The Americans are on foreign soil. They need to explain the missions to the Iraqi army men in order to train them as well as to raise the level of cooperation.
The Americans have found the interaction between the two sides quite difficult due to various reasons. The proud Iraqis being mostly new recruits is one major hurdle. The US soldiers are battle-hardened and act quickly. Their Iraqi counter-parts need a lot of explanation before any instruction is put into action.
Their being non-professionals often makes them appear non-cooperative. Consider a contingent of Iraqi soldiers turning up almost three hours late for a scheduled mission. This is exactly what happened on Wednesday in the predominantly Shiite Sadr City in Baghdad.
Once the men arrived, the question over who would ride in Humvees and who would walk to the scene of action took a long time to settle. Finally it was agreed that officers from both sides could ride and the low ranking soldiers would walk.
Yet another serious problem is the language. While the Iraqis do not follow what is said in English, the Americans are at a loss when it comes to understanding Arabic. Service of interpreters has become indispensable during discussions.
This is in fact a clash of cultures with all the amusing characteristics of a comedy. One can hope that the Americans, once back at home, will add many new Arab terms to the English dictionary.
