LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Hammes
training was useful. But as soon as their American advisors left, they said, soldiers
and police went back to their ways. ‘Our commanders told us to ignore
what the Americans taught us,’ Shehab said. ‘They said, “We’ll do it our way.”’” 115
Recent actions by the U.S., allied, and Iraqi governments have started the
rebuilding process for the Iraqi army. As both an indicator of the significant
challenges and a sign of sincere reform, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi stated
that a preliminary investigation has revealed 50,000 “ghost” soldiers on MOD
rolls. He expects the continuing investigation to find more such soldiers. 116
Iraqi Police
Reconstituting the Iraqi police as a force that served and protected the Iraqi
people was always going to be a major challenge. Under Saddam, “The [Iraqi
police] had been the bottom of Saddam’s bureaucratic hierarchy of security
agencies and suffered from years of mismanagement, deprivation of resources,
and lack of professional standards. . . . Iraqis saw the [police] as part of a
cruel and repressive regime and described its officers as brutal, corrupt, and
untrustworthy.” 117
The complete lack of a U.S. plan for rebuilding the police greatly magnified
the already daunting challenge. With disorder rising in Iraq, the Departments
of Justice and State hastily initiated the process in May 2003 by dispatching a
six-member team of police executives to assess the needs of the Iraqi police.
That team recommended 6,000 international civilian police trainers and advisors
be recruited and deployed to Iraq immediately. On June 2, 2003, Ambassador
Bremer approved the plan but lacked the funds to implement it. 118 This
was the first indicator the United States would consistently under-resource
police training in Iraq. Recognizing the importance of an effective police force
to the future of Iraq and seeing little progress to that point, USCENTCOM
Commander General John Abizaid, USA, recommended to Bremer that the
U.S. military assume responsibility for police training in September 2003. Despite
his inability to resource the training through CPA, Bremer opposed the
transfer of responsibility, and thus training remained the responsibility of the
CPA for the time being.
Nonetheless, in October, CJTF 7 Commander Lieutenant General Sanchez
told a senatorial delegation that 54,000 police were on duty. When
Bremer inquired about the police training, he was told, “The Army is sweeping
312