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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

U.S. military: Iraq Army now more self-reliant
in planning ops

BAGHDAD — The Iraq Army has significantly increased its capability to plan counter-insurgency operations, according to U.S. commanders.   

A senior U.S. Army officer said the Iraq Army has assumed most of the operational planning in the Baghdad area. U.S. Army Col. Todd McCaffery, commander of the Multinational Division, Baghdad, said that the army's capability has risen sharply over the last six months.

"What I see now at the Iraqi battalion and brigade levels is a much increased capability of planning and conducting operations independently," McCaffery said. "It is now routine for the Iraqi brigade commanders that I partner with to develop their own plans for operations, issue their orders to their battalions, and then expect and demand that those orders are carried out and those operations are executed."

Multinational Division, Baghdad has been working with three Iraqi brigades on operations in the Baghdad area. Officials said the U.S. military has helped the Iraqi brigades with intelligence, logistics and air support.

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"Increasingly, they do it independently, and they come to me on a much more reduced basis for specific help with certain enablers that they may not have yet," McCaffery said in a briefing on Jan. 26.

In mid-2008, the U.S. military worked closely in operational planning with the Iraq Army. Officials said most of the time American troops had taken the lead in missions against Al Qaida and Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgents.

"We still provide, in partnership with them, some critical enablers that they have not yet completely been able to field within their brigades," McCaffery said. "And we share routinely intelligence. And we share training capability. And more and more what I find my units doing, with the Iraqis, is stepping into the role of trainers and facilitators, on that side, as opposed to leading on combat operations."

As a result, McCaffery said, the U.S. military would require fewer troops in the Baghdad area. The colonel suggested this could take several months as Iraqi brigades increase their logistics capabilities.

"The logistics battalions that we've worked with have had phenomenal development, and I think they're working to integrate them in a broader scale," McCaffery said.

"But at the brigade level, where they're out there in the field and living in joint security stations and on checkpoints, they seem to be supplying their soldiers with food, water, fuel, ammunition, as required, those things, quite capably in our area. So at the tactical level, the logistics seem to be working pretty well where I am across the brigades that we operate with."



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