Clock is ticking on Iraqi army

MUHALLADIYA, Iraq — At this dusty combat outpost 4 miles west of Mosul, Iraqi soldiers complain that they haven't been paid in four months, even though the nation's coffers are bulging with tens of billions of petro-dollars.

Stationed along a key highway used by insurgents, the soldiers live in old shipping containers without water or electricity. Their only furniture is a few mattresses flung on the floor.

"In the winter it's very cold, and in the summer it's boiling," said Ibrahim Hassan, 36, who shared a container with four other soldiers.

Short on everything from housing to Humvees to bullet-proof vests, their training suspect and their society racked with tensions, Iraq's security forces are being reborn in places like this, with massive American assistance to prepare them for the moment when U.S. troops are no longer on the ground.

The clock is ticking. President-elect Barack Obama, when naming his national security team Monday, reiterated that his promised 16 months for withdrawing U.S. combat forces was "the right time frame." And he said the recently approved U.S.-Iraq security accord—requiring all 150,000 U.S. forces to withdraw from major cities such as Mosul by mid-2009 and the rest of the country by the end of 2011—put the U.S. on a "glide path" toward accomplishing that.

The area around Mosul, a city of 1.8 million people that straddles the Tigris River, offers a good window into the Iraqi soldiers' preparedness and challenges. In 2006 and 2007, it was overrun by insurgents and has seen some of the toughest fighting since.

During a visit by a journalist last month, U.S. officers, Iraqi commanders and residents painted a generally positive picture of the progress being made, even if slip-ups at checkpoints and outbreaks of gunfire offer persistent hints of how difficult the road ahead may be.

"The situation is better than it was five or six months ago," said Gen. Abdullah al-Sattar, commander of the 17,000-strong 2nd Iraqi Army Division, headquartered in Mosul. "I'm not going to be afraid if the coalition forces leave. The 16 months will be enough time for us."

The general's confidence was not shared by everyone under him, though.

"I want [the U.S. forces] to stay a long time," said Col. Tawfiq Abdullah, one of the general's officers. "This is my opinion. . . . I think three years—until we have all parts of our military [ready]."

Five years after the Iraqi army was dissolved by the Bush administration, the readiness of the new Iraqi security forces varies from place to place, with the military generally much further along than the nation's lightly regarded police force.

In Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, where Al Qaeda in Iraq remains potent, several hundred U.S. troops still operate from bases in the city and patrol its streets backed by hulking Stryker Armored Vehicles, evidence that Iraqi forces still need U.S. soldiers as advisers and partners in combat.

Only two years ago, Iraq's police force was little more than a collection of militias that, in some cases, acted as death squads, according to U.S. military officials. In Mosul, the Iraqi military lived on large bases on the city's periphery and rarely challenged the insurgents.

Using the troop surge strategy that worked elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. commanders initially sent in several thousand U.S. troops with armored vehicles and took back Mosul.

Then, with Iraqi assistance, U.S. troops set up traffic checkpoints throughout the city to deter insurgent movements and built dozens of heavily fortified bases in many of Mosul's most dangerous neighborhoods.

As the violence ebbed, Iraqi forces stepped forward to operate the checkpoints and launch raids and patrols—often in conjunction with U.S. forces—from the fortified bases.

One neighborhood in Mosul where security has improved dramatically is Hay Al Tinek, where signs of past fighting can be seen in concrete walls blasted to rubble and roads littered with burned-out vehicles.

Hashim Qasim, 44, a teacher at the Halab elementary school, said last year that the neighborhood was controlled by insurgents. They kidnapped and killed residents, set land mines and detonated so many bombs that he often prohibited students from playing in the school courtyard.

Today, he said, the Iraqi army controls the neighborhood. The troops operate out of a combat outpost opened in September only about a mile north of the school.

"Before there was no army or police here," he said. "When the army came, the situation changed."

Despite the successes, Iraqi security forces still face many challenges: the country's devastated economy, deep sectarian and ethnic divisions, widespread corruption, and years of bloodletting—all factors that fuel the insurgency.

Insurgents are able to recruit new members from the masses of unemployed by offering as little as $75 a month, according to U.S. military officers. Some Iraqis also fear the nation's armed forces could split along sectarian and ethnic lines without the glue of U.S. forces to hold them together.

Here in Mosul, at least five seasoned Kurdish commanders and a mostly Kurdish brigade were recently transferred out of the city, stoking fears among the city's Kurdish minority that the government is seeking to purge Kurds from the army.

Abdullah described the rotations as routine.

U.S. commanders say Iraqi security forces need to develop a corps of junior and non-commissioned officers to lead troops into battle. The Iraqi government also is throwing so many new soldiers into the field that some cannot conduct even basic operations.

A case in point could be seen a few miles west of Muhalladiya, where two Iraqi soldiers guarded a checkpoint that officials say insurgents use to move munitions and other supplies from Syria into Mosul.

The two soldiers checked vehicles leaving Mosul, opening trunks and peering into back seats, but waved through a truck and other vehicles heading into the city without an inspection.

"There could be 13 IEDs in that blue truck," said a frustrated U.S. Capt. Charles Reese, referring to a roadside bomb used by the insurgents. "The terrorists are coming from Syria into the city. You won't find anything coming out of the city. That's why the American Army has to train them."

Beyond that, the biggest problems facing the Iraqi forces remain endemic corruption and inefficiency, which have left troops with critical shortages of military equipment.

Tawfiq, who heads a new battalion with the 2nd Iraqi Army Division, said his 600 troops do not have a single Humvee or armored vehicle. They conduct combat operations in Ford F-350 pickup trucks.

"It's very dangerous with the IEDs," he said.
Chicago Tribune