BESMAYA RANGE, Iraq, 21 February 2007 — The battle for Baghdad is on, and to win it, Iraqi and coalition commanders are betting on a training program the troops have never been through before.

Men from two Iraqi brigades — 1,700 at a time — fine-tune house-to-house searches at a custom-built facility on a desert range, firing at fiberglass dummies holding wood AK-47 assault rifles but knowing there will soon be live rounds coming back.

“How long are we going to depend on coalition forces?” Iraqi Lt. Gen. Ali, commander of the country’s ground forces, asked his troops after they demonstrated skills taught by Iraqi, British and US instructors.

“No one can take care of this country but us,” he told soldiers who were halfway through a 14-day certification course in urban warfare, marksmanship and convoy protection.

A security offensive aimed at quelling sectarian violence is expected to deploy up to 85,000 Iraqi and US soldiers by May, but the government needs boots on the ground now so these soldiers from predominantly Shiite southern Iraq were brought up early.

They were the second such group to train in the mock village east of Baghdad, but Abbas wants all Iraqi soldiers to eventually qualify here.

Ali and US Gen. Dana Pittard watched the live-fire exercise from a catwalk above the troops, along with Iraqi, US and British colonels who have been closely involved in the training, here and near Basra in the south.

Some officers were less keen to get a birds’ eye view of the potentially perilous drill however, and as trainees moved through ceilingless rooms with loaded gun barrels that swept high and low, those who did watch kept a close eye on things.

Pittard, who commands the US army’s Iraqi Assistance Group, said his immediate goal for the Iraqi soldiers was “providing training and skills so they are as prepared as they can be to help stabilize their capital.”

These and subsequent groups are to clear and hold Baghdad districts that in many cases have been turned into no-go areas by insurgents and militia units.

Overseeing the program is Iraqi Col. Fadhil Abbas, a proud officer who says he was the first to join the new Iraq Army on July 21, 2003.

Held in high esteem by coalition counterparts, Abbas nonetheless said his program suffered from logistics issues, such as a lack of fuel for electric generators which meant the soldiers did not have power 24 hours a day.

The firing range, on which the mock town was built, sits on 220 square miles of flat brown Iraqi scrub desert with living quarters for staff and troops and hosts a wide variety of live-fire assault drills.

Many troops seized on the generals’ visit to press their case for a raft of items from credible helmets and body armor to better boots and a spare uniform.

Ali spent almost all his time with the troops, some of whom also insisted they were owed months of back pay, an issue he pledged to address.

US Col. Arnold Gordon-Bray, a massive man who is chief of the army’s military training team or MiTT, told the soldiers better equipment would be delivered in the coming days but stressed that all forces in Iraq needed more.

When Iraqis sought assurance they could go home after their standard 90-day period of service, Abbas gave his word while Gordon-Bray made his priority perfectly clear. “The day you start to fight, you fight your best until the last day,” he said. “I volunteered to come back to Iraq, and I don’t count the days.” Gen. Ali told the men: “You’re going to Baghdad, you will have to defend Iraqis” regardless of their religion or tribal origin.

“Our enemy is a fierce enemy but if we stand together, all the provinces and the army and the police together, we can win.”

He told AFP that what made the new security plan different “was the decision to integrate Iraqi army, police and coalition forces” so that units which might take a sectarian approach would be checked by the others.

US officials currently see rogue militia units, some of which have infiltrated the police, as the most serious “accelerants” of sectarian strife, but many of the fresh troops in Baghdad are to be Shiite or Kurdish.

Col. Abbas said that what he wanted the troops to take away was “sincere loyalty to the Iraqi flag, not a religion, clan or a militia.” He also had a message for the international community.

“We like our US brothers,” he emphasized. “We are one heart, one arm, one mind and have one future.” Ali focused the troops on the dangerous job to come, warning them to “never close your eyes, because the enemy is thinking ahead.

“When you are manning checkpoints think ahead too. Think of your family and your friends and your co-workers.” Driving home the theme of an Iraqi army united from the Shiite Arab south to the Sunni Kurdish north, he added: “Tell them the army is made up of the sons of Basra and the sons of Sulaimaniyah.” Then he demanded: “So, who’s going to Baghdad?”

The troops cheered in unison, and lifted their gun barrels high.