Iraqi soldiers raid on terrorists failed..they ran out of **gasoline**

[rainbow4321]

Air Force Times:

http://tinyurl.com/2hfkyd


A raid on suspected terrorists in northern Iraq failed after Iraqi soldiers ran out of gas and couldn’t send half their men to the mission, a U.S. commander says.

The incident illustrates “a critical weakness” in the Iraqi security forces, which still have “a way to go” in learning logistics and other soldiering skills, said U.S. Army Col. Stephen M. Twitty.

“We lost valuable opportunities to pick up a couple of bad guys,” Twitty said March 23 of the incident, which occurred in January, in which Iraqi forces didn’t have the fuel to field all those planned for the operation.

It will be six to eight months of more work on the logistics, he said, adding that Iraqi forces can provide their soldiers with fuel and water to sustain themselves in some situations, but not in others. They have problems supplying themselves “with fuel and the parts they need to keep their vehicles running” because they haven’t learned how to use the Iraqi system, which relies partly on monthly ration coupons for fuel.

[IWantAChange]

1. Haven't we (the US) been working for 3+ years building the Iraqi forces?

Would appear the Rumsfeld influence has permeated the Iraq potential to maintain a sustained force as much as our own.

[rainbow4321]

3. If they actually got the Iraqi forces up and running...

chimp couldn't use not having an effective Iraqi force as an excuse any more...it benefits him and his cronie$ to not keep them nonfunctioning!

[Taxloss]

2. The irony is unbelievable. n/t

[TomInTib]

4. Ration coupons? For troops?

Obviously, the Plan is called Failure.

[rainbow4321]

6. 'Ghost' troops, untrained police, broken-down vehicles frustrate efforts

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NDk4NTc5NDMy

More than three years and $15 billion into the US effort to rebuild Iraqi forces, "ghost soldiers" still help fill Iraq's army ranks and no one knows how many trained policemen remain on the job, the Pentagon and US government investigators report. The Government Accountability Office says the most serious problems lie in the logistics- supplies, maintenance, transport- of Iraqi security forces.

One example: The police have more than 1,000 US-made trucks whose computerised systems are beyond the skills of the Iraqi mechanics who repair them. Since soon after the 2003 US invasion, the training of new military and police forces has been presented as vital to the US military's handing over the counterinsurgency fight to the Iraqis. In the current deployment of thousands of extra US troops into Baghdad, the Americans are teaming up with Iraqi army units to try to control the Sunni Muslim insurgency and Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence.

In its latest quarterly Iraq report, the Pentagon said 328,700 Iraqis have been trained for the security forces, including 136,400 soldiers -more than double the numbers of two years ago. But it added in the next sentence that the "actual number of present-for-duty soldiers is about one-half to two-thirds of the total due to scheduled leave, absence without leave, and attrition." Many Iraqis go on authorized leaves for days to deliver their cash pay to their families. The Pentagon said Iraq's defense and interior ministers also are aware of "ghost" soldiers and policemen who exist only on paper- a fraudulent device by which units can receive additional per capita resources, and corrupt officials can collect nonexistent recruits' pay.
<snip>

The police were supplied with 1,179 American trucks they were not able to maintain "because its personnel were unable to work with the vehicles' computerized systems," GAO expert William M. Solis told a House subcommittee on March 9. A network of supply depots, key to weaning Iraqi forces off dependence on the Americans for fuel, uniforms and other goods, has lagged behind schedule. The target date for completing garrison-level depots was moved from last December to next December, Solis reported. He quoted an unidentified senior US official as saying that what was to have been a national depot north of Baghdad is "a depot in name only." Solis predicted Iraqi reliance on US logistics will extend into 2008.

[NI4NI]

5. Sounds like a modern day F Troop