“Believe me,” said Col. Ali Mahmoud, center, checking a map with his troops inDiyala Province. “There will be a big disaster” when American forces leave.
From The New York Times:
KHAN BANI SAAD, Iraq — Ahmed Mahmoud, a lieutenant in the Iraqi Army, lost one leg fighting the insurgency and says he would not quit his job even if he lost the other. He believes in his army.
But asked whether that army is ready as a national defense force, capable of protecting Iraq’s borders without American support, Lieutenant Mahmoud gestures toward his battalion’s parking lot. A fifth of the vehicles are rotting trucks and bomb-demolished Humvees that, for some complicated bureaucratic reason, are still considered operational.
“In your opinion,” Lieutenant Mahmoud says, “do you think I could fight an army with those trucks?”
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My Comment: It will take a decade before the Iraq Army becomes a viable force. But when it is .... watch out.