In Yesterday’s post, Training the Iraqi Army, we took issue with New York Times characterization of the Iraqi units as not being 'operational':
The article documents the current and projected manpower in a section misleadingly titled “Few Battalions Are Operational”... It appears the author is referring to combat readiness, defined as "a unit's ability to perform in combat. Includes the status of personnel, logistics, morale, and training." A deficiency in any of the areas mentioned would make a unit less than ‘fully operational’, however this does not mean the units cannot perform certain duties such as patrols, garrison or others. The battalions which are not rated ‘fully operational’ are not able to operate independently of Coalition forces. This is the reason the military transition teams have been created. Also, many of the Iraqi units are currently deployed in the field and have been ‘sistered up’ with Coalition units… These Iraqi units may not meet the New York Times definition of ‘operational’, but they certainly possess the characteristics of an effective fighting force.
Fortuitously, Colonel Austin Bay, who touring the Middle East and is currently in Iraq, reports on a briefing he attended which included an assessment of the Iraqi Army's capabilities:
The current chief of operations gave us a briefing in the Corps’ Joint Operations Center. I’ll comment on the difference in operational emphasis at a later date– but it’s clear the Iraqis are taking on a larger share of the operational burden. After the ops briefing we talked with the current corps commander, Lieutenant-General Vines, for about an hour. When asked about Iraqi participation in security missions, Vines gave us a rough percentage figure. In at least nine out of ten security operations, the new Iraqi military is providing half of the forces. The Iraqi units demonstrate tactical combat proficiency but –this is the short version– lack logistical support organizations and heavy weapons (eg, sufficient artillery).
The Iraqi Army as a whole does not lack “tactical combat proficiency”: - i.e. the ability to engage the enemy in battle and fight as a cohesive unit. So essentially, the two main problems keeping the Iraqi units from full combat effectiveness (or ‘operational’ if you work at the New York Times) are logistics and heavy weapons. The dearth in logistics is not surprising, as this is a problem that plagues established armies. The lack in heavy weapons is also not surprising, as this is a newly trained army.
Armor and artillery are weapons that require skill to field and use effectively as well as extensive logistics to supply them. The Iraqi Army is beginning to receive some armor, such as 77 T-72 battletanks from Hungary, but these will take time to refurbrish the tanks and train the units to operate them. It should be noted Saddam’s Army, with its numerical superiority in tanks and armored vehicles still lacked the capacity to use them effectively in combat (unless the enemy is Kuwait).
Perhaps the New York Times will issue a correction to set the record… ah, fuggetaboutit.
Yep, seems about right. The Iraqis also lack good equipment for the most part, relying on fiberglass helmets and pick up trucks in many cases. That is something that should certainly be addressed, there are reasons the IA is taking significantly greater casualties the the US, and lack of protection is definately part of that. Britian just gifted them some old armored cars and APCs. Im know we have a surplus of old M-113s rusting away the Iraqis would be thrilled with, though I suspect their logistics problems might preclude it. Still, give a man a hammer... If APCs are available the Iraqis will find a way to use them, a couple of inches of life saving steel tends to motivate folks' ingenuity.
Surely the U.S. has some M-60s left, too? (The tank, not the machine-gun.)
How much artillery does the Iraqi army need? At this point, anyway.
I tend to still be cautious on reports coming from general grade officers because of the two levels of mediation that the information on the quality of the Iraqi troops have to pass through. In the first place, people sending information up the chain of command is going to put the most positive spin possible on any sort of reporting. In the second place, of the spun information that your general grade officers receive, there's another level of spin in deciding how to report it.
I'm not preaching gloom and doom, I'm just saying that the Iraqi army still has a long way to go.
Perhaps one of those countries that likes to sell weapons to terrorist states might find it in their heart to help out here.
The Iraqi army would be champion in "friendly fire" so i doubt the US wants them to have any heavy weapons but they need a lot.
The Sunni's are really good equiped in light weapons so you need heavy weapons to overclass them. But if you have heavy weapons you don't need the US which would be really bad for the US
"a", you have no idea what you are talking about. And yet you continue to make baseless inuendo. The Iraqi army is short on heavy weapons because it takes time to train on armor and artillery and because they do not yet have the logistics organization to support them.
On the topic of heavy weapons, Hungarian T-72 tanks are currently being taken out of storage and prepped for shipment to the Iraqi Army. DID covered the story a couple weeks ago.
Ought to be plenty of spares for those, Joe, ... buried in misc. sand dunes.
I've been tracking and posting each Saturday some of the equipment issued to Iraqi security forces, via "The Advisor" MNSTC-Iraq for the past few months.
You can view a recap for the time period of March 22 to May 22
As far as protection, according to these releases there were 28,470 suits of Kevlar body armor and 1,700 helmets delivered in those 8 weeks.
You can find each week's recap by utilizing the search function on the main page (www.securitywatchtower.com) and typing in "Iraq Equipment".
According to the Brookings Institute (Saban Iraq Index), there are currently 169,362 Iraqi security forces trained, equiped and operational. I realize there is flexibility in the perception of those figures, but it sounds like alot more troops capable of fighting than Joe Biden keeps referencing.
6 months to deliver tanks out of storage. The same type of tank that Iraq build. Wonder if it wouldn't be much faster to do the work in Iraq.
OK so we have trained some Iraqi's, and some better than others.
Let's look for: results, not process, measurements. It seems to me that the result taht we are looking for is leting them take over the security, and the measurement should be how many US troops are replaced, at any one time.
Thus let's agree that our march troop level is about 114,000 (or 140,000). http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat.htm Then it seems to me that we should not downgrade our Iraqi partners, this means that what ever number of Iraqi's we have trained so far, the "increase" in those trained from March can be measured by the decrease in US troops.
I have not gotten the past troop numbers, but my feeling is that we have maintained out current troop level, except for a slight increase during the elections, so based on that, it looks as though we have not demonstratable results from our partial training of the Iraqis yet?
"6 months to deliver tanks out of storage. The same type of tank that Iraq build. Wonder if it wouldn't be much faster to do the work in Iraq."
Keep diggin a. Iraq never built a single tank in its history. They were bought from the Soviets.
These tanks take a long time to move because they have to refurbished, loaded on flatbeds (40 ton tracked vehicles and highways dont get along too well), loaded on ships (again, not as simple as you'd think), sailed to where they need to go, offloaded, put on flatbeds, transported, unloaded again, and overhauled again (seawater and sand are not the friends of mechanical parts). Thats not to mention all the bureaucratic redtape all this transfer of war machinery and millions of dollars must cause. Contrast that to the fact that it takes 3-6 months to move a heavy division from Europe to the Middle East as we saw in GW1.
And all this work just to give the Shiia government tanks we are going to have to help the Sunni blow up in the next few years right?
"I have not gotten the past troop numbers, but my feeling is that we have maintained out current troop level, except for a slight increase during the elections, so based on that, it looks as though we have not demonstratable results from our partial training of the Iraqis yet?"
Seems clear we have in the past few months brought force (Coalition and Iraqi) into areas that were never really dealt with before. We are effectively locking down more and more parts of the Anbar province which is critical, the enemy has survived via a series of previously unmolested bases from Haifi street through Fallujah, to the Syrian border with towns all in between to secure logistics. Slowly and steadilly those lines have been secured, now by Iraqi troops in Baghdad. Considering the enemy has shown no signs of reoccupying these places it seems clear that the IA is allowing us to push further and futher, occupying permanantly more towns, and patrolling the rest at much higher tempos. That is a requirement for victory, the enemy cannot be allowed to hold secure bases.
The Iraqi's build the T72 from Russian kits. If you can do that you can also maintain them
The fastest and easiest way to move a tank from Hungary to Iraq is by loading it on a flatbed and drive it through Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Turkey into Iraq. No need for any seatrip. They are all Nato states so redtap shouldn't be too bad either.
a, this has become rather like kicking puppies, but you havent got a clue what you are talking about. I'd advise you to quit while you're behind.
But Mark, I like kicking puppies.
So what is the clue i'm missing?
You can't drive a tank through kurdistan?
You need the latest in amming technology?
or is it simply the case that we don't want Iraq to have tanks.
"You can't drive a tank through kurdistan?
You need the latest in amming technology?"
Very well, as a public service I will educate you briefly:
You wouldnt want to drive 70 tank loaded flatbeds some 1500 miles through 5 or 6 different countries. Aside from being hideously expensive, its utterly impracticle both diplomatically and logistically, as well as being entirely pointless. The roads simply would not stand up to it, particularly in that region of the world. Not many nations, including Turkey who isnt particularly cooperative lately, would be happy to see their highway system demolished for something they have nothing to do with. Regardless, it would certianly end up being far slower and more expensive than sea lift, which is why every nation uses ships to transport tanks when the opportunity is there. Which im sure you knew.
Rail lines would be plausible if all of them were interchangeable, and had the correct equipment, and gained diplomatic permission, and didnt have to pass through any terrain making it impossible, which if you knew anything you would know is the reason when heavy divisions are transported from Germany to the ME, they are floated through the Atlantic, and not carted to the Med, which would obviously be the much shorter route.
"or is it simply the case that we don't want Iraq to have tanks."
And yet we are insuring that they have tanks. Why do you keep insinuating we dont want things to happen that we are going out of our way to force them to happen? Especially when we could easily and invisably prevent them?
Mike and mark both make good points, but dont really take if far enough/
to summarize:
Mark: this is all inputs, what matters is outputs. The key metric is withdrawls of US troops.
Mark: No, that assumes that as we get more Iraqis the best thing is to withdraw. It may be to use US troops in places they havent been used. We HAVE seen that. So more aggressive use of US troops is the key metric.
While I agree with Mark re strategy, I dont re metrics. Thats still an input. The GOAL is not to use US troops in Qaim or Tel Afar. The GOAL is to reduce the level of violence enough so that Iraqi society can rebuild. The real metrics remain: Iraqi civilian deaths at insurgent/jihadi hands. Electricity. Oil Exports. Unemployment. and the political process, which had another win (or escaped a deadlock, depending on your POV)
I would be grateful to have comments to three questions:
1. The New York Times article also alleged that most Iraqis have joined the Iraqi Army for the paycheck, not for combat. Is this the whole truth in a majority of cases or only part of the truth or is it untrue?
2. While Iraqis may not be as skilled in handling tanks and artillery and may lack other equipment and logistics, the real measure of their effectiveness should be their morale and discipline. In those Iraqi units that have been in combat alongside Americans more than once, has performance improved in the later engagement(s) as a result of the experience?
3. Regarding the three fully operational battalions mentioned in the NYT article, (a) does anyone know if the personnel of these battalions are typical of the Iraqi Army as a whole, and (b) if so, how long did they need to go from boot camp to fully operational status? If they are not typical, do we have any metric on "typical" battalions to indicate how long they need to go from boot camp to partially operational status? What would be a reasonable amount of time to expect them to advance to fully operational status, after they receive the equipment and logistics required to do so? Months or years?
To my last question, if the answer is that Iraqi units may need a few years rather than a few months to become fully operational, are there stages to this advance that can be benchmarked? Or are we looking at a change that might show little sign of happening and then suddenly snap into place?
The real metrics remain: Iraqi civilian deaths at insurgent/jihadi hands.
I think you are wrong on this even if you refrase it to the more correct:
The real metrics remain: Iraqi deaths.
remove civilian because in this kind of war the distinction between civilian and non-civilian is very fluid, and remove at insurgent/jihadi hands because death is death and it doesn't really matter who kills them, insurgants, common criminals or US forces.
A low rate of killed people is something that accompliments a normal civil state but it is not the only important metric. For instance the DDR had a low kill rate (including wall etc.) but you couldn't call it a normal state
ps Mark, a T72 weights about 40 tons. If your railway can't carry that you don't have a railway
"a", you didn't even understand Mark's comments on rail transport. Hint: he didn't mention weight.
The freight carts you need from Hungary to Turkey are interchangable, you have the Alps between Germany and Italy which can be handled by train transport even for the much heavier M1A1 (70 tons instead of 45) but it would only save at most a week on travel time, would probably cost more and you don't have the harbours designed for handling them (unlike the Cold War harbours for Germany). There is also a difference between shipping 40 tanks and shipping a whole division.