HOW HE SEES IT Training Iraqis isn't all guns and butter

By NATHANIEL FICK
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Fighting insurgents is messy and slow. Turning Iraqi soldiers into effective combatants is nearly as difficult. But the recent promising parliamentary elections in Iraq cannot be consolidated and built on unless the Iraqis can secure their country themselves.
The window of opportunity for training them is quickly closing. I trained as a Marine infantryman for nearly two years -- one year in classes, another on the job -- before I felt ready to fight. Iraqi forces don't have that much time, so it's vital that their training focus on what is most essential.
Contrary to much of what we hear, training Iraqi troops isn't fundamentally about teaching marksmanship or basic tactics. Nor is the best measure of progress the number of Iraqi battalions capable of fighting on their own. Instead, successful training of Iraqis rests on three pillars: imparting the discipline that guarantees loyalty to legitimate authority; developing forces that will fight well alongside U.S. units; and ensuring that the Iraqi military is a force for integration in society.
A Marine friend recently returned from a year in Iraq as a military adviser. His greatest challenge was to instill in Iraqis the sort of self-sustaining discipline that would endure after he and other advisers departed. To accomplish that, he emphasized enthusiasm for training over fighting skill. Then he used that enthusiasm to persuade Iraqis to adopt progressively higher combat standards. Finally, Americans and Iraqis mutually enforced those standards to improve discipline.
Legitimate authority
Discipline is the bedrock of success. It keeps soldiers advancing into fire when every human instinct is to run the other way. For a fledgling Iraqi government, it also ensures that the military will remain subordinate to legitimate authority.
Civil authority in Iraq will be vulnerable to the insurgency for some time. That's why Iraqi forces should be trained to fight alongside U.S. troops as a stepping stone to eventual autonomy. Pushing for fully independent Iraqi operations too soon sacrifices genuine institutional development to political expediency. Besides, U.S. and Iraqi forces can do more together than either can apart. The U.S. military contributes fire support, logistics and operational guidance. The Iraqis add cultural awareness, human intelligence and moral authority.
Those latter assets are at the heart of successful counterinsurgency strategy. Wars such as the one in Iraq aren't won with fancy equipment: Witness the havoc that roadside bombs have had on the best-trained and best-outfitted army in the world. There is no technological fix. Thicker armor only begets bigger bombs.
The enduring solution is for a friendly population to reveal where the bombs have been planted. In other words, information from Iraqi citizens is a prerequisite for victory.
The absence of such information allows a comparatively small number of active insurgents to create mayhem while swimming in a sea of passive supporters. To get information, you first need to win the trust of the Iraqi people -- and to do that, you need to demonstrate progress on the battlefield. The key terrain is the opinion of typical Iraqi citizens. Their support will never be won by a Western force that cannot even read street signs in Baghdad.
But nor will typical Iraqis come around if they see Iraqi units as sectarian or brutal. Iraqi forces must be something more than the old combination of powerful thugs and hapless conscripts.
Local recruits
Early efforts to develop Iraqi security forces relied on local recruits. This gave local insurgents, particularly in predominately Sunni Al Anbar province, the advantage of knowing who was working for the government and thus who should be threatened or killed, sometimes along with their families.
The solution was to recruit elsewhere in Iraq and send the soldiers to Al Anbar for duty. But this has resulted in an overwhelmingly Shiite Iraqi army, reinforcing the sectarian divisions that are an obstacle to the integration of Iraqi society and undercutting the army's legitimacy in the eyes of Sunni Iraqis.
Successfully training Iraqi soldiers requires recognizing that their families live on or near the battlefield. These innocents must be protected if a representative mix of Iraqi citizens is to serve in the army.
The three pillars of successful Iraqi training -- discipline, cooperation and inclusiveness -- require sound leadership.
X Fick is a former Marine captain who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and the author of "One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer."