US probe finds Iraqi security forces plagued by mass desertions

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WASHINGTON (AFP) - Fledgling Iraqi security forces are "unready" to fight anti-government insurgents as their units remain inadequately trained, underequipped and some suffer from a desertion rate exceeding 80 percent, a US congressional probe has found.



The grim assessment came Tuesday, one day after NATO (news - web sites) leaders agreed, at a summit in Istanbul, to help train the new Iraqi army that is expected to gradually increase its role in combating Islamist insurgents now that the country's sovereignty has been formally restored.


"Iraq (news - web sites)'s leaders are eager to assume responsibility for their own security, and that is our wish as well," an optimistic US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) said before leaving the summit.


But as he flew from Istanbul to Washington, the General Accounting Office (news - web sites), the investigative arm of Congress, issued a terse report detailing massive morale, logistical and training problems plaguing Iraq's various security organizations.


"Iraqi security forces proved unready to take over security responsibility from the multinational force, as demonstrated by their collapse during April 2004," stated the document prepared for the heads of the international relations committees in the Senate and House of Representatives.


As many as 82 percent of personnel deserted from Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units deployed in Western Iraq and around the town of Fallujah last April, when anti-American guerrillas launched a spate of deadly strikes against coalition forces, congressional investigators found.


The desertion rate reached 49 percent in corps units deployed in and around Baghdad, while in towns like Baqubah, Tikrit, Karbala, Najaf and Kut, it stood at 30 percent.


Police squads hardly fared better. During just one week of April 17 to 23, the force lost 2,892 personnel because some of the officers were killed while others turned out to be rebel sympathizers or proved to be incompetent and had to be sent for retraining, according to the report.


The police forces in Fallujah, Najaf, Karbala and Kut collapsed, the document said.


In Fallujah, a whole battalion of the newly-reconstituted Iraqi army refused to support the US First Marine Expeditionary Force and engage the rebels.