The Associated Press reports on troubles with training the Iraqi Navy and Marine Corps, and cites recent issues with Iraqi Army troops fighting in Basra as indicative of the overall training situation. As the rebuilt Iraqi navy is tasked with defending the country’s two vital oil platforms, the AP tells of a disconnect between the reality of the situation and how it is perceived by the navy recruits:
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on a series of grass-roots efforts aimed at joining Iraq veterans in need with U.S. citizens ready to help. Among the programs are an upcoming online forum of therapists around the country who’ve offered their services to treating Iraq veterans. Many of these therapists have committed one hour of free counseling to Iraq vets per week, for as long as they wish. Then there’s a series of Websites dedicated to linking vets with people willing to donate money for basic necessities. Still, the VA is hesitant to get on board with these groups:
Iraq’s navy now has five Chinese-made patrol boats and 26 fast-attack aluminum vessels — fewer than half of which are operational. Its personnel number about 1,350, including 350 Marines.
“They think they are an elite unit, but they are not,” said Capt. Jock Alexander of the British Royal Marines, who is in charge of training Iraqi Marines to guard the 1.8-mile exclusion zone around each of the country’s two oil platforms.
The struggle to build a credible Iraqi navy is mirrored — on larger scales — by the mounting delays and costs to form a new Iraqi army and air force after Washington disbanded Saddam Hussein’s military.
In a profile of Elise Forbes Tripp, author of “Surviving Iraq: Soldiers’ Stories,” the Portsmouth Herald News details some of her most interesting findings through interviews with Iraq vets, including this one:
The New York Times reports that Donald Rumsfeld is set to pen his own memoir:
Men said they created sexual tension and diverted attention. They require involvement from male colleagues for their safety, for example, having to guard their showers or to calm them during a difficult time. “And I think they felt it was unfair that woman could get pregnant and go home,” she says. “I was just listening, thinking this is amazing.”
The Marine Corps Times reports that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is proposing new measures that would provide homes for severely injured veterans on VA property. The proposal came during a Senate defense appropriations subcommittee hearing where issues of long-term veterans care were raised. Sen. Feinstein cited VA property in West Los Angeles that includes 300 acres of undeveloped land:
Feinstein and other California lawmakers have been trying to block VA from leasing out the unused land for commercial purposes, but they have not agreed on what to do with the property. Some want the land to be public park land, some have proposed building housing for homeless veterans and others have talked about leaving it completely undeveloped so it can be used by future generations.
