Our Leaders' Success In Iraq: The Latest Proof

Iraq's new army is "developing steadily," with "strong Iraqi leaders out front," the chief U.S. trainer said.

That was three-plus years ago, and the trainer was David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq. Some of those Iraqi officials at the time were busy embezzling more than $1 billion allotted for the new army's weapons, according to investigators.

The 2004-05 Defense Ministry scandal was just one in a long series of setbacks in the five-year struggle to "stand up" an Iraqi military as President Bush has promised and allow hard-pressed U.S. forces to "stand down." The latest discouraging episode was unfolding this weekend in bloody Basra, the southern city where Iraqi government forces -- in their toughest test yet -- were struggling to gain the upper hand in a battle with Shiite Muslim militias.

Year by year, the goal of deploying a capable, free-standing Iraqi army has seemed to always slip further into the future.

How not to build an army

Early 2003: The first reversal came even before the March U.S. invasion, when the Pentagon discarded prewar plans that called for restructuring the 400,000-man Saddam Hussein-era army into a postwar force of 150,000 to 200,000.

Mid-2003: U.S. occupation chief L. Paul Bremer III unilaterally ordered Saddam's army disbanded, and the Bush administration opted for a token military force to guard Iraq's borders. Bremer said the army had already fallen apart after Saddam's fall. The controversial move helped prompt many Sunni officers to eventually join the insurgency.

Fall 2003: The Bush administration ordered retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who preceded Petraeus as chief trainer in Iraq, to rebuild Iraq's army amid surging political and street violence. The makeshift plan envisioned a force of 8,000 troops over two years. Eaton persuaded the Pentagon to raise that target to 40,000 troops by late 2004.

Late 2003: Vinnell Corp., the U.S. military contractor hired to do the training, proved unequal to the task. The first Iraqi battalion, graduating in October, quickly fell apart because of desertions, and the second battalion refused to fight against insurgents in Fallujah in April 2004.

Early 2004: The Jordanian army was asked to take over training Iraqi officers.

June 2004: Bremer's occupation authority gave way to a sovereign Iraqi government. The military still numbered only 7,000 men as the focus shifted to fielding Iraqi police. Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, predicted -- incorrectly -- that the Iraqis could soon "take local control of the cities."

2005: The evolving training program, now a mixed U.S.-Iraqi effort, was plagued with problems. Petraeus, now the trainer, oversaw a program slow to be staffed. Iraqi investigators said top Defense Ministry officials were methodically looting the procurement budget of at least $1.3 billion.

Late 2005: The U.S. command acknowledged that only one of 86 Iraqi army battalions was ready to fight on its own.

2006: The Iraqis were still not given artillery, big mortars or other heavy weapons. Iraq's political unpredictability and dangerous sectarian-political divides clearly made the Americans wary that heavy weapons might be turned against them, concludes Arab military analyst Nizar Adul Kader.

2007: Reviews by a commission mandated by Congress, the Government Accountability Office and the Pentagon itself found that Iraq's sectarian animosities had permeated and weakened army units, heavily Shiite and Kurdish.

Mid-2007: GAO auditors also found that the training command kept such poor records on distribution of personal weapons to Iraqi soldiers that some may have been passed on to insurgents or anti-American militias.

Progress report

Nationwide security: In the latest shift, the Pentagon's new quarterly status report quietly drops any prediction of when local units will take over security responsibility for Iraq. Last year's reports had forecast a transition in 2008.

Bush's prediction: In January 2007, President Bush said Iraqi forces would take charge in all 18 Iraqi provinces by November. Four months past that deadline, they control nine provinces and none of the most volatile ones.

Cost: At least $22 billion has been spent to train an Iraqi military with narrow capabilities, critics and outside experts say.

Pentagon's view: Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the current trainer, said his team has made "huge progress in many areas, quality and quantity." Still, "we're not free of difficulties," he said, citing as an example a critical shortage of midlevel Iraqi officers that will take years to close.

Iraqi view: Dubik says Iraqi defense officials don't expect to take over internal security until as late as 2012 and won't be able to defend Iraq's borders until 2018.

Outside experts: They say the Iraqi military's list of unmet needs remains long: artillery and modern armor; advanced communications and intelligence systems; a logistics network able to supply everything from food and fuel to transport and ammunition; combat hospitals; and air power.

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