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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend....
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To: Sully- who wrote (14718)10/15/2005 11:25:13 AM
From: Sully-   of 35834
 
Iraqi Army

-- PoliPundit

The Iraqi military is shaping up:

<<<

I traveled to Iraq this week with a group of military analysts. From my visit I concluded that the greatest change in the military balance over since last summer has been achieved by the Iraqis Security forces. Their story is only partially told by the recent spike in numbers of Iraqi army battalions from only a few a year ago to 117 today. But soldiers know that the effectiveness of a fighting force is better measured by intangibles such as courage, will to win, skill at arms, leadership, cohesion and allegiance to a higher cause. These are factors that media amateurs and Washington insiders have difficulty comprehending.

…

Gen. Bolger made a point of telling me that in the new Iraqi army cowards are not tolerated. Those who shirk the fight are dismissed. Iraqi casualties are higher than American because Iraqi small units often jump too quickly into battle rather than holding back. They are often very successful at finding terrorists and roadside bombs because of their intimate familiarity with the countryside and local tribal leaders.

Has the increased presence of Iraqi units been effective? Remember the infamous and terribly deadly BIAP Road? I had a quiet dinner about 200 yards from the highway one night and drove a five-mile portion of it, something no sane American visitor would have done last summer. There hasn’t been a serious incident on the road since June. That’s when the Iraqi Special Police Corps and the 6th Division established permanent traffic control points along all its interchanges. The Iraqis pushed a defensive perimeter back far enough from the highway to prevent terrorists from gaining access to plant bombs and position snipers. Is everything perfect? No, of course not. Is the 9th Division capable of taking on a major ground unit in open combat? Not yet. But Iraqi soldiers don’t have to meet our qualitative readiness standards. They just have to be better than the insurgents — and they already are.
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