The Limits of Training in Iraqi Force Development

Abstract

T he National Strategy for Victory in Iraq has three avenues: the political track, the economic track, and the security track. 1 While the three are mu-tually reinforcing, the national strategy is largely dependent on significantly improving security. Moreover, security has been " our most important and pressing objective " since the summer of 2003. 2 As noted then by Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, " Without security, we can't re-build the Iraqi infrastructure and protect it from sabotage, nor can we expect Iraqi political life to revive if Iraqis don't feel secure enough to travel, go to meetings, express their views without intimidation. " 3 In July 2003, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz articulated the basic US exit strategy: properly train the Iraqi police, army, and civil defense forces and they will take over the security work being done by Americans. 4 This carried forward into the national strategy, which con-tains the core assumption that while the United States " can help, assist, and train, Iraqis will ultimately be the ones to eliminate their security threats over the long term. " 5 Prominent critics have repeatedly called on the administra-tion to accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, or quickly finish it. 6 None, how-ever, has challenged the core assumption that US forces are mostly going to train their way out of Iraq. It would appear, therefore, that training the Iraqi forces is one of our most important and pressing objectives, a key to victory. To that end, some of the world's best instructors have trained over 277,000 Iraqi security forces. 7