Abandoning the speed bump tactics currently in use by the Iraqi forces.
Via Daily Mail
The U.S. military has decided against rebuilding the entire Iraqi army and will instead focus on training a handful of brigades to take on Islamic radicals, initiating a shift in the Pentagon’s decade-long approach to the handling the country.
‘The idea is, at least in the first instance, to try and build a kind of leaner, meaner Iraqi army,’ a senior U.S. official told the Washington Post.
Officials who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity said the military plans to create nine new Iraqi army brigades of up to 45,000 light-infantry soldiers over the course of the next two months and team them with other Kurdish and Shiite fighters.
At the height of the U.S. occupation of the country, Iraq boasted 400,000 combat forces. But the number of able troops had dwindled down to roughly half that by last summer, the Post said.
In September Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that U.S. military assessors had discovered that 24 of the Iraqi army’s existing 50 brigades were not fit to fight because of their sectarian differences.
The remaining 26 brigades didn’t have the right training and equipment, Dempsey admitted, making it impossible for the nation to properly defend itself against ISIS.
The Washington Post said Thursday that an updated count conducted by Michael Knights, a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, now puts the number of active brigades at just 36.
In any case, the country isn’t currently equipped to launch an offensive against ISIS that would allow it to retake its largest city, Mosul. That sort of a mission would require roughly 80,000 soldiers, Dempsey has said.
In September he suggested that a time may come when U.S. ground forces would be needed to supplement Iraqi forces if they underwent a major incursion to retake Mosul but has made it clear he’s made no such recommendation to the president.