None of the 7,000 U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces fought in the recent battles for Tikrit or Ramadi, raising questions as to what strategic changes are needed to turn the tide against the Islamic State.
Instead, the 7,000 fighters — some of whom were new recruits, others who had previous combat experience — who have run through the six-week U.S. and coalition-run training courses that began in December have been mostly dispatched in their new battalion components to the north and south of Iraq.
“Of the 7,000 that have graduated, those forces have gone back out into the field, primarily in the north and south and conducted effective operations,” said U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Pat Ryder. “They have performed as you would expect an Army infantry maneuver unit to perform — exercising good command and control in the field.”
Some of the units have been dispatched for more sensitive assignments.
Ryder said some of the trainees assisted in providing security last week for an annual Shia pilgrimage to honor the death of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim at a shrine in the Kadhimiya district in Baghdad.
Others who had been training at Al Asad Air Base were sent to al-Karmah, a city about 40 miles west of Baghdad. The city is a midpoint between Baghdad and Ramadi that is also a target of the Islamic State.
A senior defense official said there was no way to tell if the fighters selected from Al Asad were more advanced fighters or if they had been dispatched simply because they were closest to al-Karmah.
“We have seen that the forces that have graduated have done well,” Ryder said. None of the trained forces fought in Ramadi, he said.
In an April interview with the Washington Examiner, Army 1st Division Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Grinston, who helped start the training sites, said none of the graduates had participated in the victory at Tikrit, either.
It was not clear if the coalition-trained forces were dispatched with U.S.-provided arms. Centcom said the fighters were given “U.S. equipment” upon graduating from the training.
When pressed on whether that meant any of the 10,000 M-16 rifles or military vehicles the U.S. government rushed to the Iraqi government earlier this year, Centcom’s spokesman said the equipment the U.S.-trained forces left with was “primarily personal gear.”
Sunni senior leaders who were in the U.S. last week discussing the future challenges Iraq faces said the country’s central government has not provided the U.S. weapons to Sunni tribal fighters.
The U.S. referred questions on whether the U.S.-provided weapons had been distributed to the new trainees to the Iraqi government, which is responsible for distributing them.
