Competence gets rewarded in Iraq

Despite the management screw-ups that have taken place in Iraq, there are a few silver linings. I linked to one of them — dealing with Iraq’s economic future — in my last post. Another one comes from Lieutenant General David Petraeus — the former commander of the 101st Airborne who was in charge of Mosul for ten months. I’ve blogged about him before here and here — he clearly seemed to “get it” when it came to the postwar occupation. In a nice example of competence rewarded, Vivienne Walt reports in Time that Petraeus was asked by President Bush to “assess” the Iraqi security forces back in April. Given their perfomance, the General has taken a hands-on approach:

“The President told me I could have anything I wanted, and I took him at his word,” Petraeus told TIME during an hour-long interview this week in his office. As an economist with a doctorate from Princeton, Petraeus knew what he needed: Money, lots of it, and fast. During 14 months of occupation, U.S. forces had made several attempts to kick-start Iraq’s military. Many had faltered over financial issues: At one stage last year, hundreds of new military recruits went AWOL after learning that their monthly pay was well below that of regular police officers. Others quit after determining that there was barely a corner of Iraq in which they were not prime targets for assassination — and that they were a lot more poorly equipped than their foes. The change has already been felt. Shortly after Petraeus’s arrival, units of the new Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and beleaguered police stations have suddenly received shipments of new weapons and vehicles. Last week, Petraeus dispatched thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of bullet-proof jackets to the Najaf police station — whose officers recently fled in terror from the Shiite militia of the Mehdi Army. With only 287 American police advisors in Iraq, the training for the country’s critical new force is still patchy. That will finally catch up, says Petraeus. Meanwhile, gleaming new weapons and ceramic-plated vests will boost the officers’ morale. This time around, Petraeus is also using a cherished principle from his other alma mater, West Point: Stand by your fellow soldiers, no matter what. “They have to feel they are not going to be hung out to dry,” he says of the new Iraqi forces. “Early on we are going to have to keep on enabling Iraqi forces and backing them up when necessary, even when we are building from the top.”

Petraeus’ effect can already be felt in this plan to scale back Iraqi Interior Ministry forces by 30,000. [Why is that number being reduced?–ed. Fewer trained personnel is better than a lot of untrained personnel.] Unlike last year’s disastrous dismissal of the Iraqi military, this reduction is being accomplished through generous severance payments.