To Build an Army
By Walter B. Slocombe

Baghdad -- As the first battalion of the New Iraqi Army moves to assume its duties and the first units of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps start operating with U.S. units, it's being argued by some that the creation of these military units is a bad idea, or at least unnecessary -- that the United States could and should have relied on Saddam Hussein's old army and saved itself the trouble of creating a new one. Some even say we should try to do that now by recalling the old army to service some six months after its defeat.

It's an argument that doesn't add up. Given our objective of replacing Hussein's regime, and not just its leader, it would have been a mistake, I think, to try to convert an army that was a principal tool of his oppressive system into the armed guardian of a new democracy. Using soldiers to keep civil order is never easy, and the old Iraqi army wasn't exactly noted for its discipline and subtlety in dealing with civilians or for its capacity to cope with challenges. There is also the question of reliability and loyalty to the new Iraq. While many Iraqi officers no doubt served for honorable reasons and thought of themselves as defending their nation rather than the regime, the army was deeply penetrated by Hussein loyalists.

I suppose one could argue that with close vetting, extensive retraining, lots of U.S. advisers and the like, we might have taught the old dog new tricks. But that hypothetical question will have to remain a topic for war college symposia, because the simple fact is that turning to the old Iraqi army wasn't an option in April and it is not one now.

By the time coalition forces reached Baghdad, Hussein's army had ceased to exist. Faced with the superbly equipped and highly trained professionals of the coalition, and knowing the nature of the regime they were commanded to defend, Iraqi soldiers disappeared. The numbers are telling: In Operation Desert Storm, when the Iraqi army, though defeated, hung together, we took about 80,000 prisoners; this time there were only 7,000. There was not a single organized unit intact when major combat ended. All Iraqi soldiers who survived had, in the Pentagon's jargon, "self-demobilized," i.e., gone home.

Some observers concede that uncontestable point but go on to say that we should have called the departed soldiers back. Hussein's army, however, consisted entirely of conscripts below officer level, most of them Shiites, who were badly mistreated by the overwhelmingly Sunni officers. Those conscripts were delighted at the opportunity to escape the abuse, corruption and misery of the old army. They certainly weren't going to heed the call of their officers to return, and we were not about to send press gangs out to round them up.

Thus any recalled "army" would have consisted almost entirely of officers from the absurdly top-heavy senior ranks. The Iraqi army -- with a payroll of 500,000, almost exactly the size of the American Army -- had 11,000 generals (the United States has 307) and 14,000 colonels (the United States has 3,500).

And, if by some miracle, we had called, and enough able-bodied men had responded to form useful units, it would have been a disaster. The reason? When the Iraqi army took off for home, its soldiers took any gear of possible worth along with them -- not just military equipment but trucks, furniture and everything else of any use. What the fleeing soldiers did not take, the civilian population looted from abandoned bases and camps. Looters and scavengers literally took not just the kitchen sinks but the pipes from the walls and the tiles that covered the kitchen floors. Rehabilitating these facilities for use by coalition forces or new Iraqi security organizations has taken months of hard work and millions of dollars.

Had a recall somehow evoked a response, we would have found ourselves not with 500,000 disciplined soldiers ready to impose order under U.S. command but with 500,000 refugees needing shelter, food, uniforms, weapons and a good many other things -- just to survive. Instead of being a help to the American and other forces, they would have been a huge burden.

All this does not mean we should spurn the many individual Iraqi veterans willing to serve the new Iraq. On the contrary, they have been welcomed and even actively recruited. About 60 percent of the privates in the New Iraqi Army, and virtually all the officers and NCOs, have military experience. Other new security forces, such as the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the Facilities Protection Service, have taken in many thousands of former soldiers. Only those who served in Hussein's inner circles of security and control forces, or who reached the top four ranks of the Baath Party (about 8,000 out of nearly a quarter-million officers and NCOs in the old army) are ineligible to join the New Iraqi Army and other security forces. Although we have not so far recruited officers whose former rank was above lieutenant colonel, that is because we have not yet needed more senior ranks. As the army (and other security forces) grow, higher-ranking officers with clean records will be considered, along with potential promotions from the new organizations.

At the core of both coalition policy and Iraqi aspirations is the need for Iraqis to take ever-increasing responsibility for the security of their country. The coalition is moving as fast as it responsibly can to recruit, train and equip a national army, a professional police service, a locally based civil defense corps and personnel to guard key facilities and infrastructure. Already some 100,000 Iraqis are on duty in these organizations. Within a year, the number is to exceed 200,000. Many will be former soldiers, but they will be effective because they are rallying to the cause of serving in new organizations to defend the new Iraq, not the chimera of reviving the military of the old.

This column by Walter B. Slocombe, who is director for national security and defense in the Coalition Provisional Authority for Iraq in Baghdad, was published in the Washington Post November 5 and is in the public domain. No republication restrictions.