By Jim Krane
The Associated Press, 25 January 2006
With American help, the Iraqi army is emerging as a lightly armed counterinsurgency force that may control more of the country than the U.S.-led coalition by this spring, U.S. military officials say.
But in coming years the Iraqi army will remain too weak to defend the country and reliant far into the future on America to guarantee Iraq's sovereignty, experts say.
"They're not going to be the 101st Airborne anytime soon," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, spokesman for the military transition command in Baghdad. "But in 2006, this is the year that the majority of Iraq will be secured by Iraqis."
Wellman said that could happen by spring.
But the Pentagon is also grappling with designing a force that assuages the worries of neighboring countries victimized by Saddam Hussein's military.
"There is a concern in the region about giving them an offensive military capability," said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of planning for the U.S. Central Command.
The dilemma for Washington, which wants to hand off its counterinsurgency duties and depart as soon as possible, is that a weak Iraqi army could leave U.S. forces providing security for Iraq for many years — as America has done for Japan since the end of World War II, said Mustafa Alani, a military analyst with the Gulf Research Center in Dubai.
The U.S.-dominated transition command is spending $11.5 billion to build 10 Iraqi divisions encompassing 130,000 troops. Nine of them are light infantry units. One is a mechanized division armed with 77 ex-Soviet T-72 tanks.
Light infantry is the best force for the chief task at hand: defeating Iraq's guerrillas, Wellman said.
"The size of the army will hardly be an offensive threat" to other countries, he said.
But if Iraq is to avoid domination by neighbors — especially Iran — Alani said Baghdad will eventually need a military at least twice as large as planned, armed with weapons that are not in the cards: artillery, attack aircraft and even ballistic missiles.
"Self-defense can't be done with the forces they're talking about," Alani said. "If America wants an independent Iraq that can stand on its own and prevent intervention, there's no option but to build an offensive capability."
There are no plans to provide Iraq with artillery or other heavy weapons.
"When are we going to give them missiles or big artillery pieces? They're fighting guerrillas who disappear like the wind. That's not an artillery fight," Wellman said.
But heavy weapons and armor can still be useful against an insurgency.
Americans keep casualties down by riding in armored vehicles, which stand a better chance against roadside bombs. The United States sends jets to bomb insurgent positions and responds to mortar and rocket barrages with artillery fire. Lightly armed Iraqi forces suffer higher casualties.
Rearming Iraq isn't just an issue of money. Powerful interests want to see the military permanently downsized for various reasons, Alani said, naming Iraq's Kurds and Shiites, as well as Kuwaitis and Israelis, all of whom once found themselves targeted by Saddam.
In Kuwait, where Iraq's brutal 1990 invasion is a painful memory, leaders view any Iraqi military expansion with alarm, said Abdullah al-Shayji, a Kuwait University security expert.
"The more powerful Iraq becomes, the less secure we become," he said. "Iraq occupied Kuwait with 100,000 troops. It could do it again."
The 10 Iraqi divisions now being trained and armed represent a tiny fraction of Saddam's bloated army, which once counted 66 divisions with about 1 million soldiers, backed by thousands of tanks and heavy artillery pieces.
Its air force was once the world's sixth largest, with 750 armed planes and 200 support aircraft.
As of October, Iraq's 500-member air force operated just three transport planes and 16 reconnaissance craft.
Initial U.S. plans for the Iraqi military were even more modest, calling for just three light divisions.
An Iraq defense ministry official said the new military is improving, but the country doesn't have the money to expand it beyond the modest force envisioned by America.
"With such a small army like ours, there are fears about the armies of neighboring countries, including Iran," the official said on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
Such worries are premature, many say.
Rand Corp.'s James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan, said he agreed with plans to build a light Iraqi military that can focus on the insurgency before worrying about outside enemies.
Iraq can also bolster its defenses through military alliances with neighbors and the United States, Wellman said.
"Iraq cannot afford to build a huge armed forces to defeat every possible threat," Wellman said by telephone from Baghdad.
Wellman said conspiracy theorists were spinning false scenarios that said the United States intends to permanently weaken Iraq.
"People say we're giving them ex-Soviet weapons so we can easily defeat them. It's preposterous," Wellman said. "You can't build security forces for a nation with the intent to hobble them at the same time."
Wellman pointed to concrete improvements in the Iraqi military, saying it was beginning to hold ground against the insurgents.
Today, 37 Iraqi battalions control portions of the country without direct support from U.S. or allied units, he said. Half of Baghdad is under Iraqi control, Wellman said.
It has been more than a year since an Iraqi military or police unit deserted en-masse. The last major desertion happened in Mosul during an insurgent offensive in November 2004, he said.
Sectarian divisions continue to be a problem. Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said some security forces were allowed "to act as a virtual extension of Shiite efforts to attack the Sunnis."
The Kurds' peshmerga militia remains stronger than Iraq's national army, Alani said, and most Kurds want to ensure the peshmerga is never disarmed. Shiite parties, too, want to keep militias intact, he said.
"They don't want to see a strong army because it won't allow these militia to operate," Alani said.
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Citation: Jim Krane. "Iraqi Army May Be Light and Friendly," The Associated Press, 25 January 2006.
Original URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060125/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_small_army
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