“Tell The American People We Need The U.S. Army Here”
Bill Ardolino’s interview with the Jundi:
INDC: So you think the Iraqi Army can do it?
Mohaned F: “Yes. But we need time.”
INDC: How much time?
Mohaned F: “Maybe by next year. But we need more staff. New weapons and more staff.”
INDC: What do you guys think about the Iraqi police in Fallujah?
Jabbar: “In the past, we didn’t work together with the police. But now, something is different - we work with the police. The terrorists are attacking both of us, the police and the Iraqi Army. So we are the same. And now the police works with the Army and they sometimes give us good information. So, we work together well now.”
…
INDC: I’ve also heard that some local Fallujans distrust the Iraqi Army because you guys are from different parts of Iraq and many of you are Shia. Does that hamper your ability to operate in the city?
Mohaned F: “If we don’t trust another we’ll lose battles …”
INDC: If you don’t mind me asking, are you guys Shia, Sunni, what?
[All are Shia]
Mohaned F: “But some of our guys are Sunni, but they are on leave right now.”
INDC: “Does that cause any tension with the local Sunni population in Fallujah? I’ve heard about the tension between the two …
Mohaned N: “Everybody here is Iraqi. We don’t like the state of affairs here (with terrorism and insecurity), so there is no difference between the Shia and Sunni.”
…
INDC: What would you tell the American people if you could tell them anything?
Mohaned N: “Tell the American people we need the US Army here. We want to work with them for a longer time. And in the future we can say that we have built the Iraqi Army together.”
Topics: Iraq, embeds, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:06 am on Wednesday, February 21, 2007
17 Responses to ““Tell The American People We Need The U.S. Army Here””
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February 21st, 2007 at 12:18 am
Even if the Dhimmicrats take the Presidency I think we will still maintain a presence in Iraq. Right now the new trend is the training teams or less than 20 officers and senior NCOs to train the IA (read about it in Army Times). We can’t leave troops like that in place without some support, so we may have to go down to 50,000 or so, but not even the moonbattiest leftoid (who can get elected to the Presidency) will support total withdrawal.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:38 am
Sure they will Cav, if they want to get elected.
Six years to train and army?
Most wars don’t last that long.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:58 am
alphie, I’m going to throw the veteran card on the table.
Just what do you know about training an army? Let alone equipping one?
CavMedic is an NCO who understands, from first hand experience, just hard it is to train an effective fighting force, using Western battle doctrine, under the best of conditions. Which Iraq is anything but, as per your own comments.
In point of fact, the scheme that CavMedic describes has been the plan all along; I recall it being briefed back in mid 2004. There has always been the intention of a long term committment to Iraq, and those Dhimmicrats full well know it. They were briefed on the matter whenever they went into Iraq, or at the various Congressional hearings held. Withdrawal from Iraq would be disasterous, whatever Murtha might be muttering today.
It’s just that the Dhimmicrats prefer to string people like you along to get your votes, rather than tell you the hard truth, and see you throw a hissy fit when you don’t get your instant gratification.
You’ve dismissed the “European model” for Iraq, but I think that you will be sorely disappointed in a few years, when the US military is still in Iraq, exactly as CavMedic describes.
The primary problem that we face in training a new Iraqi miltiary can be described by the old axiom, “Arabs can win battles, but they can’t win wars.” A similar problem exists for the police, but I’m more familiar with the military.
Western military doctrine requires well trained and disciplined soldiers who will put aside their personal needs for the betterment of their nation. This is known as “personal sacrifice”, be it time away from performing mind numbingly boring but necessary tasks, or by dying in battle.
The Arab military tends to be feudal in nature; loyalty is to the tribe, personified by the commander. They fight well as a unit, but suck as an army; they can’t attain unit cohesion because they don’t trust other units, so they can’t manuever decently. That attitude has to be trained out of them, and the smarter ones know it. It won’t happen overnight, but when it does happen, Iraq will not have a problem with terrorism. Personal sacrifice is not in their code of ethics, unless it means skipping a bath one day.
(BTW, this is the difference between a “soldier” and a “warrior”, in the classic sense. “Warrior” has been used to describe the modern soldier in a romantic fashion, but I disagree with that….we need soldiers.)
Please note that the US military still has to deal with this problem, even unto today. It’s just that we have the best thing in the world to do that: the NCO cadre. Sergeants make or break an army. They train the troops and execute the mission. A good military will have no more than 5% of its strength as officers (we are running a bit higher than that right now), maybe 20-25% NCOs (I forget the exact datum), and the rest enlisted. Plus our culture does encourage team work and self-sacrifice.
Arab militaries tend not to have NCOs….lots of junior enlisted (privates and corporals), and lots of officers, but not much in between. If an officer is killed, the enlisted generally aren’t trained well enough to take over. Sergeants are expected to….since they are there to train the officers as well.
There’s a reason why modern Western-style armies run circles around non-Western armies, and it’s not just due to technology.
After all that ranting, I imagine you’re asking, “What was your point?”
That’s simple: you don’t know diddles about training an army, and are clueless as to what the problems are. CavMedic has forgotten more about unit leadership than you ever tried to learn. You just want to score a few rhetorical points, pop the tab on a can of beer, and sit back to bask in the glory of your “victory”.
Enjoy it while you can, alphie. That “European model” is closer than you think.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:01 am
Hey TRJ, I’d like to add a bit to what you and CavMedic started in explaining.
First, I’m not a BTDT for the box or any other kerfuffle, my time was peace time so correct anything I say here that needs it please.
1. The idea that building an army from scratch is just a matter of passing a bunch of recruits through training is a misconception that many have.
In an established military with an existing infrastructure and standardized SOP, newly trained recruits are handed off from the ultra close supervision of recruit training and on to specialized training where they continue to mature as soldiers while learning the skills and knowledge necessary for their assigned billet. Then these new soldiers are handed off from the schools and placed into their various units. At that time, the SNCO, NCO and experienced non-rates continue that new soldier’s training and he’s usualy not considered out of “boot” phase until he’s passed his first full calander year or so in his unit.
In a newly constructed military, there is no SNCO or NCO or experienced non-rates to provide that constant guidance and supervision for new soldiers, since all are, more or less, new soldiers all together at once.
Even in a peaceful stable place with anyone’s pick of culture or nationality to draw from, it would be a massive undertaking to create a functional modern military force from scratch and I doubt, except in instances where simply a parade outfit was required, the job could be done very much faster than it has been.
Now, generally speaking, no one with a half a clue ever thought this was going to be an easy or quickly done job. Most of those confused on the issue are either hostile politicos or mindless msm drones.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:17 am
An Interview with the Jundi
*** Don’t miss the comments thread on Jules C’s post here.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:56 am
As the $600 billion a year U.S.military is incapable of stopping the insurgents in Iraq, I don’t think any amount of training is going to get the $1 billion a year Iraqi Army to a level where they can defeat the insurgents.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:17 am
Those with no military experience look at our superior armed forces as though it is a fact of nature. It just is. No big deal. Such people act that way about most things. Medical care? They demand medical care–without a thought given those who spent a hellish fourteen or so years learning how to give it. Corporate profits? Do any of the people who constant bitch about corporations, know the first thing about business, much less a large corporation–or the level of talent and competence, and years of dedicated work required of a CEO to run one–or how rare that talent is. The cars are made–somehow. The oil is drilled, and refined into more products than they ever imagine–somehow. The doctors save lives–somehow. The military fights–somehow.
It is easy to make demands–especially when you live in the certainty that none will be made of you.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:25 am
It isn’t the military that cannot defeat the insurgents. It is the philosophy of those like the toad.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:52 am
Well, salty.
Then maybe we should pull out our rather expensive military force from Iraq and send in an army of philosophy majors.
I’m sure they’d give up their pizza delivery jobs to go.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:30 am
alphie:
I agree in part with that. I really do not believe our Navy’s submarine force or our Air Force’s strategic bombers, nore our ICBM installations and the majority of our ground forces should be stationed in Iraq either.
Good thing they’re not too. Matter of fact, at any given time, most of our “rather expensive military” isnt in Iraq. It’s doing what needs be done in hundreds of other places, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan.
You, on the other hand, are nothing but a nasty little enemy sympathizer. I do really wish you horror, blood and pain.
February 21st, 2007 at 9:57 am
Heh, alphie really doesn’t know diddles about military training, does he? Note how he skates around the realities to focus on his usual bottom line.
Grimmy……thanks for the comment. I rather glossed over that aspect of having an established military at hand, but those are key points about what Iraq (and most of the Middle East for that matter) are missing. As saltydog notes, having a well trained military is not a fact of nature, it’s the result of hard work, sweat, and not a little blood. But it’s an investment with a long term payoff, no question about it.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:34 am
Jeff and Grimmy-you guys did a great job of smacking the toad around. Lefties love the idea of “absolute moral authority” for people like Cindy Sheehan, or tossing around the chickenhawk slur, until they are confronted by someone who has real knowledge or experience and uses it against them.
The Jundees are willing to learn. Whenever we did a goat lab we always got a very high rate of participation from the IA medical platoon. But in order to learn how to be, say a treatment NCO, you have to have spent so much time as a regular medic helping with sick call and doing exams. You need to have worked some trauma, so that you know how to set up the aid station to be prepared for one. You need to have done some evac, and so on. All of which takes time. I read an analysis in some foreign affairs journal that it takes between 8 and 11 years to defeat an insurgency. It takes at least that long to train a good NCO, these two things are probably not unrelated.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:42 am
O/T-but I’ve tried to post this about a half a dozen times to the “Heroes and Cowards” thread and I can’t get it to go through. Anyway, I think the blog entry is worth a look.
Excellent post from the blog of an officer who was treated at WRAMC. He even takes some of the blame himself-like a real leader-and gets in a slam at the Post for sitting on the story for 4 months (makes me think Dana Priest and company really care about the troops).
As for Murtha, the day I came home from active duty in 2005 was the same day he gave his weepy “let’s quit the fight” speech. Helluva welcome home-screw him.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
I read an analysis in some foreign affairs journal that it takes between 8 and 11 years to defeat an insurgency. It takes at least that long to train a good NCO, these two things are probably not unrelated.
I agree — the two are related.
February 21st, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Nice job, guys. I love it when a willful ignoramus gets fis…er, corrected.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:06 pm
No doubt the military sages of the right will start talking about the 30 Years War when we enter our 7th year in Afghanistan soon.
Grimmy,
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan account for about a third of our “defense” budget, and when the long term cost of caring for our wounded vets and repairing and replacing our equipment is factored in the total is closer to half.
February 21st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Right, if it isn’t quick and easy it isn’t worth doing (I quote Homer Simpson from memory).
Willfully ignorant.