Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Kansas City Star
April 20, 2007
Pg. 1
Training troops is no longer a priority, changing the role of American forces.
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON-- Military planners have abandoned the idea that shaping up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to soon start coming home.
They now think that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.
Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.
No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said that training Iraqis remains important.
"We are just adding another leg to our mission," Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.
But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention Thursday of training Iraqi troops on a visit to Iraq.
In a reflection of the need for more U.S. troops, the Pentagon decided earlier this month to increase the length of U.S. Army tours in Iraq from 12 to 15 months. The extension came amid speculation that the U.S. commander there, Army Gen. David Petraeus, will ask that the troop increase be maintained well into 2008.
U.S. officials won't say that the training formula - championed by Gen. John Abizaid when he was the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and by Gen. George Casey when he was the top U.S. general in Iraq - was doomed from the start.
But they said that rising sectarian violence and the inability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to unite the country changed the conditions.
Casey's "mandate was transition. General Petraeus' mandate is security. It is a change based on conditions. Certain conditions have to be met for the transition to be successful. Security is part of that. And General Petraeus recognizes that," said Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group in charge of supporting trained Iraqi forces.
"I think it is too much to expect that we were going to start from scratch in an environment that featured a rising sectarian struggle and lack of progress with the government," said a senior Pentagon official. "The conditions had sufficiently changed that the Abizaid/Casey approach alone wasn't going to be sufficient."
Maj. Gen. Doug Lute, director of operations at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East, said that during the troop increase, U.S. officers will be trying to determine how ready Iraqi forces are to assume control.
"We are looking for indicators where we can assess the extent to which we are fighting alongside Iraqi security forces, not as a replacement to them," he said. Those signs will include "things like the number of U.S.-only missions, the number of combined U.S.-Iraqi missions, the number where Iraqis are in the lead, the number of Joint Security Stations set up," he said.
That's a far cry from the optimistic assessments U.S. commanders offered throughout 2006 about the impact of training Iraqis.
President Bush first announced the training strategy in the summer of 2005: "Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."
Throughout 2006, Casey and top Bush administration leaders touted the training as a success, asserting that eight of Iraq's 10 divisions had taken the lead in confronting insurgents.
But U.S. forces complained that the Iraqi forces weren't getting the support from their government and that Iraqi military commanders, many of whom worked under Saddam Hussein, weren't as willing to embrace their tactics. Among everyday Iraqis, some said they didn't trust their forces, saying they were sectarian and easily susceptible to corruption.
Most important, insurgents and militiamen had infiltrated the forces, using their power to carry out sectarian attacks.
In nearly every area where Iraqi forces were given control, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. The exceptions were areas dominated largely by one sect and policed by members of that sect.
U.S. officials said they once thought that if they empowered their Iraqi counterparts, they'd take the lead and do a better job of curtailing the violence. But they concede that's no longer their operating principle.
Pentagon officials won't say how many U.S. troops are engaged in training, although they said that the number of teams assigned to work alongside trained Iraqis hasn't changed.
April 20, 2007
Pg. 1
Training troops is no longer a priority, changing the role of American forces.
By Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON-- Military planners have abandoned the idea that shaping up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to soon start coming home.
They now think that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces.
Training Iraqi troops, which had been the cornerstone of the Bush administration's Iraq policy since 2005, has dropped in priority, officials in Baghdad and Washington said.
No change has been announced, and a Pentagon spokesman, Col. Gary Keck, said that training Iraqis remains important.
"We are just adding another leg to our mission," Keck said, referring to the greater U.S. role in establishing security that new troops arriving in Iraq will undertake.
But evidence has been building for months that training Iraqi troops is no longer the focus of U.S. policy. Pentagon officials said they know of no new training resources that have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss the policy shift publicly.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates made no public mention Thursday of training Iraqi troops on a visit to Iraq.
In a reflection of the need for more U.S. troops, the Pentagon decided earlier this month to increase the length of U.S. Army tours in Iraq from 12 to 15 months. The extension came amid speculation that the U.S. commander there, Army Gen. David Petraeus, will ask that the troop increase be maintained well into 2008.
U.S. officials won't say that the training formula - championed by Gen. John Abizaid when he was the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and by Gen. George Casey when he was the top U.S. general in Iraq - was doomed from the start.
But they said that rising sectarian violence and the inability of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to unite the country changed the conditions.
Casey's "mandate was transition. General Petraeus' mandate is security. It is a change based on conditions. Certain conditions have to be met for the transition to be successful. Security is part of that. And General Petraeus recognizes that," said Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group in charge of supporting trained Iraqi forces.
"I think it is too much to expect that we were going to start from scratch in an environment that featured a rising sectarian struggle and lack of progress with the government," said a senior Pentagon official. "The conditions had sufficiently changed that the Abizaid/Casey approach alone wasn't going to be sufficient."
Maj. Gen. Doug Lute, director of operations at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East, said that during the troop increase, U.S. officers will be trying to determine how ready Iraqi forces are to assume control.
"We are looking for indicators where we can assess the extent to which we are fighting alongside Iraqi security forces, not as a replacement to them," he said. Those signs will include "things like the number of U.S.-only missions, the number of combined U.S.-Iraqi missions, the number where Iraqis are in the lead, the number of Joint Security Stations set up," he said.
That's a far cry from the optimistic assessments U.S. commanders offered throughout 2006 about the impact of training Iraqis.
President Bush first announced the training strategy in the summer of 2005: "Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."
Throughout 2006, Casey and top Bush administration leaders touted the training as a success, asserting that eight of Iraq's 10 divisions had taken the lead in confronting insurgents.
But U.S. forces complained that the Iraqi forces weren't getting the support from their government and that Iraqi military commanders, many of whom worked under Saddam Hussein, weren't as willing to embrace their tactics. Among everyday Iraqis, some said they didn't trust their forces, saying they were sectarian and easily susceptible to corruption.
Most important, insurgents and militiamen had infiltrated the forces, using their power to carry out sectarian attacks.
In nearly every area where Iraqi forces were given control, the security situation rapidly deteriorated. The exceptions were areas dominated largely by one sect and policed by members of that sect.
U.S. officials said they once thought that if they empowered their Iraqi counterparts, they'd take the lead and do a better job of curtailing the violence. But they concede that's no longer their operating principle.
Pentagon officials won't say how many U.S. troops are engaged in training, although they said that the number of teams assigned to work alongside trained Iraqis hasn't changed.