Note: The Peshmerga is the name given to the military of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
In the past 10 or so days the Peshmerga have suffered a long series of major defeats.
This has been a shock for many because for many years the Peshmerga have enjoyed an almost legendary reputation as being one of the the hardest and most effective forces in the world.
The polite explanations for this are:
- They spread themselves very thinly when they moved into areas in northern Iraq after the Iraqi military abandoned them.
- They didn't take recent developments seriously enough.
- They are not good at warfare in open desert areas.
- They suffered from bad planning and logistics.
There have also been some attempts by the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to justify the Peshmerga's recent defeats. They have put forward that:
- The Peshmerga face IS on a front 1,000 km long,
- IS has heavy weapons,
- The Peshmerga don't have enough heavy weapons, and
- The Iraqi government doesn't supply the Peshmerga with weapons.
However, in the past few days some have begun to question these justifications.
- The Peshmerga face IS on a front 1,000 km long.
IS faces the Peshmerga and the Iraqi military on a much longer front.
- IS has heavy weapons.
So do the Peshmerga.
- The Peshmerga don't have enough heavy weapons.
The Peshmerga have more heavy weapons than IS does. There are at least ten times more Peshmerga soldiers than IS fighters. And what happened to the Peshmerga that could block and even defeat the army of Saddam without any heavy weapons?
- The Iraqi government doesn't supply the Peshmerga with weapons.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) insists that the Peshmerga are completely separate from and independent of the Iraqi government and the Iraqi military. The KRG can't have it both ways, either the Pesmerga are completely separate and independent or they aren't.
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Commentary Magazine has an interesting article related to the Peshmerga:
Explain Failures or Abandon Training Missions
Michael Rubin
08.08.2014
...
From the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom until September 2012, the United States spent approximately $25 billion to train the Iraqi army. Some of the most prominent (and press hungry) American generals took the job and spoke of their success. Martin Dempsey, currently chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, headed the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq between 2005 and 2007. Bush administration officials often exaggerated the numbers of competent trained forces (full disclosure: I served briefly in the Bush administration’s Pentagon but not in a capacity that involved troop training) and generals did not clarify. Part of the reason for this, it seems, is that some generals have either become too sensitive to political winds thereby corrupting their willingness to assess honestly, or that they self-censor in order to make themselves look more successful. In a way, it’s a return to the U.S. Army’s Cold War-era “zero defects” policy which at times contributed to inaccurately positive assessments.
American special forces trained the Kurdish peshmerga as well. Unlike with the Iraqi or Afghan armies, the peshmerga’s recent failures cannot be written off as the result of ethnic or sectarian discord within the ranks. Perhaps the problem here is hagiography: ...
So too does corruption as well as nepotism. For Kurdish President Masud Barzani’s son Mansour, how nice it must be to have become a general in your 30s and command the region’s Special Forces. When nepotism trumps competence and experience, any training is a waste. ...
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/...
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Note: There are actually two rival Peshmergas; the KDP Peshmerga is in the northern half of Iraqi Kurdistan and the PUK Peshmerga is in the southern half of Iraqi Kurdistan.
It is the KDP Peshmerga who have been suffering most, maybe all, of these defeats.
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