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Many setbacks on road to an effective Iraqi force

Sep-25-2004 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

This is not a sugar-coated article, but I found it very enlightening and well worth the read.

[LINK to FULL ARTICLE]

Pressure is rising to establish an Iraqi military capable of securing the country by January elections.

By Ann Scott Tyson | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON AND MOSUL, IRAQ – Breathing hard, a portly Iraqi National Guard recruit plods across a dirt field, clutching a fistful of dry grass to prove he made it to the other end and back.

It's a type of recruit US Army trainer Staff Sgt. Toby Nunn knows well.
"Fifty-six-year-old Ahmed wants to feed his family," he says. "The money is alluring and has brought in a lot of people, but then they realize they have to do push-ups - not just drink chai. Also, they may have to shoot another Iraqi."

Out-of-shape recruits, equipment shortages, and "unbelievable" retention problems are just some of the myriad challenges facing Sergeant Nunn, tasked with leading a 16-man team to train an Iraqi National Guard (ING) battalion of 1,000 men from scratch.

In June, the Pentagon assigned Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who led the 101st Airborne Division in invading Iraq, to overhaul the training operation. Across the country, more than a dozen battalion-sized units and headquarters had to be reconstituted, and others started from scratch, military documents show.

One of those units was Mosul's 106th Iraqi National Guard battalion. On May 5, Nunn of the Stryker Brigade's 1-23 infantry battalion was given the job of leading training for the Iraqi unit. On May 8, lacking training materials, equipment, or a single interpreter, he took charge of the first 194 Iraqi recruits at a soccer stadium in Mosul.

Using hand signals to communicate, Nunn created a makeshift formation. As he marched the recruits a mile to a US base, some dropped out due to heat, and needed medical care. To set up a training headquarters, Nunn had to dislodge a US unit from a building. "We pretty much occupied it by force," recalls the plain-spoken sergeant from the small town of Terrace, British Columbia.

Next Nunn says he and other trainers had to "beg, borrow, and steal" what they needed to do their job. They found a surplus of old Iraqi boots and distributed them. Lacking canteens, they gave each recruit an empty plastic water bottle tied with a loop of thin cord to hang across their chests. "Saddam ingrained in them that water is a crutch. We teach them it's a life-sustaining element," he says.

While short on resources, US trainers also have had few standards to follow, as the 106th battalion illustrates. With no training manual, Nunn wrote one himself and later found translators to produce an Arabic and Kurdish version.


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