US troops unsure about Iraqi replacements

Baghdad, Dec 7: As violence in Baghdad has risen towards civil war proportions over the past year, there has been at least one piece of good news for residents of the Iraqi capital -- it's now easier to get out.

''The Road of Death'', as the main highway to the airport was once called, has become one of the safer routes around the city thanks to constant patrolling and surveillance by a 350-strong unit of Iraqi police commandos backed by US army advisers.

It is a success the Iraqi forces and their American trainers are keen to show off, a year on from a time when daily attacks along the 8-km (5-mile) tarmac lifeline became a symbol of how US forces were struggling to defeat the insurgency.

But as the bipartisan Iraq Study Group urged the White House yesterday to multiply by five the number of such US trainers to 20,000, US officers involved in the transition to Iraqi control accept there have been patchy results.

Major Bernard Brady, leading a US inspection patrol along the road known as Route Irish to the military, has no doubt the Iraqi national police battalion he has worked with for the past 10 months can handle security on their own now.

''This battalion? Absolutely,'' Brady said during a stop this week at the Iraqi unit's spartan roadside base. But many recruits to other units came from sectarian militant groups: ''Some of them got their levies straight out of the militias.'' Aside from basic concerns about the abilities of the 300,000 troops and police trained by US advisers since Washington disbanded Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003, US commanders also worry about their divided loyalties to rival sectarian militias.

Ironically perhaps, Brady reckons the unit he works with is helped by the fact many men were trained in Saddam's army.

Other police units have been stood down to purge sectarian kidnap and death squads from their ranks and many in Saddam's Sunni minority still see the police as a hostile Shi'ite force.

Militia Concern

Colonel Imad, an army officer under Saddam who now commands the 3rd Battalion, 1st Mechanised Brigade of the national police, is wary of the profusion of semi-official forces that may challenge his authority. Briefing Brady, he runs down a list of armed guards from various ministries that have used his road.

''We need to make sure they are not militias,'' said Imad, who prefers to use only his first name. With each ministry a fiefdom of rival factions in the national unity government, such convoys pose a threat in a country on the brink of all-out civil war.

Imad is confident, however. ''We can handle Route Irish without any American troops. There used to be many attacks even though there were a lot of Americans, with helicopters. They called it 'the Road of Death'. Now there is none of that.'' One senior US commander in Iraq confessed privately recently to ''losing sleep'' over concern the new, US-trained Iraqi forces might simply ''fragment'' in such a conflict.

But Brady and his team say they are confident in the cohesion and loyalty of Imad's unit, most of whom appear, in casual conversations at their checkpoints along the highway, to be Shi'ites from Baghdad and cities to the south.

''If you have strong leadership, it can suppress sectarian tendencies,'' says Captain Jared Levant. ''Go into other units, you can feel the tension in the air.''

Discpline

There is also praise from the Americans for the Iraqis' discipline and mechanical skills. Despite a running commentary during the inspection patrol on what Brady says are ''cosmetic'' failings he can concentrate on now his main tasks are complete.

''Men in civilian clothes ... we need to remind them, they need to be in their uniforms,'' comes a voice over the patrol intercom as the trainers roll past one checkpoint.

''They're not wearing kevlar (armour). At least they're in uniform,'' at another. ''At least they're friendly today.'' Brady makes no secret of his discomfort with some temporary reinforcements, however. Even to a civilian, there is a distinctly less soldierly air to some posts than others.

At one, the ranking policeman Awad Kadhem said: ''Without the Americans we can do nothing ... We feel secure when they are around us. We are not equipped to deal with the situation.

''The terrorists and insurgents have better weapons than us.'' It is a point Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has made with emphasis to George W. Bush, securing from the US president last week a promise to accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi forces. Maliki says they can take the lead by June.

For the dozen-man U.S. training team, as they contemplate going home in February, it is a goal they feel some units at least are capable of meeting, albeit with continued logistical support. But many expect to be back training Iraqis again soon, especially if the military does multiply the number of advisers.

''They're coming right back,'' Brady says. ''The emphasis is to move into an advisory and support role and get us off patrols.''

Reuters