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| (Buratha News) |
A recent report by the Inspector Generals (IGs) of the Pentagon, State Department and United States Agency for International Development found that Iraq was facing institutional shortcomings with its security forces. They also criticized the Iraqi counterinsurgency operations. The warnings they made are remarkably similar to ones voiced in 2005-06. It raises questions about just how much the Iraqi forces (ISF) have progressed over the years, and more importantly if the Iraqis are capable of dealing with the insurgency on their own.
The IGs reported systemic weaknesses within the Iraqi
forces. Those included micromanagement, inefficient systems within the Defense
and Interior Ministries, and ghost soldiers. For example, the ISF retains many
of its traditions from the Saddam era. That includes highly centralized and top
down administrative systems that require sometimes the most minor of tasks be
approved by the very top such as the chief of staff or even the prime
minister’s office. Iraq is still using paper for its administration. Those
documents can be lost or duplicated. Together this slows and constrains any
decision making. Finally, there was no progress in merit based promotions, no
use of modern human resource techniques, and still ghost soldiers meaning ISF
members that either never show up or don’t exist and whose salaries are
collected by others such as their commanding officers.
When it comes to planning and carrying out operations the
ISF suffered from poor intelligence and command and control issues. The Iraqis
are still largely dependent upon the United States for intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance. The Pentagon said the ISF was incapable of
analyzing and combining intelligence. Instead the U.S. does those tasks. Some
of the systems the Iraqis have for these tasks are improperly used. For
instance, drones are mostly used to micromanage units by their commanders
rather than collect information on the Islamic State. The IGs said that the ISF
also had an institutional reluctance to share information. Instead, everything
is sent to the top and then is rarely disseminated. The army and police also
didn’t have the means to track their units and relied upon the U.S. for
information about their own operations. That was also a reason why commanders
used drones to keep up with their forces instead of for intelligence. Iraqi
commanders also relied upon personal cell phones to give commands to their
units. There was no security on those communications. The Americans believed it
could take a generation for Iraqi officers to change their culture and for
institutions to adapt new practices to solve these problems.
The Inspector Generals had questions about the U.S. training
program in Iraq as well. It rose concerns about whether there were enough
advisers out in the field with the Iraqi police. If all the Americans did was
see the Iraqis for a short period of time at a base, there was no way to assess
how effective the police were in their operations. In fact, because of that the
IGs weren’t sure whether the U.S. was improving the police or not. There were
continued worries about whether the equipment being handed over to the Iraqis was
going to the units due to corruption.
Finally, there was criticism of how the Iraqis operated. The
ISF ran 24 hours checkpoints but they made no night patrols due to a lack of
training and equipment, which allowed huge amounts of freedom for the
insurgency. The U.S. led Coalition operated drones at night and that
information was passed onto the Iraqis, but they didn’t do anything substantive
with it. The large sweeps that the Iraqis are constantly carrying out are
usually ineffective as well. Western journalists went on an operation in
Salahaddin where no Islamic State members were killed or captured in two days.
As soon as the ISF was done there were at least two dozen IS attacks in the
area showing that they had simply slipped away during the sweep, and then
returned afterward. Human rights groups have criticized the ISF for its heavy
handed tactics and civilian deaths. The State Department reported that the
Iraqi forces acted with impunity, meaning there were no consequnces for any
abuses. State felt that undermined the rule of law and hindered reconciliation.
These criticisms are almost exactly the same as those made
in 2005-06 when the Iraqi forces were just being constructed. For example, an August
2005 New York Times report found structural problems in the Defense
Ministry including a top down system, lack of promotion mechanisms, corruption,
and U.S. forces having to do many major tasks for the Iraqi units. In October
2006 the Washington
Post noted that the ISF was relying upon the U.S. for intelligence
and that there were not enough U.S. advisers, while the Special Inspector
General for Iraq Reconstruction found that the U.S.
didn’t track hundreds of thousands of weapons it turned over to the
Iraqis and feared where they might end up. While there has obviously been progress
within the Iraqi forces since they were created there are still huge institutional
obstacles to overcome.
The IGs report found that the Iraqis were still highly
reliant upon the U.S. to carry out basic tasks, that the Iraqi bureaucracy was
a grave hinderance to effectively managing the Iraqi forces, that corruption
was still an issue, and that the Iraqi operations were largely ineffective.
Many of these issues were found back in 2005-06 and have not been solved in the
decade plus since. If the Iraqis were working in a passive environment these
might not be big issues. The problem is the Islamic State is rebuilding and the
IGs paper raised questions of whether the Iraqis were up to the task of
countering the group. The fact that the ISF were not providing adequate
security and were abusing civilians does not bode well. With attacks at a low
level right now the ISF can get away with that, but it is providing plenty of
space for IS to return. The bigger question is what happens if violence starts
escalating. The report doesn’t give confidence in the Iraqis abilities to react
adequately. The U.S. is attempting to provide training and support to the
Iraqis to increase their capabilities, but the IGs aren’t sure what kind of
effect that is having, again raising more questions than answers.
SOURCES
Cloud, David, “Worry
Grows as Iraq’s Defense Ministry Falls Short of Expectations,” New York Times,
8/3/05
Glanz, James, “U.S.
Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis,” New York Times, 10/30/06
Lead Inspector General, “Operation Inherent Resolve, And Other Overseas
Contingency Operations,” 7/1/18-9/30/18
Ricks, Thomas, “U.S.
Military Is Still Waiting For Iraqi Forces to ‘Stand Up,’” Washington Post,
10/1/06
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