- Jul 25, 2002
- 10,053
- 0
- 71
From the Washington Post
As we take on the challenge of a lawless Iraq, and train their forces to replace us,
they seem to be split in their loyalties. As long as we are maintaining our troop
presence and sustain the Military effort - and pay their wages, they are our supporters.
However they way that they talk the position up, as soon as we leave and out presence
is no longer the overwhelming force to be reconed with - they already plan to drop their
allegiance at that time, and return to their old ways - as a defense mechanism to their
own and their families survival. Keeping the options open, so it seems.
So in the long run, if we were to retract prematurely, we may have given them a trainging
level to make them a dangerous domestic force for us to have to deal with, should we
have to confront an internal upheaval as a co-ordinated effort, we train a new enemy to face.
Scary when you think about it, it's a ten year off future that we cannot guarantee.
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Clip from the Article:
At the sprawling Baiji train station, long ago looted of everything but rail cars, the men of the city's Iraqi Civil Defense Corps lamented their first two months as a pillar of the U.S.-trained security forces that will inherit responsibility for keeping order in Iraq.
In a Sunni Muslim town suspicious of U.S. forces and often the scene of armed opposition, villagers have derided the men of the 3rd Patrol as traitors, pelting them with rocks as their trucks pass. Some were stopped in the market by men in checkered head scarves and warned that their commander faced death. Last month, U.S. Special Forces mistook them for guerrillas or thieves -- that point remains in dispute -- and opened fire on them. Worse, they feared, was what lay ahead if U.S. forces withdrew from this northern town.
"I swear to God, we'll be killed," said Hamid Yusuf, holding a secondhand Kalashnikov rifle.
"We all have the same opinion," insisted one of his commanders, Qassim Khalaf.</NITF>
<NITF>"One hundred percent," answered Jamal Awad, another patrol member.
"My family's already made a reservation on a plot of land to bury me," said Yusuf, 29, breaking into a grin as the men traded barbs tinged with gallows humor. "As soon as they leave, I'm taking off my hat," he said, tipping his red baseball cap emblazoned with the corps' emblem, "and putting on a <I>yashmak</I>," the head scarf sometimes worn by resistance fighters.
The U.S. administration in Iraq has high hopes for the Civil Defense Corps and other forces it is aggressively training, projecting them as an eventual alternative to the 130,000 American troops in Iraq. Some members have performed with remarkable bravery, and dozens have died in the recent wave of car bombings across Iraq. But Yusuf and the other men with the unit in Baiji -- a scared, disheartened and confused lot -- embody the challenge facing Iraqi forces as a new institution in a country still taking shape.
In their conversations over a day at the train station -- hours of monotony punctuated by minutes of action -- they provided a glimpse of Iraq's ambitions for the future and a sobering lesson about its present. The men of the 3rd Patrol are haunted by unanswered questions. Are they fighting for the United States or Iraq? Are they traitors or patriots? And at what cost do they sacrifice ideals of faith, nationalism and tradition, the essence of their identity?
"We have children, we have families and we need to live," said Yusuf, sitting with the others on a stack of railroad ties, as a brisk wind blew over them. "We don't love the Americans, but we need the money. It's very difficult, but there's no alternative."
The eight men of the 3rd Patrol were trained and equipped by Lt. Col. Larry "Pepper" Jackson, the commander in Baiji, who works by a credo that has made the military in Iraq a marvel of improvisation. Adapt to what you have, he said, and work through the challenges. So far, he has outfitted 198 members of the civil defense force, along with more than 450 Iraqi police officers. As elsewhere in the country, the pace of induction has picked up markedly in recent weeks under the rubric of "Iraqification." Of the 131,000 Iraqis under arms -- more than twice the figure of Oct. 1 -- 8,500 are in the Civil Defense Corps, a contingent that will eventually grow to 40,000.
Jackson put his recruits through three weeks of training -- drilling, marksmanship, first aid and basic combat skills. "And I'm talking basic combat skills," he said. He dealt with the language barrier and even established some camaraderie with the recruits -- some call him captain or general, whichever sounds more senior. He faces no target number for enlistment, but was told to work as fast as he could and recruit as many people as possible. He said he felt induction was proceeding at "the right pace," but that, in the end, it wasn't up to him.
"What's to say what's too fast? I don't know," Jackson said. "That's the thousand-dollar question. What's too fast?"
Either way, he said, the goal remained the same -- to turn authority over to Iraqis sooner rather than later.
"I try to tell them it's not loyalty to me, it's loyalty to your community," he said. "I tell them, 'What are you going to do when it's just you downtown? That's what you need to be trained and prepared for, because eventually that's going to come.' "
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 3 more pages - I don't intend to post them.
Just do the 'No Name Registration' - and read the rest.
As we take on the challenge of a lawless Iraq, and train their forces to replace us,
they seem to be split in their loyalties. As long as we are maintaining our troop
presence and sustain the Military effort - and pay their wages, they are our supporters.
However they way that they talk the position up, as soon as we leave and out presence
is no longer the overwhelming force to be reconed with - they already plan to drop their
allegiance at that time, and return to their old ways - as a defense mechanism to their
own and their families survival. Keeping the options open, so it seems.
So in the long run, if we were to retract prematurely, we may have given them a trainging
level to make them a dangerous domestic force for us to have to deal with, should we
have to confront an internal upheaval as a co-ordinated effort, we train a new enemy to face.
Scary when you think about it, it's a ten year off future that we cannot guarantee.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clip from the Article:
At the sprawling Baiji train station, long ago looted of everything but rail cars, the men of the city's Iraqi Civil Defense Corps lamented their first two months as a pillar of the U.S.-trained security forces that will inherit responsibility for keeping order in Iraq.
In a Sunni Muslim town suspicious of U.S. forces and often the scene of armed opposition, villagers have derided the men of the 3rd Patrol as traitors, pelting them with rocks as their trucks pass. Some were stopped in the market by men in checkered head scarves and warned that their commander faced death. Last month, U.S. Special Forces mistook them for guerrillas or thieves -- that point remains in dispute -- and opened fire on them. Worse, they feared, was what lay ahead if U.S. forces withdrew from this northern town.
"I swear to God, we'll be killed," said Hamid Yusuf, holding a secondhand Kalashnikov rifle.
"We all have the same opinion," insisted one of his commanders, Qassim Khalaf.</NITF>
<NITF>"One hundred percent," answered Jamal Awad, another patrol member.
"My family's already made a reservation on a plot of land to bury me," said Yusuf, 29, breaking into a grin as the men traded barbs tinged with gallows humor. "As soon as they leave, I'm taking off my hat," he said, tipping his red baseball cap emblazoned with the corps' emblem, "and putting on a <I>yashmak</I>," the head scarf sometimes worn by resistance fighters.
The U.S. administration in Iraq has high hopes for the Civil Defense Corps and other forces it is aggressively training, projecting them as an eventual alternative to the 130,000 American troops in Iraq. Some members have performed with remarkable bravery, and dozens have died in the recent wave of car bombings across Iraq. But Yusuf and the other men with the unit in Baiji -- a scared, disheartened and confused lot -- embody the challenge facing Iraqi forces as a new institution in a country still taking shape.
In their conversations over a day at the train station -- hours of monotony punctuated by minutes of action -- they provided a glimpse of Iraq's ambitions for the future and a sobering lesson about its present. The men of the 3rd Patrol are haunted by unanswered questions. Are they fighting for the United States or Iraq? Are they traitors or patriots? And at what cost do they sacrifice ideals of faith, nationalism and tradition, the essence of their identity?
"We have children, we have families and we need to live," said Yusuf, sitting with the others on a stack of railroad ties, as a brisk wind blew over them. "We don't love the Americans, but we need the money. It's very difficult, but there's no alternative."
The eight men of the 3rd Patrol were trained and equipped by Lt. Col. Larry "Pepper" Jackson, the commander in Baiji, who works by a credo that has made the military in Iraq a marvel of improvisation. Adapt to what you have, he said, and work through the challenges. So far, he has outfitted 198 members of the civil defense force, along with more than 450 Iraqi police officers. As elsewhere in the country, the pace of induction has picked up markedly in recent weeks under the rubric of "Iraqification." Of the 131,000 Iraqis under arms -- more than twice the figure of Oct. 1 -- 8,500 are in the Civil Defense Corps, a contingent that will eventually grow to 40,000.
Jackson put his recruits through three weeks of training -- drilling, marksmanship, first aid and basic combat skills. "And I'm talking basic combat skills," he said. He dealt with the language barrier and even established some camaraderie with the recruits -- some call him captain or general, whichever sounds more senior. He faces no target number for enlistment, but was told to work as fast as he could and recruit as many people as possible. He said he felt induction was proceeding at "the right pace," but that, in the end, it wasn't up to him.
"What's to say what's too fast? I don't know," Jackson said. "That's the thousand-dollar question. What's too fast?"
Either way, he said, the goal remained the same -- to turn authority over to Iraqis sooner rather than later.
"I try to tell them it's not loyalty to me, it's loyalty to your community," he said. "I tell them, 'What are you going to do when it's just you downtown? That's what you need to be trained and prepared for, because eventually that's going to come.' "
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are 3 more pages - I don't intend to post them.
Just do the 'No Name Registration' - and read the rest.
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