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Iraqis getting better: Australian trainers
3 Jul 2015 - 12:18pm
The first Iraqi Army unit to be trained by Australian and New Zealand troops has graduated and will soon join the fight against Islamic State.
Just about everyone accepts that the Iraqi Army hasn't performed very well.
If it had, Islamic State could not have taken over much of their country with such apparent ease.
It's for that reason that an Australian training team has returned to Iraq, and their commander Colonel Matt Galton is cautiously optimistic that the first class of 2015 will do OK.
"I can confidently say they are better than when they started the training," he told AAP from their base at Taji, 30-kilometres north of Baghdad, this week.
"They were at a decent level when we started but we really did see, at individual level and platoon and company level, improvements throughout those eight weeks."
The 300-member Australian group plus 100 New Zealanders instructed some 750 members of the Iraqi army's 76th Brigade in basic infantry and weapons skills, and the tactics they will need for their inevitable fight against IS. They graduated last weekend.
Just where they'll fight is up to Iraq's Ministry of Defense but fight they will and soon, most likely in one of Iraq's occupied cities such as Mosul, Ramadi or Fallujah.
Even the most experienced of soldiers shudder at the prospect of urban combat.
The worst fights in human history have been conducted in cities such as Stalingrad, Berlin and Manila. This is incredibly costly in lives and destructive of property.
"That is tough fighting for any western army as well," Galton said. Much of their training has centred on tactics for house-to-house fighting, especially in countering improvised explosive devices.
Much has been written about why the Iraqi army performed so badly against much smaller IS units.
Despite vast sums spent on training during the US occupation, including by Australia, the Iraqi military still featured all the religious and cultural faultlines of Iraqi society, with added cronyism and corruption.
But the fundamental problem was leadership. Iraqi soldiers weren't about to stand and fight once their officers broke and run.
"It is true that their officers have struggled and that has been part of why the Iraqi army has not had the best of success on the battlefield," Galton said.
But even poorly regarded troops can perform well with decent leadership, as the South Vietnamese 18th Division demonstrated in the final battle of the Vietnam War, fighting with a tenacity that stunned their far more numerous North Vietnamese opponents.
Previously this unit, partly trained by Australians, was regarded as dismal.
Galton said the training team had applied considerable effort to 76th Brigade officers.
"We have seen their platoon, company and battalion commanders all get fully involved in the training and learn quite a bit from it," he said.
"They still have a way to go. I'd like to hope they will be far more effective now in leading their troops."
Galton said no-one hated IS more than these mostly Shia soldiers
"They see this enemy as being a scourge in their country - the same way we see these guys as a scourge on the globe that really needs to be gotten rid of."
"They are very determined to get rid of them. You can see that motivation on their face when they sing the songs about what they are going to do when they get out of training."
Because of the passions in this campaign, which has involved appalling brutality, the training starts with a primer on humanitarian law for both officers and soldiers.
"They understand those concepts and I am pretty sure they will be adhering to that sort of thing. We also did prisoner-of-war handling. When we did the exercises in training, we saw them employing those techniques properly," Galton said.
"It's not a foreign concept to them."
The sprawling Taji base is 30 kilometres north of Baghdad, about 80 kilometres from Ramadi, where's there's been heavy fighting.
Training team members are located well inside the facility and there are extensive precautions against IS or insider attack.
Of the 400-strong force, only 100 are designated trainers with the rest including a substantial security element.
"I am very comfortable that force protection measures are very robust, very well co-ordinated with our US and Iraqi partners," Galton said.
And living conditions for the Aussies and Kiwis in such an austere environment?
Troops bunk in air-conditioned container units with catering provided by a contractor.
"The food is really good. We certainly have nothing to complain about," Galton said.
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3 Jul 2015 - 12:18pm
The first Iraqi Army unit to be trained by Australian and New Zealand troops has graduated and will soon join the fight against Islamic State.
Just about everyone accepts that the Iraqi Army hasn't performed very well.
If it had, Islamic State could not have taken over much of their country with such apparent ease.
It's for that reason that an Australian training team has returned to Iraq, and their commander Colonel Matt Galton is cautiously optimistic that the first class of 2015 will do OK.
"I can confidently say they are better than when they started the training," he told AAP from their base at Taji, 30-kilometres north of Baghdad, this week.
"They were at a decent level when we started but we really did see, at individual level and platoon and company level, improvements throughout those eight weeks."
The 300-member Australian group plus 100 New Zealanders instructed some 750 members of the Iraqi army's 76th Brigade in basic infantry and weapons skills, and the tactics they will need for their inevitable fight against IS. They graduated last weekend.
Just where they'll fight is up to Iraq's Ministry of Defense but fight they will and soon, most likely in one of Iraq's occupied cities such as Mosul, Ramadi or Fallujah.
Even the most experienced of soldiers shudder at the prospect of urban combat.
The worst fights in human history have been conducted in cities such as Stalingrad, Berlin and Manila. This is incredibly costly in lives and destructive of property.
"That is tough fighting for any western army as well," Galton said. Much of their training has centred on tactics for house-to-house fighting, especially in countering improvised explosive devices.
Much has been written about why the Iraqi army performed so badly against much smaller IS units.
Despite vast sums spent on training during the US occupation, including by Australia, the Iraqi military still featured all the religious and cultural faultlines of Iraqi society, with added cronyism and corruption.
But the fundamental problem was leadership. Iraqi soldiers weren't about to stand and fight once their officers broke and run.
"It is true that their officers have struggled and that has been part of why the Iraqi army has not had the best of success on the battlefield," Galton said.
But even poorly regarded troops can perform well with decent leadership, as the South Vietnamese 18th Division demonstrated in the final battle of the Vietnam War, fighting with a tenacity that stunned their far more numerous North Vietnamese opponents.
Previously this unit, partly trained by Australians, was regarded as dismal.
Galton said the training team had applied considerable effort to 76th Brigade officers.
"We have seen their platoon, company and battalion commanders all get fully involved in the training and learn quite a bit from it," he said.
"They still have a way to go. I'd like to hope they will be far more effective now in leading their troops."
Galton said no-one hated IS more than these mostly Shia soldiers
"They see this enemy as being a scourge in their country - the same way we see these guys as a scourge on the globe that really needs to be gotten rid of."
"They are very determined to get rid of them. You can see that motivation on their face when they sing the songs about what they are going to do when they get out of training."
Because of the passions in this campaign, which has involved appalling brutality, the training starts with a primer on humanitarian law for both officers and soldiers.
"They understand those concepts and I am pretty sure they will be adhering to that sort of thing. We also did prisoner-of-war handling. When we did the exercises in training, we saw them employing those techniques properly," Galton said.
"It's not a foreign concept to them."
The sprawling Taji base is 30 kilometres north of Baghdad, about 80 kilometres from Ramadi, where's there's been heavy fighting.
Training team members are located well inside the facility and there are extensive precautions against IS or insider attack.
Of the 400-strong force, only 100 are designated trainers with the rest including a substantial security element.
"I am very comfortable that force protection measures are very robust, very well co-ordinated with our US and Iraqi partners," Galton said.
And living conditions for the Aussies and Kiwis in such an austere environment?
Troops bunk in air-conditioned container units with catering provided by a contractor.
"The food is really good. We certainly have nothing to complain about," Galton said.
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