(Iraqi) Troop Levels Unknown (Rep. Shays sends WH Iraq report)

[sabra]

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hce-trooplevels.dec22,0,7881903.story?coll=hc-headlines-home

Troop Levels Unknown


WASHINGTON -- Despite all the talk about just what kind of troop levels the U.S. should maintain, it's not clear anyone knows the size of the Iraqi force, Rep. Christopher Shays said today in his report to the White House and Pentagon on findings from his trip to Iraq.

Shays, chairman of the House national security subcommittee, earlier this month made his 15th trip to Iraq since the war began in March 2003, and wrote a five page letter detailing his findings.

He noted that American military commanders say there are 112 Iraqi Army battalions of 757 soldiers each, or a total of 84,784 soldiers on duty in combat units. But on any given day, he said, absences--authorized and unauthorized--can reduce this number by about 20 percent.

That would leave about 67,000 Iraqi soldiers on duty in combat situations--or about half the size of the often-quoted number of 137,500 trained and equipped Iraqis.

And, Shays warned, "U.S. Army trainers have formally assessed many of these Iraqi Army battalions to be far from capable of carrying out operations on their own without U.S. units fighting alongside them."

[Missy M]

1. I don't understand how the insurgents can be so well trained....

yet we are not capable of training the Iraqi forces. It doesn't make sense.

[sallyseven]

2. From your mouth to God's ear.

Yes tell me why we cannot train them well enough???

[sabra]

3. It appears there are various factors...

- loyalty: some Iraq soldiers will only defend their regions. For example many rejected requests to be positioned in Baghdad.

- compensation: while for some Iraqis being in the forces is the only job, they pay isn't regular or enough.

- death: they are one of the biggest targets in Iraq right now.

[Missy M]

4. Those are good reasons....

do you think if the US forces were to leave the Iraqis would have a better chance of training their forces?

[sabra]

5. there are reports, that in the future many US soldiers will be coming

home. And primarily those who will stay in Iraq will be specialists and trainers for the Iraqi forces.

[Missy M]

6. I wonder if it will remain a sectarian problem when trying to train...

the Iraqi forces, even if many of the US soldiers come home.

[sabra]

8. unfortunately, I think it will be a sectarian problem for a very long time...

[shain from kane]

9. On the other hand, the suicide bombers do not seem to fear death. If we used a scale, what would be

approximate level of fear of death by the factions or participants or however else you want to divide it? Sort of like one of those pain charts at the hospital. After all, these suicide bombers are just not committing death-defying stunts. They definitely know the outcome of their actions, and yet they continue to be recruited. Are all of the chickenshits in the Iraqi army?

[Warren Stupidity]

7. We never fought for the loyalty of the Iraqi people.

Instead we imposed corrupt administrations and tried to clobber resistance by brute force. The insurgency, on the other hand, fought for and has won the loyalty of the Iraqi people. The war for Iraq is over and we lost sometime over the last three years. The Iraqi army is mostly a fiction. The various militias control portions of the army as the troops are members of both official Iraqi units and unofficial militia units. The other portions are staffed by the few Iraqis loyal to the nominal government or by the many Iraqis who just need money to live. This is not an army that is going to fight alongside us, this is an army that is going to watch us fight and wait for us to leave, while being a funnel for supplies, information, and training for the militias who will take over when we finally get a clue and bug out.

We have lost the war, a war we probably couldn't win if we had even managed to figure out what we were fighting for, and our leaders cannot accept that reality. They will continue to order our soldiers into battle against the Iraqi people, continue to miscontrue the situation, and continue to think that if the just kill enough Iraqis at a sufficient rate then their ill-defined mission (what is the mission?) will be salvaged from the disaster it has become. It is not going to happen.

[Missy M]

10. I agree with you that we have lost the war.....

and Bush made a grave error in thinking he would win the loyalty of the Iraqi people. On the other hand Iraq will have to maintain their own forces at some point, when we leave (which can't be soon enough in my opinion), so how are they going to accomplish that. There are two different wars being fought in Iraq, the insurgents against the US and the different Iraqi sects against each other. If we can't manage to train Iraqi forces how on earth will they ever be trained, due to the sectarian factor.

[DallasNE]

11. A Matter Of Loyality

To the Iraqi military it is a paycheck in a country where paychecks are hard to come by. For the insurgents it is a cause and a matter of loyality to that cause. The difference in reasons is all telling. Some even try to play both ends; pick up the paycheck while also fighting with the insurgents.