Hurriyah, a neighborhood in Baghdad, will soon be turned over by US troops to their Iraqi counterpart. This place was the scene of some of the fiercest fightings three years ago between the Shiite and the Sunni factions. While the Iraqi battalion that will take over the place is purported to be one of the best in the force, members of the battalion are worried being left alone sans US troops.

Such is the actual quandary of Iraqi units because they suffer serious supply problems, making their operations difficult to be assuredly effective. The Iraqi army captain even asked the US captain to leave behind a generator for their use just in case the city electrical power goes off, a prevalent situation in Baghdad that only has an average of 12 hours of power a day.

Concern has been raised as to whether the Iraqi army can effectively manage its duties when violence erupts, especially now that US forces are gradually pulling out of Iraq.

“If our performance level now is running at 80 percent, it will be around 50 percent when you leave. We need devices that can detect explosives. Our vehicles are breaking down fast. No army in the world can do its job without the equipment it needs regardless of how good its soldiers are,” said Capt. Haleem Aweid to his American counterpart.

The Americans, on the other hand, believe that it is not the matter of supplies that debilitate the Iraqi army, as they have enough supplies, but the bureaucracy that is crippling the country.

Image

Via msnbc