Iraq recruits: Underpaid, undertrained, under pressure-CNN calls Motley Crew

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/30/riminton.iraqtroops/index.html

The Iraqi honor guard snaps to attention and the bugle player raises his horn. With great pride, he delivers a loud, tuneless warble. It trails off in the whipping desert wind.

This is Camp Besmaya, a training facility for Iraqi army volunteers outside of Baghdad. The bugle welcome is for the head of the Iraqi ground forces, Gen. Ali Ghiran-Majeed.

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Some of the men are gray-haired; some are overweight. But they do work together, a rare thing in a nation racked with murderous sectarian fault lines.

"It's definitely a motley crew," says U.S. Army Capt. Mark Tomola.