Benning troops train Iraqi army
Iraqi soldiers being trained to Army standard

By Spc. Eliamar Castanon/The Bayonet

FORT BENNING, Ga. (TRADOC News Service, May 5, 2004) – A group of Fort Benning Soldiers and civilians are responsible for building the new Iraqi army. Three of those Soldiers are or were Fort Benning leaders: Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, former Infantry Center commanding general; Col. Jeffery Buchanan, director of Fort Benning’s combat developments; and Maj. Geoffrey Fuller, Eaton’s former aide-de-camp.

Buchanan and Fuller recently returned from their assignments overseas, working as the coalition director of operations for the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team and the CMATT headquarters commandant, respectively.

CMATT is responsible for manning, training and equipping the new Iraqi army.

Eaton, Buchanan and Fuller are all quick to say that the construction of this new army is not an individual achievement. CMATT has called on experts from the United States, Australia, Great Britain, Jordan, Spain, Poland and Romania. Also, they all agreed that the success of the mission is due in part to the hard work of the Fort Benning noncommissioned officers who are helping train the new army.

The blend of tactics, techniques and procedures will allow the Iraqi army to best select what works for it, Eaton said.

The old Iraqi army was disbanded in May 2003 when the coalition took over Iraq. It was composed of more than 400,000 men, including 12,000 generals — compared with 300 generals for the American army of almost 500,000 Soldiers, Eaton said.

“The (Iraqi) army was large, inefficient and officer-bloated,” Eaton said. “The NCO corps did not exist as we know an NCO corps to be. The officers lived a life of considerable privilege, supported by the Ba’ath party.”

CMATT’s mission is to construct a new Iraqi army from scratch, an army that includes a land component, maritime component and a small air force.

The first task was to “man” the new army. There were three recruiting stations: Baghdad, Basra and Mosul.

In a briefing to the Coalition Provisional Authority in January, Eaton said the locations of the recruiting stations cover the spread and ethnic distribution, so each class that graduates is ethnically balanced.

“This provides an atmosphere where tolerance is essential to mission accomplishment,” he said. “We have been very faithful in the governing council’s intent and the focus in ensuring that the Iraqi armed forces, and the Iraqi army in particular, meet the ethnic and religious representation of (Iraq).”

“It wasn’t recruiting as much as it was processing,” Buchanan said. Many Iraqis needed jobs that paid, and the new army was hiring.

The age limit was raised to 40 years vs. the U.S. Army’s age limit of 35. This was done to recruit mature and experienced prior-service soldiers, Buchanan said.

“We are looking for those individuals who wish to defend Iraq and its newfound freedom, and are skilled in such professions as truck driver, heavy equipment operator, food service, first aid and, above all, infantry,” Eaton said.

The new Iraqi army also includes females in its fighting force for the first time.

“Because of the Islamic culture in Iraq, it’s important that we have females at checkpoints to search other females,” Buchanan said.

The Iraqi female recruits are currently being trained in Jordan by the Jordanian army, which has females in its army and knows how to train them, Buchanan said.

Eaton said the female Iraqi recruits will help fill positions with the military police force, administration and, eventually, military intelligence.

Although the vast majority of officers, NCOs and about 60 percent of the soldiers recruited had previous military experience, “we had our work cut out for us,” Fuller said.

“We were trying to build an army like we have in the States with a strong backbone of NCOs, a professional officer corps and good, confident Soldiers,” he said.

“The infantry soldiers recruited who had prior service came from an army that gave them five rounds of ammunition per year,” Buchanan said.

They were not trained to the standard infantrymen should be trained to, he said. “The most important aspect was to get the leadership right,” he said.

The first four battalions trained by CMATT were trained under a system that puts officers, NCOs and recruits through the same training simultaneously but separately. All three groups were then brought together for three weeks of collective training before the battalion graduated and went to a garrison base, Eaton said.

The first battalion trained is currently in Kirkush with the 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Eaton said. The second and fourth battalions are garrisoned at Tadji with the 1st Armored Division, and the third battalion is in the Mosul area, he said.

“Training has focused on an endstate that provides an individual soldier who possesses fundamental soldier skills, functions as a member of a multiethnic team, is oriented to military service and service to the Iraqi nation, and is also schooled in human rights and the law of land warfare,” Eaton said in a CPA briefing.

In September 2003, the original goal of nine battalions increased to 27 battalions organized into nine brigades and three divisions by Sept. 30, forcing CMATT to re-evaluate its training techniques to improve and speed up the training, Buchanan said.

Based on the premise that 1,000 leaders can create an army faster than creating an army 1,000 soldiers at a time, Eaton said, CMATT then adopted the same model of recruiting and training the United States used to gear up for World War II: officers and NCOs would conduct separate training. The remaining 23 battalions are being trained under this new method.

The focus was then placed on emphasizing leadership skills and values for the officers and NCOs so they could then train their own soldiers, Fuller said.

Eaton emphasized that this will be an Iraqi army trained by Iraqis.

In December, the modified training began in Jordan for officers and in Kirkush for NCOs, Buchanan said. The officer training course graduated 400 officers in March.

The NCO training course has three fundamental areas of training: combat arms training, combat service support group and the squad leader’s combat course.

Both training courses for officers and NCOs last from six to eight weeks. The training is set up for the officers and NCOs to graduate at the same time so they can then train together, Buchanan said.

The old Light Leaders Course training outline is used to bring the officers and NCOs together to train in their subordinates’ positions so the soldiers, officers and NCOs learn to appreciate each other — it’s team building, Buchanan said.

The last part of the integration training prepares the officers and NCOs to train their own army’s basic training.

Eaton said all soldiers are being trained for mounted and dismounted patrolling, border work, checkpoint operations and small-unit urban operations.

“The training is not to the level of our Army given the time available,” Eaton said. “Eventually, they will catch up.”

Fuller said the primary mission of the newly trained Iraqi soldiers is to re-establish security in Iraq and protect themselves from outside threats.

The operational air force has a squadron of helicopters and two C-130B aircraft. The navy has five 30-meter patrol boats with marine detachments and a fast patrol squadron, Eaton said.

As the mission continues, CMATT picks up more responsibilities. As of March, CMATT has been assigned to oversee not only the construction of the new army but also the development of the entire Iraqi armed forces, including the police, fire department, border patrol, Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, air force and the maritime components, Fuller said.

What was once known as CMATT is now also the Office of Security Cooperation. “It’s important to build up the (Iraqi armed forces) to allow the coalition forces to leave Iraq,” Buchanan said. “It won’t be a one-for-one replacement, but it will allow us to eventually move out.”

Is the Iraqi armed force ready to take care of the country alone?

“To a degree, the Iraqi army is not ready for high-intensity urban combat operations but is ready for low-level insurgency and peace-enforcement operations,” Eaton said. “Coalition forces will be needed for some time. What is missing is the view that they represent the legitimate armed forces and that they must confront the illegitimate forces out there.”