Iraq's paper army folded at Basra

Bush says the recent Iraqi Army operation in Basra was a rip-snorting success because it shows the Iraqis are willing to stand up and handle their own security matters.

Yeah, right.

BAGHDAD — More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said on Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.

The desertions in the heat of a major battle cast fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the American-trained Iraqi security forces. The Bush administration has conditioned further withdrawals of American troops on the readiness of the Iraqi military and police.

The crisis created by the desertions and other problems with the Basra operation was serious enough that Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki hastily began funneling some 10,000 recruits from local Shiite tribes into his armed forces. That move has already generated anger among Sunni tribesmen whom al-Maliki has been much less eager to recruit despite their cooperation with the government in its fight against Sunni insurgents and criminal gangs.

The Iraqi Army will never be a cohesive fighting force no matter how much we spend on it, no matter how much we train it.

It's the South Vietnamese Army all over again.

It takes more than equipment and training to make an army. It takes loyalty to a nation instead of loyalty to a sect or a tribe. And that just doesn't exist in Iraq.

It is only a matter of time before the Mahdi Army takes over. For Muqtada al-Sadr it is simply a matter of waiting until we leave.