Concerns Mount on Preparedness of Iraq’s Forces

Iraqi soldiers patrol a street during an operation in Baghdad’s al-Fadhil district in March 2009. (Photo credit: Mohammed Ameen / Reuters file)

By Steven Lee Myers

May 8, 2009

Excerpts

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s security forces, despite significant improvements, remain hobbled by shortages of men and equipment, by bureaucracy, corruption, political interference and security breaches that have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Iraqi and American troops already this year, according to officials from both countries.

The security forces are not on the verge of collapse. American officers who work closely with Iraqi forces emphasize the progress that has been made from the days when the security forces barely functioned, and point to a rising professionalism. Nor are rogue units routinely carrying out sectarian killings, as they were a couple of years ago.

But a recent string of attacks by insurgents has highlighted shortcomings, large and small, despite billions of dollars in American training and equipment, the officials said. …

The attacks have intensified concerns — and political anger here — that Iraq’s Army and police force are not yet ready to provide adequate security as President Barack Obama’s gradual withdrawal of American troops is set to begin. …

Iraq’s security forces have grown to 618,000 soldiers and officers, a 27 percent increase since 2007, and their expanding presence at checkpoints in Baghdad and across the country has coincided with the significant drop in violence since then.

Still, they remain heavily dependent on American support for basic military and police functions, including intelligence, aviation, medical care and logistics, according to the officials and two new reports by the Pentagon [PDF] and the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction [PDF].

At the same time, they face an insurgency that remains potent and may be regrouping, even as government revenues have plummeted with the price of oil, scuttling plans to buy equipment and leaving gaps in personnel, especially with the police. …

Looking ahead to 2010, a study by the military’s own Center for Army Analysis found that the Iraqi security forces would be “incapable of overmatching the threat” against it, according to a footnote in the Pentagon’s most recent quarterly report to Congress, dated March 31. …

The challenges facing Iraq’s forces abound.

The Pentagon’s quarterly report in January concluded that as of last October only 17 of 175 Iraqi Army combat battalions could carry out counterinsurgency operations without American support. Only 2 of 34 National Police battalions, Iraq’s paramilitary force, were ready to do so. Updated assessments of Iraqi readiness have since been classified because “military operational readiness for a sovereign nation is considered sensitive.” …

Many of the shortcomings are self-inflicted.

Iraq’s own watchdog, the Commission on Public Integrity, said in a new report that it opened 736 corruption cases last year involving the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the local and national police. Most involved theft of weapons, ammunition and vehicles that police officers urgently need on the streets. …

The budget crunch and a grindingly slow and arduous training academy have also led to shortages in officers. In the northern city of Mosul, where Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia remains most active, the police face a shortfall of 5,300 officers, including 4,000 who died or went AWOL, an American commander there, Col. Gary Volesky, said last month.

A particularly ominous problem has been a new series of attacks by Iraqi soldiers and policemen, or at least extremists dressed like them, from Mosul to Habbaniya.

These new attacks indicate that purging the ranks of potential threats remains a problem and that even heavily guarded bases can be infiltrated. …

[Ali al-Adeeb, a senior leader in Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's Dawa Party] said that in the haste to build up security forces, Iraq had recruited “suspect individuals whose loyalties are not to the state.”

“They are loyal to their own parties, the Baath Party, Al Qaeda, organized crime rackets or just their own interests,” he said, adding that the problems with security threatened to leave Iraq unprepared to take over as the Americans leave.

“We’ll only be ready if there is a comprehensive cleansing of the security forces,” he said.

American officers are more optimistic.

“When I was here last time we didn’t have Iraqi security forces,” said Maj. Brian K. Wortinger, who served here in 2005 and 2006 and has returned to train the First Brigade of the National Police’s First Division in southeastern Baghdad. “The National Police were Shiite death squads. We were pulling a dozen bodies a day out of the sewage treatment plant.” …

Related report

Ex-GI convicted of raping, killing Iraqi girl

PADUCAH, Ken. (AP, May 7) – A federal jury convicted a former soldier Thursday of raping and fatally shooting a 14-year-old girl after killing her parents and younger sister while he was serving in Iraq. Pfc. Steven Dale Green faces a possible death sentence when the penalty phase of his trial opens Monday …

5/9/09 Update

Iraqi Relatives Urge Death for U.S. Rape Soldier

May 8, 2009 

MAHMUDIYA, Iraq – Relatives of an Iraqi girl who was raped and killed along with her family by a U.S. soldier urged that he be given the death penalty on Friday.

Private 1st Class Steven Green was convicted in a Kentucky court on Thursday of raping Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, 14, and killing her and her family in Mahmudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, in 2006. He faces a possible death sentence.

Green, 24, was tried in federal court as a civilian for murder, rape and obstruction of justice charges since he was arrested after he was discharged from the U.S. Army later in 2006 for a “personality disorder.” …

The trial featured prosecution testimony by Green’s former comrades in which they detailed the assault, one of several incidents involving American soldiers that enraged Iraqis.

Green, from Texas, 19 at the time of the crime, was described as the trigger-man in the group of five men, who donned black “ninja” outfits and raped Abeer then shot dead her and her father, mother and 6-year-old sister.

“So they decided this criminal was guilty, but we don’t expect he’ll be executed. Only if he’s executed, will it mean American courts are just,” said relative Yusuf Mohammed Janabi, 51, a teacher. He said he was too upset to talk further and that his heart sank every time he thought of Abeer.

U.S. image harmed

The guilty verdict could go some way towards repairing the strained U.S.-Iraq relations that the crimes caused.

Public anger over cases in which U.S. soldiers have been accused of killing Iraqi civilians has been seen as one reason why Iraqi officials bargained hard for U.S. soldiers to be subject to Iraqi law for crimes committed while off-duty, under a bilateral security pact that took effect in January.

“When American troops came to Iraq, we thought they came to protect Iraqi people, then we saw acts like this,” said Juwad Qadim Hussein, 40, a resident of Mahmudiya, an impoverished farming town with dusty, potholed streets and run down shops.

“Some American troops help Iraqis, giving them medicine and aid; but clearly, others don’t respect and kill Iraqi people.” …

In a separate case, six out of eight Marines charged with the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha in 2005 have had their charges dismissed by military judges and another was cleared, to the chagrin of Iraqis who feel justice failed them. The accused ring leader in that case still faces court martial.

5/21/09 Update

Ex-GI spared death in Iraqi girl’s rape, killing

Former 101st Airborne Division Pfc. Steven Dale Green, being escorted to court in Paducah, Ky., in April, killed an Iraqi man, his wife and young daughter, then the teen-age daughter. (Photo credit: Mark Humphrey / AP file)

May 21, 2009

PADUCAH, Ky. – An ex-soldier convicted of raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family was spared the death penalty Thursday and will serve a life sentence after jurors couldn’t agree unanimously on a punishment for a brutal crime that the defense blamed partly on combat stress and a lack of military leadership.

After an afternoon of card playing, sex talk and drinking Iraqi whiskey, Pfc. Steven Dale Green, 24, of Midland, Texas, and three other soldiers in March 2006 went to the home of 14-year-old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Green shot and killed the teen’s mother, father and sister, then became the third soldier to rape the girl before shooting her in the face.

Federal jurors who convicted Green of rape and murder on May 7 told the judge they couldn’t agree on the appropriate sentence after deliberating for more than 10 hours over two days. Their choices were a death sentence or life in prison without parole. Since they could not unanimously agree on either sentence, life in prison had to be the verdict. …

——

U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq 

As of Friday, May 8, 2009, at least 4,285 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. …

The latest identifications reported by the military:

• The Department of Defense announced the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died from wounds sustained after they were shot by enemy forces in Mosul, Iraq on May 2. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. Killed were Spc. Jeremiah P. McCleery, 24, of Portola, Calif.; and Spc. Jake R. Velloza, 22, of Inverness, Calif.
• Army Spc. Shawn D. Sykes, 28, Portsmouth, Va.; died Thursday at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds suffered in an accident that occurred May 5 at Combat Outpost Crazy Horse, Iraq; assigned to 215th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

——

Security Developments in Iraq

Following are security developments in Iraq on Friday, May 8, 2009 as reported by Reuters.

MOSUL – A suicide car bomber targeting a police patrol wounded three policemen and one civilian in eastern Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

DIYALA PROVINCE – Iraqi and U.S forces detained 14 suspected insurgents and found weapons caches during a joint operation in the last four days in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Following are security developments in Iraq on Thursday, May 7, 2009 as reported by Reuters.

BAGHDAD – A roadside bomb wounded eight civilians on Wednesday evening in the Doura district of southern Baghdad, police said.

MUSSAYAB – A roadside bomb targeting a government-backed guard unit wounded three people in Mussayab, 40 miles south of Baghdad, police said. Following the incident, the Iraqi army detained 11 suspected insurgents in the area.