800 Islamist fighters ran off 30,000 American trained Iraqi army soldiers
The U.S. Army spent several years training, equipping and building up a new Iraqi army at a cost of $25 billion. As we were preparing to leave Iraq, our military leaders assured us that the new one million-man Iraqi army was capable of taking over for the departing American troops.
It is estimated that only 800 Sunni Islamists attacked Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Mosul was defended by 30,000 troops equipped by us with modern weapons, Humvees and Stryker armored fighting vehicles. The Islamists arrived in small Toyota, Nissan and Mazda pickup trucks, some of which had heavy caliber machine guns mounted in the truck beds.
The battle for Mosul lasted only a few minutes. The Iraqi soldiers quickly shed their uniforms and abandoned their weapons, with many of them surrendering in civilian clothing. The rest evaporated into thin air.
What’s left of the Iraqi army is being bolstered in Baghdad by thousands of fanatical Shiite militant volunteers who, although not trained or equipped by us, will prove to be a formidable foe for the Sunni militants. Those fanatical Shiites are led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful anti-American cleric.
800 militants armed with AK-47s, rocket propelled grenades, and driving pickup trucks with mounted machine guns vs. 30,000 regular army troops armed with modern weapons and Stryker armored vehicles. It almost seems like we trained and equipped an army to collapse at the first sign of enemy fire.
That’s $25 billion thrown down a shithole ... and now the Obama administration is considering sending the Iraqi army additional military supplies that will cost us another load of money and may end up in enemy hands.
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