Training Exercises

It's nice to know we're accomplishing something in the world.

WASHINGTON, June 21 - A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.

The assessment, completed last month and circulated among government agencies, was described in recent days by several Congressional and intelligence officials. The officials said it made clear that the war was likely to produce a dangerous legacy by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict.

Congressional and intelligence officials who described the assessment called it a thorough examination that included extensive discussion of the areas that might be particularly prone to infiltration by combatants from Iraq, either Iraqis or foreigners.

They said the assessment had argued that Iraq, since the American invasion of 2003, had in many ways assumed the role played by Afghanistan during the rise of Al Qaeda during the 1980's and 1990's, as a magnet and a proving ground for Islamic extremists from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.

The officials said the report spelled out how the urban nature of the war in Iraq was helping combatants learn how to carry out assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other kinds of attacks that were never a staple of the fighting in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980's. It was during that conflict, primarily rural and conventional, that the United States provided arms to Osama bin Laden and other militants, who later formed Al Qaeda...

But don't think it's all one sided.

Iraq is a fine training gound for the best private security contractors in the world.

The Pentagon is falling short on efforts to keep elite special forces units at full strength and now is fighting back dollar by dollar, offering up to $150,000 bonuses to commandos to keep high-paying private security firms from cherry-picking the teams.

Special operations units such as the Green Berets and Navy SEALs are running slightly below their authorized strength, in part because private firms are luring away those troops for work in Iraq and elsewhere by tripling or quadrupling their pay, military officials said...

Military officials seeing a drop in special-forces retention say they have little choice but to compete in the marketplace with companies like Blackwater Security Consulting and Halliburton, who advertise on their Web sites to recruit employees with U.S. special forces training...

Blackwater, based in North Carolina, and Halliburton, based in Texas, don't disguise their desire to lure the highly trained special-forces graduates for security work. Blackwater is a private security company that provides protection for dignitaries, among other duties. Halliburton provides services to U.S. military personnel in Iraq and is not a security company per se, but officials there say the company hires security personnel to consult on safety measures.

Halliburton spokeswoman Jennifer Dellinger said about one-third of Halliburton's employees in Iraq are former military personnel but could not provide figures on how many were former U.S. special forces members. Halliburton's workers in Iraq can make two to three times more than for comparable positions in the United States, she said...

The Company, indeed.

And, what goes around, comes around.

IRAQ: Private Contractors Train Much of the Fledging Police Force

At her confirmation hearing on Jan. 17, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the task of training Iraq's security forces -- its army, police, national guard, and smaller units -- falls to many partners: the U.S. military, NATO, Iraq, Jordan, and other nations. But neither Rice nor Administration officials has yet to mention the significant role being played by private contractors.

Just over 700 contractors -- more than previously disclosed -- are now training in excess of half the Iraqi Police Service, BusinessWeek has learned. In April, 2003, DynCorp announced it had won a $50 million contract to help train "civilian law enforcement, judicial, and correctional agencies." Now, Science Applications International and the United States Investigative Services [USIS] also are playing significant roles in training Iraqi police...

Iraq is a veritable hotbed of education.

To complete this circle of folly, the unthinkable and unspeakable possibility that the main$tream media buried almost as soon as anyone noticed:

Iraqi insurgents and their informants have been infiltrating US and coalition organizations, Iraqi security units, and political parties in growing numbers, posing a daunting challenge to efforts to defeat the guerrillas and create a stable Iraqi state, according to US military officials, Iraq specialists, and a new study of Iraqi security forces.

...and in many cases, they appear to be gathering better intelligence on US military movements and the activities of the new Iraqi government than coalition forces are gathering on guerrilla plans.

''Penetration of Iraqi security and military forces may be the rule, not the exception," according to a draft version of a study of Iraqi security forces by a senior Pentagon consultant.

Military analysts concur that such infiltration is a worsening threat that is undermining US and Iraqi efforts to stand up viable security forces and to protect coalition troops from increasingly deadly attacks.

It's doubtless because they're so well trained.

Remember: they don't get the Blank Check without the Endless War.