Article

2014-06-18 Iraq

Battle-tested Kurds watch as ISIS routs Iraqi Army

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Posted by Squinty 2014-06-18 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11126 views ] Top

#1 I have to assume we did train some guys, and that they learned something. But Iraqi corruption wore away all of the benefit? Would the corruption have taken hold had we left 10,000 troops under a SOFA?

To put it another way, is the rout to be blamed on Obama for running away, or is the corruption an inevitable outcome of the Iraqi culture?

Posted by Bobby 2014-06-18 12:39|| 2014-06-18 12:39|| Front Page Top

#2 We did train them. Lots of them. I know some guys who were there on contract as recently as 6 months ago. The problem isn't them men, its the tribalism. The Sunni for the most part folded up and left the Shia unsupported in mixed units, causing the units to rout. ISIS leveraged this by executing Shia but telling the Sunni to change into civilian clothes and go home (or else joint up ISIS). This put a wedge into the units split and fell apart 0- the Sunnis figured "why fight, these guys will just let me go instead of dying for Maliki and Shias", and the Shias figured they were going to get backstabbed by the sunnis, so better to retreat and get to a Shia friendly area.

The way this was changed in 06 was that US forces were there, and the Sunni "I can just go home to my tribe" didn't work out so well - they got dug out, exposed and killed brutally efficiently by US troops. So sunnis started sticking to their units. No such ting exists now. So the Iraqi Army will have units disintegrate, until they get down to purely Shia units, which will stand and fight - and do well with their weapons and training. Sunni units and Mixed units? Not so much. And the Kurds have always tended to be Peshmerga no matter what unit they were in - they are fighters.

As far as the tribes go, from what I know (and this i sparely my OPINION and that of a few contractor friends as well), The Shia hold grudges but can be very loyal, and the Sunni are simply unreliable and very tribal. I wouldn't trust either of them as far as I could throw them, but if we do have to grab one or the other, ironically, its the Shia who I would side with (in spite of Iran). The Sunni in this region are the ones that feed the Salafists, Wahabbis, and their Takfiri offshoots - you know, the bastards that struck us in 9/11 and who fought us so hard in Iraq. Tater and the Shia militias got a lot of press, as did the Quds force support they got from Iran - but those were mainly guerrillas, not the sort that can actually hold terrain and hold towns and create a power base. Those types were the Sunni tribes. The hardest fights were the Sunni AQI fighters, and the Sunni militias in Ramadi, Fallujah, etc).

That being said, above any and all of those, I would back the Kurds if the US has to choose any side over the others.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-06-18 15:42|| 2014-06-18 15:42|| Front Page Top

#3 The Sunni for the most part folded up and left the Shia unsupported in mixed units, causing the units to rout.

OS,
So no unit cohesion. I get the mixed units coming apart. What I don't get are the reports that commanding officers told the units to retreat.

Posted by Squinty 2014-06-18 15:56|| 2014-06-18 15:56|| Front Page Top

#4 Interesting OS, I didn't think about the mixed unit aspect, that explains a lot.

Posted by Shipman 2014-06-18 16:23|| 2014-06-18 16:23|| Front Page Top

#5 A lot of the reports you hear of regarding commanders retreating are 1) Sunni's who were bought or disloyal 2) Shia who bought their rank )pr traded family favors for it), and allowed corruption to roll in and were consequently rank cowards not military men.

For the latter the command position was a reward for loyalty or a family relationship or (worst case) a payoff. When training groups, you could tell who the real officers were, and which of them "had an uncle" working in the IA. The better officers got pulled to the better units, leaving the politicals to be billet fillers. In training, the real soldiers got the training which was hard, hot and dirty field work for a good portion of it, and the political ones somehow managed to be indoors drinking a lot of tea in the air conditioned classrooms to get their certificates. Contractors kew who was who - and trained them accordingly.

Also, from what I hear, many of the Sunni officers in Sunni units that evaporated got bought off.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-06-18 19:18|| 2014-06-18 19:18|| Front Page Top

#6 The Collapse of an Iraqi Army battalion:

Think about a typical 3rd world military - and now mix in that stupid Arab false pride and enshallah attitude, with the innate corruption of Arab culture. Now imagine how that affects how a unit operates - they tend to be very Top-down,officer centric, with no real history of a professional NCO corps, and no initiative at any below a battalion commander (excepting a few special units).

Now think about this:

Saddam (not all that an uncommon name) is a battalion commander. He got his position because he is related to the district commander, and his family has money to buy him this job and the prestige that comes with it. Saddam figures that sine the Americans are gone, but the contractors are still here, there is probably not any big fighting left to do, so why put yourself out for that kind of thing? Plus, all that sweating and field duty is beneath him - he is upper class, leave it to the lower class, all Saddam needs to do is give them orders and tell them to be on their way as a loyal subordinate should. But Saddam is contacted by someone letting him know that the ISIS knows who he is and where he lives - but they also will pay him if he will simply leave, which will give him a head start in evacuating his family. He also hears through his family connections that others in the district are being approached, and that the money is real, and others are taking it too. So, rather than left being the one holding the bag, Saddam takes the money, gives an order for his company commanders to prepare to fall back if anything happen the next day. Then Saddam goes home, packs everything, and gets out of town ahead of the ISIS coming in. The battalion no longer has a commander. Saddam isn't a total jerk - he lets his XO, friends since they were schoolmates, know that he should be leaving but warns him not to let anyone else know because the panic would cause the 2 of them to get swept up and unable to get their money and families out. The next morning at 0600, the staff shows up, but there is no XO, no Commander. Higher headquarters claims to know nothing - and why the hell are they bugging higher HQ, thats improper, have the commanding officer or XO call, not some lowly staff member. Given that the men know this commander, know that ISIS is known to be coming, and the rumors of bribes have ben circulating... its easy to do the math. The headquarters staff and soldiers all take an early breakfast break and simply do not come back. The Birgade now has lot the battalion - and the battalion no longer has a HQ.

Osama is a company commander - He is the last real level in the chain of command with any inherent authority in the IA. He is taught to lead, but never really has the tools or cultural wherewithal to command. He is utterly dependent upon the Battalion commander in terms of initiative and orders, and has done so when fighting the small rebellions out in the countryside - its how he got promoted. He is capable of directing his company in combat fire and maneuvering,, but not in setting any real objectives or what to do after orders have been carried out. What happens when he no longer can reach that Battalion HQ? He has no way to get any orders, and is incapable of setting objectives and generating orders past the old ones he has been acting on, which no longer match the reality of the situation, Even worse, the last orders passed down were to fall back if pushed - which he knows to be a recipe for failure, but which he must obey without question. Furthermore, he figured it out long ago that his battalion commander got the job because he is a nephew of the brigade commander's cousin, and is known to be easy to buy out in terms of paying him off to avoid tough duty (another company commander bought is way out of a protl exercise, which his company ended up having to do instead). Now Osama can no longer get the BN commander on the phone, or the XO - and the HQ seems to be empty when he drives up there to see whats going on. Pretty obvious to Osama that the BN commander has been bought off or else ran away. Either way, this company commander knows he has no support p the chain of command, and quite possibly laterally (that company commander who bought off his duty is useless). thinking about it. even if he stands and fights, or if his men refuse to fight (they belong to a different tribe) he might become a prisoner of ISIS. So he does the Arab thing - he quietly leaves the company area, folds up his uniform, gets his civilian clothes on, and heads for home to get his wife and kids the hell out of the city. Just like his commander did, no bribe neccesary. So this company, and others like it are headless - the neighboring commander got wind of it and leaves tot.

Hassim is an infantryman. He is fairly competent with his weapon, and can lead a fire team in combat. Good basic grunt. But what does he do if he sees his company commander disappear? He know ISIS are rolling, and executing soldiers and threatening their families. The last order he heard about was that the LT was ordered to fall back if the ISIS comes. If he is Shia, he knows his head may end up on a pike by the Takfiri. If he's sunni, he knows that they are likely to give him a pass if he's not a policeman or soldier in uniform. So what do he and the guys in his platoon do when they company commander is long gone? They bug out too. He is a good man, so he warns his squad mates what he thinks is going on, and tells them to get out. Once the men in the other platoons see this, they will drop their stuff, put their civilian clothes on and beat feet - after all if the guys over there are going then there must be something bad going on. SO now this entire company is gone along with the corrupt company to its left.

Next thing you know, the neighboring company to the right sees these guys are literally running away in civilian clothes after abandoning their weapons and positions. They panic and visibly rout themselves. Now the battalion adjacent to these finds out the battalion next to them is gone, leaving their flanks wide open. And the same dynamic plays out, from the bottom up, no corruption needed. All without firing a shot or even getting a whiff of the enemy. They are headed home to protect their wife and kids.

And that brigade that existed this morning? Its gone. No longer exists. ISIS rolls in that afternoon, and has the run of the place, producing even more IA units collapsing as they realize the units they were depending on have evaporated.

And that is how you have an entire region disintegrate - Arab culture, corruption, and nepotism in the ranks of the military - and in the Maliki government, which was where the rot started.

Posted by OldSpook 2014-06-18 19:56|| 2014-06-18 19:56|| Front Page Top

#7 Nice.

One question, doesn't the district commander risk being shot? And Saddam not being invited to family dinners?

Posted by Squinty 2014-06-18 20:15|| 2014-06-18 20:15|| Front Page Top

#8 No, the District Commander is likely on the lam too - Matter of fact, the 2 most senior commanders in Mosul have warrants out for their arrest on bribery, corruption and treason charges now.

And as for Lt Col Saddam, hey, family/tribe trumps all. And the way he tells it, the briber was a rumor, started by those disloyal subordinates just like the battalion that disintegrated next to his. He will tell the story similar to this

they were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn. The crew wanted to walk around with their shirt tails hanging out, that's all right, let them. Take the tow line, defective equipment, no more, no less. But they encouraged the crew to go around scoffing at me, and spreading wild rumors about steaming in circles, and then old yellow-strain. I was to blame for Lt. Maryk's incompetence and poor seamanship. Lt. Maryk was the perfect officer, but not Captain Queeg. Ah, but the strawberries, that's where I had them, they laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the ward room icebox did exist, and I've had produced that key if they hadn't pulled the Caine out of action. I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer . . .

Posted by OldSpook 2014-06-18 20:32|| 2014-06-18 20:32|| Front Page Top

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