Comments on: INDC in Iraq: Ghost soldiers

By: shooter

shooter — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:41:17 +0000

“Bryan on January 22, 2007 at 9:49 AM
As a result, in the Iraqi military there’s no culture of management, no history of honesty and rampant corruption now as there was then. The quality of a given unit of the IA depends almost entirely on the quality of its top officer and his leadership and ability to promote competence among his subordinates.”

This is the main reason the amount of time needed to ‘complete’ the Iraq part of the War on Terror is so impossible to determine. O’Reilly keeps bringing up our own training as a kind of litmus test, saying ‘the US military can train troops in months, why can’t the Iraqi’s do this in 2 1/2 years?’ They should be able to, according to O’Reilly and many others.
BUT, OUR MILITARY HAS EXCEPTIONALLY QUALIFIED AND WELL TRAINED MANAGEMENT ALREADY IN PLACE. Not so in Iraq. They’re starting from scratch, or WORSE than scratch.

Thx Bryan, your trip is going to be invaluable to us all.

By: Militant Bibliophile

Militant Bibliophile — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 04:14:10 +0000

Oh, come on people, get off your high horses. Western armies did this too… four hundred years ago! Oy. Sorry, I’m not that good at printed sarcasm. Still and all, this is the whole reason the West came up with the “Pass in Review” and muster ceremonies, so that the paymaster (whoever is actually PAYING the troops e.g. the king) could see that his officers are not feeding him a line of bull. Who knows, maybe we need to institute something of the same practice. Sure, it would be time consuming, but just think of rank after rank of uniformed Iraqi soldiers marching past the reviewing stand while the admin guys go over personnel records with a fine toothed comb in the background. You get a great video opportunity and you know that every ground-pounder on the records actually exists!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go back to my birdwatching. I’m expecting to see a flying porcine specimen any minute…

By: oakpack

oakpack — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 03:10:37 +0000

I’ve commented in the past, that banking has to be established as part of the infrastructure. For this reason, and keeping the Iraqi soldiers on the job.

By: Oilpatcher

Oilpatcher — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 00:47:22 +0000

Joe Stilwell had the same problem with the phantoms of Chiang-Kai-Peanut. He solved it with with a paybook system. Paybook had to match payroll in the flesh. It worked. Worked so well that it contributed materially to “Uncle Joe” being relieved. It would be easy enough to replicate the same thing in Iraq, even easier if “direct deposit” is used. Can the bellyaching and get to work.

By: GT

GT — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:19:58 +0000

It’s one more layer of complexity and difficulty our troops are facing over there every single day, and one more reason that Iraq won’t be fixed quickly.

Bryan on January 22, 2007 at 9:49 AM

Agreed. IMHO it is going to require a generational change. The question is in this day and age of instant gratification are we going to have the patience.

By: Bill's Bites

Bill's Bites — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:53:43 +0000

“Ghost Soldiers” Compromise Operations, Endanger Iraqis and Americans…

Ghost Soldiers Compromise Operations, Endanger Iraqis and AmericansBill Ardolino (H/T: Allahpundit) Something quite strange even for Fallujah happened here Saturday when the occupants of three civilian vehicles stopped at the home of Iraqi General Khal…

By: Krydor

Krydor — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:12:44 +0000

When I saw the headline, I thought it was something similar to this Needless to say, I'm kind of disappointed.

By: Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:38:25 +0000

Embed reports: Good news, bad news…

Embedded milbloggers are providing invaluable first-hand reports of the military’s successes and setbacks in helping stand up the Iraqi Army. Bill Roggio reports on successes: In November and December of 2005, I embedded in the Qaim region with the 3r…

By: Pablo

Pablo — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:34:38 +0000

The Palestinians had a similar problem and one of the few sane people in Arafat's government, Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, had the perfect solution to the problem: Direct deposit from a centralized payroll authority. How far is the banking system from being able to support that on a wide scale?

By: Lord Nazh

Lord Nazh — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:59:23 +0000

It should be unacceptable before people get killed. Looking the other way on corruption when it doesn't hurt makes it harder to stop it when it does. ot: What do businesses think of the troops?Outrage

By: retired

retired — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:58:49 +0000

kill the bad guys. Stop talking, more action.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:49:26 +0000

This kind of thing went on during the Hussein era too. As a couple of the officers at FOB Justice explained it to us, officers in the old Iraqi army used their positions to enrich themselves rather than manage a professional force and look after their troops the way our officers are trained to do. As a result, in the Iraqi military there’s no culture of management, no history of honesty and rampant corruption now as there was then. The quality of a given unit of the IA depends almost entirely on the quality of its top officer and his leadership and ability to promote competence among his subordinates. So all around the IA, there are units that just don’t function well because those units are led by corrupt or compromised officers. We could replace those bad officers, but with whom?

It’s one more layer of complexity and difficulty our troops are facing over there every single day, and one more reason that Iraq won’t be fixed quickly.

By: bbz123

bbz123 — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 14:48:48 +0000

It is so telling that we just accept that the people we are helping are so corrupt as to threaten their own existence. He does say the at this level it is “unacceptable” but that’s a pretty high bar.