The training went beyond books and theory. The Australian Army Training Team Iraq (AATTI) based its task on the development of trust and on leading through example.

Major Michael Bye, the Cavalry Squadron Commander for AMTG1, supported the initial team of about 50, commanded by Colonel Steve Tully. Challenges to the team included 60-degree temperatures, long distances and an Iraqi Army that had seen numerous other training efforts come and go.

Major Bye describes the historical effort that has seen more than 12,500 members of the Iraqi Army “brought up to speed” by the Australian Defence Force’s down-to-earth training approach.

“Australian Army training advisors act as supervisors and mentors, focused on developing the course material and developing instructor skills through a ‘train the trainer’ approach,” Major Bye said.

“We got there and it was effectively about a month or so before the relationship was worked out and in that time the training team was getting out and talking to the key Iraqi officials and commanders to determine how the relationship was going to work.

“The key thing for the trainers is that they were initially viewed as just another group from the Coalition, while the key thing for the Iraqis was, what were they going to learn that was new.

“We came in and we stayed with them to develop trust and we became mentors and sounding boards and you can apply it to that unique Australian quality of empathy and understanding. And it made a big difference.

“When we were in their camps we would look at their messing (eating) arrangements and say ‘Look this is bad, you’re going to get sick’ because they had a different understanding of hygiene. So we’d get our chippies and our tradesmen and medical and environmental health blokes and redevelop their kitchen messing facilities and sanitary conditions to immediately improve the well-being of their troops.

“And this is at a really low level because we’re not talking about fighting anyone, we’re just talking about helping people out.

“If you’re training means going up to a place and actually just being there and not doing any training for a little bit of time, then that’s important because you need to drink the tea and understand what the requirements are.

“The tangible rewards that the first task group saw were an obvious transition from Coalition-led security arrangements to Iraqi-led operations during which there were two periods of unrest.

“As a result, the November 2005 referendum and subsequent elections in early 2006 were effected without civil unrest in a nation that was previously a military dictatorship.

“More recently, there was a period of civil unrest in As Samawah and the Iraqi Army stood up and took care of the problem, so if that’s not an indication of how successful your training is, then I don’t know what is.

“So you can see, it does not take a long time to train a soldier, but it does take a considerable time to train an Army.”


Training in Iraq - Operation Catalyst fact sheet