The story of Alan King demonstrated the urgent need to train Iraqi police and soldiers, and this has in fact been listed as a top priority by both the Iraq Study Group and Vice President al-Hashimi, among others. But proponents of this recommendation generally only gloss over all the problems involved. The most obvious problem is that far too few U.S. soldiers speak Arabic. This communication barrier puts lives at risks. How can one rely on someone in a combat situation if the two are unable to communicate properly with one another? A shift away from combat operations to a more advisory role would require a three-fold increase in the number of Arabic-speaking U.S. soldiers- this alone could take years. And even if you manage to train and equip Iraqi soldiers there is still doubt as to whether these soldiers will be politically reliable.
Here is an excerpt from a story told by Joseph Hatcher of the 1st Infantry Division:
It's interesting when you work with the Iraqi army because they're sworn to defend Iraqis. They refuse to shoot at Iraqis or they've been seen shooting at Americans before. I don't feel comfortable around Iraqi soldiers. The inability to communicate makes me uncomfortable. We had a questionable incident involving some Iraqi Civil Defense Corps soldiers that were blown up by an AC-130 gunship. We had a raid go wrong and cars everywhere, drive-bys, just a complete fuckfest. Th egunship came in and lit up one of these cars, We pulled all the bodies out of the cars, and they were all fucking cops. We know for a fact they were shooting at us.
There are thousands of other U.S. soldiers with similar stories and the same misgivings about Iraqi armed forces. I believe that it is imperative that we retrain the Iraqi army and police as we were the ones that initially decimated them; I only worry how successful we will be under these conditions.
A few of you e-mailed asking about the book. You can find it on Amazon.
Perhaps the most catastrophic error committed by the United States in the post-conflict period was to dismantle the Iraqi army and police forces. It seemed the U.S. was unable to distinguish between Saddam's Sunni regime and the security forces, which were in fact 90% Shia. This created an enormous security vacuum and is largely to blame for the present situation.
In response to this crisis, the Iraq Study Group and many others have recommended that the U.S. Army shift from conducting combat operations to advising and training Iraqi security forces. This is of course a great idea as besides reducing American casualties, it will allow the U.S. to responsibly withdraw from Iraq without fear that that security situation will decline precipitously. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, Vice President of Iraq, Tariq al Hashimi fully supports this recommendation, declaring that once Iraq has a fully operational and effective security force, "the U.S. must leave Iraq".
The keyword here is "effective." While the numbers of trained security forces are rising, they remain politically unreliable, often contributing to the sectarian strife rather than containing it. Today's New York Timesreports:
"The soldiers who came upon the car in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad were part of a joint American and Iraqi patrol, and the Americans were ready to take action. The Iraqi commander, however, taking orders by cellphone from the office of a top Sunni politician, said to back off: the car’s owner was known and protected at a high level...This time, it was a Sunni politician — Vice Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie — but the more powerful Shiites interfered even more often."
Prime Minister al Maliki has on several occasions allowed his loyalties to al Sadr to compromise Iraq's security, most recently lifting a roadblock around Sadr City that was immobilizing some of Iraq's most notorious death squads.
According to Brookings' Iraq Index, only 10,000 of the 115,000 trained and equipped Iraqi forces are politically reliable.
Just got back from an event hosted over at USIP featuring Vice President Tariq al Hashimi, thus the delay in posting. I'll try and insert some analysis later, but I wanted to quickly relay some of the more interesting points he made.First here is a quick intro to VP al Hashimi taken from the Iraq Study Group Report:
"Hashimi is one of two vice presidents of Iraq and the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Muslim bloc in parliament. Hashimi opposes the formation of autonomous regions and has advocated the distribution of oil revenues based on population, a reversal of de-Baathification, and the removal of Shiite militia fighters from the Iraqi security forces. Shiite death squads have recently killed three of his siblings."
1) the U.S. wrongly dismantled Iraqi army and police forces thinking the entire regime was Sunni when in fact 90% of soldiers are Shia. This created an enormous security vacuum and is largely to blame for the present situation. The U.S. must correct their mistake by funding, equiping and training a new Iraq army and police
2) Once Iraq has a fully operational and effective security force, the U.S. must leave Iraq. Iraq will bear the burden of any further bloodshed
3) the insurgency has been mis-characterized. It has no ideological basis and as such should be considered in terms of a resistance group. Its only purpose is to force the U.S. to leave Iraq. Once the U.S. complies, the "insurgency" will disappear
4) the solution to the crisis in Iraq is political. Once a constitution and government is set up that features input from all parties/sects within Iraq and is agreeable to all parties/sects the violence will end
5) When asked about the Iraq Study Group's recommendation that the U.S. engage Syria and Iran over Iraq, VP al Hashimi replied that other countries cannot decide Iraq's future. Besides he added jokingly, Iran and the U.S. really have enough to talk about, he wouldn't want to burden them with the Iraqi crisis as well.
Let me add that al Hashimi seems genuine in his desire to unite all Iraqis regardless of sect and he has shown in the past, particularly when he signed the constitution despite their being little Sunni input, that he is willing to compromise his own party goals to achieve stability in Iraq.
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