Boston Globe September 26, 2003
US seeks to speed Iraq security handoff
By Bryan Bender and Robert Schlesinger
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is accelerating its plans to replace US soldiers with Iraqi security forces, hoping to have 80,000 trained Iraqi police on the job within 18 to 24 months now that there is little chance of substantial help from foreign troops. More than 40,000 Iraqi soldiers are expected to be deployed by February.
Military officials say they are increasingly concerned about the morale and fighting ability of US Army soldiers in Iraq, who are confronting a guerrilla war that is threatening rebuilding efforts. In the short term, the Pentagon plans to call up thousands of additional National Guard troops and may have to consider tapping forces now assigned to other missions around the world. The lack of support from other nations, however, is forcing the United States to turn quickly to the Iraqis themselves for more assistance. Instead of having the full Iraqi police force trained in six years, as was originally planned, US officials hope to have it in place by early 2005. Most US soldiers in Iraq are involved in police activity, guarding against looters and assisting in reconstruction efforts.
"They have to find a substitute for US forces because the Iraqi operation is shaping up to be the perfect storm for the US Army, a commitment that cannot be sustained at current levels without walking away from all sorts of other global operations," said a senior Pentagon official, who said his comments reflected Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's thinking.
Pentagon officials worry that another victim of the war will be the Army's ability to recruit new soldiers or keep the ones it now has. But some retired generals and security specialists say that speeding up the handover is a gamble.
"Iraq cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of hostile interests. We cannot Vietnamize it and walk away," said John Pike, director of the GlobalSecurity.org think tank. "The dilemma in building up the Iraqi military is how do you develop forces that can simultaneously maintain order in Iraq and remain subservient to American orders?"
Hopes that Washington could recruit more nations to contribute troops dimmed this week at the UN, where President Bush failed to win Security Council support for a new Iraq resolution. Officials said it could be months before an agreement is reached, and even then Pentagon officials do not expect the kind of help they need. The United States now has an estimated 130,000 troops in Iraq, joined by another 30,000 from Britain, Poland, and other nations.
General John Abizaid, the head of US Central Command who is overseeing the Iraq operation, said yesterday that US plans currently do not anticipate the addition of a third international division. For planning purposes, Abizaid said, the deadline for such a division would be the start of October. "Since it doesn't look like we'll have a coalition brigade, we have to plan for American forces," he said.
Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, General John Keane, the Army's vice chief of staff, said that the lack of international support would affect both active and reserve soldiers.
Military officials, members of Congress, and specialists said that without foreign help, the Army, which numbers less than 500,000 members on active duty, cannot handle the Iraq mission for long without suffering serious, long-term effects. "The stresses that missions have on our forces are of great concern to myself and other members of Congress," said Representative Stephen Buyer, an Indiana Republican and Army Reserve officer. He scheduled a meeting with Pentagon officials next week to discuss reserve readiness, retention, and recruitment.
Others are blunter. Edward Atkenson, a retired major general and senior adviser to the Association of the US Army in Arlington, Va., an advocacy group, said the Army faces greater long-term harm from the Iraq operation than it suffered after the Vietnam War.
"We don't have the draft like we had back then to fall back on," he said. "The Army is about as stretched as it can be." He said there were few attractive options available to limit the kind of damage the service suffered in Vietnam. One is to use troops from the military's "strategic reserve" of about four Army divisions -- about 100,000 troops -- designed to deal with unpredictable national security threats that could arise at any time, he said.
Another possibility is to recruit more soldiers, but that is a long, difficult process. A third option is to rely more on part-time soldiers. "The army's numbers don't look bad now in recruiting and retention, but there is some anxiety, particularly in the Guard and Reserve," said GlobalSecurity.org's Pike. "You basically have a peacetime military that is fighting a war, and that is a problem. The National Guard has not recruited people to fight wars."
Given those options, military officials and specialists said, turning over control more quickly to the Iraqis seems more attractive.
Currently, there are 40,000 Iraqi police and 20,000 civil defense officials on the job. The soldiers expected to complete training by February will represent the first significant Iraqi military group constituted since the end of the war.
As recently as two months ago, the US planned to transfer most security-related military operations to Iraqi control by February, according to a "working document" dated July 23 titled "Vision to Restore Full Sovereignty to the Iraqi People."
But L. Paul Bremer III, the US administrator in Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that the document was out of date and that in many cases goals had been sped up, for Iraq's military as well as police. Whereas previous US plans called for having a 7,000-member Iraqi army up and running by spring, plans now call for 40,000.
Abizaid underscored the necessity of the move: "The more Iraqis that are . . . doing the security work to defend their own country, the sooner we will be able to draw down our forces, and the sooner we will be able to turn over the country to the rightful owners, which are the Iraqis." Without foreign help, specialists said, the Army has no choice. But many agree that it is risky and that foreign troops would be better in the short term. Loren Thompson, chief executive officer of the Lexington Institute, an Arlington, Va., think tank, said, "The only way to rectify things is train the Iraqis to do it or risk destroying the Guard and Reserve, not to mention the active-duty Army."
Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
