How big does Iraq's army need to be before we can leave?

[quaoar]

Condi says it does not need to be very large, not in the hundreds of thousands. professor Cole disagrees:

http://www.juancole.com/

Let's do some figuring. The US-led Coalition has 160,000 well-trained, well-equipped, often experienced troops in Iraq. It is losing the guerrilla war. So contrary to her assertion that Iraq "does not need an army of hundreds of thousands," every indication is that it does, too. Condi is just channeling Rummy, who was wrong on this from day one.

The Iraqi military needs to be bigger than the current Coalition force, since that isn't big enough. So, if Iraq did need a trained military of say, 300,000, how long would that take to stand up? (You can't count the traffic cops in this total, as SecDef Rumsfeld has been wont to do; I mean soldiers.) The new recruits to the Iraqi military are mostly green and apparently in large part Shiite Arab. The experienced military men are mostly on the side of the guerrillas. So the new Iraqi military really needs training, maybe 5 years worth or more.

Moreover, there is a real question as to whether you will ever get the troops of the new Iraqi government to fight in a thoroughgoing way on behalf of what they mostly think of as an imperial power (the US). It turns out that a lot of the officers in the South Vietnamese Army were actually working for the North Vietnamese even while they were hanging around with their US military counterparts. Newsweek reports that Iraqi officials admit that the new security services are infiltrated by the guerrillas. Numbers won't solve this problem of legitimacy, and nor will time.

Dr. Rice's comments imply that she thinks a counter-insurgency effort can be handled with a small force that can be stood up relatively soon. That is not true. And if her comments were intended to make the US public confident that US troops could be withdrawn from Iraq any time soon, then she was actively misleading them.

[brainshrub]

1. How much oil can we extract before we are forced to leave?

Is the better question.

[Zynx]

2. Good stuff.

200-300,000 men is a realistic minimum for an Iraqi army in peacetime, given the size of the country and the neighborhood.

With the current situation, you're talking more 300-400,000, and they need to be at least decent.

[quaoar]

4. And considering how badly

the Iraqi Army today is infiltrated by insurgents, it probably needs to be half a million.

[Zinfandel]

3. It will NEVER be large enough to leave, as long as there's oil in the

ground in Iraq.

As we continue to build massive US Bases in Iraq.

To protect BushCo & the oil companies huge monetary interest, with the lives of our soldiers while our tax dollars pay for EVERYTHING!

The Saudi dictatorship doesn't give one shit about the Iraqi's...BushCo is their partners and has been for over forty years. BushCo needs an attack on the US...to get his war, the Saudi's were there, (15 of the 19 attackers).

[madrchsod]

5. the army needs the support of the iraqi people

that is the first step...

[norml]

6. 6,531,181,692

http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop

[happyslug]

7. Lets do some calculation

http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/iraq.html

Iraq has the following borders
With Iran 1,458 km,
With Jordan 181 km,
With Kuwait 240 km,
With Saudi Arabia 814 km,
With Syria 605 km,
With Turkey 352 km
Total: 3,650 KM

First these borders must be shut down. These 3,650 km are not all equal, very few people are coming from Kuwait but that still leaves 3,210 miles to patrol. A General rule of thumb is one company for every Kilometer (This is do to the need to maintain 24 hour surveillance, provide relief and a reserve to back up the troops on the line. Now some areas can be covered by Planes, but only those areas where people are NOT traveling. If people are traveling (and Bedouins live throughout the whole area) you have to have people on the ground. Thus you need at least 300,000 men just to secure the borders (Assuming a company of 100 men and 3000 KM of Borders).

The total land area of Iraq is 432,162 sq km of which only 13 % is arable (i.e. the part between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers). This 13 % equals 56,181 square Kilometers. This is the important part of the Country, the surrounding desert is NOT important and can e ignored except for making sure not an avenue to get supplies to the insurgents

To give you an idea of what we are talking about, a typical American County is about 900 sq KM. A typical American County is roughly 20 miles by 20 miles or 30 km by 30 km. How many men do you think you will need to control an American County? The City of Pittsburgh Police Patrol just 1/3 of Allegheny County Pa with 1500 men (Thus in a NON-insurgent area you need about 4500 police officer to keep the peace). New York City has 39,111 officers in its five Boroughs (Counties in almost every other part of the Country). That comes to over 7800 officers per county.

Now NYC is going to be higher than most other areas, but as you can see the numbers of 4-8000 per URBAN County is NOT unusual. Rural Counties will have less, but as you can see just to control the area you need at least 1 man per Sq KM (4000 men dived by 1000 sq KM per county and you get 4 per Sq km per urban area, we can assume rural areas need less but 1/4 less than an urban area. Remember we are ignoring the desert, we are talking only of the farm-able parts of Iraq, thus a ratio of 1 soldier per see km starts to sound about right).

Thus you need at least 56,000 troops to occupy the "peaceful areas" of Iraq.

As to the actual insurgents, the general rule of thumb is 10 to 1, i.e. your army has to exceed his army by a factor of 10. Given the general estimate of the insurgents is about 50,000 men, you are looking at an additional 500,000 men to fight off the insurgents.

Thus the total number of men needed is about 850,000 men. If this number sounds familiar it should, American generals were throwing that number around BEFORE THE INVASION PLAN WAS FINISHED. Iraq under Saddam maintained a 1.7 million man Army for comparison.

Please note we are talking about boots on the Ground, not air, Artillery or Armor support. Some Air, Artillery and Armor Support can replace the boots on the grounds but sooner or later it comes to boots on the grounds that prevents the enemy from moving and getting supplies, thus you need all three areas covered, the borders, the "Pacified Areas" and troops to fight the insurgents whenever they pop up. The US does NOT have the troops to do this at the present time. The New Iraqi Army will not have them.

Thus Condi is telling the truth the Iraqi Army will NOT be this large, it can never be this large without popular support (Which it does NOT have). The problem for Condi is that while she has conceded the above, she does NOT want to give up Iraq, thus she will say anything she can to justify staying in Iraq no matter how bad it gets.

Data on Iraq:
http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html
http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iqtoc.html

For Numbers and Information on NYC Police Department:
http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/html/nypd/html/misc/pdfaq2.html#41