I suppose I’ve expressed enough of my political views in the last month to last a while, I think the situation over here is amazingly complex and history may or may not reveal the truth. But, I suppose it doesn’t matter, whether this war was conceived on deceit, or a genuine belief that things would turn out differently (even if plans weren’t made to ensure anything.) I am here, will be here for at least the next seven months, and regardless of how quickly the democrats promise to bring home the troops if elected, American Soldiers will be advising and developing the Iraqi Army for the foreseeable future. Over the next couple of weeks or so, I plan to write a series of posts covering the challenges that face us as we assess, advise and assist our Iraqi Partners.
Overall, our Iraqi Battalion is quite capable of day to day operations. They man their checkpoints professionally, the leadership is comprised of mostly former members of the Army under Sadaam Hussein. The sectarian divide that gets so much publicity doesn’t seem to exist for us, we have a very good mix of religions, Sunni, Shiite and Yezidi, and a good mix of Arabs and Kurds as well. I’ve never witnessed nor heard of a disagreement which stemmed from sectarian differences. Many Battalions are reported to be infiltrated with insurgents, and that may well be the case with ours. We are careful to never let our guard down when we are with the IA, we never leave our house without a loaded 9mm piston on our hip, though I’ve never felt threatened.
Because of this possible insurgent infiltration, mission planning is very compartmentalized at the higher levels of the Battalion. In the U.S. Army, mission planning is done both from the top down and the bottom up, the Iraqi model is different. The BN Commander may call his company commander on the cell phone and tell him to report to HQ, he will then tell him to have 4 HMMWV’s ready to go in ½ an hour. This is all the info the Company Commander will get out of fear that the target of the raid may be his brother, uncle, cousing, tribesman or someone he knows and he will tip them off. This compartmentalization results in little development of Junior Leaders, they are simply told what to do. Also, the lack of prior knowledge of a mission precludes the Company Commander, who is leading the mission, from doing any type of reconnaissance or detailed planning; only very generic basic rehearsals can be conducted. For example, if you know exactly what house you are targeting, you can plan your ingress and egress routes, determine where to best position your cordon, and identify most likely enemy avenues of approach and escape. All of these are key things to be familiar with before a mission begins and our Iraqi Company Commanders, Platoon Leaders and NCOs are force to operate without them. This leads to numerous raids resulting in what are referred to as “dry holes.” Because escape routes aren’t sealed off before the cordon is set, the targeted individual is able to sneak out of the area.
Next time I’ll write about the logistical problems our BN deals with on a daily basis.
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