On December 4, 2007 the US Congress Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a new report titled ”Operation Iraqi Freedom: DOD Assessment of Iraqi Security Forces’ Units as Independent Not Clear Because ISF Support Capabilities Are Not Fully Developed.” While the report has garnered some press, the most interesting thing to note is just how little substantive new information it contained. In fact in the 33-page report, there are only two minor details that would be new to anyone closely tracking Iraqi force developments. The crux of the report, however, is focused on the DOD’s assessment of “independent” ISF units. Unfortunately, the GAO’s assessment is highly flawed.

Defining “independent”

To begin, the title is misleading since the GAO is clearly not using the DOD’s definition of “independent.” The principle thrust of the report is that the US military is falsely identifying Iraqi units as independent. The report authors then use the deficient logistics of the Iraqi Army (IA) and Iraqi National Police (INP) as the basis for arguing against any such usage of the term "independent" with regards to the ISF. Unfortunately, the authors leave out important context and background information that undermine these conclusions.

The US military definition of "independent" is that a unit is able to perform its assigned, designated missions with no more than the normal expected support and direction from its parent command. In other words, a company acts and performs its missions with only the normal support and direction expected from its battalion, a battalion from its brigade, a brigade from its division, and so on.

The criteria for “independent” that the GAO is using is far tighter in that they are insisting on a downgrade in rating if there is any outside support of a unit at any point in its chain of command. This criterion is not meaningful in this context. In this regard, no military organization would be independent. The entire US military would have to be reduced to an in-lead status rather “independent” simply because it uses outside contractor support within the organizational chain of command.

The numbers

The GAO is complaining about a very small part of the ISF. There are few IA and INP formations actually labeled as independent by the DOD. No ISF divisions or higher headquarters are listed in US military reports as independent. To receive such a rating would require more logistics capacity than the Iraqis currently have; for example, level three maintenance is still contracted. To be independent would also require the Iraqis to have their divisional artillery regiments, which are not scheduled to form until 2009.

Additionally, only three of the 44 IA brigades are listed as independent by the DOD. All are among the oldest of the IA brigades. All three are located in the vicinity of regional support units or divisional headquarters where the existing logistical support is least strained. These three brigades consist of the following:

1-4 IA Brigade, headquarters collocated with current 4th IA Division headquarters in Tikrit.

2-4 IA Brigade, headquarters located at future 4th IA Division headquarters and current 4th IA division logistics hub at Kirkuk.

1-14 IA Brigade, previously designated the 3-8 IA Brigade. When it was the 3-8, it was headquartered near the Numaniyah Regional Support Unit and has since transferred to headquarters at the Shaibah Divisional Training and Logistics Base outside of Basrah.

The seven of 27 INP battalions listed as in-lead or independent are all are based near or at logistics facilities. None of the Department of Border Enforcement formations are listed as independent in military reporting.

The GAO complained about the use of the word "independent" for a small number of ISF units and reiterated data that the military has openly and repeatedly released in support for the independence of these units. The GAO did this without noting how few of these Iraqi units it was complaining about and without considering the military definition of "independent" in reference to unit appraisals. Both of these details are publicly available.

Focusing on logistics

As its primary argument against the use of the term "independent," the GAO focused on the logistics problems and lack of progress in correcting these. It did so without including some significant timeline details.

The IA only had approximately 13,000 support personnel at the start of 2007. The INP was and is two years behind the IA.

The FY2007 Supplemental funding request included funding to equip and train 33,000 more support troops and was submitted to the US Congress on February 7, 2007

The US Congress finally passed the FY2007 Supplemental in May 2007.

The Foreign Materials Sales (FMS) bureaucracy submitted the 90-day notification of the over $2 billion equipment sale to Iraq on September 25, 2007. This includes the almost 4,000 trucks of various types and 980 HMMWVs for use in the to-be-formed (divisional and above) additional logistics elements for the IA and the new INP Support Brigade.

On December 24, 2007, the 90-day congressionally mandated wait period on FMS sales will have passed and the delivery process of the IA support force equipment can start. It takes approximately four weeks for shipping to Iraq. Late January 2008 is when the start of the almost four-fold increase in the IA support structure and the practical establishment of the INP logistics brigade begins on the ground.

The operational IA logistics support element is only 14,000 at last report, which is less than 10 percent of the IA. Until the arrival of their equipment, it is somewhat difficult to employ any newly trained IA logisticians in their primary role. The GAO apparently does not understand this concept since the report repeatedly complains about good IA commanders, who following the example of the US Marine Corps, put unequipped logisticians to work as infantry pending the arrival of their equipment.

The details about the status of the ISF logistics are fairly accurate and are mostly in agreement with the military. The ISF logistics is a work in progress that has been barely started, as the repeatedly stated focus has been in fielding combat forces first and foremost, in order to put an Iraqi face in the field.

Unfortunately, this report says more about the GAO than it does about the ISF. It demonstrates that the GAO is not sufficiently competent to analyze the state of the ISF and therefore is not capable of making useful recommendations. By GAO criteria, no US Army or Marine Corps formation could be considered as independent since they are all supported at some level by outside contractors. The GAO also apparently expects that when Congress finally passes legislation, newly authorized equipment is instantaneously replicated, transported, and put in use. In composing this report, the GAO reveals its lack of understanding of basic military definitions and logistical capabilities.