Barry McCaffrey wrote the following:
Lack of combat experience is not the central issue Iraqis face. Their problems are corrupt and incompetent ministries, poor equipment, an untrained and unreliable sectarian officer corps (a result of Rumsfeld's disbanding the Iraqi army), and a lack of political will caused by the failure of a legitimate Iraqi government to emerge.
We need fewer advisers, not more -- selected from elite, active military units and with at least 90 days of immersion training in Arabic. Iraqi troops will not fight because of iron discipline enforced by U.S. sergeants and officers. That is a self-serving domestic political concept that would put us at risk of a national military humiliation.
Sigh. One myth of the war will not die. "Disbanding" the Iraqi army was not a mistake. First of all, disbanding it was a pure formality since the army disintegrated during the invasion. It was gone by the time we took Baghdad. The troops went home. "Disbanding" the military was a purely formal legalistic step. Second, if the Iraqi army still existed, we darn well should have disbanded it. Who among you believes that it would have been better to have had an Iraqi military with "former" Baathist officers in charge of the Iraqi army at any time over the last three years? And if we kept those former Saddam officers, talk about "sectarian!" The officer corps was pretty exclusively Sunni! Remember the disastrous Fallujah Brigade led by former Baathists that went into Fallujah to pacify it after our Marines were called off in spring 2004? It did so well we assaulted the enemy-held city for good in November 2004. Try a little bit of reality on this issue.
Second, we do need to give the Iraqi army time to train and gain battle experience. The Shias and Kurds had few officers in the former Iraqi army and we have to create shake-and-bake officers from the level of general to captain from soldiers of far lower rank--and all while they must wage the war, too! Corruption? Yes. This is nothing new to Iraq. Poor equipment? What does the enemy have? And why isn't Iraq buying it? We are properly focusing on Iraqi light infantry while we provide the heavier firepower and support side which takes longer to develop and which is even harder in Iraq because we must start from scratch with Shias and Kurds who were excluded from higher ranks!
And yes, advisors in their ranks will darned well help Iraqis fight better. We are not talking about imposing iron discipline by taking over as McCaffrey states. We're talking advisors. Even Saddam's army, after being at war with Iran for more than five years, was trounced by an Iranian offensive that took Fao in February 1986. You know what happened after that? The Soviets sent thousands of advisors to the Iraqi army, many of whom were sent to frontline units! Is it any wonder that our brand spanking new Shia and Kurd officers could use some help when even the pampered Sunnis needed help twenty years ago? Iraq's 1986 officer corps: sectarian, trained, and unreliable. At least Iraq's 2006 officer corps has the excuse of being inexperienced and incompletely trained. Plus, as long as we retain combat units we can lessen the chance of our forces being held hostage and us humiliated as McCaffrey writes.
With some experience and our guidance, the new Iraqi army will in time be not only better than Saddam's army, but will be the best army in the Middle East other than Israel's.
Oh, and for all General McCaffrey belittles the Baker report (rightly so I might add), he actually does worse than Baker's boys (and a girl) in one aspect by advocating a timetable of withdrawal for our combat troops.
If we fight another conventional war in the near future, I'd be happy to have McCaffrey as a divisional or corps commander. But I just have to wonder about his policy advice.
Again, by all means debate our future policy in Iraq. But remember what has happened before with a little more accuracy, please.
And can we have some patience?
