The Problem With Iraqi Security: More Than a Numbers Game

Posted by Philip Barron at 2:30 PM on June 25, 2007.

A critical component of the surge strategy in Iraq - arguably the most important element - involves the ability of Iraqi security forces to actually maintain security. U.S. generals are admitting publicly that that element is sadly lacking:

The U.S. commander of a new offensive north of Baghdad, reclaiming insurgent territory day by day, said Sunday his Iraqi partners may be too weak to hold onto the gains. The Iraqi military does not even have enough ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek: "They're not quite up to the job yet."

His counterpart south of Baghdad seemed to agree, saying U.S. troops are too few to garrison the districts newly rid of insurgents. "It can't be coalition (U.S.) forces. We have what we have. There's got to be more Iraqi security forces," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

It would be one thing if mere numbers were the only concern, but an ongoing Time investigation indicates that the performance of Iraqi security is the weak link in the surge strategy, and that the insurgency is eagerly exploiting it:

Most of the tactics are designed to exploit the ineptitude of Iraqi security forces — the 30,000 soldiers and 21,000 police who are meant to support U.S. troops. Lacking in training, equipment and motivation, the Iraqis are the soft underbelly of the surge. A U.S. military internal assessment of the surge in late May showed that they are often unable to perform the simplest tasks, like manning checkpoints. And insurgent groups take full advantage, easily slipping men and munitions in and out of neighborhoods guarded by Iraqi soldiers and police. The simplest ruses work best, as the field commander of one insurgent group told me: "They never check cars with families, or children, or old people. If you have a woman passenger, you can drive past 50 checkpoints with a trunk full of C4, and you won't be stopped once."

The pending assessment of Iraqi security for Congress - slated for October and promising an "independent, objective and nonpartisan perspective" - has a strong Kabuki-like quality to it. Is there anyone who really believes that Iraqi readiness has improved since, say, 2005? A Washington Post article of that year, "Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable," painted the divide between U.S. and Iraqi forces:

Frustrated U.S. soldiers question the Iraqis' courage, discipline and dedication and wonder whether they will ever be able to fight on their own, much less reach the U.S. military's goal of operating independently by the fall.

"I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: The Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full time after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then."

Emphasis mine, and meant to underscore the timeframe: the hope that was that Iraqis would be able to "stand up" two years ago.

The article described the cultural gulf between the Americans and Iraqis and the woeful lack of effective arms and armor that hamper Iraqi forces. What it did not detail is the more recent and outright distrust of Iraqi security forces due to the infiltration of those forces by various sectarian militias. This infiltration is spurred by infighting and power-grabbing among factions of the Iraq government.

Militia infiltration of Iraq’s security forces is so bad in some places that American soldiers sometimes do not know whether to trust their Iraqi counterparts. “We don’t trust ‘em,” said 1st Lt. Steve Taylor, serving at a joint Iraqi-American security station in Sulakh. “There’s no way to know who’s good and who’s bad, so we have to assume they’re all bad, unfortunately.” In the Ameel neighborhood of Baghdad, the local commander of Iraqi national police has been replaced three times since March because of ties to militias or insurgent groups. In some instances, American soldiers have been killed by Iraqi security forces that they were actually training.

The Catch-22 of Iraq is that while sustained security is impossible without a unified political will from above, the lack of that will in Baghdad promotes factionalism and unreliability among the very security forces with whom the Americans are trying to partner. All the reclamation in the world is futile in the face of such an undermining trend; clear, hold, and lose becomes the order of the day. It will take much more than additional Iraqis in uniform to reverse this current.

Philip Barron is a St. Louis writer and author of the blog Waveflux.