Tough streets await Iraq's NATO-trained cadets

[Barrett808]

Tough streets await Iraq's NATO-trained cadets
By Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The proud mothers tossed candies, the passing-out band played martial music and the officer cadets swore allegiance to the national flag.

But commanders at the NATO-supervised military academy in Baghdad, modeled on Britain's Sandhurst, said nothing can prepare the newly graduated soldiers for Iraq's mean streets.

"No military doctrine in the world says you are going to face terrorists in your neighborhoods, streets and houses," said Brigadier Imad Mohammed, director of Baghdad's Rustamiya military academy.

"Our cadets are going to face a situation that cannot be expressed in military language. They will have to learn it in their daily life. I cannot bluff and say they are completely trained," he said.

Outside the academy's walls, two dozen Iraqi soldiers were killed on Monday in fierce street fighting with Shi'ite militiamen in the city of Diwaniya in some of the bloodiest clashes yet among rival factions in Shi'ite southern Iraq.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060828/wl_nm/iraq_academy_dc