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Training a New Army From the Top Down
Iraqi soldiers headed to Baghdad's main bus station last week after reports of insurgents preparing to launch mortars. "They're getting proficient," one U.S. trainer said of the Iraqis.
(By Jackie Spinner -- The Washington Post)
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At full strength, the 1st Battalion should have 727 soldiers, enough to patrol its designated sectors of the city and man checkpoints around the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. In reality, the battalion has only a few over 600; about 50 of them seem to be on the roster only to show up for a paycheck.
Iraqi soldiers are on duty for 15 days and then get five days to return to their families. But because of the manpower shortage and the battalion's new mission of securing western Baghdad, time off had to be suspended for some.
At a meeting with the Americans last week, a company commander balked at having to tell his men they could not go home for a break. Most of the battalion's members are from rural Babil province and from the Shiite Muslim town of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
"I told you being in the army isn't easy," Dugan told the company commander. "This is going to be an inconvenience. Your soldiers can't leave right away."
"I can't tell them that," the commander responded, putting his head in his hands. "They'll leave."
"Look," Dugan told him, "it's a leadership challenge. Tell the soldiers . . . 'In 20 years you will be part of the history' " of Iraq.
"They'll desert," the commander repeated.
"So tell them to leave and have a nice life," Dugan said, his voice rising. "I'd rather identify the problem now than when bullets are flying and they are walking away. Identify your soldiers who want to be soldiers."
The Iraqi commanders and American trainers moved on to another touchy subject: The next day, about 45 soldiers would be transferred to a new company because it needed additional men. The commanders had already complained that their soldiers did not want to move, and that they should not have to force them.
The night after the meeting, seven soldiers with the battalion's 1st Company walked out of the front gate of the post, angry that they were being forced to move to the new company.
"They call it escape," said 1st Sgt. Mark Barnes, of B Company, a former Army drill sergeant on his third tour in Iraq. "They are free to walk out of the gate anytime. You have to define reasonably what you expect of them. You can't evaluate them by American standards. Here, if what they do gets the mission done, that has to be it."
When Dugan learned that the men had left, he pulled aside the commander of the 1st Battalion, Col. Abbass Rahi Azzari. Azzari sided with the soldiers, fueling Dugan's anger. They exchanged shouts through an interpreter, and ultimately, Azzari produced 15 men for the new company.
