How to build an army

AATT_IRAQ
(MPEG video 15.6MB)

WO2 Tony White teaches Iraqis building clearance techniques.

Sgt McLachlan and Sgt Paul Clemence supervise Iraqis during a range shoot.

Sgt Paul Clemence takes Iraqi soldiers for PT in the early morning hours at a training camp in Northern Iraq. Photos by Cpl Neil Ruskin, 1JPAU

Army Training Team Middle East Badge.

It’s no easy task to create a military force from scratch in a country where recruits will go straight from training into action. Cpl Damian Shovell sits down with Australian trainers in Iraq.

If there’s one lesson the trainers in the Australian Army Training Team Iraq (AATTI) helped instil in almost 3000 trainees in the first Iraqi brigade to complete their first phase of training, it’s to adapt and overcome.

Charged with mentoring and advising the training of a new Iraqi brigade, and faced with the constant challenges of isolation, language barriers, enemy threat and occasional equipment and food shortages, the members of the first AATTI rotation took a “lead by example” approach that ensured their success.

Talking with trainers as they neared the end of their six-month tour, they listed some of the vagaries of training a battalion that will soon be lining-up to fight insurgents alongside the Coalition and agreed it had been a life lesson – for all concerned.

WO2 Peter McNeil surmised, “You couldn’t take anything for granted, from personal security to ... the translator turning up, because he or his family could have been threatened,” he said.

The instructors said some of the Iraqi recruits didn’t even have boots until the last five weeks of training, because the supply trucks were ambushed, which also at times affected food supplies.

These problems seem trivial compared to the Vehicle Bourne Improvised Explosive Device attack on August 7, that killed 10 recruits and injured more than 40 (some of whom had only been in the Army for two days), and the earlier mortar attack that wounded several trainees.

And these were just some of the physical challenges. WO2 Malcolm Cockburn said there was also a need to remove some pre-existing attitudes between officers and soldiers, still lingering from the old Iraqi Army, as the AATTI moved to shift the training responsibility of soldiers from officers to NCOs – a practice that was initially resisted, as “knowledge is power”, and those who had it opposed relinquishing it.

“I think one of the biggest things that we’ve achieved over here is the amount of work the NCOs – the squad leaders and the sergeants – are actually doing. They’re actually running the platoon and running all the training,” he said.

“The seed is planted right at the base of their training, we’ve shown them how much information a soldier should know, why he should know it, who should be teaching it, and how the rank structure works.”

The Australian trainers were involved in three levels of training, beginning with integrating the officers, who had been trained in Jordan (using what WO2 McNeil described as old Arabic methodologies), with the NCOs trained by the Coalition, before introducing them to the recruits.

Initially the trainers said they detected a minor power struggle between the two, as in the old Iraqi army, officers conducted all training and the new officers felt the need to stamp their authority on the NCOs.

“... We then ran a four-week ‘Kapooka’ and then we conducted a four-week infantry IET course, which combined individual soldier skills up to squad level,” WO2 Cockburn said.

The trainers were with the trainees almost the full day, beginning with PT in the morning before joining them for breakfast in the mess.

Throughout their interaction, lessons were being learnt on both sides, as trainers learnt to understand the cultural differences that exist within the many different tribal groups and religious denominations that comprise the new army, which had, they said, resulted in very few fights and certainly no deaths between the groups and laughed that the same differences in religious adherence exists with the Iraqi Army as does in the Australian.

Religious and cultural considerations were also taken into account in the training program, with three of the five daily prayer times coinciding with trainee meal times.

Another difference trainers became accustomed to was trainees conducting most physical activity late at night.

“For example, in the morning they’ll do their drill when it’s cool, because in the summertime it gets to over 50 degrees,” they said.

A lengthy lunch and prayer break then follows, and afterward the trainees conduct lessons within classrooms to escape the afternoon heat.

“We found they wouldn’t do much of an afternoon, then they’d go away and have dinner, and we’d quite often find that if we’d advised them on something, such as building up their defences, we’d find that they’d do it very late at night, and we’d come back in the morning and everything was done.”

The Australians said one of the keys to their success and the acceptance of their advice hinged on their good rapport with trainees, and more especially company commanders, which was built as the Iraqis witnessed the Australians living in exactly the same conditions as they did – sharing the same accommodation standard, the same water and facility restrictions, and even eating the same food at the same mess.

The trainers said that using this rapport, they were able to attend the lessons being delivered by the Iraqi NCOs and step in or advise when they needed to, being conscious of not offending or making any Iraqi NCO lose face.

“If they lose face in front of their men, or especially their officers, it’s very hard for them to come back from that,” WO2 McNeil said.

WO2 McNeil said that the best way to correct lessons was tactfully and privately after a lesson was delivered.

“Obviously a fair bit of diplomacy comes into it, and it’s all about not breaking them down and having them lose face.”

Although the first AATTI rotation has now completed its phase of training with the first Iraqi brigade, and a second AATTI rotation has now started with a new brigade, WO2 Cockburn said their trainees will continue under the advice and mentoring of US personnel, as they develop collective training at platoon and company level, and the new brigade will benefit from the new Australian trainers.

“The soldiers themselves trust and understand how good the Australian soldier is – if you say or do one thing they’ll mimic you in every way,” he said.

“They’re out there watching, their NCO’s now have the ability to teach. The NCOs and soldiers never had this power before, we’ve shown them that and the officers can now see what the NCOs are capable of.”