"As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."
- george w. bush
What a freakin' joke.
Read all about the "fully trained" Iraqi forces...
Someone please tell clueless george that at this rate we're NEVER going to "stand down".
On Patrol, Iraqis Prove Eager, Erratic and Green
By DAMIEN CAVE
- george w. bush
What a freakin' joke.
Read all about the "fully trained" Iraqi forces...
Someone please tell clueless george that at this rate we're NEVER going to "stand down".
On Patrol, Iraqis Prove Eager, Erratic and Green
By DAMIEN CAVE
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 9 ? The American soldiers stopped at the corner to watch 20 members of the Iraqi national police force search a Sunni mosque in Dawra, a violent neighborhood in southern Baghdad at the heart of the new American drive to secure the capital.
The first camouflaged Iraqi emerged proudly with a quarter-pound of TNT, which he immediately delivered to the Americans. Others handed over evidence bordering on the bizarre: a roll of white string and a pink dress.
?It?s funny, they do this all the time ? ?Hey, check this out,? ? said Lt. Col. Gregory K. Butts, commander of the United States Army infantry battalion responsible for Dawra. He shook his head at the mix of eagerness and lack of discipline in a unit that nominally, at least, had been fully trained. ?Then they go in and get something else,? he said. ?We?re close by in case they need some help.?
Baghdad was supposed to be the showcase for an Iraqi force that was strong enough to manage the city of six million to eight million, and could eventually take over as American troops pull out of Iraq. But as the city has slid into increasing chaos, the American military has reversed course, sending thousands more troops in to bolster the raw Iraqi forces who have been assigned control of 70 percent of the capital in recent months.
Several days spent in Dawra with the Americans and accompanying Iraqi units, including the Sixth Brigade of the national police force, illustrated some of the shortcomings that American officers say the Iraqis still show. Two years after the start of an all-out training effort by the United States and its allies, many of the early troubles remain: weak discipline, divided loyalties, failure to complete tasks, the tendency to fire wildly in every direction at the first sign of danger.
In Dawra, American commanders said they were concerned that their Iraqi counterparts had leaked the plan of the search operation, tipping off residents. In some of the roughly 5,000 buildings searched in the neighborhood, Iraqi officers failed to scour entire floors, then flashed Americans an O.K. sign as if they had. And one Iraqi accidentally shot another, sending him into shock.
Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the spokesman for the American military in Iraq, said Wednesday that Iraqis were in the lead during the raids and ?doing an extremely good job at what they?re doing.?
But on the ground, the reviews were mixed.
In the early morning darkness Tuesday, as he walked into the headquarters of the Iraqi national police brigade in Dawra, Colonel Butts said the Iraqi forces he worked with were improving. He praised Brig. Gen. Abdel Karim Rahman al-Azi, the commander of the Sixth Brigade, for injecting discipline into the ranks.
Moments later, he was told that General Karim was not yet awake, despite having a meeting scheduled. Colonel Butts waited a half-hour past the appointed time, then left declaring, ?Well, time to get out there and command and control.?
Two hours later, General Karim still had not appeared. His men and their American counterparts waited on 60th Street, between gated stately homes and an empty lot rife with burning trash. The Americans stayed close to their Humvees, weapons ready. The Iraqis, ragtag in mixed uniforms, wandered up and down the street or sat in circles drinking tea.
Two 24-year-old officers sitting on the back gate of an Interior Ministry pickup truck said they received no specific training for the mission. They said they had spent only a day or two learning how to search homes when they first joined the force a year ago.
A block away, the operation looked more methodical. Americans led Iraqis from house to house, marking on maps and with orange stickers what had been cleared. In occupied houses, they asked and received permission to enter ? and received praise from residents who complained that earlier sweeps by the Iraqi unit that the Sixth Brigade had replaced had led to unnecessary destruction.
In one squat concrete home, an American sergeant and about six Iraqis moved from room to room while the owner, an older woman in a full black abaya, sat on a bed by the stove and watched. When a revolver was found, she was told that it would be confiscated because Iraqi law permitted only one AK-47 per family.
Smiling, the woman said she appreciated the American presence and hoped the raids would make the neighborhood safer. ?I never leave the house because I?m too afraid,? she said.
Even here though, Iraqi forces needed to be taught. Dawra is one of several Baghdad neighborhoods that tried recently to prohibit national police units from entering after several people were abducted by men in uniforms and were later found dead. American officers said their mission was not just to make the city safe, but also to shore up support for beleaguered Iraqi forces.
So when Colonel Butts checked in, he immediately zeroed in on two young Iraqi officers wearing bandanas over their faces.
?Tell them to take off their masks, please,? he told his translator. ?We?re not insurgents.?
The house, like many houses here, also held another mystery ? the woman?s two working-age sons were nowhere to be found. The consensus among American officers and soldiers was that the area had emptied out because the plan had been leaked by some of the same commandos who were now working beside them.
?Iraqi nationals told us they knew five days ago that we were coming,? said Sgt. First Class Darryl Money, 33. ?We?ll never find what we should have.?
He said the problem seemed to be a weak command structure ? in particular the absence of experienced corporals and sergeants to keep the men on task. ?They?re good in the morning. By noon, they?re gone,? he said. ?For them, this is just a paycheck until they get tired.?
Near the end of 12-hour shifts on Tuesday and Wednesday, Iraqis had in fact started to give up. Some sat on furniture outside people?s homes. Others sipped water with residents while Americans like Sgt. Ambrose Moriba, 26, methodically lifted mattresses and opened closet doors in every room with only one loyal Iraqi at his side.
Phase 2 of the plan for Dawra includes immediate trash removal from areas that are secure. But the program also seemed to suffer from a reliance on Iraqis. After cleaning up part of the Dawra market on Monday, the contractor hired to clean the streets failed to show up on Tuesday, promising to arrive later in the week. Lt. Col. Joseph Gandara, the lead Army engineer in charge of the project, said he was not surprised.
?Iraqis have had a top down government for so long, they just don?t know how to deal with anything that?s bottom up,? he said. ?They come to us because they think we have power, so we can fix it.?
Some of the Americans leading teams of about eight Iraqis tried to play tough. ?Come on, get in there,? one yelled at a handful of Iraqi officers smoking outside a home that had yet to be searched on Tuesday. But many let the small things go in an effort to build confidence.
General Karim dismissed the errors of his men as ?administrative mistakes? in an interview Tuesday. He said British and Australian training programs left many of them without the skills they needed.
Colonel Butts said continued training was critical to Iraq?s future. ?Everything we do is another training event for the national police,? he said, adding: ?The sectarian violence is an Iraqi problem. It has to have an Iraqi solution.?
At the Dawra mosque, where no Americans were allowed to enter, that solution worked at times, but not at others. Colonel Butts praised the Iraqi officers for assembling close together before crashing through a second floor door, but said he would have searched more methodically, using four men to search room to room.
When the Iraqis emerged with evidence of violent activity, Colonel Butts seemed pleased. When they came out with four detainees, the Iraqi-American contrast sharpened. The Iraqis immediately began interrogating the men with shouts. They rubbed the four men?s fingers for a field test for explosive residue test; the cross-hatched strip came up colored, faintly positive, according to the Iraqis. One of the men was crying and pleading to be put in a truck with senior officers because he feared that the others who interrogated him would kill him.
The Americans decided to check again. Two of the men?s tests came up negative. With Americans watching, Iraqis cut off their plastic flexcuffs and returned their cellphones.
General Karim shook their hands. ?Congratulations,? he said, ?on your freedom.?