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G o o g l e automatically generates html versions of documents as we craw l the web. mil+smallwar s+%22Why+Iraq+Has+No+Army%22+Fallows&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 Google is neither affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsibl e for its content. These search terms have been highlighted: why iraq has no army fall ows These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: smallwars Page 1 Classification: UNCLASSIFIED The Atlantic Monthly | December 2005 Why Iraq Has No Army An orderly exit from Iraq depends on the development of a viable Iraqi se curity force, but the Iraqis aren't even close. The Bush administration doesn't take the pr oblem seriously and it never has by James Fallows When Saddam Hussein fell, the Iraqi people gained freedom. Looting began immediately, and by the time it abated, signs of an insurgency had appeared. Four months after the invasion the first bomb th at killed more than one person went off; two years later, through this past summer, mult iple-fatality bombings occurred on average once a day. The targets were not just US t roops but Iraqi civilians and, more important, Iraqis who would bring order to the countr y The first major attack on Iraq's own policemen occurred in October of 2003, when a car bomb killed ten people at a Baghdad police station. This summer an average of ten Iraqi policemen or soldiers were killed each day. It is true, as US officials often point out, that the violence is confined mainly to four of Iraq's eighteen provinces. But these four provinces contain the nation's capital and just under half its people. The crucial need to improve security and order in Iraq puts the United St ates in an impossible position. It can't honorably leave Iraq as opposed to simply e vacuating Saigon-style_so long as its military must provide most of the manpower, w eaponry, intelligence systems, and strategies being used against the insurgency. B ut it can't sensibly stay when the very presence of its troops is a worsening irritan t to the Iraqi public and a rallying point for nationalist opponents to say nothing of t he growing pressure in the United States for withdrawal. Therefore one question now trumps others in America's Iraq policy: whethe r the United States can foster the development of viable Iraqi security forces, both m ilitary and police units, to preserve order in a new Iraqi state. The Bush administration's policy toward Iraq is based on the premise that this job can be done and done soon enough to relieve the pressures created by the large-s cale US presence in Iraq. These include strains on the US military from its lon g overseas assignments, mounting political resistance in America because of the cost and casualties of the war, and resentment in Iraq about the open-ended presence of forei gn occupation troops. This is why President Bush and other officials say so often, "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." American maximalists who want to transform Iraq into a democracy, American minimalists who want chiefly to get US troops out a s soon as possible, and everyone in between share an interest in the successful cre ation of Iraq's own military. Page 2 If the United States can foster the development of a sufficiently stable political system in Iraq, and if it can help train, equip, and support military and police fo rces to defend that system, then American policy has a chance of succeeding. The United State s can pull its own troops out of Iraq, knowing that it has left something sustainable be hind. But if neither of those goals is realistic if Iraqi politics remains chaotic and the Iraqi military remains overwhelmed by the insurgent threat then the American strategy as a whole is doomed. As Iraqi politicians struggle over terms of a new constitution, Americans need to understand the military half of the long-term US strategy: when and whe ther Iraqi forces can "stand up." Early in the occupation American officials acted as if the emergence of a n Iraqi force would be a natural process. "In less than six months we have gone from ze ro Iraqis providing security to their country to close to a hundred thousand Iraqis ," Donald Rumsfeld said in October of 2003.
will be the largest and outnum ber the US forces, and it shouldn't be too long thereafter that they will outnumber all coalition forces combined." By the end of this year the count of Iraqi security forces sho uld indeed surpass the total of American, British, and other coalition troops in Ira q Police officers, controlled by Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, should number some 145,000 . An additional 85,000 members of Iraq's army, plus tiny contingents in its navy and air force, should be ready for duty, under the control of Iraq's Ministry of Defense. Since ea rly this year Iraqi units have fought more and more frequently alongside US troops. But most assessments from outside the administration have been far more d ownbeat than Rumsfeld's. Time and again since the training effort began, inspection te ams from Congress, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), think tanks, and th e military itself have visited Iraq and come to the same conclusion: the readiness o f many Iraqi units is low, their loyalty and morale are questionable, regional and eth nic divisions are sharp, their reported numbers overstate their real effectiveness. Early this year the American- led training command shifted its emphasis from simple head counts of Iraqi troops to a n assessment of unit readiness based on a four-part classification scheme. Level 1, th e highest, was for "fully capable" units those that could plan, execute, and maintain counte rinsurgency operations with no help whatsoever. Last summer Pentagon officials said t hat three Iraqi units, out of a total of 115 police and army battalions, had reached this level. In September the US military commander in Iraq, Army General George Casey, lowered that estimate to one. Level 2 was for "capable" units, which can fight against insurgents as lo ng as the United States provides operational assistance (air support, logistics, communica tions, and so on). Marine General Peter Pace, who is now the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last summer that just under one third of Iraqi army units had reached this lev el. Level 3, for "partially capable" units, included those that could provide extra Page 3 manpower in efforts planned, led, supplied, and sustained by Americans. T he remaining two thirds of Iraqi army units, and half the police, were in this categor y Level 4, "incapable" units, were those that were of no help whatsoever in fighting the insurgency. In short, if American troops disappeared tomorrow, Iraq would have essent ially no independent security force. Half its policemen would be considered worthl ess, and the other half would depend on external help for organization, direction, sup port. Two thirds of the army would be in the same dependent position, and even the better- prepared one third would suffer significant limitations without foreign help. The moment when Iraqis can lift much of the burden from American troops i s not yet in sight. Understanding whether this situation might improve requires unders tanding what the problems have been so far. Over the summer and fall I asked a large number of people why Iraq in eff ect still had no army, and what, realistically, the United States could expect in the futu re. Most were Americans, but I also spoke with experts from Iraq, Britain, Israel, Fran ce, and other countries. a large number had recently b een posted in Iraq, and a sizable contingent had fought in Vietnam. Almost all those st ill on active duty insisted that I not use their names. The Army's press office did arrange for me to speak with Lieutenant General Dave Petraeus, who was just completing his year's assignment as commander of the training effort in Iraq, before being replaced by Martin Dempsey, another three-star Army general. But it declined requests for interviews with Petraeus's predecessor, Major General Paul Eaton, or others who had been involved in training programs during the first months of the occupation, or with lower-ranking officers and enlisted men....
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