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'About Five Minutes Into It, We Had to Take Over'
U.S. soldiers with the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division are accompanied by Iraqi children as they patrol the Shiite Muslim neighborhood of Shulah in Baghdad.
(Photos By Chris Hondros -- Getty Images)
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They are typically older soldiers, recruited from across the country, said Col. Douglass S. Heckman, the senior adviser for the 9th Division Military Transition Team, whose members are part of the 1st Cavalry Division. When U.S. troops first began rebuilding the Iraqi army after the 2003 invasion, recruits would drop out if they were deployed away from their homes, Heckman said. "These guys are not afraid to go anywhere," he said.
The U.S. military is increasingly ceding more authority to Iraqi leaders, Heckman said. For example, personnel decisions are now up to Iraqi leaders. "It inspires a lot of confidence to have Iraqi units with Iraqi flags," he said.
That confidence appeared to have been shaken on Friday. In one three-block section of Fadhil in a neighborhood known as Jumhuriya, 35 Iraqi soldiers came under fire as soon as they arrived at 6 a.m., their American advisers recalled.
For any army, however well trained, the Jumhuriya battle would have been a difficult one. There were empty shops and tall buildings where snipers could easily hide. The streets were narrow, preventing easy movement of tanks.
The Iraqis knew little about their enemy. They could not quantify them. They couldn't distinguish between a civilian and an insurgent because everyone dressed alike, the Americans and Iraqis said.
Their enemy, however, appeared to know a lot about them. Somehow, they knew where the Americans and Iraqis had set up one of two field headquarters and fired mortar shells at it, said Maj. Thomas J. Boczar.
The Jumhuriya battle was just one small part of Friday's operation, which involved about 500 Iraqis conducting searches and 60 Americans advising them. Other parts of the operation ran smoothly, high-ranking American officers said.
But it was a window on the challenges U.S. forces face in training the Iraqis.
Sitting in a conference room at Camp al-Rashid, American soldiers described Iraqi troops with inadequate training, resources or motivation. When they shoot, they "pray and spray" and do not aim for targets, the soldiers said. They either lack equipment or are not well trained in new equipment. On the battlefield on Friday, the Iraqis communicated by cellphone because their walkie-talkies did not work, the U.S. soldiers said.
The way the Americans see it, the Iraqis are fierce fighters. But they have been depleted of their energy after so many years of war, first against Iran in the 1980s, then against the United States during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the American soldiers said.
By about 11 a.m. on Friday, the Americans decided it was time to pull out of that part of Jumhuriya.
The sniper bullets kept flying, not just from the rooftops, but from the second and third floors of apartment buildings, they recalled. Grenades flew out the windows. Machine guns fired. It was an all-out ambush, unusual in that it was such a coordinated effort by the insurgents, the Americans said.
