BAGHDAD (AP) â?? The Iraqi soldiers tell of how they can
hardly live with the shame of their rout under the onslaught of the
Islamic militants. Their commanders disappeared. Pleas for more
ammunition went unanswered. Troops ran from post to post only to find
them already taken by gunmen, forcing them to flee.
"I see it in
the eyes of my family, relatives and neighbors," one lieutenant-colonel
who escaped the militants’ sweep over the northern city of Mosul told
The Associated Press. "I am as broken and ashamed as a bride who is not a
virgin on her wedding night."
Iraq’s military has been deeply
shaken by their collapse in the face of fighters led by the al-Qaida
breakaway group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, who in the course
of just over a week overran Mosul then stormed toward Baghdad, seizing
town after town, several cities and army base after army base over a
large swath of territory.
The impact is hurting efforts to rally
the armed forces to fight back. Shiite militiamen and volunteers have
had to fill the void as the regular army struggles to regroup.
Top
commanders have been put under investigation. Conspiracy theories are
running rampant to explain the meltdown. Some Shiite allies of Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki have accused Kurds in the north of encouraging
the military collapse so they could grab territory and weapons for
themselves â?? an accusation that they’ve provided no proof for but that
is straining already tense ties with the Kurdish autonomous zone, where
officials deny the claim.
On Tuesday, al-Maliki retired three
generals who had been deployed in Mosul and ordered legal proceedings
against them. He also dismissed a brigadier general and ordered his
court martial in absentia. He said he planned to retire off or court
martial more senior officers, but gave no details.
Already he had
ordered the questioning of the military’s Chief of Joint Operations Gen.
Abboud Gambar and the ground forces commander Gen. Ali Gheidan,
according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitivity of the subject. The two face no charges and
no legal action has been taken against them.
Al-Maliki has also
vowed to bring the full weight of military law, including the execution
of deserters, on anyone who is found out to have fled the battle.
Al-Maliki
is trying to turn the armed forces around. He told army commanders and
volunteers in a rally south of Baghdad this week that the rout served as
a much needed wake-up call. He said it would lead to the exposure and
punishment of military commanders and politicians he accuses of
betraying their country. He has also cryptically blamed conspiracies,
acts of treachery and meddling Arab nations.
The blow was
particularly harsh in a country that has traditionally prided itself on
the prowess of its soldiers, with the faith of its Shiite majority
immersed in a narrative of martyrdom that is rooted in the fabled
bravery of its saints.
In an attempt to restore faith in the armed
forces, state-run Iraqiya television has been airing little over the
past week besides clips of troops and police marching or in action,
helicopters strafing what is purportedly militants’ positions and
soldiers and policemen performing traditional dancing with civilians.
Members
of the political coalition led by al-Maliki openly accused the Kurdish
self-rule government of collusion with the Islamic militants in the
capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, by doing nothing to
prevent its fall. They said Kurdish fighters illegally seized large
quantities of weapons and equipment left behind by fleeing Iraqi troops.
After
the seizure of Mosul, Kurdish fighters deployed in the vital oil city
of Kirkuk in the north and parts of Diyala province northeast of Baghdad
that the Kurds have long claimed as their own.
Al-Maliki’s allies
have not produced evidence to back up their claims, which the Kurds
categorically denied. The Kurds say they moved into the areas to protect
them after Iraqi government forces left. Otherwise, Islamic State
fighters would have taken them, they argue.
And in what seemed an
implicit dig at the military’s rout, the prime minister of the Kurdish
region, Nechirvan Barzani, dismissed Baghdad’s charges as "running away
from the truth."
The breakdown is rooted in multiple factors. Even
after the United States spent billions of dollars training the armed
forces during its 2003-2011 military presence in Iraq, the 1
million-member army and police remain riven by sectarian discontents,
corruption and a lack of professionalism.
The territory that the
Islamic State has captured has an overwhelmingly Sunni population, where
resentment is high against al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government
because of what they see as discrimination against their communities.
Sunnis in the armed forces are hesitant to be seen fighting for
al-Maliki, and Shiite troops deployed in Sunni areas feel isolated and
vulnerable amid hostile territory. Morale in the military is already low
in a battle against a Sunni insurgency that has grown the past two
years, with desertions rife, particularly by Sunnis.
At the time
Islamic State fighters overran Mosul a week ago, there were about 50,000
federal and regular local police in the city and two army divisions
totaling about 24,000 troops. The federal police were largely Shiites,
the locals mainly Sunnis from Mosul. One of the army divisions was mixed
Sunni-Shiite and the other was mainly composed of Kurds.
Among the troops who escaped Mosul, the humiliation hits deep.
The
lieutenant colonel, a Shiite who spoke to the AP on condition of
anonymity because of fears of reprisals, had been stationed in an air
base in Mosul. They received orders to pull out and fall back to their
division headquarters, but when they got there they found it had already
been captured by militants who were looting its arsenals. So he and his
comrades fled to the city of Kirkuk, to the southeast, then proceeded
to Baghdad.
He said they were detained briefly at a checkpoint
near Baghdad and questioned by other soldiers why they fled â?? a
further shame.
"I have been fighting in Mosul for five years, we
never ran away. Some of us were killed and injured, but we never ran
away," he said. "Now, people tell me we are cowards, can you imagine? I
cannot sleep. Death is more merciful."
Montazar al-Rubiae, a
member of the paramilitary federal police force in Mosul, said his unit
battled for 18 hours against militant fighters in Mosul until they ran
out of ammunitions. Their calls for reinforcements and ammunition went
unanswered. They pulled back to their headquarters, where they heard
other federal police had fled, putting on civilian clothes and
abandoning their weapons. His unit redeployed and fought more, but then
pulled back to a checkpoint on Mosul’s southern outskirts â?? which they
too found already taken by militants.
They received orders to
withdraw â?? and the commander of his brigade and his top aides quickly
left in three pickup trucks.
"When we tried to get a lift with them,
they just drove on in the direction of Irbil," he said, referring to the
nearby capital of the Kurdish autonomous zone.
Then the remains of his unit came under attack, prompting them to change into civilian clothes and flee
for Kurdish areas.
"They came out from everywhere and started hunting us one after the other, like birds," he
said.