-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: March 21, 2007 3:01:54 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: "Ghost Troops" in Bush's "Pretend War on Terror"
‘GHOST TROOPS’ STILL FILL IN FOR IRAQ’S ARMY
$15 BILLION INTO REBUILDING EFFORT, SERIOUS PROBLEMS ENDURE FOR FORCES
In 2007, there are twice as many US-trained Iraqi troops as in 2006
-- but 50% of them are AWOL.
Meaning: the total number of good Iraqi troops the US has produced
in the last 12 months is ZERO.
The Associated Press
MSNBC, March 20, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17708450/
More than three years and $15 billion into the U.S. effort to
rebuild Iraqi forces, “ghost soldiers” still help fill Iraq’s army
ranks and no one knows how many trained policemen remain on the
job, the Pentagon and U.S. government investigators report.
The Government Accountability Office says the most serious problems
lie in the logistics — supplies, maintenance, transport — of Iraqi
security forces. One example: The police have more than 1,000 U.S.-
made trucks whose computerized systems are beyond the skills of the
Iraqi mechanics who repair them.
Since soon after the 2003 U.S. invasion, the training of new
military and police forces has been presented as vital to the U.S.
military’s handing over the counterinsurgency fight to the Iraqis.
In the current deployment of thousands of extra U.S. troops into
Baghdad, the Americans are teaming up with Iraqi army units to try
to control the Sunni Muslim insurgency and Sunni-Shiite sectarian
violence.
Attacks have subsided somewhat in the operation’s first weeks, but
journalists embedded with U.S. troops report distrust and a
mismatch in capabilities between the Americans and Iraqis. The true
test would come if the U.S. Army pulled back and such operations
were left to the Iraqi army and police alone.
A GAO assessment of the record thus far isn’t encouraging.
“Even though the number of Iraqi forces has grown and more have
taken the lead for security operations, violence in Iraq increased
significantly through the end of 2006,” Joseph A. Christoff,
international affairs chief for that congressional auditing office,
said in testimony last week to a U.S. House subcommittee.
In its latest quarterly Iraq report, the Pentagon said 328,700
Iraqis have been trained for the security forces, including 136,400
soldiers — more than double the numbers last year.
But it added in the next sentence that the “actual number of
present-for-duty soldiers is about one-half to two-thirds of the
total, due to scheduled leave, absence without leave, and attrition.”
'Ghost' soldiers exist only on paper
Many Iraqis go on authorized leaves for days to deliver their cash
pay to their families. The Pentagon said Iraq’s defense and
interior ministers also are aware of “ghost” soldiers and policemen
who exist only on paper — a fraudulent device by which units can
receive additional per capita resources, and corrupt officials can
collect nonexistent recruits’ pay.
American commanders in the field attest to the impact of deserters,
nonexistent soldiers and other attrition on Iraqi army battalions’
strength.
“The battalions out here are about 50 percent,” Col. William B.
Crowe, a U.S. regimental commander in the embattled western
province of Anbar, told reporters in January.
On the police side, under the Interior Ministry, the Americans
don’t know “what percentage of the 180,000 police thought to be on
the payroll are coalition trained and equipped,” Christoff testified.
Police ranks have lost many trained men — killed, wounded or simply
departed out of fear for their lives or families — and local
authorities have replaced them with men who haven’t gone through
U.S.-overseen training. Even then, the U.S. Baghdad command
estimates less than 70 percent of Interior Ministry personnel are
present for duty on an average day, according to the March 14
Pentagon report.
In addition, Shiite militiamen have taken root within the Iraqi
police. “Sectarian and militia influences have divided the
loyalties of Iraqi security forces,” Christoff testified, citing
U.S. intelligence.
Polish Maj. Gen. Pawel Lamla, a multinational forces commander in
southeastern Iraq, said in an Associated Press interview Monday
that police were failing to take action against local gunmen
“because some of their (police) elements have connections with the
militias.”
Illiteracy also a problem
The GAO agreed with the Pentagon assessment that logistics
represents “the most significant shortcoming.” Among other
problems, it cited illiteracy among troops to be trained in supply,
maintenance and related work, a lack of skilled trainers, and a
shortage of spare parts for the army’s motley motor pool — 21 types
of utility vehicles, for example, from Chevrolets and Nissans to
Czech Honkers.
The police were supplied with 1,179 American trucks they weren’t
able to maintain “because its personnel were unable to work with
the vehicles’ computerized systems,” GAO expert William M. Solis
told a House subcommittee on March 9.
A network of supply depots, key to weaning Iraqi forces off
dependence on the Americans for fuel, uniforms and other goods, has
lagged behind schedule. The target date for completing garrison-
level depots was moved from last December to next December, Solis
reported. He quoted an unidentified senior U.S. official as saying
that what was to have been a national depot north of Baghdad is “a
depot in name only.”
Solis predicted Iraqi reliance on U.S. logistics will extend into
2008.
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