Gear slow to arrive for Iraqis

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Gear slow to arrive for Iraqis
By Evan Osnos Tribune foreign correspondent

The men of Bravo Company hold an important distinction: They are the first members of the Iraqi civil defense forces to be sent out on their own in Baghdad. But the first three weeks of that experiment have left them exasperated.

At the start of this week, despite what they said were repeated requests to the U.S. battalion that is supposed to support them, they were working without radios, bulletproof vests, gasoline, furniture or a functioning vehicle.

"We go on our patrols every day," Capt. Haider Salah, the unit's commander, said Tuesday. "But we go without radios or vests. . . . Even the pens and paper are from home."

U.S. officials frequently hail the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, a paramilitary force akin to a national guard, as the cornerstone of U.S. plans to transfer security tasks to Iraqis. Sending Bravo Company, part of the 36th Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, to live and work without any U.S. soldiers by their side was to be a major test of the plan to train and deploy 40,000 such troops across the country by May. And Bravo's experience is a testament to the challenges ahead.

Orders to disengage

"The guidance was to seek whenever possible, and whenever the capacity of the Iraqi security forces allowed us, local standoff," Brig. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the top commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said at a news briefing Monday.

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