U.S. Troops In Iraq Isolated And Untrained

by Lee Siu Hin

Not many of the U.S. soldiers are normal troops either. Some are "regular army" mobilized from Germany, but many are reservists called to duty early this year.

They were told at first they would be in Iraq for just a few months.. Now they are being told they must stay in Iraq until next spring.

Without uniforms, they would be the Joe or Jane you see on the streets of the United States. Before they were called to duty, many were students or government workers.

One soldier in battle fatigues says she is a schoolteacher, with two kids at home. Most have never seen battle or death before. But with guns and power in their hands, many now play 'boss' on the streets of Baghdad.

Officially too, these are not combat troops, but "military police" out to catch "the very bad people" from Saddam's regime.

"They do not have basic skills in civilian policing, and they are unaware of the law they are supposed to be applying," says Curt Goerig of Amnesty International. At the military camp of the 1st Battalion of the 37th Armored Division in Baghdad, that is very clear.

This unit has taken over Baghdad Island, the biggest park next to the Tigris river. The park is now off-limits to the Iraqis. There are more than a thousand troops occupying the island, including some soldiers from other battalions.

Many say they came to overthrow Saddam, and to free Iraqis from a dictator. Others are just doing what they have to. "We are here because we're told to be, this is our job, you're here to do your job, and move on," says Private Scanlon from Hampton Roads, VA.

Many soldiers acknowledge that the majority of Iraqis do not like them.

Anthony Parrish is a tank driver from task force 1st Battalion, 37th Armored Division, and he says they have come to expect daily attacks. He learnt what to expect within the first couple of days. "We got shot, we got rounds coming at us, every time we went out, there's somebody yelling, everywhere people hanging chicken wire across the street, dropping grenades off the bridges, shooting at you, even children. We saw 13-, 14-year-old children with weapons -- AK-47s, rifles, handguns."

The Department of Defense says that in the first four months of the U.S. invasion, about 300 U.S. and British soldiers died in combat and "non-combat" deaths. But both Iraqis and peace activists in Iraq doubt this figure.

The DoD says these figures relate only to fighting in or near Baghdad. They make no other figures available, and rarely report the number of wounded injured soldiers, which is several times higher than the death toll -- in the thousands, according to the Washington Post.

With the death toll rising, and public support for the occupation of Iraq waning, the military is making sure no pictures of soldiers' bodies are shown on television. The military planners want cheerleading for the soldiers instead. There is a proposal from a producer at Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV -- the most-loved television network by U.S. military leaders -- to produce something called 'COPS, the Baghdad Specials'.

Many soldiers say they just want to go home. Jason Gunn, a 37th Armored Division tank driver, says the hardest thing is not the daily attacks, but the forced separation from his loved ones. "You can deal with being shot at, because after a while you just get used to it," he says. "But when you come back in and you're by yourself, that's probably the hardest thing."

Without Iraqi friends, a soldier's life inside base is almost like being in prison.

Soldiers rarely loiter on the streets. You see them going through the streets in Humvees or tanks, or otherwise barricaded at checkpoints across the city. When they do leave base, they are gone only briefly, shopping or checking e-mail at a cyber cafe, but always under cover of tanks and guns.

In some ways they are welcome. Their tremendous buying power has meant that retail business has surged in Baghdad. The soldiers usually buy electronic appliances or pirated DVDs.

The average soldier has little knowledge of the history and culture of Iraq, or of the Islamic faith. Much of what they learn is through the 'Iraq Handbook' published by the DoD.

This book is given to every U.S. soldier who comes to Iraq. Its 385 pages are divided as follows: key facts and cultural information over 24 pages; history, primarily focusing on the time period since Saddam's rise to power, 17 pages; government, politics and economy, another 17 pages. The rest of the book is on the Iraqi military and the kind of weapons it had.

Without any social and family support network, the soldiers turn to the army chaplain for guidance. He issues guidebooks, such as 'Prayers for Iron Soldiers' or 'Iron Soldiers' Spiritual Fitness Nuggets', which essentially justify going to war and killing the enemy. And, the books prepare the soldiers for action.

An example of this came one evening by way of a raid launched by the 37th Armored Division in a northern suburb of Baghdad to catch three "very bad people." At least 100 soldiers were deployed, with the support of dozens of Humvees, tanks and helicopters. The "bad guys" were never found.

There have been several military successes -- for example, the arrest of top Iraqi military commanders and Ba'ath party officials under Operation Peninsula. But the number of failures is far higher.

There have been Iraqi accusations of GI looting during searches. A recent issue of Baghdad's activist-run newspaper, al-Muajaha (The Iraqi Witness) reports that a U.S. solider stole 25,000 Iraqi dinars ($16) from supermarket owner Samir Adbul Rasool Al-Humdani. Amnesty International reports that an officer from the 101st Airborne Division stole three million Iraqi dinars ($2,000).

The only Iraqis really welcoming of the troops are children under ten. "Hey, Mister! Mister!" a group yells, waving and talking to the troops, trying to touch their guns. It is a charming moment, until you notice the backdrop of buildings destroyed in the "Shock and Awe" U.S. bombing that opened the war and accounted for an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 civilian deaths.