thedrifter
12-01-06, 07:27 PM
Soldiers in Iraq take on new role
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
Fri Dec 1, 4:07 PM ET
Normally, U.S. soldiers train to fight, not to train.
But these are not normal times — not in a chaotic Iraq where President Bush is banking on improving Iraqi security forces so the American military can begin to pull out, or at least pull back.
U.S. soldiers and Marines are being plucked out of combat positions to be "embedded" with Iraqi army and police units as trainers and advisers.
They face numerous obstacles, including language, a lack of resources and loose linkages between the Iraqi security forces and their civilian leaders. But U.S. commanders see this effort as the key to winding down American combat action in a country wracked by internal strife.
In Washington, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group examining new courses of action in the war is planning to recommend next week that thousands more advisers be sent to accelerate the development of Iraqi security forces.
Pentagon officials are studying ways to expand the adviser corps. But in the view of some who have studied the problem, fielding substantially more advisers — and making them effective — may be more difficult than commonly believed.
"Training is a specialty. Training of foreign forces is an art," said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the private Lexington Institute. "That's the difficulty here, and compound that difficulty by the language barrier."
Goure on Friday described the training and advising effort as "better than nothing, but not great."
Thus far, at least 3,500 U.S. advisers are operating inside Iraqi army and police units, and more are arriving weekly. Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, told Congress recently that he would like to expand the number but was studying how many could be added without enlarging the overall U.S. forces in Iraq, now numbering about 140,000.
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq, said Friday he had discussed with Abizaid a plan to add about 2,000 advisers to the roughly 2,500 he already has in his region. He said he believed he could accomplish that without having to increase the size of his force.
Teams of 10 to 15 advisers live and work with Iraqi army, national police and border agent units. They go on raids and other missions to coach the Iraqis and assess weaknesses, and they act as role models, steering them away from corruption, human rights abuses and other problems.
So far, U.S. advisers are giving the program mixed reviews. Some of them complain they spend much of their time making sure Iraqi soldiers are paid and have the equipment they need.
"Most of the time we can't advise. We are too busy running around protecting ourselves from attack or just making sure the army has the basics," one Marine adviser, Sgt. Thomas J. Ciccarelli, 37, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., said last month.
American commanders concede they have had to upgrade how they train U.S. advisers, with less time studying slide presentations and more emphasis on cultural awareness and hands-on work with weapons and communications.
"As an Army we were not doing this as well as we needed to do it" even a year ago, Army Maj. Gen. Carter Ham said in a recent interview. He is commander of the 1st Infantry Division, which has been pulled out of the Iraq combat rotation in order to put prospective U.S. trainers through a 60-day training program at Fort Riley, Kan.
The idea is to coach the Iraqis, but that's not a role most American troops are used to performing. U.S. military officials acknowledge that soldiers have to change their mindset to perform as advisers.
"We are asking American (combat) leaders to do what is not natural, and that is leading from behind," Ham said.
Serving as advisers is not entirely foreign to the Army, which fielded thousands of combat advisers in the early years of the Vietnam War. In Vietnam the advising gave way to the introduction of hundreds of thousands of U.S. combat forces, whereas in Iraq the advisers are seen as a way to get combat forces out.
"This is a business we were kind of out of for a number of years — we're not obviously back into it big time," Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, told reporters Thursday after Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan.
On the other hand, Army leaders say they foresee a future in which soldiers can more readily adapt to nontraditional roles — be it training of foreign forces or conducting humanitarian or other non-combat missions.
"These are true pentathletes we are creating," Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, said recently.
This sort of work has traditionally been the province of Army Special Forces, the elite Green Berets who are fluent in the language of a particular region and spend time there training indigenous forces. There are simply too few Special Forces available to accomplish the training and advising in Iraq that is deemed necessary.
___
On the Net:
Defense Department at www.defenselink.mil
Ellie
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
Fri Dec 1, 4:07 PM ET
Normally, U.S. soldiers train to fight, not to train.
But these are not normal times — not in a chaotic Iraq where President Bush is banking on improving Iraqi security forces so the American military can begin to pull out, or at least pull back.
U.S. soldiers and Marines are being plucked out of combat positions to be "embedded" with Iraqi army and police units as trainers and advisers.
They face numerous obstacles, including language, a lack of resources and loose linkages between the Iraqi security forces and their civilian leaders. But U.S. commanders see this effort as the key to winding down American combat action in a country wracked by internal strife.
In Washington, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group examining new courses of action in the war is planning to recommend next week that thousands more advisers be sent to accelerate the development of Iraqi security forces.
Pentagon officials are studying ways to expand the adviser corps. But in the view of some who have studied the problem, fielding substantially more advisers — and making them effective — may be more difficult than commonly believed.
"Training is a specialty. Training of foreign forces is an art," said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the private Lexington Institute. "That's the difficulty here, and compound that difficulty by the language barrier."
Goure on Friday described the training and advising effort as "better than nothing, but not great."
Thus far, at least 3,500 U.S. advisers are operating inside Iraqi army and police units, and more are arriving weekly. Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East, told Congress recently that he would like to expand the number but was studying how many could be added without enlarging the overall U.S. forces in Iraq, now numbering about 140,000.
Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of coalition forces in northern Iraq, said Friday he had discussed with Abizaid a plan to add about 2,000 advisers to the roughly 2,500 he already has in his region. He said he believed he could accomplish that without having to increase the size of his force.
Teams of 10 to 15 advisers live and work with Iraqi army, national police and border agent units. They go on raids and other missions to coach the Iraqis and assess weaknesses, and they act as role models, steering them away from corruption, human rights abuses and other problems.
So far, U.S. advisers are giving the program mixed reviews. Some of them complain they spend much of their time making sure Iraqi soldiers are paid and have the equipment they need.
"Most of the time we can't advise. We are too busy running around protecting ourselves from attack or just making sure the army has the basics," one Marine adviser, Sgt. Thomas J. Ciccarelli, 37, of South Lake Tahoe, Calif., said last month.
American commanders concede they have had to upgrade how they train U.S. advisers, with less time studying slide presentations and more emphasis on cultural awareness and hands-on work with weapons and communications.
"As an Army we were not doing this as well as we needed to do it" even a year ago, Army Maj. Gen. Carter Ham said in a recent interview. He is commander of the 1st Infantry Division, which has been pulled out of the Iraq combat rotation in order to put prospective U.S. trainers through a 60-day training program at Fort Riley, Kan.
The idea is to coach the Iraqis, but that's not a role most American troops are used to performing. U.S. military officials acknowledge that soldiers have to change their mindset to perform as advisers.
"We are asking American (combat) leaders to do what is not natural, and that is leading from behind," Ham said.
Serving as advisers is not entirely foreign to the Army, which fielded thousands of combat advisers in the early years of the Vietnam War. In Vietnam the advising gave way to the introduction of hundreds of thousands of U.S. combat forces, whereas in Iraq the advisers are seen as a way to get combat forces out.
"This is a business we were kind of out of for a number of years — we're not obviously back into it big time," Stephen Hadley, Bush's national security adviser, told reporters Thursday after Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Jordan.
On the other hand, Army leaders say they foresee a future in which soldiers can more readily adapt to nontraditional roles — be it training of foreign forces or conducting humanitarian or other non-combat missions.
"These are true pentathletes we are creating," Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, said recently.
This sort of work has traditionally been the province of Army Special Forces, the elite Green Berets who are fluent in the language of a particular region and spend time there training indigenous forces. There are simply too few Special Forces available to accomplish the training and advising in Iraq that is deemed necessary.
___
On the Net:
Defense Department at www.defenselink.mil
Ellie