November 30, 2006


The real Iraqi Conundrum

The word from the 1600 Crew has been "they stand up , we stand down". The unfortunate reality is that not only are the Iraqi Army and police units infested with militia, they also have the problem of pretty high desertion rates.

One of Cordesman's central issues is that public statements by the Defense Department "severely distorted the true nature of Iraqi force development in ways that grossly exaggerate Iraqi readiness and capability to assume security tasks and replace U.S. forces." He also writes that "U.S. official reporting is so misleading that there is no way to determine just how serious the problem is and what resources will be required."

Cordesman says the Pentagon's Aug. 31 status report, which was sent to Congress, lists 312,400 men "trained and equipped" among the Iraqi army and national and regular police. But it adds that "no one knows how many . . . are actually still in service." At the same time, he writes, "all unclassified reporting on unit effectiveness has been cancelled."
...
Cordesman says attrition is put at "at least 20 percent per year." The Pentagon report also notes problems with the police having ties to militias and warns about "unprofessional and at times criminal behavior" by some units.

Cordesman described the situation as "far worse" with the regular police, where "desertion rates are far higher than with the regular [Army] forces and National Police. He cites the Pentagon report as saying "there is currently no screening process to ascertain militia allegiance" and "no method exists to track the success rate of these or other police officers."

All this traces back to the brilliant decision-making of Jerry Bremer and the Chalabi-loving Neocons who could not wait to dump the Army and police forces out on their asses in a quixotic attempt to "clean house", when they had no idea what the house even looked like.

Reap what you sow? So what, this is now the whirlwind?

posted by Jo Fish on 11.30.06 at 10:15 PM





Comments:

Jo,

Aren't you gonna chime in on Webb? I'd love to get your take on him taking ol' Preznit to the woodshed!

posted by: Nick on 12.01.06 at 01:07 AM [permalink]



You can't be shocked at this, can you?

Dubya and his intellectual kinfolk have fucked this whole thing up, from front to back!

posted by: Gunfighter on 12.01.06 at 01:48 PM [permalink]






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