The Way Forward in Iraq
PRESIDENT’S NATIONAL STRATEGY FOR VICTORY IN IRAQ RESTS WITH TRAINING IRAQI SECURITY FORCES.
For U.S. President George Bush, the key determinant for the National Strategy for Victory in Iraq hasn’t changed in two years. It remains a central focus on training Iraq’s security forces. How best to accomplish this goal will dominate political discussions for months to come as well as largely determine the legacy of Bush’s final years in office. More importantly, how to go about standing up the security forces of a nation that the United States itself tore down will define the success or failure of a fledgling nation going forward as well as America’s role in bringing stability to the Middle East going forward. Bush’s latest directive to stabilize Iraq by adding 21,500 troops to advise and support Iraqi forces, with some U.S. troops embedded in Iraqi units, has created a firestorm of debate that will continue to smolder for months. “The most urgent priority for success in Iraq is security, especially in Baghdad …,” Bush said during his Jan. 10 national address. “Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents. And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.” Bush’s plan has been met with a great deal of skepticism, especially from those who have served in the U.S. military. “After three and a half years of failed predictions and dashed expectations about military’s performance in Iraq, President Bush owes the American people a detailed justification as to why a marginal increase in troops and more promises from Iraqi politicians will make any difference in the outcome in Iraq,” said Retired Army General Wesley K. Clark.
TRAINING IRAQ’S FORCES
There are currently about 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq but fewer than 5,000 are involved in training Iraqi units, according to the Iraq Study Group report released in December 2006. Senior American military commanders have long advocated that strengthening Iraqi forces, coupled with efforts at political reconciliation by the Iraqi government, would enable the Iraqis to be more responsible for their own security and allow the United States to eventually begin withdrawing its forces. However, to date, the Iraqi Army has had trouble providing the necessary protections American commanders have requested for the stepped-up security in Baghdad as sectarian violence continues to soar. While this situation goes on, Iraq’s government has yet to deal with the country’s militias, some of which exercise significant power over police units, according to military officials. The defeat and breakup of Saddam Hussein’s army in May 2003 and the disappearance of local police units have caused the United States and coalition allies to rebuild almost from scratch many of Iraq’s security forces. Such forces included its national army, local national guard units, special commando teams, a national police force, border police, local police and a facilities protection service. Another factor complicating the rebuilding of Iraq’s Army is the decision by coalition officials in 2003 and 2004 to keep the new Iraqi army lightly armed so that it couldn’t threaten any future democratic government established in Baghdad in the future. The Iraqi Study Group reported in its latest findings that the Iraqi army units were of questionable loyalty to the Baghdad government, the police units couldn’t control crime and some units were routinely engaged in sectarian violence and that the facilities protection service there is “incompetent, dysfunctional or subversive.” Dean Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst with Forecast International, told MT2 that though there is great pressure to train the Iraqi forces, there also needs to be some patience. “They are starting from square one, you have to take that into account,” he said. “You can’t create an Army overnight. Considering that you start with troops that were trained under Saddam’s army— and that training was debatable— to going back to step one and learning what soldiering is really all about, that is one hell of a learning curve.” He also said that the Iraqi army’s skill level is improving. “They have really taken to heart a lot of lessons that they have learned,” he said.
TRANSITION TEAMS
The success of the United States’ training of Iraqi forces could rest on a new program where 11- to 15-member U.S. transition teams are embedded in Iraqi battalions. The job of these teams are to advise, coach, teach and mentor Iraq security forces and provide assistance to coalition forces through air support, artillery, medical evaluation and intelligence-gathering. The teams are made up of senior commissioned and noncommissioned officers that specialize in areas such as combat operations, intelligence, communications and logistics. There are more than 4,000 American troops organized into more than 430 teams to advise the Iraqi Army, its border forces and police. About 700 U.S. marines are deployed with the teams as well. U.S. Army officials have recently said they planned to increase the size of the teams for better training purposes because some Iraqi battalions can have as many as 700 soldiers. Andrew F. Krepinevich, the executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, called these transition teams in a recent op-ed article for the New York Times “the steel rods which the newly poured concrete of the Iraq military will harden.” “They will determine whether President Bush can keep his pledge to ‘stand up’ Iraqi forces so that American forces in Iraq can ‘stand down,’” he said. “And it is the Iraqi military that will in turn play the crucial role in girding Iraq against the chaos that now threatens to engulf it.” The U.S. Army conducts the majority of its training for the Army teams that will advise the Iraqi Army, national police and border guards at Fort Riley, Kansas. Some of the remaining Army teams are drawn from units already in Iraq, according to Army officials. The U.S. Marines plan to prepare more than 80 teams itself during the next year for tasks such as military, border security and national police transition teams. The Marines’ effort will be headed up by its Training and Education Command in Quantico, Va., with actual training taking place at Twentynine Palms, California. In June 2006, the Army, U.S. Air Force and Navy consolidated transition team training at Fort Riley in order to standardize the training and economize on the use of resources. At the end of December 2006, 50 teams, consisting of about 500 personnel, had trained and deployed to Iraq from Fort Riley with an additional 1,400 currently in training at the base. Each team trains at the base for about 60 days. Training consists of individual skills, as well as cultural training, adviser skills and collective tasks. Throughout the training period, each team member receives over 40 hours of formal classroom language instruction, conducted by defense language institute instructors.
HIGH RISK ASSIGNMENT
There has been a growing concern, especially politically, about the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq, particularly the Transition Teams that are embedded in Iraqi battalions. This means that the U.S. troops on the teams will eat, sleep and live with the Iraqi units.
Marine Major General George J. Flynn, commander of the Marine Corps Training and Education Command, told the House Armed Services Committee in December that serving on the transition team is a “high-risk assignment.” “In many ways, these individuals are out there alone and unafraid,” he said. “It just speaks to the quality of the men and women who are in uniform and it’s our responsibility to make sure, before we send them out the door, that they have all the skills necessary to survive on the battlefield and to execute their mission. But the mission does come with risks, sir, and the best we can do is train them the best we can to mitigate that risk.” Lieutenant General James J. Lovelace Jr., the Army’s deputy chief of staff, told the committee that the embedded teams are equipped with communications so that they can call for a quick reaction force if needed. The forces are made up of rapid-response U.S. combat units with helicopters and aircraft that could be quickly called in for support if embedded teams come under fire, he said. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during a committee hearing in December expressed concern with the transition team program, particularly the safety of the embedded teams if the United States decides to reduce the number of combat troops in Iraq by early 2008. To “withdraw the troops and then still have thousands of American soldiers embedded in Iraqi units that are of questionable value or loyalty, I think, puts at risk a large number of American military advisers,” McCain said.
POLITICAL FIGHT AHEAD
The Iraq Study Group listed the training of the Iraqi army as “a primary mission of U.S. military strategy.” However, the debate on how best to go about training this force as well as other Iraqi security forces will heatedly continue for the foreseeable future. Bush said his decision to send in more than 20,000 additional troops is critical to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign against sectarian violence and bring security to Baghdad. “Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs,” Bush said. Sen. McCain said during a Jan. 11 Senate Armed Committee Hearing called Bush’s plan for Iraq and the military buildup a difficult but necessary move. “I believe that together these moves will give the Iraqis and Americans the best chance of success,” he said. He also asked the dissenters to “tell us what they believe are the consequences of withdrawal in Iraq.” “If we walk away from Iraq, we’ll be back, possibly in the context of a wider war in the world’s most volatile region,” he said. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and the new chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during the Jan. 11 hearing that sending more troops to Iraq would be a grave mistake. “Increasing the number of U.S. forces in Iraq is flawed strategy because it is based on a flawed premise that there is a military solution to the violence and instability in Iraq, when what is needed is a political solution among the Iraqi leaders and factions,” he said.
CHANGE IN COMMANDERS
What hasn’t been discussed as much as the projected surge of troops in Iraq is the impact that new leadership in key military roles could have in Iraq. In January, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recommended to Bush that U.S. Navy Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, succeed U.S. Army General John Abizaid as commander of the U.S. Central Command. Abizaid has commanded CENTCOM since July 7, 2003 and is set to retire this spring. Gates also recommended Army Lieutenant General David Petraeus to succeed Army General George Casey as commander of Multinational Force Iraq. In another move, Gates then recommended Casey for appointment as the new U.S. Army chief of staff to replace General Peter Schoomaker, who had served in the post since 2003 after former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called him from retirement. Casey served as Schoomaker’s vice chief of staff before becoming commander of ground forces in Iraq. Petraeus has served as commander of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Kan., since October 2005. Before his serving in his current capacity, Petraeus has also served in three missions in Iraq: commanding the 101th Airborne Division, the Multinational Security Transition Command and the NATO Training Mission Iraq. Petraeus is credited with launching and leading the coalition’s program to train and equip Iraq’s army and Police and has been leading the effort to rewrite the military’s doctrine for defeating the insurgency. Barry Watts, a senior fellow for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Petraeus is being handed “a tough job” though he has had a level of success in Iraq. He said the changes could mean that Petraeus will exert more control over what goes on in Iraq rather than the CENTCOM commander. “If you are pretty much going to put the whole thing in Petraeus’ hands, he is an Army guy that has been successful there in prior tours …,” Watts said. “It could conceivably work. My general feeling is that some of these changes probably should have been made before now.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
Regardless of the path on how to get there, many agree that the training of Iraqi forces is paramount for the future success of Iraq and the United States’ involvement with the nation going forward. “No matter what operations the United States runs in Iraq, at the end of the day it is going to be up to the Iraqi army and the Iraqi security forces to secure that country,” Lockwood said. “That is the bottom line. At the end, they will have to stand on their own two feet.” ♦