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NCOs will be the backbone of the new Iraqi army
Mark Bowden, Wall Street Journal EFL. On building Iraq's "New Model Army."On the 11th anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu, which I wrote about in "Black Hawk Down," Maj. James Lechner was again fighting an urban battle, this one in Samarra, Iraq. . . . "There must be something about me and the first week in October," Maj. Lechner wrote me in an e-mail shortly after his forces helped retake the city. . . . Maj. Lechner was upbeat after the assault on Samarra: "It was very interesting and a big success," he wrote. "It was the first time an Iraqi Army unit was given its own objective to take and fought side by side with U.S. units (previously in Najaf, infantry assault units came in behind U.S. units). The story details are a combination of modern war and Aladdin." . . . But it had not been easy training the 7th Battalion to perform so well, and the main problem was not with Iraqi soldiers. These he found both in training and battle to be courageous, smart, motivated and willing to endure harsh and difficult conditions to accomplish their missions. "Given time to rehearse and tape drill, there were almost no tasks or complexity of operations the soldiers could not have performed," Maj. Lechner wrote. No, his problem was not with foot soldiers, it was with their officers. One of the central problems with training up an Iraqi force is a military culture fostered by Saddam. The problem is not lingering loyalty to the toppled tyrant, but loyalty to the way he ran his army. Maj. Lechner noticed that the Iraqi commanders in his battalion tended to equate rank more with privilege than with responsibility. They were reluctant to stay on duty with their units for any length of time without "special passes or extended leaves," he said. The higher up the chain of command, the worse the problem. Just prior to going into action in Samarra, the Iraqi battalion commander took a leave. He didn't return until the city was secured. Up and down the officer ranks Maj. Lechner found a marked propensity to steal from their units, falsifying records, embezzling funds and even extorting money from their own men. . . . The old Saddam-era officers were both reluctant to assume responsibility and to share authority, so they resisted American efforts to train competent Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs), the experienced sergeants who are the first line of command in today's military. Strong NCO leadership gives units in battle far greater flexibility to respond to unexpected situations and to demonstrate initiative. Under the Saddam model, authority is jealously guarded and reluctantly exercised. Decisions are passed up the chain of command by field officers unwilling to take risks. . . . It has become generally accepted wisdom that it was a mistake for the Coalition Provisional Authority to disband Saddam's army after American forces took Baghdad two years ago. If Maj. Lechner's experience is typical, then retaining the old force would have just created a whole different set of problems, and might well have further set back efforts to create a flexible, effective Iraqi army. Solving the problem in the 7th Battalion ultimately required rooting out nearly all of those officers who had served under the old regime. . . . Posted by: Mike 2005-02-08 |
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