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At the close of initial hostilities in the Fall of 2003, many senior U.S. military leaders in Iraq and Washington urged the immediate implementation of tried and true Vietnam models for Military Advisors to launch reconstruction efforts, establish pacification programs and to stand-up Iraqi security forces. Those proposals went largely ignored as the U.S. State Department took command of post-invasion operations, dedicating attention and resources to creating a functional Iraqi Government based on Democratic principles. As a result, the so-called "insurgency" developed, due, in part to the fact that an estimated 300,000 armed, former Iraqi soldiers, were left unemployed, leaderless.
That began to change in 2005 when the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey, announced plans to assign hundreds of U.S. military advisors to train and lead new Iraqi military forces. That program evolved even further in 2007 when Gen. David Petraeus was appointed to head field operations and launched what became known as the "surge." Today, there are hundreds of 10-member U.S. Military Advisory Teams "imbedded" with Iraqi security forces and thousands more American soldiers currently training for Military Advisory assignments at bases in the U.S.
Perhaps, more than any other single U.S. military initiative, it is the Military Advisor program that has been credited with stemming and, possibly, defeating the insurgency, sharply reducing both military an civilian deaths and casualties in the region.
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