Rehabilitating A Fighting Force (10 years to get Iraqi Army up to Speed?)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/23/MNGSDHSPK11.DTL

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An Iraqi colonel who is a brigade executive officer said the army is still in its infancy. His soldiers are armed with rifles, body armor, machine guns and a handful of white Nissan pickups with steel plates welded to the sides for protection.

"The enemy has better weapons than we do," he said through an interpreter. "We need tanks and rockets and an air force."

The colonel said the old army had systems for maintenance, payroll, administration and supplies. That's all gone. Now the Ministry of Defense must recreate all those systems from scratch.

"I think this is going to take another 10 years to develop," he predicted.

Why so long?

"We have the people, but the leadership doesn't follow," he said. "The people in positions of power don't have enough experience on the military side."

didn't do much for maintaining a ready defensive capability. There is no Iraqi army because the administration decided early on that they didn't want one to exist. There really is no real plan to rebuild a capability as it would invite the logical question at some point: "Can we leave now?"