LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Hammes
lish recruiting offices; find trainers; procure every item of equipment for the
new soldiers and their bases; and have 1,000 men in training by August. While
building the Iraqi army, the team also had to build its own organization—the
CMATT. Eaton requested and was promised military trainers, but only four
actually reported—two Britons and two Australians. Since Combined Joint
Task Force 7 (CJTF 7), the military command in Iraq, did not work for the
CPA, it could not be tasked to train Iraqi security forces (ISF) nor even required
to provide augmentees to CMATT. This highlighted one of the major
problems CMATT faced. Nearly everything it needed had to come through
military channels, but it lacked influence in the Pentagon. CMATT worked
for the CPA under Ambassador Bremer, who did not have a good relationship
with Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, USA, the CJTF 7 commander.
Eaton believes a key issue in the slow start to training the Iraqi army was the
fact that CMATT was essentially an orphan in the military system. It lacked
a four-star sponsor who could force the Pentagon to take action in support of
the training effort. 94
Partially due to personnel shortages, primary training responsibility was
outsourced to Vinnell Corporation. This was both a blessing and a curse. Vinnell
had a good record working with Arabic-speaking soldiers and had provided
training for the Saudi Arabian National Guard for 25 years:
[Vinnell’s] force-generation methods included the training of Iraqi officers
in Jordan at a non-commissioned officers’ academy and a “recruit
training” academy in Kirkush, Iraq. Trained and equipped Iraqi forces
would then be used to train additional forces. The contractors would
deliver “trained units” and “trained leaders” to larger Iraqi army formations.
Because of the Geneva Convention, as well as legal and regulatory
concerns, the contractors would not become embedded advisors once
the initial training was complete and Iraqi units moved on to combat
operations. 95
Besides fielding and training the Iraqi units, Vinnell moved quickly to
provide essential services to the new Iraqi army—recruiting, mess, laundry,
maintenance, refurbishing base buildings, and so forth. Unfortunately, by December
2003, it was obvious that an army trained by contractors alone was not
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