Iraq's Repairman

Petraeus's strategy now is to rebuild the Iraqi forces from the top down--"to support, assist and enable good Iraqi leaders." Instead of rushing to build up the numbers of foot soldiers, training programs have been changed to concentrate on officers and noncoms. Separately, Petraeus is pushing to get body armor and good weapons to the Iraqis. Money is not an issue: a billion dollars has already been spent on Iraqi forces, and an additional $2.4 billion is in the pipeline for the rest of the year. In just the last week, 13,500 Gluck pistols, 850,000 rounds of ammunition, 900 vehicles, 50,000 flak vests and 60,000 Kevlar helmets were delivered. "It's really flowing in now," Petraeus said.

Quality--not quantity--is Petraeus's aim when it comes to troops. Some Iraqi units are too large. The police, which are planned to number 90,000, currently total 120,000; the excess will be pensioned off. The Facilities Protection Service, which guards pipelines and key buildings, has 74,000 men, but most of them are poorly trained. They also have a high casualty rate. So the United States has increased their training from two to five days, added danger pay and organized better backup for them. Officers and noncoms in the undependable National Guard will be given special training and better weaponry. And they're now being housed in barracks, where they're less vulnerable to retribution. Finally, the Army itself will be reorganized. New units specializing in counterinsurgency, known collectively as the Iraqi National Task Force, have been undergoing training. Anyone joining them will get $100 monthly bonus pay. The first 660-man battalion will be deployed in Baghdad by June 30.

The Americans, mindful of Saddam's tendency to use the military to stamp out local rebellions, initially wanted to keep the new Iraqi military focused on external threats. The change in emphasis, says Petraeus, was an initiative of the incoming Iraqi government (though the Americans applauded it). Petraeus says he's not worried; he believes that Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and his civilian Defense minister "will ensure there's no chance of a military dictatorship."

On a recent day, Petraeus went to pay a courtesy call on the minister of Defense. To make the two-minute drive from his own headquarters at the Republican Palace to the Defense Ministry, located in another palace in the Green Zone, Petraeus had to travel by armored car, with heavily armed civilian bodyguards. Even on a good day, Defense Ministry offices often seem "rather like an anthill sorting itself out after being stepped on," as one Western adviser puts it. But this wasn't a good day. During the previous 48 hours, two deputy ministers in the interim government had been assassinated in separate attacks; the general in charge of the border police had come under fire and barely escaped; a suicide car bomb had killed five policemen at their station near Baghdad; three hostages had been murdered (a Lebanese and two Iraqis, all contractors), and three rockets had hit the Republican Palace.

The defense minister, Hazim Shaalan, is a former banker who more recently worked as a real-estate agent in London. "After June 30," said Shaalan, "we will hit these people and teach them a good lesson they won't forget. Americans and allied forces have certain restrictions we won't have." He declined to be more specific, except to say, "It's our country, it's our culture, and we have different laws than you do." (A few days later, after yet another suicide bombing, he was more blunt: "We will cut off their hands and behead them.")

In the hallway, where American, British and Iraqi officers and civilians come and go, Petraeus bumped into Lt. Gen. Amar Bakir al-Hashimi, the Iraqi Army's new chief of staff. Amar was a high-ranking general during Saddam's time; he retired in 1997. "The Coalition did a lot of things wrong, but now it'll be our turn. Let the Iraqis do what they want," he said, "and they'll know what to do." But he acknowledged the changes would come slowly, "like turning a supertanker," he told Petraeus, who approvingly repeats the expression to everyone he meets, and then adds his own simile: "Or like building an airplane while you're flying it."