Posted on 12/09/2005 5:40:10 PM PST by SandRat
FORT HUACHUCA — A few Iraqi officers will come to this Southern Arizona Army post early next year for intelligence training, the commander of the Intelligence Center said Thursday.
Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast said the center also is preparing a cultural training video for the Army that will include a recent interview with the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations.
Saying the future of Iraq is in the hands of its citizens, Fast said ensuring the security forces of that Middle East country have a well-trained intelligence function is critical to ensuring Iraq is a democracy.
“We’ll get our first Iraqi students in February,” Fast said.
Other Army schools, including the services War College and Command Sergeant Major Academy, have students from Iraq.
Fewer than half dozen officers will attend the Intelligence Center, and all are officers and highly qualified.
“They are not recruited off the streets,” Fast said, adding those who will come to Fort Huachuca have been checked out.
Last month, she was in Iraq, taking the pulse of intelligence programs.
“One of the things I wanted to do was to take a look at the training that we at the U.S. Army Intelligence Center are doing in Iraq,” Fast said.
One of the United States’ strategies is to train Iraqi security forces to function on their own, the general said.
“The (U.S.) military is not going to win this war, nor should we expect the military to win the war,” she said.
It isn’t that Fast is a defeatist, but she was taking a realistic approach.
“The whole thing is going to be won and decided by the Iraqi people,” Fast said. “That’s what is going to dictate success.”
While in Iraq, she visited an intelligence school.
“What I saw were really motivated Iraqis,” she said, adding those in training ranged in rank from junior noncommissioned officers to a lieutenant colonel.
There is a stepping stone process to build an Iraqi military intelligence system. Part of that is appointing a former Iraqi Coast Guard officer as the head of the school. He holds the rank of brigadier general.
“I met him. He’s very motivated and the feedback I get from our folks is they are pleased with the progressed that’s been made and ultimately turning over the training functions to the Iraqis,” Fast said.
The Iraqi intelligence training arena is bringing all the various functions of that nation’s society together.
“So, you have in the classroom a combination of all the Iraqis, Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and other minorities,” the general said.
The challenge is to have them look at the importance of the Iraqi national interest and not separate individual interests, Fast said.
“Now, that’s a lot easier said than done. There’s a lot of work to do.” she said.
Intelligence in Iraq
In today’s Iraq, the security forces must be an integral part in obtaining intelligence information within the nation.
“We don’t domestically employ our Army on a routine basis within our borders,” Fast said. “However, there is a crisis situation, a critical situation, in Iraq. Iraqi security forces are fighting an insurgency. There’s a war going on.”
It is not a civil war, but it is complicated by terrorists “who have come in and decided to use Iraq as a place to commit their agendas,” she said.
Staff members from the Fort Huachuca Intelligence Center are involved in training in Iraq as part of Military Intelligence Transition Teams. About 60 people from the center are in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fast expressed some concerns about recent revelations about alleged abuse by members of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. News reports indicated that some Sunnis had been tortured and abused by ministry members.
There is no intelligence training of ministry forces.
“Clearly the United States is not condoning that type of activity” Fast said.
However, she supports having the Iraqi government investigate the issue.
“Just as we investigate activities of alleged cases of wrongdoing within our military and within our nation, so too must the Iraqis take the lead in examining themselves,” Fast said.
The small number of Iraqis who will be at the center next year also will observe American culture.
“The valuable thing about our allies coming here to the school is they get to know what we’re really like and the values we have. We are a values-based Army,” Fast said.
When they leave, part of the United States will go with them, she added.
Professional relationships also will be forged, and they are important when it comes to military-to-military connections.
“These relations are very durable,” the general said.
Americans are not a patient people, Fast said. Americans want things done right away. The Americans’ view of time is different from Iraqis.
To an American, last week is old history. To an Iraqi, seven days is only a second ago, Fast said.
The cultural difference must be learned by Americans and Iraqis.
But because of the importance of knowing Iraqi culture, the Intelligence Center has been given the job of preparing cultural awareness training for the U.S. Army.
Last month, Fast visited the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. With her was a video broadcaster from Fort Huachuca and the post public affairs officer.
The ambassador spoke about Iraqi culture, which will be incorporated into a training video.
“We are sizing up our cultural awareness training so that it fits the ranks of the individuals. What a private or specialist needs is different than what a lieutenant colonel need to make decisions,” Fast said.
The tape will be sent to all the Training and Doctrine Command schools and provided to operational units in the Army by Intelligence Center’s Mobile Training Teams.
The training will include practical exercises.
Dealing with IEDs
The Army’s intelligence community has a lot on its plate, including working with the joint task force trying to find solutions to the improvised explosive device issue in Iraq. Saying the insurgents are an adaptive enemy that now passes along how to do things on the Internet, Fast said, “There is a big intelligence piece to the IED issue.”
The intelligence needed to combat IEDs includes analytical and forensic work.
Fast knows from experience the trauma an IED does. She was the target of one during her tour in Iraq a couple of years ago when she served as the senior intelligence officer for the coalition ground forces.
“That’s a significant emotional event in your life, I can tell you,” she said.
The Intelligence Center is part of the joint task force working on the IED problem.
Fast is confident that what the United States is doing in Iraq will lead to a new democracy in that area.
The budding Iraqi intelligence community will be important for ensuring Iraqi’s freedom.
The upcoming Iraqi election on Thursday appears to be heading for success, as the nation’s previous two elections did, she said.
While there are problems ahead for Iraq, Fast said the United States had a tough road when it began in the late 1700s.
Saying it as her personal opinion, Fast remarked that what she saw during her recent trip “reinforces my belief that most Iraqis want a job, put food on the table for their families, want security. They just want a good life.”
We are training Fatboy Sadr's new army.
It isn’t that Fast is a defeatist, but she was taking a realistic approach.
“The whole thing is going to be won and decided by the Iraqi people,” Fast said. “That’s what is going to dictates success.”
Fast is correct in a way. now...lets watch the iraqis as we give them rope
"Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast said the center also is preparing a cultural training video for the Army that will include a recent interview with the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations."
Somehow a two-star named Babs, doing the cultural training video doesn't make me feel particularly safer.
Everybody bitching about us getting about Iraq should look to Germany, Japan and Korea.
We are still there, it didn't start out with perfect peace on day one. But it is peaceful now.
and don't forget Kosovo, Boznia, and Hertzos-- Hartzaos-- , whatever that other place is that BJC and Wes Clark got us into.
Its a great part of AZ, I hope they like it here.
I they have their classes from Mid March through about early Nov they'll feel right at home.
Hey! If they want to feel at home they need to go to Yuma :)
I just know there's an FTX in there somewhere there! LOL
Is Gen. Fast the replacement for Gen. Claudia Kennedy? Kennedy I remember was next to useless.
I'm sure the Marines will entertain you ;)
Claudia was one of those that went through the ranks really fast during the clinton administration, just like Wes Clark.
We know about Clark from his run last year, and since the now retired Claudia was down here last year ACTIVELY campaigning for Hanoi John, we know about her too.
Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast said the center also is preparing a cultural training video for the Army that will include a recent interview with the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations.
Thanks for the ping!
BTTT
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