[continued from previous message] 
  
 "The Badr Brigade is the biggest terrorist group and they run the 
 interior ministry. The Kurds are running the MoD. The first thing 
 they ask you when you want to become an officer is, 'Are you an Arab 
 or a Kurd?' " Most Arab applicants, he maintains, are now being 
 turned down for officer status. 
  
 Kessler and the Iraqi colonel were in the middle of planning a big 
 security operation when, to their astonishment, a young Kurd with a 
 colonel's insignia on his shoulders arrived and introduced himself 
 as the new commander of 2nd Brigade. He had been appointed by 
 General Babakir Zebari, the Iraqi army's Kurdish chief of staff back 
 in the capital. The Americans had to intervene politely and send the 
 officer, who had been in the army for just two years after serving 
 in the Kurdish militia in the north, back to his base, escorted by 
 his own platoon of Kurdish militiamen. "It is very frustrating, the 
 sectarianism. Everyone has something for himself. The head of the 
 staff is a Kurd, the commander of the division is a Kurd," says 
 Kessler. "I always try to understand what everyone has for himself, 
 so I can use it against them." 
  
 The other major factor holding back the development of the military 
 is the so-called "Saddam mentality" - a reluctance to take personal 
 initiative. In the old Iraqi army, all decisions came from Saddam 
 and his inner circle. Officers' heads often rolled for taking the 
 wrong decision. The army was infested with spies to make sure the 
 officers were always under surveillance. Ba'ath party commissars 
 often had the final say in running a battle. 
  
 "Some of those guys spent 18 years in Saddam's army. Our main 
 challenge is to change that mentality," says Major Matthew Bendelle, 
 another Desert Lion. "They always want someone else to take 
 decisions for them; a paper should come from their superior. 
 Thinking in a democratic way, taking initiative, things we take for 
 granted, are totally new concepts to them." 
  
 Kessler describes his role as a "puppeteer" who has to patiently 
 move and train the Iraqi officers without pushing them hard - 
 otherwise they "dig their hooves in the sand and refuse to move; 
 they can be as stubborn as donkeys". "Sometimes I want to scream at 
 them, stretch my hands and choke the liver out of them, and say: 'If 
 your army was so good, how come we managed to beat you in two wars 
 and invaded your country in 22 days?' " 
  
 This is not the only gulf between the two armies. The 2nd brigade's 
 headquarters is in a camp called Forward Operation Base Lion. The 
 Iraqi section consists of a crudely fortified wasteland with 
 scattered tents and buildings. It is separated from the US base by a 
 berm and watchtowers. Though only a few metres from each other, the 
 two armies are worlds apart. 
  
 The American officer escorting me points proudly at the new barracks 
 being built to replace the tents where the Iraqi soldiers sleep. 
 Meantime, the Iraqis squat on the dirt in the shade of the 
 unfinished buildings to shelter from the scorching sun. 
  
 Some naked Iraqi soldiers are standing at the sides of a big red 
 plastic water tank to shower, while food is distributed to others 
 from the back of a pickup truck. The men happily carry their meals 
 away to sit on the ground eating. "Look, we have chicken now. During 
 Saddam's time we ate dried bread the whole year," says one Iraqi 
 soldier, holding his plastic lunchbox: a chicken leg, some rice and 
 a banana. 
  
 The relationship between US forces and the Iraqis is one of mixed 
 feelings. The Iraqi soldiers look with admiration and jealousy at 
 the Americans; they like their equipment, weapons, boots and 
 vehicles. But they also blame them for everything and anything - 
 from the chaos engulfing Iraq to their own lack of adequate kit. 
  
 On the American side of the base the soldiers mock the Iraqis when 
 they speak about them; a kind of apartheid prevails. On the US side, 
 a sign on a shower door reads: "Iraqis are prohibited from using 
 showers designated for Americans." A young officer tells me: "We 
 keep talking about partnership and we want them to fight with us, 
 but we can't share showers with them." 
  
 But Captain Perez-Cruz shows a different side to the relationship. 
 His eyes glisten as he tells me about the Iraqi major he worked with 
 for months, a man who, a few days ago, was killed by a roadside 
 bomb. "I never thought I would react to the death of someone who is 
 not one of us; I thought he was a stranger because he wasn't 
 American. I have lost some people I knew from our army, but nothing 
 affected me like the loss of Major Ghassan. He was a friend." 
  
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