Iraqi army soldiers stand by an Islamic State flag drawn on a wall in a house damaged by a U.S. airstrike where a tunnel dug by Islamic State militants was found in the town of Kabrouk, Iraq, in May. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

BAGHDAD — In the days before his death last month, Col. Ihab Hashem al-Araji confided that his battle against the Islamic State too often felt like a suicide mission, despite the more than $1.6 billion in U.S. arms and training that has flowed to the Iraqi army over the past two years.

He had even begun taking a white funeral shroud to the battlefield with him.

To support his forces advancing on enemy-held Fallujah, Araji had requested a U.S.-supplied M1 Abrams tank but said he was asked to pay $2,000 in bribes to secure it. Instead, he was given a run-down Russian one, which arrived without a driver trained to use it.

“It was useless,’’ one of his men, Lt. Nassir Hamza, recalled.

[The Islamic State has lost this much territory in Iraq and Syria this year]

When Araji told superiors that his men were too exhausted to go farther, he was ordered to lead another unit, one he had never fought with before.

The next day, he was killed by an Islamic State rocket, a death his family blames as much on the Iraqi army’s mismanagement as on the militants themselves.

Two years ago this week, tens of thousands of Iraqi troops fled Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq, as the Islamic State seized control. Senior U.S. and Iraqi military leaders say foreign assistance since then has helped correct, at least temporarily, some of the Iraqi army’s weaknesses that allowed the city to fall: inadequate intelligence, logistical issues, corruption and poor leadership.

But as Araji’s last days indicate, many of these problems remain chronic and threaten to undermine even the narrowly focused goals of the U.S. and allied training effort. History indicates that Iraq will need significant help for years to come if the army’s recent successes against the militants are to be maintained.


An Iraqi army soldier drives a Humvee in the outskirts of the town of Kabrouk, Iraq, in May . The town was recently recaptured from Islamic State militants as part of the ongoing operation to reach the city of Mosul. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

After disbanding the army following the 2003 invasion, the United States spent more than $20 billion to rebuild the Iraqi military. Senior military commanders were incensed when it collapsed on the battlefield less than three years after the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.

Scrambling to respond to the Islamic State’s rise, the Obama administration developed a plan to retrain and equip elements of Iraq’s shattered military. The effort is centered on generating units capable of defeating the militants in Mosul, which U.S. commanders see as Iraq’s crucial battle, rather than rebuilding the entire Iraqi army once again.

“How good does it have to be? It has to be better than the enemy,” said Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. “Are they better than the enemy? Yes they are.”

[American troops edge closer to the front lines in Iraq]

U.S. military officials said that over the past year and a half, training has progressed more quickly than expected, with about 22,000 fighters from the Iraqi army and Kurdish peshmerga forces completing their training programs. They said headway made against the Islamic State in western Iraq in recent months is proof that local forces are rebounding from their previous losses.

But senior officials are also worried that army and police units may continue to struggle to provide basic support — such as food and fuel — to their units, while maintaining their vehicles and equipment.

The renewed training program is now limited to the near-term fight, and there is no guarantee of what level of support the next U.S. president will want to provide.

At the same time, only limited progress has been made in addressing the frustration that Iraqi Sunnis have with their Shiite-led government, a core reason some of them initially welcomed militants into their cities. That jeopardizes the longevity of any territorial victories U.S. trainers hope to achieve.


An Iraqi army soldier prepares to pour water over the engine of a Humvee after it overheated in the outskirts of the town of Kabrouk, Iraq, in May. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

Military officials described how frustrated U.S. advisers were last winter when they saw that one Iraqi unit taking part in the offensive to reclaim the western city of Ramadi was not moving forward. Tracking the campaign from the safety of a distant air base, the advisers could not tell what was going on.

“It was only by interviewing commanders when they came back to [the air base] that we realized, ‘Oh, it’s because they don’t have any water.’ Once they got water, they started moving again,” a senior defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss foreign military operations. “These are things we in the U.S. military take for granted.”

As Iraqi soldiers ferried a group of journalists to the front lines south of Mosul in a convoy of two Humvees last month, one of the vehicles overheated five times on a 12-mile round trip. The soldiers used bottles of drinking water to cool off the engine as they struggled to restart it on the open desert road.

“Logistics remain the longest pole in the Iraqi tent,” said Col. Steve Warren, a U.S. military spokesman. “Spark plugs, spare tires, gasoline, water, food.”

Improvements have been made since the early days of U.S. assistance, when desperate calls from soldiers stranded on army bases without food or water were not uncommon.

But logistics are expected to become more complex as supply lines are stretched when Iraqi forces begin to push toward Mosul, about 250 miles by road north of Baghdad.

Until a Mosul offensive is launched, U.S. officials acknowledge, they will not be able to fully measure the strength of the forces and the effectiveness of their scramble to retrain them since 2014.

“We’re not trying to get every unit up to the same standard here,” the defense official said. “We’re trying to get enough units to the ‘good enough’ standard to accomplish discrete objectives.”

While the chief U.S. objective is Mosul, Iraqi forces decided to first launch an offensive to regain the smaller city of Fallujah, which lies closer to the capital, potentially delaying the battle farther north.

Near the town of Makhmour, 40 miles southeast of Mosul, the U.S. support is evident.

At the headquarters of the newly formed 15th Division, rows of new trailers are filled with freshly bought furniture. The Humvees lined up outside are barely scratched.

The ammunition stocks are plentiful, while soldiers have American-supplied AT-4 antitank weapons and M-16 rifles.

“We have the best supply of weapons,” said Ali Abdullah Rasoul, a 22-year-old Iraqi soldier. “Better than any other division.”

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/06/09/Foreign/Images/mosul-operation-059381461344586.jpg?uuid=eJ6HYC5UEead425uehQADA
An Iraqi army soldier walks past discarded empty rocket boxes in a position outside Makhmour, Iraq, in March. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

But for the moment at least, the real fight is taking place elsewhere, as security forces close in on militants in Fallujah.

Even these troops held up as the bright spot of the U.S.-led training program have struggled to hold on to a series of hamlets, while soldiers admit that they largely relied on U.S. air support to advance. The situation was similar in larger victories, from Ramadi to northern Sinjar, where U.S.-led strikes flattened the way for ground forces.

Even then, fighting has largely been led by Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces, rather than the army.

Despite Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s promises to cut graft in the military, corruption remains endemic, with reports of bribes, like the one Araji was asked to pay to secure his tank, still common.

“Any commander who doesn’t have a relationship with the ministry, who doesn’t always .?.?. send gifts,” said Col. Firas Hussein Abed of the Iraqi army’s 6th Division, choosing his words carefully. “For sure his unit will go without support.”

But the promotion of poorly qualified leaders remains the army’s biggest problem, he said.

“An army of dogs led by lions will fight like lions and an army of lions led by dogs will fight like dogs,” Abed said. “Now we have a crisis in lions.”

Araji had spoken candidly about the shortcomings of the Iraqi army in interviews over several years, beginning months before the fall of Mosul.

His family and colleagues said he spent more than $4,000 of his own money to buy ammunition and other equipment on the black market for his men. While supply issues had eased since U.S. support began, Araji had said, others were growing.

They also recalled a run-in he had several months ago with Shiite militia forces known as popular mobilization units.

He had ordered the militia forces to send reinforcements, but they refused. The militias are now officially funded by the state, but the government wields little power over them.

That has raised concerns of sectarian reprisal killings as they approach major Sunni urban centers such as Fallujah. If and when the Islamic State is defeated, there is no fully developed plan for how these armed groups can be brought under state control and prevented from exacerbating the sectarian divisions that brought about the militant group’s rise.

Critics say the United States and its allies risk repeating the mistakes of the past.

“I’ve asked commanders what is our political strategy in Iraq, and they don’t seem to know,” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), who served in Iraq as a Marine officer in 2004 and 2005, and later returned when President George W. Bush sent in 20,000 additional troops for what was known as the “surge.”

“If you listen to the plans, they are remarkably similar to those we had back in 2007 for the surge. And so it begs the question, since we just did this eight years ago, how is this time going to be different? And the silence is shocking.”


Several Iraqi army weapons, including a U.S.-supplied antitank missile launcher, are seen around a makeshift bed used by Iraqi army soldiers stationed in the recaptured town of Kabrouk, Iraq, in May. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

For Moulton, the failings of U.S. policy can be tracked back to the decision by L. Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American ruler in 2003, to dismantle the Iraqi army. “It was a terrible idea,” he said.

Defense Minister Khalid al-Obeidi agreed that the problems today stem from shortcomings in earlier efforts to build up security forces.

“We are facing the task of rebuilding and reorganizing the army because the way it was built previously was very flawed,” he said.

[The hidden hand behind the Islamic State militants? Saddam Hussein’s.]

Obeidi said partner countries were now providing assistance more effectively and that military support from the United States and allied nations, especially their air power, had made a big difference for the ground effort against the Islamic State, weakening the group and depriving it of funding and supplies.



But Iraq will require military assistance long after the Islamic State is defeated, he said.

When the United States rebuilt the Iraqi army post-2003, it was training a force to deal with the insurgency raging across the country, said Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, commander of the coalition’s ground force component.

“This is not a counterinsurgency,” he said. “We are fighting an enemy that’s defending, that occupies terrain.”

Now, units that have good leadership are performing well, he said.

But leaders such as Araji remain hard to find.

The Americans who worked with Araji, including Moulton, described his death as a blow to the country. “We worked closely with many Iraqis, but none more closely than Ihab,” Moulton said. In a military short of leaders, Iraq had lost another.

At Araji’s home in Diwaniyah, his colleague Hamza hung his head.

“If I could go back in time, I’d sacrifice my life and my whole family’s for Ihab,” he said. “He was a commander with all the meaning of the word.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqs-army-is-still-a-mess-two-years-after-a-stunning-defeat/2016/06/09/0867f334-1868-11e6-971a-dadf9ab18869_story.html

All they need is $1B more, they're *this* close guys.

What a waste

Having talked to several buddies who have been there and trained those guys... they are fucking retarded.  No amount of money is going to fix that.

The answer is that we just need to spend more money!

wasn't there a thread a couple months back about cultural, societal, regional, cumulative IQ's?

Just like socialism and communism, if at first it don't work, throw more money at it.

Grind America into Cloward Piven poverty break the back of the economy delivered into the hands of the central planners

A buddy who was a former trainer in Iraq & Afghanistan told me that -

-as incompetent as the typical Iraqi recruits may be, the typical Afghan trainee was infinitly worse.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING OVER THERE?????

WE HAVE SCHOOLS THAT NEED BOILERS, HOMELESS VETS SLEEPING ON THE STREETS, EDUCATED UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS, AND WERE SENDING FUCKING 20 MOTHERFUCKING BILLION DOLLARS TO GOAT FUCKING IRAQIS TO SELL OUR SHIT BACK TO THEIR COMMADERS!!!!!1111111


WHAT AMERICA IS THIS? ARE WE GOING TO STAND FOR THIS SHIT ANYMORE? IM FUCKING SICK OF IT!

this is the America that the people have demanded TWICE, an America that meets our common morals, values, and desires...............Remember, we have always been at war with East Asia.

Having seen their army first-hand, I'm not surprised.

But I did see them do a death blossom, once

$20 BILLION of US taxpayer money and they can't even figure out food and water? I don't even know what to say.

You can't buy or teach courage.

I'm not real sure a random selection of Americans 18-22 could do much better. I don't think Arabs do the whole ASVAB thing so it's not like their average recruit has a high school degree and passed MEPS.

 

The iraqi army Isis's #1 supplier. saw a video recently of them capturing brand new Romanian current production akm rifles still in the plastic wrap also there were some new pkm machine guns BRAND NEW

A Lot  of fun toys like the PSL / RPK are not being imported into the U.S. because Romania  are making them under military contracts for the war against isis  in the middle east

Iraq is gonna break up into  3 different countries a sunni islam country /  Shia Islam country  / kurdish  country .

We can give them colt m-16.m-4's and m249s and m240 but can't get 70 year old 8 shot m1 garands imported

You can't teach a man to be a part of a Western Style military if they are unable to read and write.


In Afghanistan, your average soldier/ABP/Police Officer had no education.

They only know what you can show them....

I taught hundreds of them self-aid, CLS, other medical BS...

But I can never convey WHY they were doing what they were doing...

Sure, a guy could learn how to put a TQ on...but he didn't know why it was important...

We have become so rich and successful that the only solution we know is to throw money at a problem until it goes away.

which is how it was before lines were arbitrarily drawn...............

Tell me that's not real.

 
Very real, with several other videos showing the same results.  I see only two of them who can do it correctly.




How in the hell are you going to execute a proper stacking entry,  slice the pie or do great CQB work if you cannot even do a frigging coordinated jumping jack?


 

How are you going to teach that guy how to strip down and maintain an M4, M2, or Mk19?  How is that guy going to handle taking fire while driving a humvee  or MRAP the size of his mud hut?

Damn that's horrible. I guess we tried but in the end it was dress them up and have them hold this new American gun.

I remember talking to my old first line about a detail he'd been pulled off to do.  Stand around, greet Iraqi locals, hand them bottled water and wait for an officer to come out and talk to them about some concern.

The locals LOVED the bottled water.  Kept coming up, grabbing one, drinking it and then every single one of them would drop the bottle on the ground and go grab a new one from where he was BY THE CLEARLY LABELED TRASH CAN.  By the time they left there were 50-60 bottles on the ground (that Joe had to pick up, of course).  SGT [redacted] got back and was just incredulous that anyone would give so little of a shit about their town/city/country that they'd just leave piles of empty bottles rather than throw them away in the trash can they were walking up to.

I think that little tale was pretty much where he and I decided that they'd never take care of anything without a boot on their back or a gun to their head.