Twirling, Twirling, Twirling Towards Freedom
WASHINGTON - Iraqis have not made enough progress toward learning to manage their security forces because they've had to divert too much attention to continued violence and sectarianism, congressional investigators said Monday.
For example, Iraqi recruits to the Army who were designated for training as logistics specialists have been diverted to combat roles, said the report by the Government Accountability Office.
The report said the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior have made some progress in the last year. The defense ministry has developed lower echelon logistics units for the military and the interior ministry has established an intelligence organization...
[snip]
...The report also criticized the terminology the Pentagon uses for assessing the progress of Iraqi forces. While the Defense Department has, in multiple reports, stated that a certain number of (Iraqi) units are either "independent" or "fully independent," it is unclear how the military arrived at the determination, the report said.
It noted that in a number of reports in which the Department of Defense has asserted that a certain number of Iraqi units are independent, it has appeared to contradict itself by adding qualifiers. For example, defense officials reported in June that a certain number of units were either "in the lead" or "fully independent" — then added the forces "often do not get the support they require without substantial coalition assistance."
So in short: Instead of preforming their "designated" tasks, pretty much everyone was given a gun and told to go to the front lines... and the DOD couldn't get their story straight so Congress has no real idea what's going on.
And with security a giant question mark, one has to wonder when the Iraqi officials will ever get the cover they need to get the government on the right track.
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