GuruJane said:
Najaf gone. Samarra gone. Sadr City gone. Can Fallujah be far behind?
Yep Jane, things are just great in Iraq...aren't they.
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Divided they stand in a war of suspicion
October 20, 2004
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An Iraqi National Guardsman displays a rocket that was turned in at a police station.
Photo: Reuters
Adrian Blomfield in Karmah discovers a deep mistrust between American troops and the Iraqi soldiers they are training.
If the US marines and Iraqi national guardsmen at the Karmah military barracks near Fallujah talk at all, they speak through the bars of a small window. The Americans peer out from the ammunition room, filled with weapons confiscated from suspected insurgents, trading banter with the Iraqis who stand on tiptoe in a huddle outside.
Although there is laughter, things are not as they should be. "This is Camp Poison," whispered a marine.
The sinister atmosphere is not difficult to understand. The marines believe that many, perhaps most, of the 140 members of the Iraqi National Guard they share the camp with are double agents working for the insurgents holding Fallujah. In the past week they have arrested five of the guardsmen, including their commanding officer, Captain Ali Mohammed Jasim.
It is just one example of a Vietnam-era experiment, resurrected to form the backbone of an offensive planned for the end of the year to retake Fallujah, that is going disastrously wrong. Under the Combined Action Platoon scheme, US soldiers train Iraqi guardsmen, live with them in the same barracks and venture out on joint patrols, all steps towards a long-term objective of the withdrawal of US troops.
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The plan was developed in Vietnam, where US marines cohabited with local militias to defend villages from Vietcong raids. At the same time they trained the militiamen, hoping to turn them into an effective fighting force. However the Vietnamese were too ill-equipped and underpaid for the plan to have much success.
The present program seems to be facing even greater problems. Across the country US troops work with their poorly equipped Iraqi colleagues in an atmosphere soured by mistrust.
Marines, such as those at Karmah, are trying to secure the province around Fallujah. Their efforts have been blighted by remotely detonated mines targeting the patrols that venture into towns that have become insurgent havens. Since June, some platoons have seen up to half their men wounded. Eighty marines have been killed in the province.
The marines believe the guardsmen know where many mines are planted, and say they have caught guardsmen in the act of laying them. When joint patrols are attacked, they say, the guardsmen refuse to fight.
As the relationship worsens, guardsmen are refusing to turn up. Of the 140 at Karmah, an average of 40 to 60 attend each day. At other barracks, the number is sometimes as low as two.
In their bare dormitory, angry guardsmen tell their side of the story, accusing marines of arrogance, bullying and a disregard for civilian life.
"The first mistake they make is that, when they are attacked, they don't just fire at the terrorists, they shoot everywhere," one said.
- Telegraph
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/19/1097951693713.html