The first CO got bounced after only a few months for wheeling and dealing the way it used to work under the previous regime and the way it worked for countless centuries before Saddam Hussein shot his way into dictatorship.

Although Uncle Deep Pockets has sunk almost $100 million into this effort, none of the units is considered combat-ready. On average, all have about 25 percent of their soldiers on leave and 20 percent AWOL at any one time. 

A Vinnell trainer says: “No one wants to rate them combat-ready because this is too risky – it would mean somebody’s career slides down the tubes if one of these units got whipped. However, no one wanted to rate them not combat-ready either, because that would imply that all the money, time and effort devoted to these units had been wasted.”

Yet our high brass has been stating that the training of the Iraqi army is already a tremendous success. Nothing is being said about most of the Kurds refusing to serve because of their feelings toward the Arabs. Nor that a lot of the men volunteering for the Iraqi army are of poor quality and seem to be signing up only for a quick buck: They join for a few weeks and then quit after they’ve picked up a few dinars. In one day alone last month, 139 NCO School candidates handed in their quit slips because they were Arabs who couldn’t get along with Kurds or visa versa, or they didn’t like the training or were just homesick and headed out the front gate.   

It’s rush, rush, rush to field an Iraqi army – regardless of quality – to replace our overextended forces. Otherwise, there’s no way we'll ever be able to execute our nonexistent exit plan.

This con game reminds me of Vietnam when Richard Nixon ordered the war turned over to the Vietnamese so we could get our boys home muy pronto. Back then, the subterfuge was called “Vietnamization.” I spent three years training some of the better units in the South Vietnamese army – Airborne, Ranger and Special Forces – and from the beginning it was clear that the effort was mission impossible – kind of like trying to turn a two-wheeled bike into a Sherman tank.