Editor's Foreword

236 ThE MiliTAry BAlANcE 2010
ment already made in hardware and training may
not be sustainable. Over the last few years the Iraqi
army and national police have taken delivery of more
than 5,000 ‘humvees’, the all-purpose vehicle that
has become the workhorse of the security services.
An investigation by the special inspector general
for Iraq reconstruction into how these vehicles were
used concluded that in spite of a US$682 million
investment in maintenance infrastructure, ‘the Iraqi
Army’s ability to conduct maintenance operations
and operate a supply system is questionable’. Reports
suggest that the Iraqi army has failed to develop the
logistics needed to re-equip and repair its humvees,
leading army commanders in the field to cannibalise
other vehicles instead of sending them in for repair,
for fear that they might not be returned.
Obstacles to security-force development
Beyond the problems of personnel, training and
logistics, there are three further major impediments
to the development of Iraq’s security forces. The first
is the ongoing influence of Ba’athist ideology and
operating procedures. The speed with which the Iraqi
army was reconstituted after 2003 meant that up to
70% of the new officer corps had served in the former
Iraqi army. This led US Colonel Timothy Reese, who
was in July 2009 chief of the Baghdad Operations
Command Advisory Team, to claim that a Ba’athist–
Soviet military culture remained entrenched and
‘will not change’. This culture, he argued, led to the
neglect and mistreatment of enlisted men, a lack of
initiative, and the extreme centralisation of command
and control.
The second obstacle is corruption. In the aftermath
of the devastating truck bombings in Baghdad on
19 August 2009 which left 95 dead and 500 injured,
reports pointed to corrupt military officers taking
bribes to let truck bombs through the security cordon
which surrounds the centre of Baghdad. According to
Reese, ‘corruption among officers is widespread’ with
‘cronyism and nepotism rampant in the assignment
and promotion system’. In 2008, Iraq’s own government
anti-corruption watchdog, the Commission on
Public Integrity, opened 736 cases into corruption
involving the Ministry of Interior which controls both
the national and local police. US and Iraqi authorities
have attempted to limit corruption in the security
forces by conducting personnel audits of both the
army and police to purge them of ‘ghost employees’,
fictitious policemen and soldiers whose wages are
stolen by senior officers. Reports suggest that up to
25% of the Ministry of Defence’s payroll is stolen in
this way.
Sectarian and religious divisions among rankand-file
and mid-level officers represent the final
weakness constraining Iraqi security forces’ ability
to operate effectively. Given that Iraq was mired in
civil conflict until at least the end of 2007, it is hardly
surprising that sectarian tensions still exist. The worst
excesses, which in 2005–06 saw the national police
and some units of the army repeatedly accused of
ethnic cleansing and sectarian murder, have now
stopped. However, Major General (retd) Najim Abed
al-Jabouri, an officer in the former Iraqi Air Defense
forces, who has also held the posts of police chief and
mayor of Tal Afar in Ninevah Province, argued in
August 2009 that the politicisation of the Iraqi security
services by ethno-sectarian parties posed the
largest obstacle to their becoming a genuinely professional
and truly national force. Al-Jabouri argued that
Iraqi army divisions in five of Iraq’s provinces – Kut,
Diwanya, Salahadeen, Anbar and Diyala – have been
weakened by the malign influence of various political
parties. Reese agreed, pointing to the Iraqi army’s
inability to stand up to the Shia political parties as a
major source of its weakness.
But in spite of the many factors impeding the ability
of the security services to operate effectively, progress
has undoubtedly been made. As noted above, both
the army and national police are no longer active
players in sectarian violence. And the Iraqi army,
alongside its US counterpart, has played a major role
in reducing the violence that dominated the country
in 2006–07. In order for the security forces to progress
further, sustained investment by Baghdad will be
needed over the next decade, in spite of fluctuating
oil prices. Over the same period, the US and NATO
will need to conduct training missions to increase the
skills and infrastructure of the armed forces, and also
to limit the politicisation of the army and especially
the national police.
International troop presence
At the end of 2009, NATO’s training mission in Iraq
currently consisted of up to 200 personnel from
14 nations, with teams within Iraqi Training and
Doctrine Command, the Iraqi Military Academy at
Ar-Rustamiyah and Iraqi Ground Forces Command,
among other locations. The UK Royal Navy’s contribution
to the international naval training team represents
the last substantial British military presence in
Iraq, following its withdrawal of personnel and equip-