We had the opportunity to talk to two Iraqi National Police generals today, I really had no idea what to expect and was pleasantly surprised. Because it made me miss physical training (my favorite part of any day) I was a bit on the grumpy side going into the Video Teleconference (VTC), but left the VTC in a pretty good mood.
One of the things that the training unit is big on is VTCs with folks in theater, this morning we had a VTC with the Iraqi general in charge of the National Police and one of his division commanders. Yesterday, we (all of the NPTT commanders in our class) were given a list of about 20 canned questions that the folks working with the generals thought we should ask the generals, most of them were softball type questions - how is your training going, how are your operations going, do you like working with Americans - we pretty much ignored them.
The VTC started off with an introduction of the two generals, they both seemed to be nice guys, very happy to be talking to us and very happy that we were going to be spending a year working with their units. They made it a point to say that even though we were leaving our families back in the US, we were coming to a family in Iraq and that we would be very welcome. I wasn't really paying attention to them until then (just like when I was an LT in the Infantry and knew everything I needed to know - - I was pretty sure I knew everything I needed to know about the NP, arrogance on my part, I guess, maybe I should listen to folks every now and then). After that, we used our limited Arabic on them and stumbled around with a few questions.
The generals pleasantly answered our questions, thanked us for trying to use their language and then asked us a whopper, that really made me think. "What do you know of the Iraqi National Police?" We gave up the book answer, 3 divisions, kind of like the army, but not really, focused on internal security, etc, etc. They took that answer a bit further and explained what the goal of the NP was: Eliminate the insurgencies in Iraq, not just one or two, but all of them. After that become a force that would work within the government of to promote stability in the nation and prevent what was currently happening from ever happening again. The way they were talking impressed me, they sounded very genuine and wanted to make a difference in their country.
We asked another question or two, they answered them until we asked a question about their training status. They launched on us. They gave a very detailed description of the training an Iraqi National Policeman goes through, starting from his initial selection, basic training and assignment to a unit. They emphasized their selection process, how they worked hard to root out undesirable elements before they could get in the NP and cause problems and were very candid about their shortfalls. They went to lengths to explain how they were having problems getting junior officers and how they were trying to fix that problem. I thought is was interesting (and admirable) how they talked about their organizations challenges and what they were doing to solve those challenges. One of the things that they talked openly about was that all of their units were engaged. In our Army, we rotate units in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan and have the luxury of training up for missions. Their units are conducting operations 6 days a week and have the 7th for training. Very different.
They also talked about how they were serving the people of Iraq, and how they were accepted in many of the neighborhoods that they were working in. They rattled off many of the successes that they have had to date and some of the statistics concerning their casualty rates and how they have declined dramatically over the past several months.
All in all, I was happy to have had the opportunity to hear from these gentlemen how they see things and the progress they are making.
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