How the U.S.-led coalition transformed Iraq's army into a fighting force

[PurpleOwl]

Does the desert terrain give an advantage to ISIS?

Two years ago Iraq’s military all but collapsed as Islamic State militants swept into their country, seizing Mosul and other key towns and villages. Many Iraqi soldiers simply abandoned their equipment and fled.

At the time, the Islamic State looked invincible, while the Iraqi forces were demoralized, poorly trained and ill-equipped.

Today, Iraq’s military has a string of victories behind it and is on the verge of charging into Mosul, the militants’ last stronghold in Iraq.

This time, the Islamic State is retreating, and it is the Iraqi troops that look formidable.

In the intervening years, a U.S.-led coalition and Iraq’s government have achieved an unprecedented overhaul of Iraq’s armed forces, replacing commanders, training soldiers and issuing new weapons and equipment. They are about to face their most important test yet.

“They are a far cry from where they were in 2014,” said Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

The coalition has established schools throughout Iraq to teach infantry, armor and tank skills to Iraqi soldiers. The 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades — about 30,000 soldiers — participating in the Mosul offensive have all been trained by the coalition in skills such as clearing minefields and removing roadside bombs.

How the U.S.-led coalition transformed Iraq's army into a fighting force

 

[Onyx]

Iraq's army was always a fighting force. That is kind of the point of being an army.

Oh, and it is pretty fucking underhanded if anyone other than Iraq is taking credit for recent Iraqi military reorganization.