Iraq Journal: Crafting an army in a desert search
LAKE THARTHAR, Iraq–After two days of walking through the desert, fruitlessly looking for weapons caches, the marines are starting to get grumpy. The grunts have been trudging for six hours, and they have a couple more to go. "I'm just not expecting to find a big pile of AK-47s," says a marine corporal.
The Iraqi jundi–Arabic for privates–trudging beside the marines are full of complaints, too. But not about the mission. They complain about their pay. They complain about the lack of heavy weapons. They complain that the marines do not trust them with rifles. They complain that their government won't keep them supplied with clean uniforms. They complain about the lack of cold water.
But when it comes to the long walk through the desert, there are smiles. "That will be fine if we find nothing; it will mean the area is clean," says Kadhem M'ane Serhan. "We haven't found anything yet, but we would like to find something. But we find only rubbish."
Operation Dagger, a joint U.S. Marine and Iraqi Army operation, has been designed to roust insurgents and clean up weapons caches from northeastern Al Anbar province. But after four days, the operation yielded few weapons and no insurgents. That has led to frustration among the marines. But the Iraqis say they are pleased to be included on the mission and say it is a good chance to improve their basic military skills.
During the mission, the Iraqis have done many of the same basic tasks as the marines–searching the desert, clearing houses, and interviewing the locals. On some tasks, like interviewing the locals, they have proved far superior to the marines. On other tasks, like searching and clearing buildings, they have shown themselves to be almost up to marine standards. Still, because Operation Dagger yielded no confrontations with insurgents, the Iraqis have yet to demonstrate to the marines here they can handle themselves in a large firefight.
Because the marines treat them as unproven, the Iraqis in this battalion feel somewhat slighted. And today they channel that frustration into the ice. The jundi complain that they were given no ice before the desert search while the marines got plenty. "We are all working together. It should be fair," says Qasim Aswad. "The sun is above us all, and it is hot."
In reality, no one got much ice the night before, but both the Iraqis and the marines got a little, says Staff Sgt. Michael Hendriks, the U.S. army adviser assigned to this platoon of Iraqis. "These guys love to complain," he says.
Hendriks, an Army reservist who in civilian life is a police officer in Brooklyn, has been working with this platoon since December and says he has seen amazing progress. But there are still plenty of problems. The night before, one of the soldiers slept through his turn to man the watch. That angered Hendriks, but what really got him steamed was that the soldier's noncommissioned officer supervisor did not get upset.
But Hendriks argues that it is not just the Iraqi soldiers' fault. Some of the blame lies with the Americans. Hendriks worries that already the military has fostered a culture of dependence in the Iraqi troops. "That is the problem," he says. "America gives, and when there is no more to give, it's: 'America, no good!' "
He believes the solution is to continue to expand the number of advisers living in Iraq and training the Iraqis full time, while beginning to draw down the American combat troops. At the same time, Iraqis need to be given significant missions to do on their own, with only advisers to help–rather than having the Iraqis support American operations. "You could train these guys for 20 years," he says. "But we have to let them do it on their own or we will never know whether they can really do it."