A Letter From the Shores of Iraq - New York TimesSeptember 30, 2005

A Letter From the Shores of Iraq - New York TimesSeptember 30, 2005
A Letter From the Shores of Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Umm Qasr, Iraq

To reach the headquarters of the Iraqi Navy in the port of Umm Qasr, my U.S. Navy escort and I had to drive in from Kuwait. We were met at the border by two jeeps with the Royal Marines who escorted us to Umm Qasr at dusk. Even though this is the safest part of Iraq, we had to be outfitted in body armor, and the Royal Marines had their automatic weapons loaded and ready. They kept every civilian car we passed, every kid on a bicycle, in their sights, just in case one was a suicide bomber.

And no wonder - roadside bombs have suddenly started to appear on this route. And the enemy just keeps getting smarter. After the coalition forces introduced jamming devices to block roadside bombs detonated with cellphones, the insurgents started using infrared devices from garage door openers. So much ingenuity for so much malevolence. And this is the safe, Shiite part of Iraq.

The British Royal Navy is in charge of training the 1,000-man Iraqi Navy, which I wanted to see for two reasons. First, the effort to get Iraq's Navy back afloat is a microcosm of all the good, the bad and the ugly that is involved in trying to rebuild Iraq's military. And second, the Iraqi Navy has a very important job: with U.S., British and Australian help, it oversees Iraq's only port and the two oil pumping platforms off the coast of Umm Qasr. This is where virtually all of Iraq's one million barrels of oil - nearly 90 percent of Iraq's G.D.P. - gets loaded onto tankers daily.

The good news? The Umm Qasr port is busy today - 50 cargo ships a month offload air-conditioners, refrigerators, microwaves, satellite dishes and cars for Iraqi consumers. Virtually every Iraqi naval officer I encountered had his own cellphone. Three years ago no one here had one. And considering that 18 months ago Iraq had no working navy, the fact that it now has a cadre of officers who have taken over the training, so the British and U.S. Coast Guard contingents here can focus on training the trainers, is also real progress.

But progress is slow. One day last week a whole boatload of Iraqi sailors decided to take a long lunch break and blew off the afternoon training. Too hot. When sailors misbehave, the Iraqis fall back on Saddamist discipline. The other day, an Iraqi officer suggested to his British adviser that a misbehaving sailor be buried in sand up to his neck.

The biggest challenge, explained Capt. John Clink of the Royal Navy, is getting middle-management Iraqis to take the initiative, especially when things go wrong. This requires a huge cultural shift.

Saddam's tyrannical rule over nearly three decades conditioned people here never to assume responsibility.

"There is a huge problem with fear of blame, fear of failure," Captain Clink said. "The result is a tendency to look away when a problem arises, to ignore it or just not do anything in the hopes that it will all go away." A vast majority of Iraqi military personnel, Captain Clink added, "have had the initiative kicked out of them by decades of repression. ... When Patrol Boat 1 breaks down, it is amazingly difficult to get them to decide how to get around the problem. They want to refer everything to the operational commander.

"At the younger level, though, the 25-year-olds, you start to see a completely different outlook on life. They are not superstars, but you see better English, more initiative, better leadership. And these are the guys out driving the patrol boats."

The problem is that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad is so dysfunctional that it is next to impossible to get these Iraqi junior officers promoted. And one month last summer the whole Iraqi Navy didn't get paid.

The Iraqi government ordered three new fast patrol boats from a contractor in Baghdad for millions of dollars. They are being finished on the dock in Umm Qasr, but no one knows whether they will stay afloat, because of all the extras that were added by the Iraqis without regard to seaworthiness.

The Iraqi Navy has a couple of terrific, dedicated commanders - real leaders, respected by their men. But when they go back home to lawless Basra, they never know whether masked men will attack them, as has happened to colleagues. And behind these few real leaders, there is no effective middle management.

So yes, we've trained a lot of Iraqi soldiers in the last 18 months, but that is not the relevant number. The relevant number is how many will be paid on time, how many will get promoted when they've earned it, how many will show up for training after lunch, how many will follow when their commander says charge, and how many can go home on weekends and tell people what they really do. That number has a long way to go.