Posted on 12/19/2005 2:23:26 PM PST by Moonraker
Gen. Bolger also told me that a new soldier in the Iraqi Army makes around $300 a month, while the terrorists are offering about $300 per night for anyone willing to plant an IED. Yet Iraqi Army boot camps are turning out around 1,650 brand new soldiers every five weeks. That number is growing weekly, and is slated to double in 2006.
Like the throngs of voters who queued up to the ballot box last week, volunteers who stand in the Iraqi army recruiting lines are not stupid. Nor are they so desperate for work they'll risk death for a loaf of bread.
(Excerpt) Read more at worlddefensereview.com ...
Decades? Well, the US wasn't exacly bursting at the seams when Pearl Harbor was bombed. It may have more to do with national pride instead of pay and the opportunity to step on a land mine. Yes, it takes time, but I think much less than "decades".
Yes, but when Pearl Harbor was attacked the US had a strong corps of officers and NCOs. That is what the writer is saying.
"Second: building an army is not the same things as training soldiers at the individual level. That is only a part of the process. Building an army, as Gen. Blount explained, takes years. And as I've recently reported in a few different venues, it takes about seven to eight years (including college) to mold an American Army officer into an infantry company commander. Fifteen to 17 years for a battalion commander. Twenty to 22 years for a brigade commander. Twenty-five years for a division commander. And though American military officers are honing their skills over the years in real world situations, they also have many opportunities to attend the best professional military leadership schools in the world, and – unlike Iraqi officers – no one is shooting at them while they are in school or threatening the lives of their families because they are officers."
Vast numbers of the Iraq Army were political hacks especially the officers and NCOs. It takes 6 or 7 years to even begin fleshing out a good NCO corp. But I believe that these People of Iraq want it badly and they will do it. We are going to have troops stationed there for years but it will not be in the present numbers. In the meantime let's get out of Italy, Spain, Japan, and even Germany.
What does that mean? If somebody offers you 300 dollars to do something in one night instead of 300 for an entire month what does that have to do with how many IED attacks there are in a month?
You can't compare our experience after Pearl Harbor with the situation in Iraq. We were able to plug our people into an existing and functional organizational framework. It was just a matter of expanding it. The Iraqis are constructing a new, modern military from the gound up. It is not only a matter of training, but also the development of doctrine and logistical institutions to support it.
More importantly, you also had the training infrastructure. We had boot camps, follow-on schools, etc. already up and running with decades of trial and error experience in tweaking those training programs. All we really had to do was take what we already knew worked, and expand it.
Before you could effectively train a single private in Iraq, you first had to develope the training programs tailored to their particular culture and level of experience, and the instructors to staff those programs. And you inveitably would find out -- sometimes not until months or even a year or two later -- where particular training deficiencies would show up. That meeant you had to go back, retool your training, and start again. And at the end of that process, all you have is a private.
How about your NCO's and SNCO's? You can't graduate Gunnery Sergeants from basic training, nor can you graduate full Colonels from the Iraqi equivalent of OCS.
On top of that, once you train the people, you still have to train them how to work together, develop esprit de corps, confidence in each other, etc. You can't get those things in school. Those things come about only after a unit of people who have been properly trained as individuals work together for an extensive period of time. It's much, much harder than you think.
The saving grace is that they don't have to be as good as us. Just decent.
I suspect the new Iraqi army will have quite a few "retreads".
Kabar, I think you are 100 % correct.
But it is something the defeatists just don't get. Or maybe they don't want to get it.
Yet Saddam's army was perfectly capable of suppressing domestic insurgencies AND hold its own against Iran. So, what is the objective for this new Iraqi Army? Be as good as the US Army? Why?
How about not surrendering to reporters if Iran attacks?
Thats a good metric for an army I would think.
Wrong again. IT WOULD BE ONLY ONE NIGHT A MONTH!
Then you would have 29, 30 or 31 other days of the month to earn even more money in a real job. Or MAYBE if you only planted TWO IEDs a month you would have double what a soldier makes.
Why am I even arguing this?
It would be much easier and much more lucrative to be a terrorist planting IEDs.
But you are right in one sense on not being able to count on it, because ONE NIGHT while your planting that IED you might come face to face with a US soldier who would then promptly put an end to your work.
If you're truly desperate, then you might risk planting a bomb for 300 a night, even though it could very easily get you gunned down in the street or sent to prison for a long time. But if you can make 300 a month for considerable less risk, statisically speaking, the vast majority of people are going to opt for plan B.
For instance, I could make a ton of money as a bank robber. So why am I not robbing banks?
Yes. but the left would have you believe that the planters of IEDs see themselves as "freedom fighters" not criminals like bank robbers.
And uneducated people like most young Iraqi men don't join the army because its 'statistically speaking" less dangerous than planting IEDs. The army may be less dangerous. But it is still very, very dangerous.
So when you say "For instance, I could make a ton of money as a bank robber. So why am I not robbing banks?"
You are assuming that an Iraqi man thinks just like you.
I don't know you, but odds are if you are a freeper and speak and write english as well as you obviously do, then you are a far different man in terms of how you see the world than an Iraqi soldier or an Iraqi terrorist.
Umm...don't forget that working for the insurgents and the new Iraqi army are not mutually exclusive.
I saw one sneior official interviewed who admitted that the early high desertion rate was in part believed to be because anti-Americans would sign up, get the training, the cash and the food then go and fight against the people they trained besides. Also a number remained in solely for the purposes of off-duty attacks (not many since high attrition rate) or commonly feeding intel back to mates for attacks on govt. forces.
This was meant to be coming down but still be a major recurring problem. In a country where you're shi'a/sunni/kurd first and then tribe/party and only then Iraqi, forging a shared brotherhood in the ranks or loyalty will take awhile...
When did Iraqis surrender to reporters during the Iran-Iraq war?
OTOH, there is no army in the world that would not surrender after being pounded by the US Armed Forces for a while. And that's a good thing.
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