Getting The Iraqis To "Stand Up"

A depressing article in today's New York Times points out one of the problems the Iraqi army faces in "standing up" so that we can "stand down":Lack of Armor Proves Deadly for Iraqi Army. In this regard, a couple pictures are worth several a thousand words:






When the article talks about a lack of armor, it is not talking about tanks. It is talking about armored personnel carriers and body armor. How can we expect the Iraqis to stand up in a war of ambush and IEDs without such basic protections, especially when the people they are supposed to replace DO have them. Under such circumstances, the wonder is that they fight at all.

The explanation is even more troubling:

The Army unit in charge of equipping and training the Iraqis, the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, said it was trying to replace much of the Iraqi fleet with new armored trucks.

But it has largely restricted its shopping to American companies that are still swamped by orders for American troops. The unit's biggest initiative, to give the Iraqis 1,500 armored Humvees, will not begin until December, and most will not be built until next summer, military and company officials said.

The Pentagon still has only one contractor in Ohio armoring the Humvees, and a backlog of orders for American troops that dates to the early months of the war has forced the Iraqi troops to the end of the line.

"We're competing with the Army on that," said Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who led the transition unit until last month.

I'm not suggesting that we should stop equipping our own troops in order to equip the Iraqis. But, it does seem to me that three plus years after the war began, we would have found a way to meet the needs of both armies.

If it is true that we can't leave until the Iraqis can take responsibility for fighting the war themselves, then we damn sure ought to be bending every effort toward at least getting them the equipment they need to have a chance.