Getting There Slowly

It takes years to build Western-style military and police forces. The critical link that is missing in much of the rest of the world is senior NCOs in the military and senior detectives in the police. These take years to properly train and season these critical assets - you simply cannot shortcut experience. This is why the Iraqi military and police have been so ineffective in the last 18 months: most of Iraq's senior NCOs and senior detectives were utterly unsuitable for work in a democracy, or were disloyal to the new government, or both. (West Germany had a similar, but smaller, problem when it integrated the East German military and police after the Berlin Wall came down.)

It's good to see that Iraq is now screening military and police applicants on its own, and firing the disloyal and incompetent. Over time, this will allow Iraq to build up a professional military and police force, while also decreasing enemy effectiveness by shutting down weapons supply channels and eliminating informers. It will probably be 2-3 more years before Iraq's military and police are effective, and another 5-10 after that before they can stand on their own, but there are encouraging signs already.