A bipartisan congressional group has released a report on the capability of the Iraqi forces, which the United States alleged to have spend $19 billion on recruiting, training and equipping, The Washington Post reported.

The report found that the Pentagon "cannot report in detail how many of the 346,500 Iraqi military and police personnel that the coalition trained are operational today.”

To that, I would like to respond.

Let’s see, and I’ll take recent examples:

On June 19, the US forces launched yet another military offensive in the city of Diyala in eastern Iraq. The offensive was meant to repress the group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which in recent months has taken the city as a safe haven. The Post reported that “about 10,000 soldiers” are involved in the offensive, officially dubbed “Arrowhead Ripper.”

The operation started “with a quick-strike nighttime air assault" by the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, a U.S. military statement said, the Post reported.

“Air assault,” have you noticed?

The Post also quoted an American commander as saying that the streets of Diyala are carpeted with bombs that are capable of destroying U.S. armored vehicles—vehicles that the Iraqi army doesn’t even have now.

What are the results of the operation? More deaths and more instability in the country. What have this major power achieved? Nothing.

How in God’s name do we dare to ask the Iraqi army to fight an insurgency that has cost the strongest military machinery in the world 2929 casualties in hostile action?

Any military operation in Iraq now depends on fighter jets, remote-controlled missiles and high technology.

Do we know what the Iraqi army is equipped with? I do:
AK47 rifles, pistols, 7.62 mm PKMS (BKC) Machine Gun, M16 [recently given to some soldiers] and less than a 100 humvees.

Do Iraqi soldiers have armored vehicles? No.
Do they have flack jackets? No.
Do they have night vision goggles? No.

The report also said that the US has spent $19 billion in recruiting, training, equipping and building training facilities.

What training? This is the army that fought eight years with Iran, invaded Kuwait, oppressed the Shiites in the south, killed the Kurds in the north, failed coups in the west and protected a dictatorship for more than 30 years. Train it to do what?

And who got the money? American contractors, right? [in Iraqi we say Hasna Jabata… Hasna Akhthata, roughly translated: Hasna brought it and Hasna took it back.]

What training facilities? They are using the old Iraqi camps. And we have more than enough. The whole country was turned into a bunker!

What equipment? The AK47s are the same ones Iraq had before the war. The BKCs? They are the same. Pistols? How many factories have they built with $19 billion!

"We have no idea what our $19 billion has gotten us," Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on oversight and investigations, told the Post.

Well, neither do Iraqis Meehan.

He said that the States spent $55,000 on each of the 350,000 Iraqi soldiers!

How can we ask the “Iraqi army” to fight insurgents and take responsibility if they are not equipped well enough?

The American military power was not able to quell the violence in Iraq and that’s why I believe Bush increased the number of U.S. troops in Iraq by 28,500 to total up to 150,000. if 150,000 best trained and best equipped soldiers in the world cannot do it, how can Iraqis do it?

The Iraqi army has to be equipped with the proper weaponry to perform properly. It just logic.

Some U.S. officials and citizens argue that they cannot trust Iraqis with weapons, and to that I say “end of discussion.” Because if they don’t trust the Iraqi army and that’s why they don’t equip it with what is needed, there is no way we can get out of this situation.

If the argument stays in the “I don’t trust you” and “you don’t trust me” area, it will never be resolved. Something has to change to make it work and that is the policy with which we are conducting our actions.

Calling for the Iraqi army to take responsibility is an offensive joke, I believe. It is like saying “take it. You will fail and I will be back.”

What are they doing? Showing the world how incapable the Iraqi army is? Well, it is their make.

If anyone argues that the U.S. has spent money on building an Iraqi army and equipping it, I will say “does it have fighter jets? Does it have helicopters? Does it have armored vehicles? Do the soldiers have flack jackets?” if one thing is missing, then there is no army. Very simple.

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki

I would like to announce that another writer is joining 24 Steps to Liberty.

Ali is a 17 years old Iraqi, who was born in a Baghdad prison because his parents were political prisoners at the time he was born. He just came to the States in August. He will tell you his story, but I wanted to say this about him:

He is very mature. I haven’t met him in person yet, but we spoke on the phone a lot and we discussed issues like Iraq’s politics, the situation in the country and what should be done next. What struck me in Ali is how logically he discussed Iraq. He is only 17 years old, but who am I to judge. I wanted it to share his stories and thoughts with you. And you will decide.

The idea is to present another point of view. A teen-ager who was born and lived in Baghdad. Because you have very well received 24 Steps to Liberty and encouraged me to continue writing on it, I thought that I shouldn’t keep it to myself. I wanted to share it with other Iraqis.

I promised Ali that I will not change anything in what he writes. The ideas will come from him, unless he wants help. As long as he is not offending the readers and stays balanced in what he presents, he is welcome to write on this platform.

You are invited to suggest ideas to Ali to write about.

How to read Ali’s posts?
Call up 24 Steps to Liberty on your screen; scroll down a little bit; Under the "Most Debated Entries" link on the right side of the screen, there is a picture of Ali; Click on the picture and it will take you to his window on 24 Steps to Liberty.

Feeh

Painting by Iraqi Artist Betool Fekaiki

I was struggling the last few days not to write something political about the situation in the Middle East these days. But I eventually gave up because the temptation is much stronger than I am.

In Iraq, the Parliament agreed to oust its speaker, Sunni Arab Mahmood al-Mashhadani, because he is impolite when dealing with his colleagues and is not trying to change, several parliament members said.

This issue became the most important in Iraq in the last week or so.

Because we have “democracy” in Iraq, every side was empowered. Everyone single ethnic and sectrain group in the parliament has the power to ruin the country now, and they have succeeded and will succeed more.

Naturally, Mashhadani refused to leave or resign. He obviously inherited the seat from his father and his grandfather! He forgot that Iraqis risked their lives and faced death just to go out and cast a vote in the ballot so they can have a government that represents them. He forgot that Iraqis gave up to the invasion because they were fed up with a president that never wanted to leave, so they wanted to never be in this situation again. They wanted to be able to throw a government when they feel it is not serving them.

He forgot all that and instead threatened to appeal to the Federal Court. His group, the Accordance Front, Iraq’s biggest Sunni grouping with 44 seats in the 275-seat parliament, has asked him to resign and he refused.

We used to joke that Saddam Hussein inherited Iraq from his mother, Sabha, and he didn’t want to give it up. The exiles, including most of the government’s officials now, have joked about that and criticized Hussein for not wanting to give up the seat. They always told us, the average Iraqis, that there shouldn’t be someone in power for a long time because that doesn’t describe the “democracy” they wanted for Iraq.

There are talks in Iraq that there is a coup being cooked behind closed doors. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has threatened to battle anyone trying to “destroy the unity of Iraq.” He believes that his government is uniting Iraq.

A year and some change ago we cursed Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the former Prime Minister, for not realizing how bad it is in Iraq. After every bombing and dozens of bodies found in and around Baghdad, he would come on TV and promise the Iraqis that “no one will be able to destroy the unity government. They cannot succeed in dividing the Iraqis.” Jaafari sounded so far from reality and was really disconnected from the rest of Iraq sitting inside a palace in the “Green Zone.” Therefore, the Iraqis reelected his group, the United Iraqi Alliance, and agreed to elect his “best man” Nouri al-Maliki. Because Iraqis wanted a change!

The ruins of the Askariya shrine were bombed again. I don’t know what the significance of this incident is when we compare it to the thousands of lives lost every month in Iraq. But some uncivilized, ignorant, scum people started to attack Sunni and Shiite mosques in retaliatory reply to the mosque bombing.

That’s why I am convinced that the fight in Iraq is never about religion, although it would still be silly and nonsense. If it were about religion, how could they attack mosques? It is hatred and revenge and now is the chance to take care of it. We are a nation built on hatred and taught to avenge over the silliest things.

All this fight over power is happening while the Iraqis pay the toll. Still, dozens of Iraqis get killed by car bombs, mortars, assassinations and other civil war violence and more than 40 bodies are found in and around Baghdad everyday.

In the Palestinian territories, Hamas attacked Fatah buildings. The two sides fought and killed each other. President of the “National Unity Government,” Mahmoud Abbas fired the other pillar of this unity, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. Haniya refused, naturally. Now, they have two governments before they even get a state. There is no state called “Palestine” if you haven’t noticed yet. But there are two governments ready for when there is!

This is the fruit of democracy in the Middle East. This is what happens when we ask a long-time oppressed people to choose. I’ve been saying, and many people who actually know the situation in that part of the world, that this is not the way to install democracy in the Middle East. There should be education first, knowledge, workshops, schools promoting the term “democratic government” before we ask people to vote. No one believed and some people were all angry at how can we oppose installing “democracy” in Iraq and Palestine. And the result is what we are seeing now.

It is so interesting to me to see that the Middle Eastern countries that publicly opposed the idea of a State of Israel before are the ones that have problems now, either political or economical problems or terrorism. Only them. Let’s see: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon [Hezbollah,] Yemen and the Palestinian territories. Anyone else? No. it’s a good way to keep them busy I think. A brilliant politician would think this way, to keep their enemy busy and draw their attention to something else to play with. It’s succeeding.

Just a thought!

Painting by Iraqi artist Betool Fekaiki