As They Stand Up
By Callimachus | Related entries in In The News, Military, The War On TerrorismVeteran and blogger Bill Roggio is reporting from Iraq, in an area near the Syrian border where the U.S. Marines are handing over control of daily operations to Iraqi forces. His assessment is one you get from a lot of sources on the ground in Iraq. They’re making progress. But it’s painfully slow. Tipping points are something you recognize after you’ve passed them. Who knows how close we are?
The Marines of 1st Platoon of Lima Company have varied opinions of the Iraqi soldiers, which range from unimpressed to pleasantly surprised at their courage and fighting abilities. Several explained how Iraqi troops saved their hides during Operation Steel Curtain, when the Iraqis identified a home the Marines were going to enter as being rigged with IEDs. When Explosive Ordnance Disposal arrived on scene and detonated the device, the entire house was destroyed in the blast. “Most of our squad would have been killed in that house. They saved my and my friends’ lives that day� said Lance Corporal Mendoza.
The Marines have worked with several groups of Iraqi troops, they’ll tell you there are good soldiers and bad soldiers, and some units are better than others. This is the story of all armies. The words of respect, coming from these Marines who have set high standards for performance, gives hope for the future of the Iraqi Army.
Courtesy of Mrs. Greyhawk, whose daily roundups are an important source of points of view you’re probably not getting much of if you’re getting it all from the newspapers and the TV news. By which I mean not “good news” (it’s not all good here, far from it), but unfiltered real experiences of real people involved in the actual process of whatever it is we’re doing.
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 1st, 2005 and is filed under In The News, Military, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 1st, 2005 at 7:03 pm
It is not necessary for the Iraqi soldiers to be the equivalent of our own. We have the best Army in the world. They don’t need an American level of proficiency, no one is asking them to be able to fly 9,000 miles, jump off a plane and destroy a far larger force while suffering minimal casualties — something we do ask of our own guys.
On the other hand, they do have to be good enough to prevail against the insurgents. I think that has as much to do with motivation and morale as with capabilities. In order to fight and die, the Iraqi soldiers will have to believe in their cause. They’ll have to believe their government, country, people, are worth dying for.
To me the real question is: are these really Iraqi soldiers? Or are these tribal and sectarian militia wearing Iraqi uniforms? My suspicion is that we are training and equipping Shi’a militia.
My question for pro-war bloggers is, if it turns out that we’ve traded Saddam for a Shi’ite theocracy, will that be a success?
December 1st, 2005 at 10:29 pm
There seems to be a legitimately rising tide of competence in the Iraqi forces. It used to be when you read of some Iraqi unit holding up bravely under fire, if you read further down it always turned out to be the 36th commando battalion — the one made up of veteran Kurdish fighters. Now there seems to be more competence in more units.
Of course, it also could be true that the sects and the tribes are steering their young men into the military the better to have training, and their hands on weapons, when the Americans inevitably leave and civil war, as they anticipate it, begins.
Certainly the Shi’ites will continue to hold a balance of power in Iraq. Certainly they will continue to look to their ayatollahs for guidance. The example of al-Sistani has been encouraging, in terms of avoiding outright theology. His continued influence will matter, as will who rises up in the hierarchy after he dies.
Shi’ite theology is perhaps better suited to democratic systems than are the Sunni schools, for historical reasons.
Also, an Iraqi Shi’ite political power would not necessarily aling itself with Iran. There are still deeper Arab-Persian issues wrapped up in that, as well as the question of the center of spiritual power in the Shi’ite community (Qom vs. Najaf/Karbala).