Nearly half of new Iraq army has quit

Stuie · December 11, 2003, 15:22

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/...ain/index.html

Quote:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- About 300 of 700 members of the new Iraqi army have resigned, citing unhappiness with terms, conditions and pay and with instructions of commanding officers, a representative of the U.S.-led coalition said Thursday.

"It's a new force, and ... we face some difficulties," the representative said.

Glad to see things progressing so well over there.

Az · December 11, 2003, 15:25

Glad to see you're gloating.

Q Classic · December 11, 2003, 15:30

they only had 700 troops?

SlowwHand · December 11, 2003, 15:32

I guess they can go form a labor union and/or go wash their frilly little ruffled panties.

Boris Godunov · December 11, 2003, 15:34

This certainly doesn't bode well for the handover of control to an Iraqi authority any time soon.

Harry Tuttle · December 11, 2003, 15:35

Well what do you expect? When Saddam ran things it was more like the mafia than a typical "Westernized" army. They were probably pissed that they couldn't get drunk on duty or harass the local woman folk. Plus, they aren't being fed the "die for the great cause against Satan" BS.

Stuie · December 11, 2003, 15:40

Quote:

Originally posted by Azazel
Glad to see you're gloating.

I'll be happy to gloat over anything that makes GWB's insane foreign policy look bad, as long as it does not involve death/injury to anyone.

lord of the mark · December 11, 2003, 16:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Q Cubed
they only had 700 troops?

some confusion here: 700 or so Iraqi "army" troops in training. about 60000 iraqi police. About 12,000 Iraqi Civil Defense Corps. Several tens of thousands of Facilities protection and border patrol forces.

Negative spin - over a third quit
Positive spin - 250 out of about 100,000.

Reality - this is a small piece of overall picture, but for this particular piece. OTOH how many new recruits drop out of any army? How many dropped out of the new Afghan National Army. ISTR the numbers were pretty high there too, yet the ANA evolved into a fairly effective force. Hopefully this is a sign tha the training is rigourous enough to discourage the weak.

Patroklos · December 11, 2003, 16:27

Alot of peole seem to need reminding that the war has only been over or 6 months. Exactly how ong were you expecting a recovery to take, 2 weeks? This is at the very least a one to two year job, and despite what the media says both democrats and republicans knew this.

I like that spin noted above, typical of the left.

-Pat

chequita guevara · December 11, 2003, 16:28

Bush and Co said Iraq would be up and running in three months.

Nubclear · December 11, 2003, 16:42

Quote:

Originally posted by Patroklos
Alot of peole seem to need reminding that the war has only been over or 6 months. Exactly how ong were you expecting a recovery to take, 2 weeks? This is at the very least a one to two year job, and despite what the media says both democrats and republicans knew this.

I like that spin noted above, typical of the left.

-Pat

"Bush is, of course, doing nothing wrong! Everything is fine in Iraq! We have defeated all the terrorists! They are lost in the desert! They cannot even read their compass!"

germanos · December 11, 2003, 16:54

Quote:

Originally posted by lord of the mark

OTOH how many new recruits drop out of any army? How many dropped out of the new Afghan National Army. ISTR the numbers were pretty high there too, yet the ANA evolved into a fairly effective force. Hopefully this is a sign tha the training is rigourous enough to discourage the weak.

Newspaper here has it that the 250 that left were of the newly formed batallion that was 'inaugurated' (for lack of a better word) end oktober, and presented as the starting point of forming the new Iraqi army. They had finished their nine weeks training at that point.

reportedly, the men had left complaining over their low pay (60$/month), and others had been threatened by insurgents.

SlowwHand · December 11, 2003, 16:55

The Republican Guard gets their experience from 1-on-1 training with Tassadar.

MrFun · December 11, 2003, 17:10

@ SlowwHand's joke

And Che -- yeah, I wonder where the Bush administration went wrong -- maybe by making such exaggerated, gloating statements in the first place?

Combat Ingrid · December 11, 2003, 17:13

Is that your desktop, Sloww?

MrFun · December 11, 2003, 17:14

Nah -- his desktop is a picture of Abe Lincoln swinging by the neck from a sour apple tree.

DAVOUT · December 11, 2003, 18:30

In fact, the Iraqi Army is the training center of the US contractors. Once the training is satisfactorily completed, they join the contractor milice with a much better salary.

Just joking of course.

However ....

Ned · December 11, 2003, 19:54

They are still discussing recalling the some of the Iraqi Army. But why the procrastination? Media who have had interviews with the resistance report that they are a mixed force of former Iraqi soldiers and fedayeen taking orders from commanding officers of the former regime. Recalling the army will quickly identify who are the resistance to the extent that they do not show up. To the extent they do show up, they will no longer be able to participate in the resistance.

Regardless of the spin issue, training one battalion every six months will not build an adequate army in our lifetimes. Something radical has to be done to fix this.

Now, if the democrats had focused their criticism of Bush's policy in this direction instead of insisting that we turn administration of Iraq over to Annan and his French and German friends, I might have supported their criticism. It is good to see at least two Senators urging faster Iraqifaction. Gringrich is also urging it. But, AFAIK, none of the Democrat candidates are.

PLATO · December 11, 2003, 20:01

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
Nah -- his desktop is a picture of Abe Lincoln swinging by the neck from a sour apple tree.

I want one!

The 700 man battalion was designed to form a core of the new army. The qualifications were pretty strict on getting in...No Baath party membership...no previous governmental associations...no criminal record.

It is a little sad that they were not successful in getting it up and running. Perhaps they should recruit 1200 and make a competition for the 700 slots and then actually pay these guys something. I mean...c'mon...How many billions did we appropriate and we pay the core of their army 60 bucks a month?

MichaeltheGreat · December 11, 2003, 20:07

Quote:

Originally posted by MrFun
Nah -- his desktop is a picture of Abe Lincoln swinging by the neck from a sour apple tree.

That'd be mine, except I wouldn't want to so tarnish a rope or even a sour apple tree.

MichaeltheGreat · December 11, 2003, 20:11

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
They are still discussing recalling the some of the Iraqi Army. But why the procrastination?

Because the ex-army is TOAB.

Quote:

Media who have had interviews with the resistance report that they are a mixed force of former Iraqi soldiers and fedayeen taking orders from commanding officers of the former regime.

"Former soldiers" as in SRG, IRG, not regular conscripts.

Quote:

Recalling the army will quickly identify who are the resistance to the extent that they do not show up. To the extent they do show up, they will no longer be able to participate in the resistance.

Oh yeah, like VC were never able to infiltrate the hell out of RF/PF and ARVNs.

Civilians.

Quote:

Regardless of the spin issue, training one battalion every six months will not build an adequate army in our lifetimes. Something radical has to be done to fix this.

The idea is that you're training the future cadres that will become senior NCO's and will themselves take over training the new professional army.

MrFun · December 11, 2003, 20:15

Quote:

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

That'd be mine, except I wouldn't want to so tarnish a rope or even a sour apple tree.

PLATO · December 11, 2003, 20:17

Quote:

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

That'd be mine, except I wouldn't want to so tarnish a rope or even a sour apple tree.

Didn't think about the rope and tree...

Bosh · December 11, 2003, 20:36

I'm willing to bet a good sized chunk of the army that the US disbanded is out there taking pot shots at us know. I know there wasn't of it left in any kind of organized form by the end of the war but they should have grabbed anyone they could and sent em out to training camps and pay 'em to do line-dancing or whatever just to keep as many piss-off unemployed men with military training off the streets as possible. Disbanding what was left of the Iraqi and not at least trying to reconstitute it immediately was probably the biggest mistake of this whole mess.