Outstanding article by LTC Carl D. Grunow USA. It first appeared in Military Review, and is featured here for your edification. (How’s that for a jarhead using big words?)
LTC Grunow recently returned from a 12-month tour advising the 2d Armored Brigade, 9th Mechanized Division of the Iraqi Army. His article should be required reading for every Soldier and Marine headed to Iraq to advise the Iraqi Army and Police.
LTC Grunow uses a quote in his article from Field Marshal Viscount William Slim, who served with Indian troops in World War II. It is incredibly appropriate.
The European who serves with native troops should be, not only much above average in efficiency and character, as he must accept greater responsibility, but he should serve with them because he wants to, because he likes them.
Allow me to raise my hand in this instance. Although I found Iraqi troops to be somewhat less than reliable in a gunfight, the average Iraqi is very friendly and outgoing, and they’re downright likeable once you get past the cultural differences (for those who are able). I consider my experience with the IA (much like my brief experience with Afghan Security Forces) to have been very rewarding, and one that I would gladly repeat.
See below for some good quotes from LTC Grunow’s article, Advising Iraqis: Building Iraq’s Army.
First, appreciate the importance of the advisory mission and understand the enormity of the task at hand. Iraqi officers with whom I have spoken agree unanimously that a U.S. presence in Iraq is absolutely essential to prevent catastrophic collapse of the government and civil war.
I believe that many of the officers join because they have a great sense of duty and want to save their country from chaos. They have assumed roles in the new IA at great personal risk. In my brigade alone, the litany of personal tragedy grew with depressing regularity. The commander’s brother was kidnapped and killed. The deputy commander’s cousins, hired to protect his family, were found murdered and stacked up on his doorstep with a note saying he was next. Two of four battalion commanders had to move their families because of death threats. A deputy battalion commander’s son was kidnapped and has not been found. Staff officers,
soldiers, and interpreters spoke of murdered relatives or told harrowing personal stories of close calls with terrorists.
(On that note, two of our terps had close encounters with the Mahdi Army. One had his cousins come down from Kurdistan and convince the local thugs to leave him alone, the other had a brother killed by thugs and was later murdered himself.)
Failing to plan does not necessarily mean laziness. It just means that Iraqis prefer to “react to contact” and make things happen when they have to.
While the U.S. Army’s reputation for being task-oriented is well earned and one of our greatest strengths, it becomes an impediment when the essential task is to cede mission accomplishment to the Iraqis.
This mission is a significant challenge for the most powerful military in the world; it will exceed the capability of this new IA for some time to come. But no great undertaking has ever come easy. Current and potential partners participating in OIF should keep this in mind as they continue the important work suggested by the mission’s name.
