9330dd1120947d6cd040…

Yes. Iran is not that popular even in Shia Iraq. People forget not that long ago Shia Arabs were fighting in a war against Iranians, albeit mostly as conscripts. They are religiously similar but ethnically separate.

“If SCIRI and/or the Sadrists crush the sheikhs and Iran asserts itself, that petition becomes a hit list.”

Unlikely, SCIRI has changed their name and started cutting ties with Iran, while Sadr publicly denies Iranian influence because he knows it hurts his popularity among Iraqis. Iran was an ally of convenience for both, an alliance that’s no longer convenient in the new Iraq.

Iran’s influence can be overstated. Iraq has comparable oil revenues. Power in Iraq will flow from Iraq’s oil.

2009 is going to be a watershed year in Iraq. The elections should bring moderates firmly into control.

Hashimi, who was an intelligence officer during the government of Saddam Hussein

A Saddam regime intel officer?! WTF?! Couldn’t find Harry Reid for a quote…?

Many Iraqi Army units are fairly proficient in everything except logistics, which is a consistent problem area (it is being addressed, though it’s a frustrating road).

No worries, Bill. I’m on it! Well, when my RSU finally makes it over to Iraq this winter, I’ll be on it…

MB4 – the rest have corrected you so far, but I would ask you, how long does it take to make a top notch NCO? Now, have we been working with the Iraqis that long yet? I won’t even go into logisticians and good field grade officers…spinning dross into gold takes time, experience and materiel.

P.S. Big A, why don’t you e-mail me before this type of articel? Quitely changing?! Dude, we’ve been banging on about this for years. Just what do you think I am going over to Iraq to do anyways? Heh.

Interesting as always precis by Allah on the quiet American shift towards more training off Iraqi forces, finishing off with a piece from Roggio’s site about the Iraqi Army’s growth in both numbers and competence…….

The Times says they’re on their way up from just under 200,000 to 255,000 troops, and that’s presumably not including the 70,000 Sunnis currently on the U.S. payroll whom the Shiite government has thus far resisted integrating into the security forces as promised.

Some of the 70,000 number are integrated into the official security forces already as “Provincial Security Forces” (PSF) paid under the Iraqi Police by the federal Iraqi government. Others in the Concerned Local Citizens (CLCs) are not.

The popular narrative, which is partially correct, is that the Iraqi government is dragging its feet because of sectarian interest. While this is probably true to an extent, other reasons are the glacial speed of Iraqi bureacracy and a resistance to moving what are basically former insurgents into the security apparatus wholesale.

MB4 on November 23, 2007 at 6:14 PM

You try training an army that lived under 35 years of Saddam plus a decade or two of corruption prior to that, which doesn’t have a West Point, and is right now this minute and every minute embroiled in 3 or 4 distinct yet overlapping conflicts. They don’t have remote bases in peaceful areas to train in. They’re training in the middle of the war. And add to that that the army you’re training is Arab and carries everything that that entails in terms of culture and military traditions. Arab armies just don’t tend to be very capable without serious assistance from outside sources.

These guys aren’t a bunch of boys from Kansas who already ascribe to constitutional norms, Western notions of human rights, our definitions of corruption and clean government and our notions even of right and wrong on a personal level. These guys come to the table with tribal loyalties that you and I really don’t understand all to well and they don’t have the luxury that you have had of living in a peaceful and free country for all of our lives minus time spent in foreign war zones. The war is in their neighborhoods and threatens their families every day.

Try training an army with all of that in the background and see how long it takes.

The Iraqis aren’t trained yet? It’s been almost 5 years. What are they being trained to be? MD’s? Astronauts?

Hello! It’s their loyalty, not their training.

This characterization is wrong, specifically as relates to the article which focuses on the Iraqi Army.

The Iraqi Police, the national force and regional variants in the south and Baghdad, have had problems with “loyalty,” in terms of militia infiltration, etc., while regional police in Anbar (for example) don’t at this point.

The Iraqi Army, on the other hand, has always been progressing as a viable, successful national institution. Partially this is because a. the army has always been a higher status force in Iraq than the police and b. individuals are stationed away from home all over the country, thus diminishing any conflicting loyalties.

Many Iraqi Army units are fairly proficient in everything except logistics, which is a consistent problem area (it is being addressed, though it’s a frustrating road).

and that’s presumably not including the 70,000 Sunnis currently on the U.S. payroll whom the Shiite government has thus far resisted integrating into the security forces as promised.

If you were Grant in 1864 would you want Lee’s troops integrated into your forces?

Hello! It’s their loyalty, not their training.

and that’s presumably not including the 70,000 Sunnis currently on the U.S. payroll whom the Shiite government has thus far resisted integrating into the security forces as promised.

This was reported a little bit ago, was there any followup?

Please do note the suspects’ gender; if they’re foreigners, odds are they’re Saudis or Libyans

or Yemens or more likely: Yemenese Saudis

(sorry, don’t mean to be facetious)