> Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the training of "native troops" as
> they used
> to be called in the old days is going disastrously. But, far from
> being a
> revelation, this sentence Kaplan has isolated doesn't really tell us
> anything about it.
>
> Michael
Kaplan continues:
>This section of the [supplemental budget] document goes on:
These limitations, coupled with a more resilient insurgency than
anticipated ... have led the Prime Minister of Iraq to request forces
that can participate in the "hard end" of the counterinsurgency, and to
do so quickly.
>The $5.7 billion requested, it adds, will allow the Iraqi government to
"begin to train, equip, operate and sustain its own security forces."
(Italics added.)
>It makes you wonder: What the hell has been going on here? It's been 18
months since Iraq's insurgency emerged in full force. Yet only now is
the Bush administration seeking funds to "begin" training Iraqi security
forces to "participate" in the "hard end" of fighting the insurgency.
>How long will this training take? The American in charge of the
training, Gen. David Petraeus, who was commander of the U.S. Army's
101st Airborne Division during the battlefield phase of this war, is a
superb officer, maybe the smartest we've got. But the Army's rule of
thumb is that it takes two years to train a trainer. The U.S. military
doesn't have enough certified trainers at the moment. Most of Petraeus'
assistants are soldiers who have been redeployed from combat to
training. Knowing how to fight is one thing; teaching others how to
fight requires a different set of skills. Will his guys be up to it? I
hope so. But it will take years, under the most optimistic forecasts, to
whip the Iraqi security force into shape-unless, perhaps, an internal
political settlement ends the insurgency sooner.<
JD
