More than half the men in the first unit to be trained for the new Iraqi army have abandoned their jobs because of low pay, inadequate training, faulty equipment, ethnic tensions and other concerns, leaving the nascent 1st Battalion dramatically understaffed just days before it is scheduled to leave training camp for its first assignment, Iraqi, U.S. and other coalition officials say.
About 480 of the 900 recruits who began training in August have left the U.S.-backed force, according to Australian Maj. Doug Cumming, chief instructor at the training academy in Kirkush, about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad. They will not be punished for leaving, nor are they even being pursued, officials say. Among those who remain, some still have not mastered such basics as how to march in formation and how to properly respond to radio calls.
On Monday, the 1st Battalion is scheduled to begin assisting the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in running traffic checkpoints and securing defense perimeters around bases in the eastern part of the country. Plans also call for the battalion to move to the northern city of Mosul in mid-February to serve as an independent unit under the command of the 101st Airborne Division.
Creation of the new Iraqi army is a key component of the Bush administration's plan to restore security and to return sovereignty to Iraqis. Establishing a capable military force also would yield domestic benefits for the administration by making it possible to send U.S. and other foreign soldiers home. Congress has allocated $2 billion in the next year to support the new Iraqi army.
Administrators, instructors and recruits interviewed here at the training camp all agreed that the 1st Battalion's training had been troubled.
"It was a new experience for everyone," said U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Johnny Matlock, who is part of the multinational team overseeing the new army's training. "We had to learn by mistakes."
The first mistake, according to those in charge of the training program, was that the Iraqi soldiers' salaries were too low. Privates earn $70 a month -- about half the amount paid to the people who fill sandbags around the Baghdad headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said. For several months, Eaton has been asking for extra money for the soldiers.
The Coalition Provisional Authority says it is reviewing the pay scale for the Iraqi army as well as for other Iraqi security forces. But one official said the authority feels the soldiers' "remuneration package is at least very fair."
Civilians training soldiersAnother problem, Eaton said, was that a civilian company was hired to conduct the training rather the military. The $48 million contract was awarded to Vinnell Corp. in the spring, when U.S. forces in Iraq were stretched thin and cutting loose several hundred soldiers to oversee the training would have been difficult.
Training was conducted by employees of Vinnell or one of its subcontractors: Military Professional Resources Inc.; Science Applications International Corp.; Eagle Group International Inc.; Omega Training Group; and Worldwide Language Resources Inc. Founded in the 1930s, Vinnell was well-known in defense circles for its training of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, but it only recently was thrust into the public spotlight when its complex in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, was bombed by terrorists this year.
Eaton said that while he believes Vinnell brought world-class technical expertise to the task, instructors weren't able to impose the regimented discipline of military instructors. The new Iraqi army needed drill sergeants, he said, but Vinnell personnel were more akin to college professors.
"Soldiers need to train soldiers. You can't ask a civilian to do a soldier's job," Eaton said.
Representatives from Vinnell declined to comment and referred all questions to the military.
Initial plans for creation of the Iraqi army called for civilian contractors to train all 27 battalions. Now, after Vinnell completes its obligation to train nine battalions, military personnel will take over. The U.S. government has decided to award a second contract, for training officers, to the Jordanian military. Remaining battalions will be trained by the Iraqi military, and the total number of troops to be trained before occupation authorities surrender sovereignty has been cut in half, to 20,000, Eaton said.
Shortly after the war ended this spring, Iraq's U.S. civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer, disbanded the Iraqi army, leaving an estimated 400,000 soldiers without jobs and provoking violent protests in the streets of every major city in the country.
Bremer then ordered creation of a new army, one without ties to ousted president Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party. Recruiting offices opened around the country, and ex-soldiers, farmers, cigarette vendors, construction workers and others signed up.
One recruit was Haitham Ahmed Salman, 33, from Baqubah, north of Baghdad. When he showed up for training 4 1/2 months ago, he said, he was prepared for the brutality of boot camp. Instead, he was surprised to find that the civilian instructors were polite, respectful and even friendly.
The majority of the instructors, who walk around the training base with slate-gray uniforms that look like a cross between hospital scrubs and prison garb, have some military experience, but many had been retired for years. They approached the recruits with an egalitarian philosophy, several trainees said, making do without the formalities of "sir" and "ma'am" and saluting. They encouraged trainees to take time off and relax and watch Sylvester Stallone and Jackie Chan movies.
Salman, who is now a major in command of the 1st Battalion's 4th Company, said this relaxed attitude confused recruits, who often were not punished for arriving late for classes, neglecting assignments or getting into fistfights.
"They taught that military orders work on your mood. You can refuse -- this is freedom and democracy," he said. "But in military life, freedom and democracy should not apply."
When the 1st Battalion graduated on Oct. 4, the unit's Iraqi commander, Lt. Col. Ali Naim Jabbar, and his top deputies concluded that they would need to redo much of the training. For the past few weeks, they have been running the recruits through exercises they remembered from their days in the old Iraqi army.
Meanwhile, Vinnell's trainers have been concentrating on overhauling their program for the 2nd and 3rd battalions. Significant curriculum changes include a reduction in the theory and other classroom studies by 30 to 40 percent and adding hands-on field exercises focused on how to conduct a night watch and how to scan an area for danger -- things that had been taught only by textbook examples.
Military personnel are now a more visible part of the training. Iraqi soldiers from the 1st Battalion impose discipline on and serve as mentors to recruits in the 2nd and 3rd battalions, and occupation soldiers make an effort to engage in back-and-forth discussions.
Disunity in diversityAnother source of tension among 1st Battalion recruits was the forced integration of ethnic Arabs and Kurds, traditional enemies. American planners imagined the new army as a showcase for the country's diversity, and the 1st Battalion was set up to be 60 percent Arab Shiite Muslim, 20 percent Arab Sunni, 10 percent Kurdish Sunni and 10 percent other. About 100 Kurds quit in the first few weeks of training after their tribal leaders objected to the battalion's ethnic mixture.
In addition, because predominantly Kurdish northern Iraq was autonomous from the rest of the country for the past dozen years, many young Kurds don't speak Arabic. During military training, instruction had to be translated from English to Arabic and then to Kurdish.
"I'm not that comfortable in the new army," said Nawar Mahmood, 23, who said he was a member of the Kurdish pesh merga militia and had been reassigned to the new Iraqi army. "I spent 13 years in the pesh merga fighting the Baathists, and now there are many Baathists in the new army."
Among other complaints voiced by the recruits: The soles of the first set of boots they received fell off. Their uniforms -- an odd mix of pink, brown and green that is supposed to resemble camouflage -- are falling apart. Their weapons jam when they try to fire them -- although U.S. troops who have tested them say they work fine.
"Soldiers want to be elegant when they go out, but you see our funny clothes," Salman said. "The men ask me, 'Are we really going out in these clothes?' Every time you wash them they get smaller, so I have gone a month without washing them,"
Eaton said he, too, is frustrated about the quality of the equipment. One reason, he said, is that the coalition authority is buying the gear with seized Iraqi assets, which can only spent through contracts with Iraqi companies.
Cumming, the chief instructor, said he worries that some of his recruits can't pay their rent with their salaries and that, because they agonize over the welfare of their families, they want life insurance. Eaton said his team is working on a plan to introduce health coverage and other benefits for troops and to create housing for their families on bases, but he acknowledges it is unlikely this will happen soon.
Cumming said fair compensation for Iraqi soldiers would be equal to what Iraqi police receive -- $120 a month -- plus something extra, because soldiers are asked to live away from home.
"Get a bureaucrat and take him away from home and stick him in this camp and make him run around a bit, and then ask him what's fair," Cumming said.
For about a week, members of officers from the Army's 4th Infantry Division have been running the 1st Battalion's remaining troops through some simulated missions. Capt. William Hansen of Fairfax and Staff Sgt. Donald Coleman from Arlington are advising Salman's 4th Company.
On Friday, the 4th Company's goal was to set up a mock ambush point, stop a convoy and capture or kill the enemy. The trainees hoisted their guns, swarmed the road, and within a few minutes they had successfully neutralized their target. Or so they thought.
Hansen called the privates over to assess their performance. He was less than thrilled. The men should have camouflaged their helmets with leaves and branches, he said, before they advanced to the side of the road. They should have been moving discreetly in twos, not in long lines. And they should have gotten around the vehicle faster, to take advantage of the element of surprise during the critical first 15 seconds.
Not everyone was listening. Some soldiers fidgeted and began talking among themselves.
"Hey!" Hansen yelled, pointing at his chest. "Everyone with less rank than me pays attention to me, okay?"
Salman closed his eyes and sighed.
Staff writers Thomas E. Ricks and Peter Slevin in Washington, special correspondent Omar Fekeiki in Kirkush and correspondent Alan Sipress in Baghdad contributed to this report.