WASHINGTON -- US commanders this spring gave the Iraqi government the key task of supplying food and fuel to its own army, but after a few months of serious mismanagement, the United States resumed supplying Iraqi troops in the volatile Anbar Province, according to US officials.
The inability of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense to assume full responsibility for providing ``life support" to its more than 100,000 troops marks a setback in the slow process of turning over greater responsibility to the Iraqi government, according to Pentagon leaders and diplomats.
The military command in Iraq confirmed that the United States had moved to resume providing necessary services in Anbar, a key stronghold of the insurgency, after Iraqi authorities proved unable to provide adequate food, pay, and housing supplies. Yet officers expressed hope that Iraqi services would improve over time.
``The coalition stepped in to provide additional assistance while the Iraqis overcame their problems," said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Negard , a spokesman for Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, the Baghdad headquarters responsible for training Iraqi security forces.
Negard emphasized that US officials hope the help will be temporary.
``The responsibility for life support is still with the Iraqi Army in Anbar and the other provinces," he said. ``However, the Iraqis still face challenges."
Senior US officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said the situation was worse, with many Iraqi Army supplies not arriving and others being siphoned off to the black market. One Iraqi fighting unit went days without sufficient supplies of food. Meanwhile, because Iraqi forces are still paid in cash delivered to the front, some units suffered desertions after the Iraqi government failed to deliver their salaries on time, they said.
US officials said the deficiencies were disturbing and raised serious questions about the Iraqi government's ability to become self-sufficient. The US military's exit strategy depends on the ability of newly trained Iraqi security forces to operate independently, they said.
``These capabilities are the foundation for an effective military," retired Army General John Keane , a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, said of the supply problem.
``These ministries are lagging way behind in terms of effectiveness and far behind the schedules and expectations people have promulgated," said Keane, who has traveled extensively in Iraq on fact-finding trips for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ``You have to work on all these skills if the coalition forces will be able to make a withdrawal based on capacities achieved by the Iraqis, rather than leaving precipitously."
The supply problems are even worse for the more than 100,000 police forces that are under the command of the Ministry of Interior, said US military advisers in Iraq. The ministry is scheduled to take full responsibility for police-support functions later this year, according to US military officials.
``The entire department is plagued by fuel, equipment, and supply shortages," one US Army officer training Iraqi police in northern Iraq told the Globe by e-mail. ``Some of these owe to infrastructure and management problems in the supply chain, such as a failure to accurately forecast the amount of fuel required for a growing Iraqi police force. Other problems trace to corruption at each level of the process."
In one recent incident, an Iraqi police unit on patrol with US troops had to turn back to base because some of the Iraqi vehicles ran out of gas, the US Army trainer said.
Taking control of noncombat supplies is an early step in the planned turnover of authority to the Iraqi police and military. US commanders have identified 18 capabilities that the Iraqi government must master to be able to fully sustain their forces during operations against insurgents.
They include personnel management -- such as training, budgeting, and handling personnel services. Other skills include the ability to oversee contracts for weapons and ammunition.
The US State Department has posted 70 to 100 advisers in both the Defense and Interior Ministries to help the Iraqis build those capacities, according to US officials.
``The Iraqi military as an institution is not very good at contracting," said a senior State Department official involved in the supply issue. ``They are having a hard time with logistics. But these troops need to be mobile. It is essential to get food out to them and get their pay out to them."
Still, the Iraqi Army is considered the most capable of the nation's nascent security institutions and is better able to mount independent operations than other elements of the estimated 266,000 regular military troops, police, and border guards. Both the Defense and Interior ministries have more than 100,000 security staff members.
Two sets of contracts -- one for food services, the second for other basic supplies such as fuel -- were awarded to local contractors in April and May , giving the new government responsibility for delivering basic supplies to Iraqi troops across the country.
In Baghdad, the scene of major suicide bombings and other attacks, the Iraqis continue to supply their own forces. Many other regions, which have seen less fighting, have fewer troops and fewer logistical hurdles to obtaining supplies.
But in Anbar, the vast territory west of Baghdad where the insurgency is strongest, the Iraqis are ``more challenged than the other provinces given the tempo of operations as well as the distance required to travel," said Negard, the official spokesman for the American unit training the Iraqi military.
In Washington, a key member of the Senate Armed Services Committee expressed concern that the Iraqi government is far from being able to sustain its own forces -- and as a result the US military will have to stay indefinitely.
``This is one of the critical issues," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, referring to the supply problem. ``We can train a military force, but if they can't be supported by the government of Iraq, they can't be effective. "
The State Department official involved in the supply issue said that improving the logistics capabilities of Iraqi security forces will be discussed next week in Washington in talks with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki . At the top of the list will be giving the Iraqi government several thousand new Humvees and other equipment.
``We want to make sure they're not shipped to Basra and put on a boat to the United Arab Emirates," he said, referring to the corruption plaguing the Iraqi government.