U.S., Iraqi Troops to Open Army School
19 Dec. Associated Press - U.S., Iraqi Troops to Open Army School.
Quote:
Young Iraqi soldiers will soon begin arriving for leadership training in this small northern town, where Iraqi insurgents once operated with impunity and the buildings were stripped bare by looters.
With the parliamentary election over, the focus for U.S. troops will be to provide the new government with an army it can call its own. U.S. and Iraqi instructors will launch a formal military leadership school in Hammam al Alil on Monday, an important step in creating the institutions that will allow the Iraqi army to sustain itself.
Iraqi army Lt. Col. Yaseen Majeed, the commandant of the Northern Iraq Regional Training Center, complained that some of the reconstruction was not complete, but that otherwise he was ready to receive the first 20 students for the school's pilot course for new sergeants.
He explained that in the old Iraqi army sergeants did not have the authority to make decisions or give orders like U.S. noncommissioned officers, or NCOs.
"Now with the help of the coalition forces, we want NCOs like them," he added. "I don't want to say it is easy, we have to come a long way, but it will get easier day by day."...
