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U.S. Says New Iraq Army Wonât Join Combat
EFL WASHINGTON (AP) - The new Iraqi army will not initially join U.S. troops in combat operations against holdouts from the deposed government of Saddam Hussein, a senior American adviser to the U.S. occupation authority said Wednesday. Walter Slocombe, adviser on national security matters to Iraq civil administrator L. Paul Bremer, told a Pentagon news conference that the new Iraqi force is being trained for less demanding tasks such as providing security for vehicle convoys and manning checkpoints. Eventually it will be of sufficient size and sophistication to defend Iraqâs territory, he said, "because Iraq lives in a dangerous neighborhood, and it needs to be able to defend itself." The first group of about 800 Iraqi soldiers is due to finish its training next month. Slocombe said the goal is to have 30,000 to 40,000 soldiers trained and operating within one year, which he said is half the time U.S. authorities initially believed raising an army of that size would take. The timetable has been accelerated because U.S. officials discovered that the former Iraqi military had competently trained its conscripts; the bigger task now is for training officers. The Iraqi army has played no role in U.S.-led efforts to stabilize the country because, Slocombe said, it disintegrated during the major combat phase of the war in March and early April. Iraqi soldiers and commanders who were not killed or captured in the fighting simply went home, he said, and "took with them whatever they thought was worth taking; and what they didnât take, people came in and stole or destroyed or looted. "The degree of the looting of military installations in Iraq is really hard to imagine. They didnât just steal stuff that was not nailed down, they stole the toilet fixtures, and they stole the pipes and the tile in the latrines." Those being recruited to join the new army are mainly former conscripts and lower-ranking officers, he said. Iraqis who were senior members of Saddamâs Baath Party are banned, as are the special security and intelligence services that were the backbone of the dictatorship. The new army will be mainly light infantry and will operate under the command of the senior American general in Iraq until the United States returns sovereignty to a new Iraqi government, Slocombe said. Establishing a new Iraqi army is part of a broader U.S. strategy for stabilizing the country and hastening the day when the U.S. occupation authority can relinquish control to an Iraqi government and send U.S. troops home. Other elements of the strategy include re-establishing a police force, border guards, a facilities protection service and a civil defense force. This is the answer; certainly better than letting Indian and Pakistani troops in, and better than caving to the French. Posted by: Steve White 2003-09-18 |
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