Losing Iraq, One Truckload at a Time

[Chris Albon]

Losing Iraq, One Truckload at a Time

The greatest amount of corruption in the Iraq military and police forces occurs when payrolls are handed out at the unit level. Because the country doesn’t have a functioning banking system that would allow easy money transfers to private accounts, military and security commanders receive large sums of cash every payroll period based on the number and rank of soldiers on their personnel rosters. The endemic problem is that commanders frequently put nonexistent soldiers and security personnel — dubbed “ghosts” by American overseers — on their rosters and pocket their salaries.

It is difficult to overstate how deeply these ghosts hurt the war effort. Most obviously, we have no idea how much of this money is being siphoned off to support tribal and ethnic fighting, and even the insurgency itself.

Also, because hundreds and thousands of ghosts exist at all echelons, many military and police units in the field do not have nearly as many men at arms as they seem to have on paper. Thus the units are often assigned tasks for which they do not have necessary manpower. And when American or other coalition forces are asked to “partner” with Iraqi troops, we have often found that there simply aren’t enough bodies to conduct training and missions.

Is the Iraqi security forces a paper tiger?

[Rob Thornton]

Yes this is a problem, and having the MiTT track personnel to money does help, but ultimately its their show. As for where the majority of corruption is at - its where the most money and opportunity is - and that coin has more then 1 side. Lots of money from payday to life support gets lost in transit. So what in the grand scheme of things? Look at the various war contractors and how much their CEOs make? Consider how money is spent at home and abroad in support of US politics - in the end its still a pittance of the GDP and Americans have an incredible standard of living.

Ref. another thread - and this one. I talked to my wife the other day who said she was worried about us over here because everything is moving so fast since the President's address. I asked her where she was getting her news, "why from the various cable news networks" she said. I said "funny, things don't seem to awful different from my point of view and I have a front row seat." I told her to turn off the news, they are selling themselves and their airtime. When they don't have something dramatic to repeat video of every 20 minutes, they look for new spins on other news. They do so in a way that creates drama and panic because that sells. When I start seeing journalist on a regular basis doing patrols and developing personalities that are more then video clip deep I'll take their views on the work we do here more seriously. There is a tendency to see what you want to see because it supports speed - its one of our cultural disfunctions.


Regards Rob

[RTK]

Yes this is a problem, and having the MiTT track personnel to money does help, but ultimately its their show. As for where the majority of corruption is at - its where the most money and opportunity is - and that coin has more then 1 side. Lots of money from payday to life support gets lost in transit. So what in the grand scheme of things? Look at the various war contractors and how much their CEOs make? Consider how money is spent at home and abroad in support of US politics - in the end its still a pittance of the GDP and Americans have an incredible standard of living.

Ref. another thread - and this one. I talked to my wife the other day who said she was worried about us over here because everything is moving so fast since the President's address. I asked her where she was getting her news, "why from the various cable news networks" she said. I said "funny, things don't seem to awful different from my point of view and I have a front row seat." I told her to turn off the news, they are selling themselves and their airtime. When they don't have something dramatic to repeat video of every 20 minutes, they look for new spins on other news. They do so in a way that creates drama and panic because that sells. When I start seeing journalist on a regular basis doing patrols and developing personalities that are more then video clip deep I'll take their views on the work we do here more seriously. There is a tendency to see what you want to see because it supports speed - its one of our cultural disfunctions.


Regards Rob

I agree with Rob. I also personally know the author who is prone to expounding on things brimming with hyperbole. This was no different.