According to the Wall Street Journal, the plan is to equip the Iraqi army with M-16s. How stupid can the US government get? As Phillip Carter says….

With this program, we’re making the job of our advisers in the field significantly tougher, notwithstanding the contractor support at Camp Taji for the training of Iraqis. Although, I seriously doubt these Iraqis can shoot their rifles with anything approaching proficiency after three days. You spend more time than that in basic training learning how to get dressed, let alone learning how to shoot. Training marksmanship takes weeks or months or years, not a few days. This program has the potential to fundamentally change the mission calculus for advisers working with the Iraqi army, such that they must now focus much more time on individual weapons skills vice actual patrolling and combat operations. I also wonder whether this is the best use of Iraqi funds, or whether it would’ve been smarter to fix the AK-centric logistics system they already have.

I think that T.E. Lawrence’s ghost is probably laughing at us right now. What next? Will we try to give laptops, e-mail and PowerPoint to the Iraqi army? Oh wait…

Some commentators on Mr. Carter’s blog argue that giving M-16s to the Iraqi army is a good thing. After all, the weapon takes so much careful maintenance to maintain that in the absence of American support and supervision they are likely to become useless.

But that argument only strengthens my point. Does the US government want to turn Iraqi army into effective force or not? If they do, giving them M-16s is the last thing they should be doing. Heck, the co-creator of the M-16 recently said that if his son was over in Iraq he would want him to have an AK.