What is Needed to Keep Iraq From Becoming a Failed State

Winning Iraq Requires Changes

In order to have any hope of turning the tide in Iraq will require vast training changes in our military. Our troops were trained to be warriors, but were put into a counterinsurgency, which is a totally different conflict.

Just now, three years after the counterinsurgency started, the Pentagon is finishing a new training manual – but it has yet to be put into use. In order to win in Iraq, our troops will need to interact with the population in new ways. Right now in mess halls in Iraq our troops don’t intermingle with the Iraqi troops – that does not bode well for future success.

The Iraq counterinsurgency feeds off the mistakes made when troops don’t have the training designed for the environment in which they are working. For success in Iraq, our troops have to be part warrior and part Peace Corps. It requires a 21st Century soldier who knows how to getting rid of terrorists while avoiding killing innocent civilians which gives the wrong impression of who we are. It will mean our soldiers get more training in local customs and language – it means giving US Special Forces training to national guardsmen.

Why is this important? Because if Iraq becomes a failed State, it will be a greater threat to global security, especially America’s security, than it is today. Only by getting the Pentagon to upgrade training of our overworked units in Iraq ASAP will have the most direct potential benefit of anything we could do at the moment. We have too much to lose not to put everything possible solution into action in Iraq. Just killing Zaqawi’s is not enough.

So why hasn’t Congress insisted on this training years ago?
I say that as one of the few people who saw 9 11 coming and warned about it…