Joseph L. Galloway
is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist.
One of America's preeminent war correspondents,
with more than four decades as a reporter
and writer, he recently concluded an assignment
as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell
at the State Department.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent
22 years as a foreign and war correspondent
and bureau chief for United Press International,
and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and
senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
magazine. His overseas postings include tours
in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore
and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow
in the former Soviet Union. During the course
of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served
four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam
and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War
and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert
Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division
(Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The
finest combat correspondent of our generation
-- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
WASHINGTON - The contenders for president of the United States finally got around to addressing the question of the war we are fighting now in Iraq as opposed to the one we fought a long time ago. But the solutions of both of them for bringing American soldiers and Marines home rest on building a credible Iraqi security force to take their place.
Both Kerry and Bush acknowledge that any American troop draw-down or withdrawal depends on how swiftly the interim Iraqi government and the Americans can train, equip and stand up an Iraqi security force: army, national guard, police, border security, riverine force, navy and coast guard.
A senior American military offer, who asked that he not be named, told me this week that at present we have 230,000 Iraqi security and military forces in uniform. This number will top 250,000 within another month or so.
The situation, the official said, is improving every week - but remains "uneven in many respects." He cited some success stories, including the performance of Iraqi forces in the Najaf siege. He also noted that recently Iraqi counter-terror forces captured three key lieutenants of rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, 40 of his militia and seven dump-truck loads of weapons and ammunition in one raid, without a single casualty, in Najaf.
That said, the Iraqi forces have been virtually neutralized when not operating directly with American forces in the area of greatest danger, Anbar province, where the baddest of the bad guys rule the roost in no-go towns like Ramadi and, until this week, in Samarra.
There insurgents and foreign terrorists use intimidation and threats to great effect against Iraqis who support the government.
Equipping the Iraqi forces is moving ahead, after a glacial beginning last year. Since July the Americans have issued the Iraqi forces nearly 23 million rounds of small arms ammunition, 42,000 armored vests, 4,400 vehicles, and tens of thousands of AK-47 rifles and pistols.
The Americans have a very optimistic timetable for rapidly growing the Iraqi army, which at present is composed of only three regular army battalions and three intervention battalions. Eight more battalions are scheduled to complete training by the end of November. By the end of January the Americans hope to have a total of 27 Iraqi Army battalions ready for service.
This is in addition to 45 national guard battalions, 40 of which are currently operating and have some degree of momentum in safer regions outside the Iron Triangle of Sunni territory. But only a few of the national guard units could be said to be fully trained and fully equipped.
The same can be said of many of the earliest recruits for the Iraqi police, who got only the bare minimum of six weeks training.
Still, the American official said training capacity has expanded greatly, and there are now more than 3,000 going through basic police academy training and that number is expanding quickly. Another 1,500 special public order troops, 400 border security troops and 200 special police are in training at any given time.
American advisers are being inserted in Iraqi regular army battalions to mentor the officers and non-commissioned officers, and there is talk of attaching an Iraqi battalion to every American brigade operating in Iraq for further training and to boost both their morale and effectiveness.
What no one wants to see and what the fledgling Iraqi government cannot afford is another incident such as the one last April when a new Iraqi army battalion was ordered to board trucks to Fallujah to join the fierce fighting there between the U.S. Marines and a determined insurgent force and foreign terrorists. The battalion soldiers balked on the road, ordered the trucks to turn around and went home without firing a shot.
The results in the fighting in Samarra, where American and Iraqi troops fought alongside each other, were quite satisfactory, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is hailing this as the new model.
Two candidates for president and 135,000 American troops based in Iraq are sure hoping it works.
