They were the first force to reach the city limits of Mosul, and took some of the heaviest casualties throughout the fighting, often being asked to do the heavy lifting in the most dangerous areas while other Iraqi forces, unprepared for urban combat, stayed back and waited for easier openings.
Iraq’s Counter Terrorism Services (CTS), the elite, US-trained force, was heralded by Iraqi officials as the key to victory in Mosul, but a Pentagon report reveals they also sustained massive damage, losing roughly 40% of their manpower over the course of the nine months of fighting.
The news isn’t totally shocking, as there had been intermittent reports throughout the Mosul war of the fighters being stretched beyond their limits, exhausted and with flagging morale, even as Iraq’s political leadership bragged up the progress being made. Iraq, however, was careful not to release casualty numbers or reveal how many losses the CTS was really sustaining.
The Pentagon probably wouldn’t have revealed them either, except that they are seeking another $1.2 billion in funding to pay to train up more CTS fighters, both to increase the overall size of the force and to replace the many killed and injured along the way.
The arrogance of not wanting to learn from rivals …
http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/Rusn_leslrn.htm – what the Russians learned from the two sieges of Grozny (and likely passed onto the Syrian Army at Aleppo).
We didn’t let the Iraqis use the PMU. They outnumbered ISIS between 10-20 to 1 but used their troops very inefficiently.
This is the common experience of elite units. They drain the best from other units, and concentrate that, and then lose it in intense fighting.
It was true in WW2 of the Army Rangers, who were nearly wiped out in Italy. It was true of the German elite units like the Grossdeutchland Division. It was a big part of the reason Gen. Marshall mostly avoided doing that with US troops as he built a new US Army.
Napoleon did the same with the elite division he creamed off the Italian units as Oudinot’s Grenadier Division, which wiped out all the best of some poor quality divisions.
It is a symptom of problems, unless like Napoleon’s Guard or the US Special Forces it is drawing from an army already of very high quality. Iraq did this exactly because it was not drawing on a high quality army.
$1.2 Billion for new training? Thant seems a little high, where are they training Las Vegas?