Iraq's advisor gap

In a telephone interview from Baghdad, Brig. Gen. Terry Wolff, commander of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team, defended the advisory program by pointing out that it has become better over time. A school has been established at Ft. Riley, Kansas, where advisory teams receive 60 days of training before being sent to Iraq. This is a big improvement over the days when so-called military training teams would be established on the spot with members who were strangers to one another and had received no specialized training.

But just because the program is better doesn't mean it's adequate. There is still a need for many more first-rate U.S. advisors to work with Iraqi army and police units down to the platoon level. T. X. Hammes, a retired Marine colonel, believes that 20,000 to 30,000 advisors are needed and that we should be sending officers who have successfully led American battalions and brigades. "We're at least an order of magnitude off," Hammes told me. "If our main effort is advisory, why aren't our best people going to become advisors?"

Perhaps because this would force a shake-up in the U.S. armed forces, with officers having to be pulled out of plum staff billets and field assignments. That's a tough change to make, but it may be necessary. A country of 26 million can't be controlled by 140,000 troops. If we're not going to send a lot more soldiers, it might make sense to draw down to about 40,000 to 50,000 troops so that we could free up officers and NCOs for advisor duty. Iraq may be too far down the road to civil war for this step to make any difference, but we need to try something different to salvage a situation spinning out of control.

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mboot@latimescolumnists.com