The Redhunter: The Real Iraqi Army

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July 28, 2007

The Real Iraqi Army

Yesterday Col Stephen Twitty, Commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, spoke with reporters at the Pentagon via satellite:

</iframe</p> <p>Col Twitty gave, I think, a fairly decent account of activities in his area of responsibility (AOR). The questions from journalists were generally astute as well. Long gone, it seems, are the early days of the war when their questions ranged from ignorant to irrelevant. They've clearly been doing their homework.</p> <p><br /> Among other points, the Colonel said that the Iraqi Army was getting better, that insurgent attacks were slightly down, and that most of the insurgents were Iraqis. </p> <p>Both the insurgents and Iraqi Army, he said, suffer from logistical difficulties. 29 minutes into the press conference he specifically addresses the problem of supply that hinders the effectiveness of the Iraqi Army</p> <div id="a000950more"><div id="more"> <blockquote>I'll tell you that the weakest area and where I get frustrated routinely is their supply system. We continue to (inaudible) the system with various supplies, and that's not only the Iraqi army but the Iraqi police. We're working that hard. My boss, Major General Mixon, is working that hard in order to push the Iraqi government to assist the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police with providing essential supplies in order to fight this insurgency; to provide the fuel, to provide the weapons, the ammunition, the helmets that they need, the body armor that they need, the vehicles that they need. So that is the one area that I see as a huge weakness throughout the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police, and we just to keep working it. And the Iraqi government has to understand, in order to sustain this fight to protect the Iraqi security forces they have to supply these items for them. So that's a weakness.</blockquote> <p><a href="http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4011">Lt Gen Odierno</a> said much the same thing during his July 19 press conference (49 min into the video) </p> <p><a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="window.open('http://pentagontv.feedroom.com/?skin=oneclip&fr_story=2d15d096f4bc4906d1ed0b3e2454bfe289f1b98f&rf=ev&autoplay=true', 'feedroom', 'width=322, height=278, scrollbars=0, resizable=1, status=no, toolbar=no, location=no');return false;">Iraq Briefing 19 July 2007</a></p> <p><br /> <blockquote>Q General, it's Ken Fireman from Bloomberg News. You spoke earlier about the ability of the Iraqi army to operate independently; what we heard on that subject last week was that that is moving in fact in the wrong direction. General Pace told us that the number of Iraqi battalions able to operate independently has fallen from 10 to six. Can you talk about why that is happening and what impact it's having? <br /> <br /> LT. GEN. ODIERNO: Yeah. Let me -- you know -- and I'm going to be honest here, so this is probably -- we'll see what happens here. <br /> <br /> But I get frustrated with all this because the assessments that we provide, based on this rating system that we set up, is really a system that grades readiness. And what it looks at, it looks at maintenance, it looks at manning, it looks at training, and it looks at the ability for them to support themselves with artillery and close-air support. And if they don't have those things, then they can't -- according to this assessment, they can't operate independently. <br /> <br /> What's causing these units to go down is the inability for them to provide logistical support in a timely manner for themselves. That's what's driving them down, it is not their ability to fight, it is not the training that they've gained to fight. In fact, my assessment from my commanders is, in fact, their ability to actually fight on the ground has improved significantly. Their ability to conduct independent operations -- and when I mean an independent operation, I mean they go and -- they're given a mission, they go and conduct that mission with only their transition team with them, and they come back and they're successful. <br /> <br /> That report, what it means by conducting an independent operation is that -- to be able to operate independently, is that they have to be able to provide all their own logistic support, they have to be able to provide their own artillery support and be able to handle close-air support. And that's the areas we have problems with. <br /> <br /> So yes, is it a problem? We have to fix their capacity to conduct logistics. We have to continue to work with them to maintain their systems and replace their systems when they're destroyed. That's a weakness. The weakness is not their ability to fight. They do -- they are getting better at their ability to fight and to plan for an operation and to conduct that operation. They have improved significantly in that area. That's why it's a bit frustrating as we compare these things. As a commander on the ground, what I'll tell you, and what my other commanders will tell you, they are much better at conducting those kind of operations, but they still are limited by their ability to provide logistical support to themselves. </blockquote></p> <p>The good news is that the problem is not one of personnel or willingness to fight. The bad news is that they don't have enough to fight with. </p> <p>It all rather reminds me of the American Revolutionary War, when one of the biggest problems Washington faced was supply. Political squabbles in Congress hampered the war effort almost as much as anything the British did.</p> <p>Despite our problems with supply and political infighting, we were able to prevail over the British. Parallels are never exact, which is why they call them <em>analogies</em>. Logistical problems with the Iraqi Army are most likely caused by a combination of corruption, political squabbling, and plain old incompetence.</p> <p>One thing that has always struck me during these past few years; was Saddam's army really so incapable? Apparenty so. When building the new Iraqi Army and government we always faced the problem of de-Baathification vs retaining competent leaders. Keeping Baathists around who had been guilty of vicious human-rights abuses might have simply gotten us into more trouble than we're in today (remember, things can always be worse). And no doubt many of the competent ones went over to the insurgency. But it's almost as if no army existed before 2003. </p> <p>Last year I did a series on the <a href="http://theredhunter.com/iraqi_perspectives_project/">Iraqi Perspectives Project</a>, which was "an unclassified historical report in book form on the Iraqi view of coalition military operations conducted in Iraq." The report was compiled by U.S. civilian officials and military officers. </p> <p>Chapter III of the report covered the military effectiveness of Saddam's forces, and in part of my summary of the section I said that</p> <blockquote>It is clear that the Iraqi regime was much more fragile than we had believed it was. When our analysists looked at the Iraqi Army, they looked at it just as our guys looked at the Wehrmacht before D-Day. We examined their weaponry, expertise in handling it, the leadership capabilities of their junior as well as senior officers, their logistical trail, their communications, in short, everyting that we considered important. <p>What we failed to realize is that although Iraq was ruled by a Ba'athist regime ever bit as brutal as the Nazis, Saddam had completely co-opted the Iraqi Army in a way that Hitler never had with the Wehrmacht. The German Army managed to remain outside the Nazi structure, it kept and promoted it's own officers, and kept it's own tradition of excellence.</blockquote></p> <p>In other words, the situation inside the Iraqi Army was much worse than we had imagined. Indeed, when we did invade in March and April of 2003 the regime collapsed so fast that it later became difficult to piece together what had happened. </p> <p>For better or worse, we are where we are. I'm sure Twitty and Odierno know what they're talking about when they say that the problem with the Iraqi Army is mostly in the logistical realm. I just hope that they can get their act together before it's too late. </p> </div></div> <p class="posted">Posted by Tom at July 28, 2007 11:24 AM</p> <h2 id="trackbacks">Trackback Pings</h2> <p class="techstuff">TrackBack URL for this entry:<br /> http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/refer.cgi/951</p> <h2 id="comments">Comments</h2> <h2>Post a comment</h2> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/feedback.cgi?__mode=cmtr_name_js"></script> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">  </script> <form method="post" action="http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/feedback.cgi" name="comments_form" onsubmit="if (this.bakecookie[0].checked) rememberMe(this)"> <input type="hidden" name="static" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="entry_id" value="950" /> <div id="name_email"> <p><label for="author">Name:</label><br /> <input tabindex="1" id="author" name="author" /></p> <p><label for="email">Email Address:</label><br /> <input tabindex="2" id="email" name="email" 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The Redhunter

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"

July 28, 2007

The Real Iraqi Army