Innovation, Transformation, and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005-2007 by James A. Russell

Author:James A. Russell [Russell, James A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Terrorism
ISBN: 9780804773102
Google: Ds4QuN3qybUC
Goodreads: 11481418
Publisher: Stanford Security Studies
Published: 2010-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

172ND TF PARTNERING ACTIVITIES

In late October 2005, Shields changed the number-one priority from neutralizing the insurgency to increasing the readiness of the ISF—police and Army and border police. This represented an enormous task on a scale that had not been contemplated prior to the deployment. The brigade partnered with the 2nd Iraqi Army Division totaling 11,000 troops and the 3rd Iraqi Army Division of about 7,000 troops. These units were divided into seven brigades, twenty-two battalions, and three emergency response battalions. The police force in the province totaled approximately 18,000, with 8,000 in Mosul and 2,000 in Tal Afar. The police force was divided between 17 different districts and 114 different police stations. Much progress had been made by the 1/25 SBCT in reconstituting the police force after the insurgents took over Mosul in November 2004. Numerous new police stations had been built, and destroyed stations were rebuilt during its deployment. The 172nd built on the momentum of the 1/25 in rebuilding the police during 2005. The brigade’s partnering arrangements were executed through the “coalition company,” which partnered with an Iraqi Army battalion, a police district, and their corresponding MiTT or Special Forces unit. As was the case in much of Iraq in 2005 and 2006, while there were vast numbers of Iraqi troops identified on briefing slides passed around offices in Washington, DC, their combat capacities were at best limited, or, in most cases, nonexistent. The troops lacked equipment and training and suffered from the previous experiences in an Iraqi Army that featured centralized control, no junior leadership development, and a noncommissioned officer corps that had no background or experience in small unit leadership and tactics. Many Iraqi units had never fired their weapons—if they had any weapons at all. While there were a few competent units in northern Iraq, composed mostly of Kurdish troops, most of the Iraqi Army in the north during this period existed in name only. Many had poor or absentee senior leadership that evinced more interest in taking a paycheck and going on leave than in training and conducting dangerous COIN operations. The training effort in northern Iraq to stand up an Army and police force from scratch fell to the 172nd, a collection of eleven-man Military Transition Teams, or MiTTs, and Special Forces trainers from the 1st Battalion,5th Special Forces Group that had arrived in Iraq in May 2005.57

While the police were on the road to recovering from their collapse in Mosul in November 2004, the 172nd needed to increase the numbers of available trained police that were graduating from the police academies in Mosul and Amman, Jordan. The throughput from these academies simply did not meet the demand. To solve the problem, the 172nd helped create a training and education infrastructure to build and maintain core competencies in both the police and the Army. The brigade leadership decided on these specific steps on its own initiative after arriving in theater.58 The 172nd and its task force participants designed a comprehensive program to address the deficiencies in Army and police forces.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.