Iraq's army units fighting among themselves

[Plekhanov]

Iraq's 'ragtag' army units start fighting among themselves
By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil
Published: 14 May 2006

A gun battle between two units of the Iraqi army has left one soldier and a civilian dead, underlining how ethnic and sectarian divisions are crippling the US-trained force.

The shooting, which took place between Kurdish and Shia soldiers on Friday near Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad, is a bad omen for US plans to hand over security to the Iraqi army by the end of the year.

The fighting started after a powerful roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army convoy carrying Kurdish troops was passing Duluiyah, a small agricultural town that has long been a centre of armed resistance to the occupation. Four soldiers were killed and three wounded in the explosion, according to police, while the US military said one soldier died and 12 were wounded.

Immediately after the attack the Kurdish soldiers rushed their wounded to the local hospital, firing their weapons to clear the streets and killing one civilian. At this point, going by the police account, another unit of the Iraqi army, the 3rd battalion of the 1st Brigade, this time consisting of Shia troops, rushed to confront the Kurds. They appear to have thought that the Kurds were going to retaliate against the local Arab population. Shots were exchanged, and one Shia soldier was killed.

The Kurds decided to remove their wounded from Duluiyah hospital, fearing it would not be safe for them to be left there. But as they tried to leave the town, a third unit of the Iraqi army set up a roadblock, preventing them escaping. At this point US troops, who have a giant military base at Balad nearby, intervened and succeeded in ending the confrontation.

The incident shows the deepening divisions and mistrust within the Iraqi army. Kurdish leaders have told the IoS that in a real civil war, they believe the national army would evaporate immediately, because its units owe their primary allegiance to their own communities. Peter Galbraith, the former US diplomat and expert on Iraq, citing senior Iraqi Ministry of Defence sources, says the Iraqi army consists of 60 Shia battalions, 45 Sunni battalions and nine Kurdish battalions. There is only one mixed battalion. In fact the number of Kurdish troops, formerly known as peshmerga, is understated. Apart from Kurds in the Iraqi army, there are another 60,000 men under arms within the Kurdish region.

Washington has repeatedly claimed that its aim is to train Iraqi security forces loyal to the central government and capable of fighting the armed resistance to the occupation. This would allow the US and Britain to reduce their forces in Iraq.

But the Iraqi army has remained a ragtag force. In 2004-05 its entire $1.3bn (£690m) procurement budget was stolen or spent in return for outdated or non-functioning weapons. Its vehicles, often elderly pick-up trucks, are very vulnerable to roadside bombs such as the one which hit the convoy of Kurdish soldiers on Friday. Even the numbers of the army are unclear, because it contains many "ghost" soldiers whose salaries are still drawn by their commanders.

From the US point of view, however, the communal divisions in the army are the most worrying development. When Iraqi security forces tried to enter the strongly Sunni district of al-Adhamiyah in east Baghdad last month, local militiamen saw the incursion as an attack by Shia death squads. They threw up barricades and militiamen raced from house to house, calling on each family to send one man with a gun to defend their district.

Ordinary Iraqis are extremely frightened by the number of uniformed soldiers and police on the streets who may in reality be death squads waging war against one particular community. In Baquba in Diyala province last week, US soldiers fought anti-occupation resistance forces who were all wearing government uniforms and riding in camouflaged vehicles.

A gun battle between two units of the Iraqi army has left one soldier and a civilian dead, underlining how ethnic and sectarian divisions are crippling the US-trained force.

The shooting, which took place between Kurdish and Shia soldiers on Friday near Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad, is a bad omen for US plans to hand over security to the Iraqi army by the end of the year.

The fighting started after a powerful roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army convoy carrying Kurdish troops was passing Duluiyah, a small agricultural town that has long been a centre of armed resistance to the occupation. Four soldiers were killed and three wounded in the explosion, according to police, while the US military said one soldier died and 12 were wounded.

Immediately after the attack the Kurdish soldiers rushed their wounded to the local hospital, firing their weapons to clear the streets and killing one civilian. At this point, going by the police account, another unit of the Iraqi army, the 3rd battalion of the 1st Brigade, this time consisting of Shia troops, rushed to confront the Kurds. They appear to have thought that the Kurds were going to retaliate against the local Arab population. Shots were exchanged, and one Shia soldier was killed.

The Kurds decided to remove their wounded from Duluiyah hospital, fearing it would not be safe for them to be left there. But as they tried to leave the town, a third unit of the Iraqi army set up a roadblock, preventing them escaping. At this point US troops, who have a giant military base at Balad nearby, intervened and succeeded in ending the confrontation.

The incident shows the deepening divisions and mistrust within the Iraqi army. Kurdish leaders have told the IoS that in a real civil war, they believe the national army would evaporate immediately, because its units owe their primary allegiance to their own communities. Peter Galbraith, the former US diplomat and expert on Iraq, citing senior Iraqi Ministry of Defence sources, says the Iraqi army consists of 60 Shia battalions, 45 Sunni battalions and nine Kurdish battalions. There is only one mixed battalion. In fact the number of Kurdish troops, formerly known as peshmerga, is understated. Apart from Kurds in the Iraqi army, there are another 60,000 men under arms within the Kurdish region.

Washington has repeatedly claimed that its aim is to train Iraqi security forces loyal to the central government and capable of fighting the armed resistance to the occupation. This would allow the US and Britain to reduce their forces in Iraq.

But the Iraqi army has remained a ragtag force. In 2004-05 its entire $1.3bn (£690m) procurement budget was stolen or spent in return for outdated or non-functioning weapons. Its vehicles, often elderly pick-up trucks, are very vulnerable to roadside bombs such as the one which hit the convoy of Kurdish soldiers on Friday. Even the numbers of the army are unclear, because it contains many "ghost" soldiers whose salaries are still drawn by their commanders.

From the US point of view, however, the communal divisions in the army are the most worrying development. When Iraqi security forces tried to enter the strongly Sunni district of al-Adhamiyah in east Baghdad last month, local militiamen saw the incursion as an attack by Shia death squads. They threw up barricades and militiamen raced from house to house, calling on each family to send one man with a gun to defend their district.

Ordinary Iraqis are extremely frightened by the number of uniformed soldiers and police on the streets who may in reality be death squads waging war against one particular community. In Baquba in Diyala province last week, US soldiers fought anti-occupation resistance forces who were all wearing government uniforms and riding in camouflaged vehicles.

Yet more progress in the 'war on terror', I'm sure the Iraqi civilians are resting easy in their beds knowing that these guys will apparently one day responsible for the nations security.

[brianeyci]

One wonders how Saddam did it.

Brian

[Chris OFarrell]

Fear.

[Darth Raptor]

Well, I for one certainly feel more safe!

[Sidewinder]

Damn. I guess at this point, the only way to restore "law," "order," and "peace" in Iraq is to put a Saddam-wannabe in power, and let him run the country with his hands untied, e.g., no US troops intervening when the wannabe's death squads massacre the population of a Sunni town to prevent al-Qaida In Iraq from using it as a sanctuary. How ironic.

[Sea Skimmer]

Fear.

Not even, he had to deal with rebellions a number of times. It wasn’t an aura of fear anyway, it was simply the very real threat of the Republican Guard rolling in and simply slaughtering everyone they saw until the total reached 50,000 or so and an area could be considered pacified. By constantly doing that he kept things under control, but even then the Kurds had very much broken away by 2003.

[K. A. Pital]

What a mess. Just pull out while you still can.

[TheMuffinKing]

We need to install a dictator ten times worse than Saddam. Or start dropping weaponized anthrax on insurgents...

[fgalkin]

See, when the US came in, they thought that the Iraqis though of themselves as people of Iraq. They don't. They think of themselves as Sunni/Shiite/Kurdish members of whatever tribe they belong to. Getting them to cooperate has been...difficult.

An alternative to placing a Saddam-like dictator is letting everyone go their own separate ways, having the country dissolved into hundreds of smaller entities, allied into a confederation of some sort, and maintained by the US troops presence there.

Or, of course, spending the next decade or so teaching them the values of democracy. If they don't force us to kill them all, that is

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Uraniun235]

See, when the US came in, they thought that the Iraqis though of themselves as people of Iraq. They don't. They think of themselves as Sunni/Shiite/Kurdish members of whatever tribe they belong to. Getting them to cooperate has been...difficult.

An alternative to placing a Saddam-like dictator is letting everyone go their own separate ways, having the country dissolved into hundreds of smaller entities, allied into a confederation of some sort, and maintained by the US troops presence there.

Or, of course, spending the next decade or so teaching them the values of democracy. If they don't force us to kill them all, that is

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

It's not so cut and dried as that; the problem isn't quite that everyone thinks of themselves as separate entities, the problem is that the British spent decades instilling, cultivating, and encouraging Arab nationalist sentiments throughout Iraq for Britain's political advantage. So what we have now is an Iraq where there are a lot of people who are still in the tribe-first mentality, and a lot of people who now have an Iraq-first mentality, and this obviously sets the stage for very bitter disputes between the two groups.

Iraq could probably have developed into a much more unified nation than it is today, were it not for the mismanagement of the nation between 1928 and 1958; by the 50's, Iraqi literacy was shockingly low in the Middle East, as the education system was wholly and completely inadequate. If the old monarchy had bothered to invest in an education system which could have instilled nationalist values into the population, we might not have had nearly the problems with tribal mentality that we do today in Iraq.

As for letting everyone go their separate ways... my personal guess is that that would probably end in Iraq being carved up and annexed by it's neighbors.