Technology will not help if you do not want to fight

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The US Defense Minister, Ashton Carter expressed his dissatisfaction from the war and from the performance of the Iraqi military, who gave up the city of Ramadi, last week. In an interview to CNN he argued that the success in the war against ISIS is completely dependent on the performance of the Iraqi military.

“I guess the Iraqi military doesn’t want to fight,” said the Head of the Pentagon about the fall of Ramadi. In is opinion, “the enemy did not outnumber the Iraqi forces, and we are dealing with explicit lack of motivation to fight the enemy, on behalf of the Iraqi army.” He argued that the US will continue to back up and assist the Iraqi forces, and will continue the coalition bombings against ISIS. Eventually, the victory over ISIS depends on the desire of the Iraqi army to win the war.

Fighting over Ramadi was the fiercest battle between the Iraqi forces and ISIS terrorists. Officials around US President Barack Obama said the fact the city fell to the terrorist hands was “a tactical failure” and “a generally successful operation by the coalition.

In contrast to the Americans, the Iraqi commanders criticize the way their forces were prepared by the Americans, and provide a low grade for the level of preparedness of the forces during the time the American army was on Iraqi land. The Iraqi forces leaving Ramadi are the corps which were fully prepared by the US army for a long period of time, says the Iraqi vice president, Salah al-Mutlak.

“We were all surprised by the fact our army retreated in the face of such a small enemy,” said the vice president. “In 2003, right after the American invasion to Iraq, we asked to prepare and equip the Iraqi army, to raise its level. We also objected to the disarming of the Iraqi army, and the Americans did just the opposite”. Salah al-Mutlak said, among other things, that “the Iraqi army made plenty of mistakes fighting over Mosul, and not a similar thing happened in Ramadi.” “It is unclear to us how come an army trained by the best army in the world, abandoned its weapons and gave up Ramadi so quickly. This is not the type of army we would like to see,” he said.

In spite the fact that the Iraqi army was equipped in modern, mostly American artillery, and was trained to use it, he gives up one city after another, and abandons its weapons. No technological advantage or air assist can defeat a determined enemy, who uses the tactics of suicide bombers, and this is the reality in fighting against ISIS today. One cannot argue in favor of the high level of fighting of ISIS’ fighters, or in favor of the artillery it owns, but one can’t defeat an enemy, be it the most inferior one, if the forces of the Iraqi army are unwilling to fight, or don’t want to. Therefore, the problem is not a technological one, but a moral one. In the battlefield, moral overcomes technology, or at least this is the conclusion from the fighting we witness in Iraq.