Training Vs. Motivation and the Iraqi Army

Among the many recommendations floating around Washington D.C. For turning around the war in Iraq is to increase the number of American training personnel. The purpose being to accelerate the training of the Iraqi army and security forces so that they might take on a larger share of the fighting. The obvious implication is that as Iraqi units come online, American units can be rotated out of country.

This is all well and good. On the face of it, I have no major objections to this course of action, on the contrary, I think it is imperative that Iraqi forces fight this war, as that is the only hope of favorable military solution in the short term. The only problem I have if this nagging voice in the back of my head that keeps saying, "Haven't we been training Iraqi security forces and army units since the summer of 2003?" When I tell the nagging voice that it takes time to train up units for combat, the voice points out that in World War II, America trained over 2 million combat soldiers in less than three years. It also mentions that America in 1941 had no large numbers of civilians with military experience. This in contrast to Iraq which has vast numbers of men with years of military experience that ought to need minimal training to become combat ready. This was the country after all that boasted the third largest military in the world just fifteen years ago at the outset of Desert Storm. This was also the nation that fielded an army of nearly half a million men after a decade and a half of sanctions meant to cripple that military. So it is kind of counterintuitive to think that extensive training should be required.

This convincing argument on the part of my nagging voice leads me to believe that perhaps the problem of the Iraqi security forces isn't one of training, but one of motivation. Maybe when you are asking men to fight and die it helps if they believe in what they are fighting and dying for. Sorry, but I just don't see that belief among the Iraqi people, not the security forces, not the army, not the public at large. I know, they voted in huge numbers and so on and so forth, but if the Iraqi people really believed in their government the insurgency would die on the vine.

So by all means send more trainers and better equipment and new uniforms and on and on and on until we feel that we've given all that we can afford to give. By all means go on the talk shows and pontificate about training the Iraqis and Iraqis standing up so we can stand down, just don't expect any better results until the Iraqi people actually believe in this war.