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IRAQ: New model army training begins
Fifty men queue in the hot morning sun for their turn to undergo a physical examination to determine their fitness to join a new Iraqi National Guard force, about to be formed. Training is to start this week for a platoon of 120 men, many of them former Iraqi army soldiers. In the empty rooms of a former library, the men were being weighed and having their eyesight, hearing and blood pressure checked. The new national guard was an experiment, Sgt Brent Williams, a spokesman for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division of the US army, told IRIN. "Theyâll learn the way we train and the way we fight, compared to the way they train and fight," Williams said. "It will be about discipline and instilling a sense of esprit de corps." Once trained, the new force would handle things like crowd control and natural disasters, he added. They would spend time on the shooting range and learn crowd-control measures, undergo basic combat training and be taught the international laws of war.
| Something that's previously been missing from their repertoire... |
Many of those just recruited had been fighting against US troops just four months ago, including Qays Yusuf, who was a lieutenant in the now disbanded Iraqi army. "They told us to fight until death," Yusuf said, "but I saw there was no hope against the US army, so I went home."
| Somebody should frame that statement... |
Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-08-23 |
