Iraqi Soldiers and Ghost Soldiers

Ghost soldiers: "Ghost" soldiers may never have existed and just be fictitious names added to the roster, or they may once have existed but been killed or deserted without this being officially noted. In either case, the officer in a unit would keep receiving the salary, though he would have to share it with his superiors. Another scam is for soldiers to kick back part of their salary to their officer in return for staying at home or holding another job but never going near a barracks. Mr Abadis figure of 50,000 is probably only a modest estimate of the numbers of Iraqi soldiers who play no military role, according to The Independent. Another source of earnings for officers are checkpoints on the roads which act like customs barriers on national frontiers. All goods being transported have to pay a tariff and this will again go into the pockets of the officer corps. These will have paid highly for promotion, with the bribe for becoming a colonel $200,000 127,000 and a divisional commander $2m. This money would usually be borrowed and paid back out earnings and The Iraqi army has long been notorious for being wholly corrupt with officers invariably paying for their jobs in order to make money either through drawing the salaries of non-existent soldiers or through various other scams. One Iraqi politician told a year ago that Iraqi officers are not soldiers, they are investors . In the years before the defeat of the army in Mosul in June by a much smaller force from Isis, Iraqi units never conducted training exercises. At the time of Isiss Mosul offensive, government forces in Mosul were meant to total 60,000 soldiers and federal police but the real figure was probably closer to 20,000. Asked why the Iraqi army had disintegrated at Mosul, a retired four-star general said the explanation was corruption, corruption, corruption . He said that this had become institutionalised when the US was building a new Iraqi army after dissolving the old one in 2003. The Pentagon insisted that supplies of food and other necessities be outsourced to private companies. The general said that as a result the Iraqi government might be paying for a battalion with a nominal strength of 600 men, but which in fact had only 200 soldiers. Profits would be shared between officers and commercial companies supposedly supplying the army. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.