Iraqi army lacks 'moral cohesion' to fight Isis, says UK military chief

The Iraqi army is struggling to deal with attacks from Islamic State fighters, despite heavily outnumbering them, because it lacks “moral cohesion” and effective leadership, according to the most senior British officer to be involved in postwar planning in Iraq.

Maj Gen Tim Cross echoed comments by the US defence secretary that successive gains by Isis militants in the region werebecause the Iraqi army did not have the “will to fight”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Today programme, Cross said: “It’s interesting that the secretary used that [will to fight] expression because we use that expression in the British army and our argument is that it’s about a moral cohesion in your army.

“It’s about the motivation to achieve what it is you’re setting out to achieve and it’s about effective leadership … and it’s this will to fight that I think is fundamentally at the heart of the issue with the Iraqi military.

“There’s no cohesion, there’s no strong leadership,” he said. “They’re really struggling and I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

Iraqi forces outnumbered their opposition in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, last weekend but withdrew, leaving behind large numbers of US-supplied vehicles, including several tanks. The fall of the city, which lies to the west of Baghdad, to Isis came hours after Iraq’s prime minister called for the area’s defences to be reinforced.

The US defence secretary, Ash Carter, told CNN on Sunday: “What apparently happened is the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. That says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight [Isis] and defend themselves.”

Hakim al-Zamili, head of Iraq’s parliamentary defence and security committee, dismissed Carter’s comments as “unrealistic and baseless”. He said the US had failed to provide “good equipment, weapons and aerial support” to the soldiers and was seeking to “throw the blame on somebody else”.

Cross said on Monday: “Churchill said back at the beginning of the 20th century, you can destroy an army very quickly, and effectively we did that when we disbanded the Iraqi military back in 2003, but … it can take a generation to build a strong capable military that is going to win this sort of campaign.“We don’t like it from a moral point of view in the ethical sense, but at the heart of Isis is a very strong cohesion, good strong leadership and a determination to succeed. And that’s why they’re doing so well. They’ve won the psychological battle.”

Meanwhile, the chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards accused the US of having “no will” to stop Isis. An Iranian newspaper quoted Gen Qassem Suleimani as saying that the US didn’t do a “damn thing” to stop the extremists’ advance on Ramadi. Suleimani said Iran and its allies are the only forces that can deal with Islamic State group.

It wasn’t clear whether Suleimani’s remarks came as a direct response to Ash Carter’s. Iran has offered advisers, including Suleimani, to direct Shia militias fighting against the extremists.

Asked about the argument – posited by former British army chief Sir Richard Dannatt on Sunday – that it was time for the UK to send British troops to fight Isis, Cross said: “Collectively I do think we need to sit down and begin to try and tease out this issue and decide how we’re going to take it forward and, yes, putting in more people like forward air controllers, maybe some attack helicopters, maybe some more special forces will help.

“But that will not solve the will power issue, the ability of the Iraqi military to hold the Sunni and Shia communities together, to fight coherently and to begin to seriously push back Isis.”