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October 25th, 2006 - Iraqi
Realities Undermine the Pentagon’s Predictions |
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Iraqi Realities Undermine
the Pentagon’s Predictions By Michael R. Gordon New York Times October 25, 2006 Baghdad - In trying to build
support for the American strategy in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said
Tuesday that the Iraqi military could be expected to take over the primary
responsibility for securing the country within 12 to 18 months. But that laudable goal seems
far removed from the violence-plagued streets of Iraq’s capital, where
American forces have taken the lead in trying to protect the city and
American soldiers substantially outnumber Iraqi ones. Given the rise in sectarian
killings, a Sunni-based insurgency that appears to be as potent as ever and
an Iraqi security establishment that continues to have difficulties deploying
sufficient numbers of motivated and proficient forces in Baghdad, General
Casey’s target seems to be an increasingly heroic assumption. On paper, Iraq has
substantial security forces. The Pentagon noted in an August report to
Congress that Iraq had more than 277,000 troops and police officers,
including some 115,000 army combat soldiers. But those figures, which
have often been cited at Pentagon news conferences as an indicator of
progress and a potential exit strategy for American troops, paint a distorted
picture. When the deep-seated reluctance of many soldiers to serve outside
their home regions, leaves of absence and AWOL rates are taken into account,
only a portion of the Iraqi Army is readily available for duty in Baghdad and
other hot spots. The fact that the Ministry
of Defense has sent only two of the six additional battalions that American
commanders have requested for Baghdad speaks volumes about the difficulty the
Iraqi government has encountered in fielding a professional military. The
four battalions that American commanders are still waiting for is equivalent
to 2,800 soldiers, hardly a large commitment in the abstract but one that the
Iraqis are still struggling to meet. From the start, General
Casey’s broader strategy for Iraq has been premised on the optimistic
assumption that Iraqi forces could soon substitute for American ones. In
February 2005, General Casey noted that in the year ahead the United States
would begin to “transfer the counterinsurgency mission to the increasingly
capable Iraqi security forces across Iraq.” In June 2006, General Casey
submitted a confidential plan to the White House projecting American troop
withdrawals that would begin in September 2006 and which, conditions
permitting, would lead to a more than 50 percent reduction in American combat
brigades by December 2007. Iraq’s security forces were to fill the gap. In
keeping with that strategy, American forces cut back their patrols in Baghdad
during the first half of 2006. It did not take long before
the plan had to be shelved and American forces increased to try to tamp down
the sectarian killings there. Still, General Casey continued to portray the
current surge in fighting as a difficult interlude before the Iraqi security
forces could begin to assume the main combat role and some variant of his
withdrawal plan for American forces could be put back on track. As he said Tuesday, “It’s
going to take another 12 to 18 months or so till, I believe, the Iraqi
security forces are completely capable of taking over responsibility for
their own security, still probably with some level of support from us, but
that will be directly asked for by the Iraqis.” Certainly, the Iraqi
security forces have made some gains. The Iraqi military is larger and better
trained, and has taken control of more territory in the past year. Some Iraqi
soldiers have fought well. But in Baghdad, which American commanders have
defined as the central front in the war, it is still a junior partner. To improve the Iraqi forces,
the American military is inserting teams of military advisers with Iraqi
units. American officials also say their Iraqi counterparts are trying to use
the lure of extra pay to persuade reluctant troops to come to the aid of
their capital. But longstanding problems
remain. A quarter or so of a typical Iraqi unit is on leave at any one time.
Since Iraq lacks an effective banking system for paying its troops, soldiers
are generally given a week’s leave each month to bring their pay home. Desertions and absenteeism
are another concern. According to the August Pentagon report, 15 percent of
new recruits drop out during initial training. Beyond that, deployment to
combat zones, the report adds, sometimes results in additional “absentee
spikes of 5 to 8 percent.” As a result, the actual
number of Iraqi boots on the ground on a given day is routinely less than the
official number. In areas where the risks and hardship are particularly
great, the shortfall is sometimes significant. In fiercely contested Anbar
Province in western Iraq, the day-to-day strength of the Seventh Iraqi Army
Division in August was only about 35 percent of the soldiers on its rolls,
while the day-to-day strength of the First Division was 50 percent of its
authorized strength. Another complication is that
the even-numbered divisions in the 10-division army have largely been
recruited locally and thus generally reflect the ethnic makeup of the regions
where they are based. So, much of the Iraqi Army consists of soldiers who are
reluctant to serve outside the areas in which they reside. Several battalions
have gone AWOL rather then deploy to Baghdad, an American military officer
said. The Iraqi government is well
aware of such problems. Its plan is to increase the overall size of the
military by 50,000, calculating that if it assigns extra troops to each unit
they can be maintained near full strength when soldiers go on leave or are
otherwise absent. The difficulties with the
Iraqi police, who are supposed to play a major role in protecting cleared
areas under the Baghdad security plan, are considerable and include
corruption and divided loyalties to militias. According to the Pentagon
report, the Interior Ministry also lacks an effective management system. The
Americans know how many Iraqis have been trained to work as police officers
but not how many are still on the job. The National Police have
been a particular worry. One National Police unit has been withdrawn from
duty in Baghdad because it was linked to sectarian killings. National Police
brigades are now being removed from duty one by one for retraining with an
eye to changing, as General Casey put it, the “ethos of these forces.” In the final analysis, the
problem is more one of institution building than numbers. Until Iraq has a
genuine unity government that its own forces respect and are willing to fight
for, it seems likely that the American military will continue to shoulder
most of the burden. Copyright 2006 The New York
Times Company External link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/25assess.html |