The Senate heard testimony last week from some of America’s top generals that the war in Iraq is going worse than ever and that only 1 out of 119 Iraqi army and security battalions can operate by itself in combat situations without U.S. military backup.
Top U.S. generals admitted in testimony Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee that only a single Iraqi battalion was prepared to operate on its own without U.S. military support. This was a stunning decrease from the three battalions that U.S. generals had assured Congress in previous testimony were ready to operate independently.
As Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, commented, “It doesn’t feel like progress when we hear today that there is only one Iraqi battalion fully capable.”
Commenting on the Congressional testimony, Anthony H. Cordesman who holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of America’s most respected military analysts, said, “If only one battalion has the highest level of readiness, doesn’t this mean that after some two and a half years of Coalition effort, less than 1 percent of the 86,900 men in the (Iraqi) Army have the highest level of readiness?”
Cordesman also noted that there had been serious problems in properly manning the U.S. and Coalition advisory teams for the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior? Other major unaddressed problems with building up the Iraqi security forces, he said, included a lack of data about their missing and desertion rates, which are believed to be high and rising.
Also, he said, in many critical areas, such as Basra, the primary Iraqi security forces are now completely different forces like hard-line Shiite militias, elements of the Badr Corps, and other forces over which the Coalition and Iraqi government has limited or no control and influence.
Read back through the history of colonialism. All of this has been tried before. The Brits did it. So did the French, Belgians and Germans. A waste of money, time — and lives.
How hard is it to train troops? When someone enlists in the military in the United States, 8 weeks later they’re ready for combat. Find one competant soldier in the mix to lead each trained company and you can’t be long from having an army. Why is this so hard to figure out? Send in 50 drill seargents, assign 20 or so recruits to each one, 8 weeks latter you should have a company ready to roll, pick the smartest of the bunch, put him in charge, and repeat.
I think just about every former colony has managed to field an army of its own. The Indian army seems to be managing by itself, as is the US one. The former African countries are always finding enough ability to fight each other. Of course, Britain used to be a Roman colony. One other difference is that the US is training the army to fend for itself so they won’t have to be there at all. Of course, once this Iraqis are deployed, the insurgency will die, since they won’t be holding back due to Geneva conventions or .cultural sensitivity’. No more letting the enemy set up inside mosques, and they’ll wish they were in Abu Ghraib.
Does anyone in government have any plan for a ‘victory’ anymore? The “Stay the course” mantracontinues to be used not because it is leading to progress, instead it is being used because EVERYONE is clueless as to what other ‘course’ could be taken anymore.
There is no way out. We will leave in defeat, claiming victory, only to watch the whole country fall shortly after to civil war and fundamentalist victory, just like in Vietnam. Remember Vietnam, where we disengaged and put the local armed forces in charge of continuing the fight? In the process this policy disaster will probably take several other countries with it, radical Muslim fundamentalism with ideological hatred to the US will be well entrenched and vastly expanded, and the problem will be MUCH MUCH worse than before this bunch of UTTERLY INEPT so-called leaders started giving moronic orders.
A challenge to everyone: name ONE good decision that Rumsfeld has made as the leader of DOD… just one good decision.
To say that defeat under the current leadership is inevitable is not treason, it is a call for a ‘change in course’, so that we can try to salvage some possibility of a non-negative outcome. Only with effective leadership (inexistent in the current administration) can we hope for anything besides disaster for the Middle East.
If Rumsfeld hasn’t made any good decisions, how come he keeps getting standing ovations when he talks to the military? That includes the time he said ‘you go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish to have.’ I don’t remember Les Aspen getting that kind of treatment.
Awake, in Vietnam, Gerald Ford couldn’t get funding for military support from a Democrat Congress that had turned against the war.
“If Rumsfeld hasn’t made any good decisions, how come he keeps getting standing ovations when he talks to the military?”
You obviously have never served in the military, as I have.
This is their boss, and you cheer their boss. That’s the rules. The General stands up and claps, so the Coronel stands up and claps… so the Captain stands up… so the Sargeant stands up… so the private stands up. What do you expect… dissent?
You can not judge the feelings of a group of that type by an orchestrated bahavior… any more than you can judge the popularity of the president based on a ‘Republicans Only’ gathering, which is all he does anyway.
The question stands.
Name one good decision that Rumsfeld has made during his tenure. The only reason that “Rummy” is still in office is because he is basically the only one that stayed loyal to our incompetent president after the last election… everyone else worth anything quit rather than spend four more years under this so called ‘leadership’.
AB CD, one thing that any “problem” Dumbya encounters is that it will get “credit card” funding of which maybe 20% will actually “trickle down” to the actual resolution.
The irony will be a “new” Iraqi nation that will fight and kill it’s own people just like the one it replaced…and put in place by a religious extremist US government that is working hard to reduce the freedom’s of it’s own people.
As far as the “Iraqi army”, they’re like young adults living in the parents basement. They don’t/won’t want to go out and face the tough circumstances until forced. The only thing to truly prepare you for anything is to just do it and hope you survive long enough to gain enough experience in decision making to make it less hazardous. Also, maybe the military should start offering virgins as payment for fighting as this might speed up the process.
One word — Vietnamization.
Of course there’s going to be forced applause, but I have noticed enthusiastic applause which didn’t happen for Les Aspin. Military voting and reenlistment rates seem to bear this out. I would call fighting a war with death rates low enough that people complain you should have signed everything by hand is a host of good decisions. Then again I think he was the Secretary of Defense for Vietnam.
to_glow, you have got to learn something about military history. You’re the first person I’ve actually noted who thinks guerilla tactics in general are “terrorist”.
So lets recap, 3 years, 118 batallions to go take into account the growth period for both the terrorists and Iraqis, what is everyone complaining about? Your grandkids children have a shot at seeing an Iraq without U.S troops.