Comments on: Iraqi National Guard Merges With Iraqi Army

By: Charles Noble

Charles Noble — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 17:17:13 +0000

I was an Infantryman stationed out of Taji Iraq during OIF II working with a local ING unit outside of the wire. These were dedicated individuals to keeping there area of operations safe. Mainly because they had a special interst in the are. It was were they lived, Grew up, and worked. They had there families to protect and all haited the old government and loved the American way of life. The knew the local people and could spot an insergent a mile away. They knew of ammunition hiding places and followed up on local gossip. they were an asset. Now from what i understand the government of Iraq (with the influance of U.S. I am sure) Have moved all ING Personal away from there local are to Bagdad. What a joyas event for the insurgancy. the ING should be just that and aid there LOCAL Villages and townships, were they can do the most good.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 04:56:25 +0000

Mike, At the same time, the U.S. Army is on its way to eliminating the division. Going to a hierarchy where the corp is the administrative unit, with the brigade the maneuver. We may see this implemented with the Iraqi army At the same time we should remember that nobody is really ready for a war. When war comes all you can do is hope. If your people are well trained and well equiped things should go well. But it’s not guaranteed.

By: Mike Lech

Mike Lech — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 03:25:21 +0000

Iraqi Command and Control is so far behind that it’ll be awhile before the Iraqis are fielding division size units. CENTCOM has a report on the first ING brigade to “stand alone and have direct control over an area of operation.” That brigades AO is part of Baghdad. I think spinning up ING/IA units is more for security/US troop replacemnts. Proper leadership will be the biggest step in creating larger size Iraqi units, especially now that the Iraqis are our allies. The retained commanders are basically having to unlearn years of Soviet-style tactics and then learn more Western oriented ones. The part about the Iraqi gen wanting more firepower is a perfect example of that. I’d be interested in hearing about the other units a military needs to function properly. Support/Logistics/Communications, Artillery, Air Force? CENTCOM just announced that 30 Iraqi pilots are now starting training to fly C-130s….so I’d say the Iraqi Air Force will be awhile reforming…

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 22:54:27 +0000

Final Historian, Sometimes events force your hand. I do agree that the Iraqi army could use more time, but full blown war with Syria (and possibly Iran) may make that nigh impossible to arrange. We can hope we get the time, but Syria’s reaction to the Lebanese uprising may force our hand. In which case all we can do is do our best with what we have.

By: Final Historian

Final Historian — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 19:37:03 +0000

Alan, that will have to be pretty far down the road. The Iraqi forces will need a lot more training and equipment before we can consider that as likely. A greater possibility, in my opinion, is that the Iraqis are training to replace the position occupied by the US military in Iraq, namely as a patrol/heavy response force. This could indicate the US either plans on removing its troops soon, or sending them somewhere else. Where that is remains to be seen.

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:19:49 +0000

Here’s a possibility, Iraq is getting ready for war. War as a co-belligerent of the United States, against Syria. Syria’s coming under pressure from the independence movement in Lebanon, and in Iraq the media is releasing reports detailing Syrian involvement in the terrorist attacks. Syria could well face a two front conflict. 1st Front: Low level conflict in Lebanon, perhaps phasing into high level conflict as the Lebanese take up arms and start ambushing and bombing Syrian convoys and installations. (Not very likely, but still possible: An Israeli/Lebanese alliance of convenience. Hezbollah goes over to the Israeli side against Syria.) 2nd Front: Iraq, with U.S. complicity, sends guerrilla forces into Syria in support of anti-government forces there. In a sense, returning Syrian interference in kind. Ultimate goal of this whole thing? To weaken the Syrians to the point that a joint American/Iraqi invasion can swiftly topple the Syrian government and occupy the country. As for Iran? If the mullahs pull a Mussolini, Iran is toast. If the mullahs pull a Franco, they might survive; but that depends on additional factors. Dropping nukes and support for the terrorists in Iraq would help there. On the other hand, I could be doing some wicked bloviating. Time will tell.

By: JSAllison

JSAllison — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:10:13 +0000

When I took a job training kuwaiti soldiers to become tank crewman on M1A2s the conventional wisdom of my employer was that at best we could create something that looked like a tank outfit, but they’d only be minimally capable and not up to US standards. The crews that I trained over a two year period did their tank crew qualifications at a level equivalent to US crews, scorewise. We also were able to accomplish such esoteric items as the use of their radios in full secure/frequency hopping mode for both voice and data, something else that the Detroit CW said wasn’t possible. I suspect that the Iraqi soldier is at least as trainable as his Kuwaiti counterpart. The main thing holding back effective militaries in that part of the world to me is the fear that an effective military is a standing threat to the regime. If obedience to political control can be hammered in early I don’t see any showstoppers to building an effective Iraqi military. Glubb Pasha pulled it off, it can be done again.

By: On The Third Hand : Syria Under the Gun

On The Third Hand : Syria Under the Gun — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

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