The Perils of the Pentagon's New Iraq Strategy

Inside the Pentagon's new Iraq strategy.
By Michael Hirsh, Kevin Peraino And Sarah Childress
Newsweek

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - You don't usually see sergeants chewing out captains in the U.S. Army. But the unusual happens every day at Fort Riley, Kans. Out here at its training center on the prairie, not far from the Oz Museum (as in "Wizard of"), the Army has created a small, simulated Iraq intended to make soldiers think they're not in Kansas anymore.

Modular trailers have been set up to look like a FOB, or forward operating base, in Iraq. Four "urban clusters"—fake villages with names like Al Amir and Al Hawaej—have been erected. And since July, 11-man squads of U.S. advisers have been going through a crash 60-day training program that is the core of America's effort to draw down its presence in Iraq. The idea: replace the 140,000-strong U.S. combat force there now with smaller, far less visible advisory teams. Embedding as many as 20,000 of these U.S. advisers with Iraqi Army and national police—a fourfold increase over current plans—is the key military recommendation of the Iraq Study Group report just released to thunderous attention. But the U.S. Army doesn't need any prodding. "I'm not waiting with bated breath on the Baker report. We have a feeling for what has worked and what hasn't," says Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraq Assistance Group, which operates the base north of Baghdad where the Fort Riley trainees go for one week of "finishing school" before joining their units.

As the Army ramps up the program, however, its many perils are becoming clearer. Most of the trainees are career U.S. military officers, many of them thirty- to forty something desk jockeys who are logistical wizards, intelligence specialists and administrators. They have all the expertise the Iraqi Army needs and more, but many have barely used their weapons since basic. That's why Sgt. 1st Class Curtis Fuller, an Iraq combat vet with a face that looks hewed out of granite, treats his superior officers almost like raw recruits. "All right, let's talk about what didn't go right," Fuller barks to a group of sheepish-looking captains who have just returned from a disastrous training run. The team's three-Humvee convoy—the basic unit of travel they'll use in Iraq—was torn apart by fake IED blasts and sniper ambushes. One rattled captain couldn't get his .50-caliber machine gun to work and kept aiming it at the Humvee to his rear. "They're learning," says Fuller's commander, Lt. Col. John Nagl, forcing a smile. "Fuller won't let them leave until they do."

Then there are the risks involved in leaving small groups of U.S. advisers in the hands of under equipped Iraqi Army units of dubious skill and loyalty. Over in Iraq, Lt. Col. Rodrick Arrington, an adviser attached to the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Ramadi, notes that the Iraqi troops he works with answer their cell phones while on patrol. Because of absenteeism and lack of pay, the Iraqi units are usually about 50 percent under strength, and Iraqi officers often prove unwilling to conduct risky raids. Some units are infiltrated by militias or insurgents, though not to the degree the Iraqi police are. "We're setting ourselves up for a potential national disaster in which some Iraqi divisions could flip and take 5,000 Americans hostage, or multiple advisory teams go missing in action," says retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey.

Pittard says no U.S. advisers have been killed by their Iraqi counterparts thus far, although there have been some "incidents." Even so, to a degree little understood by the U.S. public, the "transition team" program could put the elite of the Army's professional corps in harm's way for years. And that's even if most combat forces are pulled out in early 2008, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton panel. Currently, the 11-man teams are assigned to Iraqi battalions of some 500 men made up of four companies. Most U.S. commanders say that, to be truly effective, each Iraqi company needs its own U.S. team. And there is increasing support inside the Army for fleshing out the advisory teams to about 30 U.S. soldiers each to improve security. In all, that could require as many as 20,000 to 30,000 new advisers, up from the 5,000 now budgeted.

This in turn means that a large U.S. supporting force must remain in Iraq. ISG member Leon Panetta told NEWSWEEK that the group agreed, in a private discussion not included in its report, that about 60,000 to 70,000 U.S. troops would have to stay on after 2008. That includes advisers and the quick-reaction forces needed to protect them, as well as logistical support and Special Operations troops. "So if a team finds themselves at risk," says Maj. Gen. Carter Ham, the commander at Fort Riley, "they can pick up a radio and the cavalry can come to the rescue."

Another question is whether the Fort Riley program is too little, too late. Until six months ago, the training of the Iraqi Army was still fairly slapdash, with U.S. brigade commanders offering up their least-valued soldiers to be detached as advisers. "Some would send us guys they could afford [to lose]," Pittard says. Now the training program has top priority, with a standardized curriculum at Riley, including Arabic-language training—the Army calls it "tactical Iraqi"—and lessons in cultural awareness. "Army resource command is saying, 'OK, who are the best people across the Army to do this?'" says Ham. But he and other top commanders acknowledge that the U.S. Army is so institutionally biased toward fighting its own battles—the "kill-capture mission," as Ham says—that it resisted training advisers for far too long. "Should we have started this sooner? I think all of us would say that," Ham says.

The program could easily go for 10 years before the Iraqi Army is considered competent. "Historically, defeating insurgencies has taken about a decade on average," says Nagl. "And key to that has been training host-nation forces." Some U.S. trainers suggest the Iraqi Army may never be able to operate completely on its own. There are no plans to give the Iraqi Army the kind of superior firepower—helicopters, planes and artillery—that U.S. advisers can call upon. "Our teams will be like reinforcing steel rods in concrete," says Nagl.

On the ground, says Pittard, the basic security strategy is to have what he calls "a FOB within a FOB"—a secure forward operating base for the American advisers within an Iraqi FOB. In practice, this generally means some kind of sealed-off living area. At Combat Outpost Falcon in Ramadi, U.S. and Iraqi units live in sandbagged forts a few paces from one another. All transition-team members are also issued a "personal locator beacon" to stick in the cargo pocket of their pants; this lets their commanders keep track of them in the field. Even so, "if they're not out on the streets with the Iraqi units, it's really hard to advise them," says Lt. Col. Kevin West, a training officer. "You've got to make yourself a little vulnerable to make things work." Pittard says he has no illusions. "I've told our guys: 'Don't be fooled'," he says. "The fact is, we invaded this nation. Under the surface, you're not loved." It remains to be seen whether President Bush will expand the teams as quickly as the ISG wants. The reason? It requires rotating out U.S. combat brigades in Iraq so their officer corps can be trained as advisers. And military trainers say nothing will work without more money for reconstruction, which the administration has slashed. But with many of the other ISG recommendations likely to be discarded—like a new Mideast diplomatic offensive—Fort Riley may well be the last, best hope for America to extricate itself from a quagmire.

URL