Lessons Learned From Training Iraqi Troops To Fight ISIS

Camp Pendleton Marines are among the US forces training ground troops and against Isis. Lieutenant. General. David Berger gives us an update on the test program for women in Marine combat roles. It's less than a month until the start of the new school semester. Those schooldays still start too early for teenage sleep cycles. Plus a conversation with the nation's new poet laureate. KPBS midday edition is next. First the news. From NPR news, the US Coast Guard says cocaine seizures off of Latin America's Pacific coast have risen to their highest level in five years. Announced today a recent best calling it the largest in US history. The wholesale value exceeds $1 billion. I'm not in the market of selling this but trust me on the street, it would sell for much more. Officials seized 119,000 pounds of cocaine over the past 10 months. A new round of Libyan peace talks aimed at earning a resolution in the country gets underway this week. Report says there's a little hope in a breakthrough. Libya is bitterly divided between the internationally recognized government and an Islamist government based in the capital. UN spokesman says UN mediator hopes this a new round of talks will help narrow existing says. He wouldn't have announced to this unless he thought there was sufficient common ground to bring the parties here. Details about who will be attending the talks is still sketchy. Technologist some of the parties have reservations about what has been achieved to date and may decide to stay away. The environmental protection agency is still evaluating the impact of wastewater that spilled and abandon the gold-mining Colorado. Colorado public radio reports an estimated 3,000,000 gallons of orange colored wastewater has since travel of the agonist to the San Juan River and New Mexico. Preliminary results show water has significantly higher than normal levels of minerals include arsenic and led. The EPA offered few conclusions about health impacts anticipate meeting and Durango Colorado. That was frustrating to residents. We don't know what our exposure is but tell us how bad it can be so we are not just pie in the sky completely panicked. The EPA says it takes time to test samples and draw conclusions. Residents are nosing reserves. The EPA accident risk of the wastewater Jebusite investigation last week. Peaceful protests marking the first anniversary of the death of Michael Brown turned violent overnight and Ferguson Missouri. Those exchange of gunfire between several people involved in what officials call a beauty. One man is in critical condition, he was shot after he allegedly opened fire on them. Stocks are trading higher today. The NASDAQ composite of 60 points. The S&P 500 up 26 points. Your listing to NPR news in Washington. Marines are helping train fighters against Isis, an update on that and more from Marine Lieutenant. General. David Berger. And how early school start times can make back-to-school a challenge for San Diego teens. This is KPBS midday edition. It's Monday, August 10. Here are some of the San Diego stories we're following in the KPBS newsroom. San Diego Stadium negotiators are meeting with a group of National Football League owners today. To make the pitch or proposed stadium to keep the Chargers in town. Also today at draft environmental report on the project site in Mission Valley is expected to be released. A fire that burned roughly 40 acres of brush and briefly threatened homes in an area near ballpark is theft 50% contained. Cal fire officials say the fire broke out about 3 PM yesterday. US Coast Guard says cocaine seizures off Latin America specific coast have soared in 2015 to their highest levels in five years. Listen to the latest news through the day here on KPBS. Our top story on midday edition, it's been a year since President. Obama said US advisers to Iraq to help that I should fight back against Isis. Among those still deployed as trainers are US Marines from Camp Pendleton. Back home, the Camp Pendleton Marine command is wrapping up a year-long experiment to see if women can actively serve in ground combat roles. Those significant assignments are just two of the many tasks assigned to the Marine versus based at Pendleton. Joining us for an update is David H. Berger, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force. Thanks for having me. As I said, it's been a year since Marines were deployed as advisors and trainers in the fight against Isis. Are Marines training current members of the Iraqi army or new recruits? We sent a force over last summer before the president decided that we would help the Iraqis where we are now. That was a special purpose Marine air ground task force. When they were deployed, it was prior to that. They just happen to be in the right place at the right time and had much of what the Iraqis are going to need. Later, we deployed advisors like you mentioned. They are doing some of both. Primarily not new recruits but primarily soldiers in the Iraqi army already that need retraining or reorganizing. What kind of training is being given?, Basic firearms are working -- weapon skills? It's at the tactical level probably the best way to describe is in two parts. The first is the skill level you are speaking out with individual weapons and how to to use and apply them and the tactics at the lowest level, then there's the advising part that happens with the kernels and generals in the Army, this is more -- not strategic but how to write a larger force against all in the operating environment you have in Iraq. It spans between general officer down to the lowest level. Are the Marines also training Syrian volunteers? Now. It's too early to tell how this will work out in the future. Right now our effort is inside Iraq with the advisor teams and building partnerships and training the Iraqi army. During the Afghanistan wars the Marines built elaborate training runs up to simulate IED risks. What kind of training is being designed to handle future threats Isis? It is sort of back to the future. Some of the improvised explosive device training lanes that were set up, we're reusing them all over again. How to drive a convoy safely in that environment, where using those again. Some is cultural and language. That's the foundation you have to have. They spend six date weeks and language training in San Diego. They begin the skills training on how to be an advisor. Where using a lot of the same techniques and facilities we use 6 to 10 years ago. About how many Camp Pendleton Marines are taking part in this advisor mission as it is now. The advisor part in Iraq, there are a couple of teams are about 25 to 30, that's the size of them. Have the security element with them that's from the other force that I spoke about, the special purpose crisis response force. It varies a day-to-day depending on what the requirements are going to be. Crisis response force was about 22 to 2300 strong. The advisor teams themselves are about 25 to 30. What are you hearing about the success of the deployment? I think this is one we have to take the long view, not to the short. All run on both sides. So far, like you'd expect early on it's hard to get out of the blocks in a smooth manner. And the the bright people showing up at the right time to get the right training. We're ready to go, the team is that they're ready to go there built the range and organize them, heavy ammunition. Is a function of the Iraqi government putting in place at the right mechanisms of Iraqi soldiers to go through in the right manner. It's also difficult for them. They are in a fight right now. When you are committed and you have all your teeth out on the plaintiff, how deep hole part of your team back to get retrained? It's not a small charge for them. News reports said there are fewer recruits being trained in the US had hoped for. Is that what you are hearing as well. In terms of viewer, then it had expectations of larger number of sources, I think we need to temper that with they are committed against the threat now. It's not like they haven't deep bench waiting around to train. There are horses. The expansion and that took effort. Now they had to manage how do you pull a portion of your horse off the line for some weeks, train them and put them back? That's not easy to do. I'm speaking with David H. Berger, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force. You told me an awful lot of these Iraqi fighters are being pulled off their actual fight with Isis. It's difficult for them to rotate into this training. In your estimation, what strength of ground fighting forces do the Iraqis need to defeat Isis? In terms of numbers? Capabilities? Are they the answer depends on where you are talking about. In the western part of Iraq with the Marines are, that's one answer. If you're talking about of North, that's a different answer. It changes over time because Isis is trying to reallocate their forces based on what the Iraqis are doing. It's a constant moving chess game. How many fighters needed as in place at a certain time. How would you assess the impact of US airstrikes and rocky ground troops in the fight against Isis? Is Isis any weaker than it was a year ago when this advisory mission began? I would say to get to the answer of that, I'm not the right one at this strategic level. I would agree with most of the senior military leaders and administration the support the US has gotten -- given them so far has stopped expansion. What if we didn't go? Where would be now? I would say that be a huge risk if we had not. We stopped their expansion, now it's a function of how fast and how much can they do to push them back? Closer to home, Isis released the names of some Marines on a hill list. How is the Marine Corps responded to that threat? From what I understand, that was taken off open source and collated together into one listing. I would tell you the military and the rest of government is very aggressively holding in the defensive systems in our networks to make sure the right information is protected at the right level. You have to weigh that against the benefits of sharing information laterally and quickly which everyone wants to do. If you are cyber defender, they want to play defense and you don't want any of that. It's important to move information and share it laterally, there lies the problem. We have to find the correct sweet spot to make sure we are addicting than adequately. Was saying added security for the people on the list? For them, they were contacted initially right away and offered some measures to protect their finances to their security. It was a discussion between the military and the US government and the family what they were comfortable with based on what we knew of the threat at the time. We're all shocked and saddened last month with a deadly shooting at the recruiting station in Tennessee. Has -- have you heard within the core of there's an idea of hardening of those particular targets because of that incident? There have been discussions at the service headquarters level and the Army Navy etc. about two we have the right measures in place for our recruiters and reserve centers, I don't think they'll be decentralized stewards can be up to you what you want. I think the right discussions are happening at the top level to decide what the correct level of protection is. Are the recruiters adequately protected for them and their team. At Camp Pendleton has been a test program underway to see of women can be of active in infantry combat roles. How are they being evaluated? The started last summer with the covenants idea to put together our year-long experiment. Very deliberate analytical and invite outside agencies to oversee it like Penn State and a couple of others. This year-long process ended a few weeks ago. Started in North Carolina and ended out here in California. Now they have to collates all the data they collected over time and put into a fashion that can be looked at in the right recommendations be made. It's been a fascinating year of collecting information, I don't know how we would've gotten here if we had taken that kind of deliberate approach. One of the things asked about these test programs, have the requirements been changed for the women involved? Are they being being asked to carry less, Bart March your miles etc. I would say the other way around. To collect the right information, they did multiple iterations. In some cases, back to back to collect and be as objective as you can. I think overall, you will see I think it's too early to tell. At this point, from the very beginning, the,.was clear. The number one factor for him is the readiness of our forces number one. Whatever we do or find out, they have to factor in how will it affect the capability of our forces we're ready to deploy. They also said we want to make sure we have good viable clear pass for men and women. We need to consider that part as well. There, whatever we do should not jeopardize the number of women in the Marine Corps right now. First do no harm, let's make sure whatever decision we make in the and at least it should build the percentage of women and memory core. We need to consider that as well. At this early stage, is there any way to figure out what's roles might be particularly well-suited for women in a combat situation or roles they may not be well-suited for? Your hitting on the purpose of the experiments. I would take it down, their occupational specialties that were closed women. We had to figure out which ones make sense to open without jeopardizing the readiness of areas. Second, women are assigned in unit even if they didn't have that occupational specialty, we assigned women in different units down in the ground combat forces and how far down and what kind of forces should a be assigned that makes a sense as well. If your communication specialists or logistics specialists, could you be assigned to infantry unit and what level X would you be assigned and if you get back, what kind of physical demands are there on you to be and that kind of unit. Those are all questions at this test program that will hopefully answer. When will the results be released. The information collection is done. Right now, they're analyzing all the data collected because there's a ton. I think within a month,,.will sit down with them and decide what his regulation is going to be to the sector. I think within a few months the whole process will be wrapped up. I want to ask about the multinational training mission that's about to get underway in Southern California. This a major exercise that's amphibious focus exercise on the West Coast and on the East Coast. Don blitz is the one we do here. It started in 2010, this is really between the Navy, the third fleets, and us. Each exercise expands learning about how to do see based operations. It's grown from its first time to this year where I think in a neighborhood of around 5000 Marines and sailors from Southern California be on ship this year. Mexico wants to participate and is going to New Zealand also. Japan who participated a couple years ago, they're going to bring us some ships because they want to train alongside of us as well. This is going to be a fantastic training opportunity and a chance to work alongside people we know we need to operate alongside a. It involved Chinese observers at one point? Will this happen again? That's not planned at this time. Is one of the ideas keeping the lines of communication open to our allies in the Pacific Rim. Yes. I think first and foremost is us to be able to practice the skills they need to be able to operate from the city. In an amphibious force. While you're doing that, absolutely yes. The other countries we train and operate with, the more you can do that, the more you learn about each other's way of operating, you learn that people so you can have points of contact. Mainly it's about understanding how your horse operates. So we have to meet somewhere in some crisis, we already know from the beginning. We don't waste time not sure how your radio is supposed to talk to my, we can figure that out in trading. David H. Berger, commanding general of I Marine Expeditionary Force, Thank you for your time.