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| Iraq | |
| Iraqi Army Gets Latest Battalion | |
| 2004-01-25 | |
| More than 750 Iraqi soldiers graduated Saturday from a U.S. training camp, including the first company of a coastal force patterned on the U.S. Marines. The 120 members of the Iraqi Coastal Defense Force, which finished a nine-week course at the camp, will now head south for additional training in the port of Umm Qasr before their deployment on Feb. 11, U.S. officials said. Interesting. Coast defense or tough infantry for future problems? Coalition forces are now trying to establish a 27-battalion army by the end of September. Officials said each battalion in the new army will be made up of about 750 soldiers for a total force of about 20,000. So far, the training camp in Kir Kush, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, has produced three battalions. Recruits for the fourth battalion have already started training. 20,000 is enough to keep order as long as no one big acts up. The coalition had earlier planned to set up a 40,000-member army but later scaled it down, saying the money saved could be better used to train the Iraq Civil Defense Corps, a paramilitary force whose members patrol along with U.S. troops and monitor highways. The coalition plans to set up a second academy in Kir Kush to train noncommissioned officers, with the first batch of 500 joining on Feb. 12, said training officer Maj. Tray Johnson. He said over 2,000 non-commissioned officers are expected to go through two-month courses before themselves becoming trainers of new soldiers in their battalions. The Iraqi "Shake and Bake" school! A pool of 42 Iraqi officers and NCOs is already helping U.S. officers train the new recruits, most of whom are from the former army. "This is part of the accelerated pace of Iraqis training Iraqis," said Johnson. "Our mission doesn’t really stop till September. By then the Iraqi army will have the ability to sustain and develop itself." Sort of. These new NCO’s won’t be worth beans for years. Col. Feras Mahdi, the commander of the third battalion, graduated in December and was made a trainer for subsequent recruits. Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, said he rose from captain to colonel in four months in the new army. In the former army, Shiites were suppressed by the Sunni-dominated regime. "In this new army, there is a respect for the basic human rights of the soldier and the officer," Mahdi said. Teach that to your NCO’s and make sure they pass it on. That’s a start.
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| Posted by:Steve White |