Sippets of the briefing:- The process starts at three main recruiting hubs in Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul. Now, that also represents, as you might predict, the spread of the country and the ethnic distribution. Each class that is recruited is ethnically balanced. This provides an atmosphere where tolerance is essential to mission accomplished. We are looking for those individuals who wish to defend Iraq and its newfound freedom, and are skilled in such professions as truck driver, heavy equipment operator, food service, first aid, and above all else, infantry. A majority of new recruits have prior military service, and nearly all of the non-commissioned officers and officer candidates do as well.
- Nearly 1,000 recruits are recruited in order to produce an active battalion of 757 soldiers.
- The first battalion graduated on 4 October and is currently based at Kirkuk, and employed by the 4th Infantry Division Mechanized.
- The second battalion has been employed by the 1st Armored Division, and they’re garrisoned at Taji since their graduation on 6 January, which is also Army Day and celebrated as such since 1921.
- And we look forward to the graduation this week of the 3rd Battalion and their subsequent deployment to the Mosul area. [ed.: January 24]
- In addition to the 27 infantry battalions in the army, we are building the Iraqi Coastal Defense Force and the Iraqi Army Air Corps. The Coastal Defense Force will be comprised of a patrol boat squadron of five 30-meter boats and a naval infantry regiment. The naval infantry is currently training with the Iraqi army for basic skills. This coastal defense force will then move down to the Umm Qasr/Basra area for boat training and where they will learn interdiction and boarding operations in order to protect the some 80 kilometers of Iraqi coastline.
- The Iraqi Army Air Corps will focus primarily on troop and logistics movements as well as air medevac for life-threatening and casualty-producing situations. We are currently training both helicopter and transport pilots, and we will field the first operational squadrons this summer. We’re also investigating the use of reconnaissance aircraft in order to effectively monitor the miles of Iraqi border, and infrastructure such as pipelines and electrical transmission facilities.
- We’re running about 60 percent with prior military service. What does "prior military service" mean? If you’re a private in the old army, not a whole lot from what we’re seeing. The Iraqi officer corps of the old army is a pretty good officer corps in a lot of respects, certainly from the perspective of military training. The non-commissioned officer corps we find deficient, and the soldiers and the training they received we found deficient. So if you say "prior service," it may mean that they know how to march and carry a rifle and employ it, but we have not had terrific results of the former army training base at the young soldier level.
With respect to the officers, the military skill set of the officers, we are finding their education and their ability to learn is very high. And given initial poor experience with those above the rank of major, we have found that focusing on the younger officers, the lieutenants and captains, that these men are well educated, they’re talented, they are focused on the future of this country, and we have had very high success.
- The trainers that we have right now are a mix of the Vinnell contract, which is a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, and they have other contract trainers with them; Vinnell is the umbrella organization; and in fact, talking to the program manager today, a terrific amount of combat experience, of training experience. The average time in service for those men who are working with the Vinnell contract is 19.8 years. And those are the men who started the program because they are the men who could react the fastest. They deployed within 25 days of contract signing into theater to establish a training environment. They provided the structure and the primary instructor and the initial drill sergeant contact. We added to that uniformed men from the coalition. Australia, Great Britain, the United States, and more recently Spain have contributed to that environment.
Finally, after the graduation of the first battalion, Iraqi trainers -- men who -- that we saw high talent in, in training and particularly those who were multilingual -- we were able to bring Iraqi officers and non-commissioned officers from the first battalion and integrate them into the training pool for the second and third and fourth battalions. That has been particularly effective. We have also taken a lot of those Iraqi officers, and they have, like Major Ahmed (ph) here, have integrated into our training organization and are, in fact, part of the joint headquarters that will be the higher headquarters for Iraqi armed forces.
Finally, I alluded to the Jordan Training Initiative. We have the -- a number of officers today training with Jordanian armed forces and will continue to do so into the middle of March.
|