"YEARS"

As Iraqi Army Trains, Word in the Field Is It May Take Years
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and JOHN F. BURNS
LINK: June 13, 2005


MAHMUDIYA, Iraq - A small but telling test of Iraq's fledgling army came recently in this troubled farm town south of Baghdad, when a group of Iraqi soldiers, ending a house raid and rushing to board pickups they use as troop carriers, abandoned the blindfolded, handcuffed man they had come to arrest.
A few days before the Mahmudiya raids, Iraqi soldiers at a local checkpoint apparently fell asleep in the hours before dawn, and the checkpoint was ambushed by insurgents. They tossed a grenade into the building, then stormed in and executed those left alive, killing at least eight Iraqis, American soldiers said. Since the attack, American troops have been conducting nighttime patrols to make sure the Iraqis stay awake.
"I just wish they'd start to pull their own weight without us having to come out and baby-sit them all the time," said Sgt. Joshua Lower, a scout in the Third Brigade of the First Armored Division who has worked with the Iraqis.
The Iraqi troops' story is one of light and dark, American officers say. Especially in regions sympathetic to the insurgents, they have performed woefully, with Sunni Arab soldiers making little secret of their support for Saddam Hussein and their contempt for the Americans.
First Lt. Carlos Montalvan, an American officer attached to the unit that conducted the house raids, described it as "pre-MOC," not even minimal operational capability. The unit "should have been locked down for several months to train and to do static operations," he said.