The Good News You’re Not, Um . . .
WASHINGTON – The number of Iraqi battalions capable of combat without U.S. support has dropped from three to one, the top American commander in Iraq told Congress Thursday, prompting Republicans to question whether U.S. troops will be able to withdraw next year.
Via Laura Rozen, who is mystified: “I don’t understand how it’s going backwards.” Per AP:
The four [Rumsfeld, Casey, Abizaid, Myers] took great pains to stress that training of Iraqi security forces was steadily improving, even though the two battalions that were operating independently months ago now need U.S. assistance.
Some guesses:
* There were never really three battalions capable of operating independently in the first place. The Summer testimony was mistaken or dishonest.
* Combat with the insurgency has degraded two of the three units to the point of needing US backup to move and fight.
* Corruption and incompetence in Iraqi procurement and logistics has made effective maintenance of rolling stock and communications gear impossible for two of three units.
* Casey is really using code for political unreliability. The three battalions were peshmerga or Badr brigades fighters in Iraqi Army costume and the US fears they’ll pursue, shall we say? narrow agendas without minders.
* They just get lonely sometimes.
In the end, we shouldn’t get too depressed, because we should have been pretty damn depressed already. An American Army battalion is 300-1,000 soldiers. GlobalSecurity.org mentions a couple of Iraqi battalions being 700 strong (listed, anyway), which is right in that range. So during the summer, the US was claiming that about 2100-3000 of the current nominal 100K Iraqi Army could get around on its own – about 3%. In early summer there were 90 official battalions, and by the way, GlobalSecurity.org are a bunch of shills for the Pentagon’s version of events from what I can tell. One passage is almost poignant in light of what we now know about the shenanigans at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense (see “corruption” link above):
Although, as of 2005, such problems had not been entirely solved, they had been addressed in large measure because of the ability to put to good use the security sector funding from the Iraq Reconstruction and Relief Fund (IRRF) as provided for by Public Law 108-106.
On the bright side, their site is free. Then again so is this one.
Comment by Rich Puchalsky —
September 29, 2005 @ 11:13 pm
My completely unsupported guess, based on no real knowledge whatsoever: the functioning battalions always were primarily composed of militia from one Kurdish or Shiite party or another, being kept in so that they could get military training. Now that everyone is getting ready for civil war, they’re being withdrawn by their true leaders. In other words, rather like your guess number 4, although I can’t imagine any *American* authority withdrawing them for mere political unreliability.
Comment by Jason Fliegel —
September 30, 2005 @ 10:44 am
Not really directly on point, but related to Iraq is the cover story of this week’s Chicago Reader, which details a U.S. Army interrogator’s experiences in Iraq. A sobering look at yet another way in which the army is screwing everything up in Iraq.
Comment by ran —
September 30, 2005 @ 1:44 pm
I’ll take Pentagon brass lying through their teeth for $2,000, Jim.
Comment by dsquared —
September 30, 2005 @ 6:56 pm
I remember early in the war that I made an offhand comment that “the Iraqi Army has to be made strong enough to keep the peace, but weak enough that it can’t carry out a coup” and that this might be difficult, and a couple of Balking Liberal Hawks (remember them?) acted like this was a weird convoluted Machiavellian point that nobody had thought about before. But I don’t think that this is the issue.
“Need US assistance” doesn’t sound like the missing two battalions are politically unreliable; UK assistance has hardly helped with that problem down in Basra. I suspect that what has happened is rather like a Northern Ireland effect; lots of ambitious unemployed young men joined up early in the game, went through basic training, were all ready to fight on the side of right, heard what happened to the families of collaborators and then did the sensible thing and fucked off. If you can get hold of the early episodes of the comic “Crisis”, Garth Ennis wrote a whole series about it.
Comment by Pat —
September 30, 2005 @ 8:19 pm
It’s interesting to consider just what “capable of operating independently” might mean. As was pointed out by Christoper Allbritton at Back to Iraq 3.0 (the recent “Dragons Be Here” post) and confirmed to me by a longtime US Army officer, Iraqi and Afghan units, regardless of capability, never operate independently. They come under the direct command and control of the Coalition. That is US policy. It will be US policy for as long as US troops are fielded in either country. (The explanation I get is precisely the not unreasonable fear of “narrow agendas.”) So these armies, such as they are, are not meant to operate independently during our stay. Turning a town or even a province over to indigenous national forces does not mean those forces are out from under Coalition control. Given this, it’s beyond me how the whole They Stand Up/We Stand Down thing is supposed to take place.
Desertion is the most likely explanation for the reduction in capable units. I don’t know what the most recent casualty numbers are for Iraqi soldiers, but at least until spring of this year they were running well into the hundreds each month. Absent the most urgent and inspiring of causes, as well as loyalties, retention will be a grave (no pun)problem.
I think it was Casey who said that there are also problems keeping the Iraqis “logistically supplied.” That’s one way of putting it. In Mosul last year, the supplies ended up in the hands of local insurgents. Militia members and criminal outfits provide good markets as well for standard issue equipment.
Comment by Gary Farber —
October 1, 2005 @ 5:35 pm
“GlobalSecurity.org are a bunch of shills for the Pentagon’s version of events from what I can tell.”
That would be entirely inconsistent with John Pike’s entire career, wouldn’t it? Are you suggesting that the organization has gotten away from him? Or that he’s been turned to the Dark Side? Or what? Was/is the Federation of Atomic Scientists shills for the Pentagon, or did Pike fall to the Dark Side after leaving them?