equipment, but have taught them how to manage the supplies they do have and it works, yes every soldier dont have helments or vest, but when they leave on mission or patrol they do. We dont have armor jeeps for the IA, but have taught and trained them to look for road side bombs, and now they call up as many as we do. Yes we have inexperienced officers, but we have trained them, inspections, weapons safty, and supply management, o guess what they got it, yes took time but they got it. i have been on several patrols and raids with the IA and they are getting it. Yes we can complain about the lack of supplies, but dont that does not limit the training you put into them. I hate to say maybe its the inexperience of the National Guard unit not the unit getting trained. Put boots on the ground, help inspect a platoon before a mission with your counter part in the Iraq Army, walk the area you live, ensuring weapon safty, you talk of lack of ammo, but you got iraq soldier fire off AK in compound, that is crazy. Put more effort in fixing than complaining and they will come together, they follow your example.
By Robert
November 6, 2005 06:41 PM | Link to this
Hey Tom,
Keep setting them straight! Maintain the proper standards.
Robert
By LT Weeks
November 19, 2005 01:28 AM | Link to this
SFC Haynes, while this article does cover some of the issues, some of the ones covered don’t apply to every battalion in the IA brigade.
You should know that those looking in from the outside are going to see the wrong doings and comment on them, instead of seeing what has been fixed. The wrongs always outshine the rights.
Don’t assume that you know how to fix each battalion in the Iraqi army, or that yours is entirely ‘squared away’. You know how that saying goes about ‘assume’.