How Much Progress Have Iraqi Forces Made?

— -- Iraqi forces are making major progress, progress that should provide a new degree of legitimacy and popularity to the Iraqi government and allow the coalition to reduce its forces. There are, however, still many problems, particularly in the security forces in the Ministry of the Interior and in the police forces.

Political success and military success are interdependent. The new Iraqi forces can succeed only if the Iraqi political process succeeds. Political success requires security. If the emerging government does not include a large number of Sunnis, and undercuts popular and political support for the insurgency, the efforts to develop Iraqi forces may be in vain. An Iraqi government that is Shiite and Kurdish dominated and uses its forces against Sunnis and not simply the insurgents, is a recipe for civil war.

The attached analysis explores these issues and the details of Iraqi force development in depth. It provides numerous tables and graphs that may be used for future reference. Its key conclusions may be summarized as follows:

In spite of the problems facing Iraqi forces, they have made major progress. Changes in the U.S.-led coalition advisory effort have led to steadily higher selection and training standards and better equipment and facilities. Embedding U.S. training teams in each new Iraqi unit, and pairing them with U.S. combat units until they could operate on their own, has made a major qualitative difference in the field. More and more Iraqi units have come on line.

The end result is that the coalition now sees three pillars for the successful development of Iraqi security forces. The first is proper training and equipping of the security forces. The second is the assignment of transition teams, and third is the partnership with coalition forces. The corresponding development of fully effective Ministries of Defense and Interior may well be becoming a fourth.

As of late January 2006, Iraqi forces had already totaled some 227,300 personnel. These included 106,900 in the armed forces under the Ministry of Defense: 105,600 army, some 500 air force and some 800 navy. They included 120,400 in the police and security forces under the Ministry of Interior: 82,400 police and highway patrol, and 38,000 other Ministry of Interior forces.

A total of some 130 army and special police battalions, with some 500-800 men each, were fighting in the insurgency. This was seven more battalions than in late October. The army alone had built up to 102 battalions, approaching a current goal of 110 combat battalions.

By early December, a total of 50 battalions were at Level 1-3 readiness and active in dealing with the insurgency. In March 2005, there were only three battalions manning their own areas, all in Baghdad; 24 battalions were in charge of their own battle space in October and 33 in late December. In January 2006, the U.S. Army transferred an area of operation to an entire Iraqi army division for the first time in Qadissiya and Wassit Provinces, an active combat area south of Baghdad. In early February of this year, 40 of the army's 102 battalions had taken over security in the areas where they operated, and in contested areas, such as parts of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra.

This progress occurred despite the fact that the Sunni Arab insurgents focused their attacks on fellow Iraqis and hit hard at every element of Iraqi forces. The insurgents also struck at virtually every other element of Iraqi society and attacked Shiite Arab and Kurdish political leaders, religious figures and journalists, other members of the Iraqi elite, and ordinary citizens -- often in the form of suicide bombings that created mass casualties. The most extreme Sunni Islamists clearly had the goal of paralyzing the Iraqi political process, and such extremist groups attacked Shiites and Kurds in a way that seemed designed to provoke a major civil conflict.

Such progress, however, is not yet sufficient to guarantee either any meaningful force of Iraqi victory, or the ability of the United States to make major troop withdrawals and still claim success. The following remaining problems in shaping effective Iraqi forces must still be addressed:

Regular Iraqi military forces still lack balance. They are still lightly equipped, and an initial emphasis on putting as many combat units into the field as possible means they lack adequate headquarters, support and logistical units. As a result, major further improvements are still needed in the regular forces that would take well into 2007 and require sustained U.S. advisory efforts, aid and military support, both as operators and as trainers/advisers for at least several years after 2007.

As for the political dimension, most top Iraqi officials, and senior Iraqi Arab Shiite and Kurdish political leaders, continue to stress the importance of developing Iraqi forces that maintain a rule of law, and respect for human rights in spite of the insurgent attacks. They emphasize the need to fight corruption and change the culture of Iraq's military and police forces to stress professionalism and promotion by merit.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of the Interior failed to act effectively to implement such goals and allowed some elements of its special security units to act as a virtual extension of Shiite efforts to attack the Sunnis. While he has since taken some corrective steps, major new efforts have had to be undertaken to reform the forces of the Ministry of the Interior and both the special security services and police. Such efforts are only beginning to have an impact, although the Ministry of Interior has fired the commanders responsible for the worst abuses.

More broadly, the police still cannot act as an effective force in many areas of the country, and have many elements that lacked both competence and loyalty to the central government. These problems were compounded in Sunni areas by the difficulty of finding forces loyal to the national government. They were compounded in Shiite areas by loyalty to Shiite religious parties and intimidation by --