Article

2015-05-21 Iraq

Why did the Iraqi army flee another city in the face of ISIS?

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Posted by Fred 2015-05-21 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top
File under: Govt of Iraq

#1 The problem with deploying the Shiite militias is that they're less competent than the Iraqi army and they're given to the same kind of rape and pillage as the IS animals.

Maliki spent much of his time in office purging Sunnis. The Sawha troops who had assisted (without bearing the full burden) in the surge were stiffed on their pay. Where he could get away with it the Sawhwa were disbanded. The army is predominantly Shiite--and I'm sure the ranks are conscious of the fact.

The Kurds are going out of their way to emphasize the secular nature of their regime. They are "Kurdish," but they are allied with and have elements that are Assyrian and Chaldean and Turkmen--and Arab. The Peshmerga has actually been around longer than the current Iraqi army and it appears to be well-disciplined and competently officered.

It's hard to emphasize how much that last means. The militias, like al-Sadr's and the Badr Brigades and the Iraqi Hezbollah, tend to be swarms of light infantry. They wave their guns, make faces, and charge. They win when there are sufficiently more of them than the enemy; they overwhelm with numbers, not with tactics. If there aren't quite enough of them they'll turn around and run.

Arming the Peshmerga would put them in position to seriously oppose IS and probably win. The reason we (meaning the U.S., in the person of the B.O. administration) haven't done this is because strengthening the Kurds makes an eventual Kurdistan, including territories in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and eventually Iran, much more likely. The Saudis don't like that idea because the Kurds aren't Arabs. The Turks don't like it because they've been fighting a nuisance war with them for years. The Iraqis don't like it because there's lots of oil money involved that they won't get to rake off. The Syrians approximately ditto.

Posted by Fred 2015-05-21 13:45|| 2015-05-21 13:45|| Front Page Top

#2 At this point, would you seriously want this administration "strengthening the Kurds"?

Posted by Pappy 2015-05-21 14:07|| 2015-05-21 14:07|| Front Page Top

#3 The Iraqi army left behind at least 30 armoured vehicles and dozens of weapons while retreating Ramadi

Were they trained by USA or by the French?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2015-05-21 14:39|| 2015-05-21 14:39|| Front Page Top

#4 Not all of them ran. A friend died. 1LT Ali. Born fighter.

الله يرحمه

Posted by OldSpook 2015-05-21 14:44|| 2015-05-21 14:44|| Front Page Top

#5 Why did the Iraqi army flee another city in the face of ISIS?

Because they had another city to flee to?

Posted by gorb 2015-05-21 16:19|| 2015-05-21 16:19|| Front Page Top

#6 Sorry about your loss OS. Perhaps if our support to the Iraqis was something other than notional, some CAS could have saved the day.

Posted by Besoeker 2015-05-21 18:28|| 2015-05-21 18:28|| Front Page Top

#7 I do NOT buy the "only 150" BS. They're not popular enough to hold the city with that few troops. That's a company -- how much area can a company patrol, 24x7? There's close to 200,000 people in Ramadi -- if only 1 in a 1,000 people are willing to take up arms, the ISIS thugs are out-numbered. Even a little coordination and they're outnumbered AT ANY INSTANT IN TIME.

And the pics we saw out of there took more than 150 to stage.

Does this administration trust the idiot press to repeat ANYTHING?

Posted by Rob Crawford 2015-05-21 19:58|| 2015-05-21 19:58|| Front Page Top

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