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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
Historically, under Turkish rule, Iraqi conscripts were often
transported to distant locations within the vast Ottoman Empire,
and they were not allowed to return home for many years. During
the early years of independence, conditions of service were
nearly as onerous: pay was irregular, troops were misused, and
retention beyond the compulsory period remained a common
practice. Throughout modern history, the majority of conscripts
have fulfilled much of their service obligation in the rugged
mountains of northern Iraq, where conditions were Spartan at best
and were often very dangerous. Although conditions improved
markedly during the 1970s, and conscription was no longer as
widely resented as it had been for more than a century, there
were still draft dodgers, and they were routinely court-martialed
and executed in public.
In the past, deferments and exemptions from conscription were
usually granted generously. Until 1958 exemptions could be
bought. In 1988 deferments were still available to full-time
students, to hardship cases, and to those with brothers serving
in the military. The increase in manpower needs created by the
rapid growth of the army after 1973 and the war with Iran after
1980 resulted in a tightening of previously liberal exemption
policies, however. In 1987 observers estimated that a total of 3
million Iraqi males, aged eighteen to forty-five, were fit for
military service. An additional 2 million Iraqi females in the
same age group were potentially available for military service.
Males were liable to conscription until the age of fortyfive . In 1980 the two-year compulsory period of service was
extended without specific time limitations, to support the war
effort; many trained technicians started serving as long as five
years. A man could also volunteer--for a two-year term that could
be extended by periods of two years--as an alternative to
conscription or for additional service at any time between ages
eighteen and forty-three. After two years of compulsory active
service, both conscripts and volunteers were obliged to spend
eighteen years in a reserve unit. These reserve units received
intensive training during the mid-1980s because many reservists
were called up to fill manpower shortages caused by the Iran-Iraq
War and to relieve temporarily those on active duty.
Although women were not conscripted, under a law passed in
1977 they could be commissioned as officers if they held a
health-related university degree, and they could be appointed as
warrant officers or NCOs in army medical institutes if they were
qualified nurses. The vast majority of women in the armed forces
held administrative or medical-related positions, but an
increasing number of women performed in combat functions after
1981. Women were serving in combat roles both in the air force
and in the Air Defense Command in 1987. This integration of women
into the military reflected the shortage of trained males.
Most army officers came from the Military College in Baghdad,
which was founded in 1924. Candidates for the college were
physically qualified, secondary-school graduates of Iraqi
nationality, who had demonstrated political loyalty. Cadets were
divided into two groups, combatant (combat arms) and
administrative (technology and administration). They studied
common subjects during the first two years, and they specialized
according to their group designation in the final year. On
graduation cadets received commissions as second lieutenants in
the regular army. Some were granted higher ranks because of
voluntary service on the war front.
Another source of army officers was the Reserve College
founded in 1952. This school enrolled two classes annually, one
for those who held professional degrees, such as medicine and
pharmacy, and one for secondary-school graduates. During the
1970s, approximately 2,000 reserve officers were graduated each
year; those with professional degrees were commissioned as second
lieutenants, and those without a college education were appointed
as warrant officers. The army also maintained a system of service
schools for training in combat arms as well as in technical and
administrative services. Most of those schools, located in or
near Baghdad, have conducted additional courses for both officers
and NCOs since 1980. Since 1928 the army has also maintained a
two-year staff college to train selected officers in all services
for command and staff positions.
In mid-1977 the navy opened its own officer training academy.
This comparatively new institution was called the Arabian Gulf
Academy for Naval Studies. Since 1933 the air force has
maintained its own college as a source of officer personnel. In
1971 the college was moved from Rashid Airbase (southeast of
Baghdad) to Tikrit. It offered administrative and flight training
courses as well as training for technical specialists. (Iraqi
officers and pilots received training in several foreign
countries as well in the 1970s; pilots were trained in India and
in France, and especially in the Soviet Union.)
The highest level of military training in Iraq was a one-year
course conducted at Al Bakr University for Higher Military
Studies (also called the War College) in Baghdad, founded in
1977. At the War College, high-ranking officers studied modern
theories and methods of warfare in preparation for assuming top
command and staff positions in the armed forces. Little was known
about the content of Iraq's military training, although political
and ideological indoctrination appeared to accompany military
training at all levels. In any case, the seven years of combat in
the Iran-Iraq War could only have enhanced technical skills; many
of these officers presumably applied their theoretical training
in conducting the war. By Western accounts, however, the
battlefield performance of military leaders did not reflect
sophisticated grasp of strategy and tactics
(see The Iran-Iraq War
, this ch.).
Data as of May 1988
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