Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The United States has determined that the Iraqi military would require more than a year to regain offensive capability.

Officials said the U.S. military’s Central Command concluded that the Iraq Army was moving slowly toward reorganizing units after its collapse in June 2014. They said Iraqi units would need massive training and mentoring until they could conduct effective operations against Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

“There are so many things that must be done until they’re ready for this,” an official said. Up to 18 months of training would be required for Iraqi forces to conduct major combat operations.

In June, the administration of President Barack Obama ordered an assessment of the Iraqi military after ISIL swept through the north and sparked the collapse of five of the army’s 14 divisions. The study was never released amid warnings by senior commanders that the Iraq Army was bereft of offensive ability.

The briefing at Centcom contrasted with the upbeat tone from the administration. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who spoke to his Iraqi counterpart, Khaled Al Obeidi, has been encouraging Baghdad to intensify efforts to recruit Sunnis in the Shi’ite-dominated military and attack ISIL strongholds.

In a briefing by Centcom on Oct. 23, officials said the Iraq Army required training in everything from basic combat skills, operational planning, maintenance and intelligence. They acknowledged that the army’s professional corps was gutted by then-Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, who had dismissed U.S.-mentored commanders over the last two years.

As a result, officials said, Centcom, overseeing nearly 2,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, was focusing on enhancing the army to protect Baghdad, surrounded by three sides by ISIL. They said the army was not capable of such a mission, let alone recapture the northern city of Mosul.

“It’s not imminent,” the official said. “But we don’t see that that’s a years-long effort to get them to a place to where they can be able to go on a sustained counter-offensive.”

The official said the United States envisioned massive training and mentoring of the Iraq Army through the spring of 2016 until it could attack cities captured by ISIL. He acknowledged that previous Iraq Army operations to expel ISIL from such Sunni cities as Tikrit ended in chaos and flight.

“The reality is that ISIL has control and still does control a significant amount of ground in Iraq and I don’t think it’s any different from any complicated, difficult contest,” Hagel said.

  Centcom, Centcom: Iraq Army 18 months away from regaining lost territory, WorldTribune.com