Military and Oral History Conference:
Between Memory and History
Building Partner Capacity in War: The Experience of US Army Special Forces Soldiers in Iraq, 2003-2009
Michael Richardson, University of California at Los Angeles.
This essay argues that the foundation for the current Iraqi national government was the development of indigenous military and paramilitary forces recruited, trained, and initially led by US Army Special Forces detachments between 2003 and 2009.
Currently, no official operational history exists describing the partner-capacity development operations conducted by the 5th and 10th Special Forces Groups in Iraq. The conclusion that US Army Special Forces detachments laid the framework for the development of a credible Iraqi national government in the post-Saddam-Hussein era was gathered during a series of interviews with ten officers of the 3rd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group at Fort Carson, Colorado in September 2009.
The officers interviewed crossed the gamut of partner-capacity development experience in Iraq. The men interviewed included the battalion commander, the battalion intelligence officer, and eight officers that commanded operational detachments (ODA) that actually built Iraqi security forces. The 3rd Battalion fought during the initial invasion of the country in 2003 and by January 2009 had completed an additional five seven-month combat deployments to Iraq. During their deployments the men of the 3rd Battalion began developing Iraqi Army (IA) special operations detachments then conventional IA scout platoons, and later Iraqi Police (IP) special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams. Collectively, the officers interviewed were present through all the battalion’s combat deployments, saw service in each of the battalion’s geographic areas of operation, and recruited, trained and/or led thousands of Iraqi nationals from over twenty military and law enforcement units at city, province, and national levels. This broad exposure across time, space, and people presented by the officers interviewed allowed the author to draw a broad conclusion about the results of the US Army Special Forces mission in Iraq.