More than half the men in the first unit to be trained for the new Iraqi army have abandoned their jobs because of low pay, inadequate training, faulty equipment, ethnic tensions and other concerns, leaving the nascent 1st Battalion dramatically understaffed just days before it is scheduled to leave training camp for its first assignment, Iraqi, U.S. and other coalition officials say.About 480 of the 900 recruits who began training in August have left the U.S.-backed force, according to Australian Maj. Doug Cumming, chief instructor at the training academy in Kirkush, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. They will not be punished for leaving, nor are they even being pursued, officials say.
Note that desertions now total more than half of the original force -- and way more than the "300 or so" originally admitted by the Coalition. And the ones who stayed behind can't exactly be described as the cream of the crop:
Among those who remain, some still have not mastered such basics as how to march in formation and how to properly respond to radio calls.
Ready or not, though, here they come:
On Monday, the 1st Battalion is scheduled to begin assisting the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in running traffic checkpoints and securing defense perimeters around bases in the eastern part of the country.
This ought to be interesting ....
Update 10/13/03 2:45 PM ET: It just gets better and better:
Another problem, Eaton said, was that a civilian company was hired to conduct the training rather the military. The $48 million contract was awarded to Vinnell Corp. in the spring, when U.S. forces in Iraq were stretched thin and cutting loose several hundred soldiers to oversee the training would have been difficult.The majority of the instructors, who walk around the training base with slate-gray uniforms that look like a cross between hospital scrubs and prison garb, have some military experience, but many had been retired for years. They approached the recruits with an egalitarian philosophy, several trainees said, making do without the formalities of "sir" and "ma'am" and saluting. They encouraged trainees to take time off and relax and watch Sylvester Stallone and Jackie Chan movies.
Drill Sergeant: No popcorn for you, maggot!
Yeah, Bushies November re-election plan to be "out" of Iraq by July is looking fairly dismal right now. Maybe he should plan something else-- How about something like "free" draft cards for everyone with my re-election campaign.
Probably deadly for one's karma to relish the Schadenfreude quite so much, especially when lives are at stake, dear God in heaven ... but we told them so, didn't we? AND WE SHOULD KEEP TELLING THEM SO!
That leaves only one question open:
When an occupying power is responsible for the "Balkanisation", the break up of a country along ethnic lines, who will be responsible for the international debtsof the former state ?
Would the occupying power be held responsible?
Because, at this demonstrated rate, Iraq as a souvereign entity doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell.
http://isuisse.ifrance.com/stopcarlyle/vinnell.htm
Vinnell is a sub of BDM International operated by, wait for it, The Carlyle Group.
Interesting new column over in Slate out by Fred Kaplan
Baker, in short, is a big wheel, a strategic savior. No one calls on a figure like Baker—no one gives him a White House plane, a portfolio to meet with world leaders, or a promise of unfettered access to the president afterward—for a tech-geek issue like debt-renegotiation.
The whole talk about debt seems like a red herring. Several officials, after all, assume that when a new Iraqi government takes the reins of power, it will simply repudiate the debts of Saddam Hussein.
It can fairly be surmised that Baker, who heads off to Europe on Monday with no accompanying press corps and no obligation to hold news conferences along the way, has been given a broader agenda. Most likely, this agenda involves down-and-dirty turkey-trading—asking what the Europeans need in exchange for bailing the United States out of Iraq (i.e., for supplying troops, money, and international legitimacy) and assuring them, with an authority possessed by no current Cabinet officer, that the president will do the deal.
Will Bush junior do the deal? That's problem with under the table deals, isn't it?
I still don't see the incentive to comply-troops cost A LOT in the political realm. And really Bush has done WAY too much damage to his own namesake. Baker is no guarantee that everything will go right, Bush Juinor is NOT Bush Senior.
I bet the other nations will opt to wait out the year till another US President takes up the reins. There is no good incentive to helping Bush stay in office with his distorted and/or "radical" directives, not when another president that wants UN help and does NOT practise "down-and-dirty turkey-trading" tactics and CAN assure better conditions for complete compliance with directives or should I say "rational" business deals.
Bush nor Baker (big shot lawyer or not) will be able to pull this off. Bush burned WAY too many bridges.
moe: Vinnell is no longer part of the Carlyle Group. The page you refer too states the following (last paragraph)
En 1997, Carlyle a vendu sa part majoritaire à TRW International..
Quick translation: In 1997, Carlyle has sold its majority stake to TRW International...
Bush burned the US crediblity pretty bad and it's going to have to be repaired - And I'd say that China had Bush over a barrel the other day and was nothing that Bush could do about it.
I guess China owns a lot of the US and Bush sure is playing a diffent tune that the one that he first came into office with. Bill Clinton really never said a word except in favor of what Bush was doing...if it was the game plan to ruin Bush or let Bush ruin himself, it sure was a stupid game plan. Hell, why didn't they just impeach Bush?
Thnx for the clarification ClaudeB. I'm sure Vinnell's experience for bush1's Gulf war helped them get their hefty contract.
Your are listening to W-F-U-K, playing all your favorites from The best of the (worst of the) Israeli Occupation to the classic fuck ups of the Vietnam war. Brought to you by your friends at Bechtell, Halliburton and Vinell, because "when there's a war, there's money to be made! "
I should hope that the ones who walked were some of the worst trained. But I'll bet that some few of those who deserted learned everything they possibly could and will be using it against US troops in the months to come.
Anyone want to take that bet?
I see this as a classic cheap-labor republican boondoggle. How did they figure soldiers in the army should get $70 per month when sandbag fillers in the green zone are getting twice that? Or when the police make more?
Iraq is not Afghanistan. It is a modern society with educated, world-aware people -- not a bunch of tribal clans living in tents or huts. They have a standard of living comparable to our country and a real economy for the most part.
I think this says a lot about the character of the Bush Administration. If they could get away with paying $70/month for US soldiers I bet they would.
And now, on top of all their other duties, our soldiers will have to babysit this remnant element of poorly paid, poorly motivated losers. Be prepared for a parade of these folks in the next couple of weeks, with crowing commentary about the brave Iraqi sodiers taking responsibility for their own country. No doubt their AK's will be made of papier-mache, like Bush's turkey.
Oh no, not papier-mache, the weapons and suffering are about he only real things in this war.
Did anyone catch River-Bend's comments a while back about a new, hightened sense of ethnic and religious differences which are being empheisized by the CPA?
This could end very very badly. Vietnam and Korea were both about rejoining two halves of a split country. But Iraq is quite the opposite and if the adminsitrations extensive record for cluelessness and mismanagement holds, Iraq could fly apart into multiple warring factions and their territories and isolated bastions. *That* will really destabalize the region. But of course everyone here is well aware of that possibility. Fuck you very much, Mr. Wolfowitz, et al.
Nah, at $20 a pop street price, real AK's are cheaper than props. How many bullets will they be entrusted with, though?
I did catch Riverbend's comments on how, in Baghdad, people are identifying themselves more along ethnic and religious lines than under Saddam (couldn't find the link just now though - she's given us a lot of information in just 4 months, hasn't she?). As you note, Stoy, this could end very very badly.
Le Monde touched on our Balkanizing policies a couple months ago:
An Arab journalist noted the "terrifying nature" of the [first meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council]. "There were separate groups for side discussions, so the Shia got together with the Shia, the Sunni with the Sunni, and the Kurds with the Kurds. As for those who don't belong to these groups or those who do but don't consider their presence at the council to be attributable to their belief or race, they just sat waiting, and one even left the room until the end of the discussions". Now, as previously in Lebanon and more recently in Bosnia, people are labelled with fixed identities, but by doing that (in the name of a perhaps commendable respect for minority rights), the occupiers effectively undermine the possibility of building a unified, democratic state.
You are right on the money, Vin Carreo.
Now, compare and contrast the effects of seperation and balkanisation caused by moronic repugs, self declared non-nation-builders, to the effects of culturally sensitive, intelligent didlomacy:
Case one - signs of probably irreversible balkanisation:
"The Shiites are poor by comparison and their makeshift mosque is a dishevelled former Baath party office block.
Amjad Jazim Mohammed, a member of the Shiite congregation, said that he and fellow worshippers went to help the dead and injured Sunnis, but that the explosion was not a Shiite attack - rather an accidental detonation as the Sunnis prepared car-bombs for use against local Shiites." Note, how the problem started to spin out of control in re-Garner phase one of the occupation, when in lieu of having any plan whatsoever on where to go with this occupation (other than into Chalabi's hands) the occupying forces tried to rather not appear as repressive than to stop the looting and permanent annexion of government property.
Thus shiites occupied the former Bath Party office as a mosque. What this article, sadly, does not tell is a mentioning of what fraction or grouping of Shiites did occupy the Baath party office, and why they did so in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood.
Whether or not the Shiites really attacked the Sunni mosque first, it doesn't take a Whahabist radical to tell the Sunnis of the area to feel threatened by the Shiites.
I hope this tiny example helps shed some light on how bad the fractionalisation of Iraqi society has become, how oblivious the Occupation is to the reality on the ground, and on how delusional the current approach to a New Iraqi Army is in hoping to pacify Iraq. We have all the signs of an avoidable civil war in the making.
Case two - intelligent diplomats applying intelligent policies:
"Now he believes that 90 per cent of al-Qaeda's network has been dismantled in Yemen. "People I am reasoning with see themselves as such devout Muslims that I believe they are sincere when they say that they are now against violence and killing," the judge said."
In conclusion, I am no presidential candidate foreign policy expert, and I can figure this shit out -- if only the Democratics were smart enough to point out the utter, boondoggle dilettantism of the regugs to the voters, instead of aligning themself in circular firing sqauads........
Addendum:
My point in Case One example being, that the Baath office was not seized by local Shiia workingclass, but by non-local religio-politico Militia, which would have been intended as a threat to the local Sunni.
I can't find good links right now for a pattern of such occurence, but I had seen that being reported from multiple sources.
Obviously, if US officials with experience gained on the Balkan would have been allowed into the post war planning of Iraq......
Werner,
Never forget that the firt rule of colonization is divide to rule.
....but, maybe now with the tyrant gone, it all will play out differently?
Stay tuned..
...good point, man from La Mancha
The only thing that can unify Iraqis seems to be a guerilla war against occupier...
Saddam captured without single bullet...? With only 2 people around guarding him...? And DNA has been done in such a short time…? Smells fishy...
Even if it's him (which I hope) there is even less reasons for coalition joy cause if so he is definitely not the one coordinating those guerilla attacks...
And CNN is talking about “wild celebrations” on Baghdad streets and the only picture I saw was around 50 people slowly moving with few flags…and few pictures of their religious leader…doing their best I suppose…
Stay tuned...
The capture of Hussein is without a doubt a great thing for the coalition. A great many Iraquis are pleased with this I'm sure. It also is a significant propaganda victory, both in the US and in Iraq, as it makes the coalition forces appear competent. Will it make the occupation go more smoothly? Only time will tell. I'm not so sure I believe that the majority of the insurgents are Baathists attempting to restore Hussein to power. It is more likely to me that we are facing a lot of different groups, all of whom would benefit from a US withdrawal.
I concure, Roland, especially considering, as vbo notes, that he was so lightly protected and in such scruffy shape.
It is funny to imagie Cheney's undisclosed location as a similar, but better constructed little "spider hole" fed fresh air from a snorkle with a chem-bio filter on the end.
maybe now with the tyrant gone, it all will play out differently?
Stay tuned..
The capture of Saddam will not make a significant difference on the ground in Iraq, except that some Iraqi groups may now join in the resistance.
And I suppose Bush's ratings will go up.
I'm not so sure I believe that the majority of the insurgents are Baathists attempting to restore Hussein to power.
I am not sure ANY of the resistance has come from Bathists attempting to restore Saddam to power. In any case, so-called "Saddam loyalists" have never been a significant part of the resistance.
It is also useful to understand that Baathist does not equal Saddam supporter. In fact, I am confident that the majority of Baathists who are taking part in the resistance are not Saddam supporters and have to desire to have him return to power.
I honestly don't know whether the incessant talk attributing the resistance to "Sunnis, Baathist remnants, Saddam supporters", etc. is propaganda or whether that is what they really believe, but one way or the other, as we will see, it is nonsense. The resistance in Iraq is far more widespread and far more generalized than that, and most of it is not about bringing back Saddam or the Baathists.
Rumour has it that at least 20 of the desertions came after a heated argument between soldiers who wanted to watch Amelie and those who wanted to watch The Fellowship of the Ring.