THE Iraqi fighters train in camps hidden from the public, practising firing rocket- propelled grenades and keeping their identities secret. They never leave the base in their camouflage uniforms for fear of attack.
These are not the guerrillas fighting the United States-led coalition, however, but members of the New Iraqi Army.
In a huge base north of Baghdad at Tadji, amid the bombed barracks and the wrecked tanks of the old Iraqi Army, the elite are being trained in counter-insurgency and urban warfare: the most likely battleground for a showdown with foreign fighters and their Iraqi allies.
America and Britain are pinning their hopes of an early exit strategy on the army and its anti-guerrilla elite, the Iraqi National Task Force (INTF).
After the abject failure of Iraq’s security forces in the recent uprisings by Shia militia and Sunni guerrillas, the coalition has brought back one of its most successful commanders, Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, to whip them into shape.
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One of the key lessons of the recent uprising was the need for a sense of military identity to override the tribal loyalties that bind nearly all Iraqis. Many police and paramilitary forces refused to fight fellow Iraqis in recent battles, some even going over to the rebels.
As the difficult project of nation-building goes on, the army is engaged in another delicate task: building the morale of a new “tribe” that is still seen by many Iraqis as collaborating with the unpopular occupation.
The message constantly relayed by General Petraeus, of the 101st Airborne Division — made famous in the Second World War television blockbuster Band of Brothers — to the men is that they have found a new family in the army.
He greeted soldiers outside the mess hall at Tadji, shaking their hands and telling the gathered men: “These are your new brothers.”
“This is your new tribe,” he told another soldier.
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The new loyalties are drummed into the soldiers at every turn.
In the army training camp at Kirkush, out in the desert near the Iranian border, General Amr al-Hashimi, the new Iraqi Chief of Staff, primed a parade ground of square-bashing new recruits with the same message. “Keep in mind we have to stand against anybody who harms Iraq, no matter what group he belongs to,” he said. “You are brothers, you are family. It’s very important for you to establish strong re lationships between you. Our loyalty is to Iraq.”
The sweating recruits appeared to absorb the message, saying that they were keen to take on the men bombing their cities.
“We are just like a family,” said Private Ala Qaddum, a skinny young Shia from the southern city of al-Nasariyah. “We feel sad when we see the bombs on television. We are ready to fight these people.”
“We joined up not for the money but to serve our country,” said his sergeant, Raad Hatem, one of the first generation of Iraqi NCOs to have been trained by the coalition and now to be training his own troops.
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“We are ready to fight our own tribes if necessary,” Private Mustafa Taha said.
The soldiers’ morale is high, considering the difficulties that they face even before they deploy in Iraq’s mean streets.
They are ordered to leave their uniforms behind when they return home on leave and few let on in their home towns that they are soldiers. Last week a car bomb outside a Baghdad recruitment centre killed 35 people, including would-be soldiers.
An Iraqi staff colonel, hiding behind a large pair of sunglasses in case he is caught on camera, said he tells his neighbours in Baghdad that he is a manager in a commercial company as he sets off to work with his uniform in a bag.
“I didn’t tell anyone I’m working with the New Iraqi Army, just to keep my family secure. People would say I was working with the coalition,” the officer, who refused to divulge his name, said. He said that maybe in a year he would dare to wear his uniform in public.
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The first company of the INTF will deploy in Baghdad on July 1, when Iraq formally regains sovereignty.
Many of the soldiers complain,. however, that their rifles jam after firing a few rounds and that they lack radios and other vital equipment. When they face well- organised terrorist networks they will need every shred of morale they can draw upon.