LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq
As previously reported, the demand for these leaders created challenges
for the services because, among other things, the leaders were generally
pulled from other units or commands, which then were left to perform
their missions while understaffed. In part as a means of alleviating these
challenges, the Army developed the concept of augmenting brigade combat
teams with specialized personnel to execute the advising mission,
and began deploying these augmented brigades in 2010. In early 2012,
based on requests from ISAF as part of its shift to a security force assistance
mission, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps began to deploy
small teams of advisors with specialized capabilities, referred to as SFA
[security force assistance] advisor teams, which are located throughout
Afghanistan, to work with Afghan army and police units from the
headquarters to the battalion level, and advise them in areas such as
command and control, intelligence, and logistics. U.S. advisor teams are
under the command and control of U.S. commanders within ISAF’s regional
commands. 143
In Iraq, commanders at levels from battalion to division quickly grasped
the requirement to provide advisors and support to the units operating in their
areas until the Iraqi ministries could mature to the point they could do the job.
They did so on their own initiative starting with the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps
(later redesignated as the Iraqi National Guard). For its part, the Coalition
Provisional Authority integrated Iraqis into the CPA structure for running the
country. Upon the CPA’s departure, the coalition continued to provide civilian
and military advisors at senior levels. It also attempted to provide advisory
teams down to the battalion level for Iraqi forces. Since this was a wartime
requirement with no corresponding peacetime force structure except for SOF,
the advisors were often drawn from the units in combat. Initially drawn from
the U.S. and willing coalition units in country, the advisors provided both expertise
to the host-nation forces and insights to U.S. commanders on what
those forces and ministries were doing. Obviously, drawing officers from U.S.
units in combat was not an optimal solution. In response, the Pentagon directed
the Services to build Military Training Teams to embed in Iraqi units.
Both the Army and Marine Corps had difficulty finding enough advisors
to fill the team billets. While the Services occasionally carefully picked advi-
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