Iraq army almost defeated by band of loons
The Army of Heaven is/was apparently a millenarianist cult.
Estimated at about 500 these cultists required the US airpower and ground troops to deal with.
How is the ‘surge,’ which relies on the Iraq army holding what the US clears, going to work if the Iraq army can’t deal with a few hundred militia types? The parallels with ‘vietnamisation’, grow by the hour.
Or maybe - Europe in the middle of the Black Death.
Boy Scouts & goobers.
:smack:
I guess they are reaching the level if the US army, then. You can tell they are learning from the masters.
Is this a debate or a Pit rant?
Information not provided in the story includes:
Where were Iraqi troops stationed in relation to the battle site? The Iraqis supplied their Scorpion Brigade to help out. Were the U.S. troops, (also at brigade strength), simply closer to the fighting than any other Iraqi units, so it made more sense to send one each of U.S. and Iraqi brigades than to wait an additional few hours to send two Iraqi units?
I suspect that the Iraqis are not yet prepared and that Bush and company are deluding themselves (or lying to us) about eventual turnover, but this isolated battle does not demonstrate that particular point.
As a Boy Scout leader (well, Cub Scouts, these days), I deeply resent the comparison. :mad: 
Of course they are ready. I remember Rice on Meet the Press in 2004 claiming that over 100,000 fully trained Iraqi troops were in the field. So there are many ,many more now. Two weeks training is all it takes.
Nothing isolated about this story. There have been many stories of ill trained or disinterested Iraqi troops.
I was thinking, Germany during the 30 Years’ War. Multi-sided civil war, religious-ethnic-class conflict all mixed together, outbreaks of incomprehensible mass hysteria, bizarre cults springing up everywhere, foreign powers sticking their noses in . . .
A battalion of Iraqi troops? How many in a battalion? Of the opposing force, how many were armed “combatants” and how many were extraneous personnel (women, children, assorted other shrapnel absorption units)?
When we institute our “clear and hold” strategery in Baghdad, are these the sort of troops that we can expect to run to the aid of our troops if things get nasty? Barring further information of an encouraging nature, this is…less than optimal.
A battalion currently runs to about 800 troops (the size changes over the years) of whom perhaps 80% are actually used for combat instead of support. Of course, that assumes a fully outfitted battalion on the day they are formally sent out. Once they are in the field, casualties, transfers, and other issues can reduce that number, considerably.
If the hostile militia had 500 effectives, entrenched, attacking 400 Iraqi effectives (who may have instructions not to abandon their road-bound vehicles), that could place the Iraqis in a pretty bad situation, particularly if they took casualties in the inital attack, reducing their number of effective troops while tying up other resources to cvare for the wounded.
So why would another two battalions be needed to free them? Because one wants to use overwhelming force to overcome entrenched positions. (Back in the Napoleonic era, an assault on a fortified position was presumed to need a 4:1 ration for success.)
This could have been every bit as much of a display of incompetence as the OP presumes. At this point, however, we do not have sufficient information to make that a clear judgment.
The other issue in this particular instance was the immediacy of the problem. The group was targeting Sistani at the important Shi’a holy day of Ashura, which is today.
The patriotic, motivated people are either the ones fighting against us, or if they are in the army are probably just there to get the weapons and training they need to fight for their faction; they don’t want to actually fight for Iraq, but their faction. I expect a lot of soldiers are there simply because after the way we destroyed their country, they need the food and shelter.
People who have no reason to care about winning make poor soldiers.
Does anyone remeber a little story a few years back about how the US BATF was overwelmed by a band of loons holed up in a compound in Waco, TX? IIRC, they too had to call in the US Army to help.
Not that I think that the Iraqi army is a premier military force, but it sounds like a lot of people in this thread are also underestimating the capabilities of 500 lunatics armed with modern firepower.
The problem with the Iraq military is that they aren’t investing enough in national defense. I don’t see why they don’t just raise their military budget to 426 billion like we do!
Duh!!!
Well, the loonies DID lose, didn’t they?
Defending a well-chosen position has always been easier than attacking. We have to be careful not to mix political ideas with battlefield realities.
They lost because the US airpower got them.
Not the much vaunted Iraqi National Army whose expertise seems to consist entirely of walking into a straight left hook and calling for help.
Which is the point of the OP. The ‘surge’ is based on the notion that the same ‘army’ will fight shoulder to shoulder with the few thousand extra US troops and then hold the cleared areas. Without presumably the USAF bombing the cleared area to rubble every time the INA gets into a fight.
The further point is that 500 heavily armed men assembled and dug in around Najaf a month after Iraq was handed the security responsibility for the area. Ponder the implications of that.
Meanwhile Not so much standing up as legging it
The debate is: how can the surge possibly succeed if this is the calibre and capability of the INA (and the police so friggin’ corrupt, cowardly and disloyal)?
My prediction?
IF the various militias don’t just keep their heads down or snipe from the sidelines at fixed positions until the US ‘surge’ ends (the most likely outcome for the Malaki supporting ones of Sadr) the US/INA forces will, being in combination casualty adverse and poorly trained, low morale and of dubious loyalty, make such use of air stikes and artillery that the level of civilian casualties will just add fuel to the fire.
If, or rather when, we get out then they will know what they are fighting for.
Whatever faction they owe their primary loyalty to.
"US ‘victory’ against cult leader was ‘massacre’ "
Offered without comment.
Priceless. Remind me again who we outsourced INA training to? The Marx Brothers or the Keystone Cops?
And dismissed with the same amount of comment.