What if the US tried to work with the Iraqi Army and state after taking Baghdad?

You can't have the Soldiers that went to Camp A trained to US standards while the Soldiers that went to Camp B are trained to British standards while the Soldiers in Camp C are trained to Canadian standards.
Does this really matter as long as we are talking about a large but mostly gendarme style force that will be split up into provincial forces anyway? Simply have the recruits sent to the area they train in and then serve, they would never have to mix much? With so many locals to do patrolling and law and order work the main US fighting force can simply sit in base not taking casualties from low level attacks and still be ready to act as the rapid response force if need?
But you can't expect an entirely green force to stand up to battle. That's been proven time and time again throughout history. Where vastly larger and better equipped forces broke and ran when facing smaller, veteran forces. Morale is a huge force multiplier. You NEED those guys in a division that can say, "been there, done that, lived to talk about it." You have no idea the difference that makes to troops that have never heard a shot fired in anger. And to me, that's why I think they would practically have to be trained to American standards. Because the US, by far, had the most combat units in theater. And that let's you very quickly stand up new Iraqi units as the initial soldiers quickly gain that edge of, "we can do this, we've done it before" that only comes from combat.
But with a very large Iraq/UN/US force would they even have to fight much, if the insurgency doesn't escalate due to being stamped on early and hard would it ever develop to the level of OTL?

I'm not saying it would be perfect. But it would have been vastly better than what we had OTL. The thing about resources, though. Not every country needs a military as large as the US. So you can still equip and train a force to American standards while making that force smaller. In the Middle East, you could get away with a much smaller, but PROFESSIONAL army and beat anyone but Israel. And that's only because the IDF is large and professional.
Isn't this the opposite of what would be wanted to suppress an insurgency? Ie you would want huge numbers of men to man checkpoints and act as slightly better armed police (and soak up lots of young men out of work), the only professionalism that you really need them to not kill civilians and escalate the tensions (but that could be don by simply mixing Shia and Sunni in each unit?), actually doing the majority of the hard fighting against any insurgents that don't run at first contact can be left to US+ forces now free for day to day work?
 
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SsgtC

Banned
Does this really matter as long as we are talking about a large but mostly gendarme style force that will be split up into provincial forces anyway? Simply have the recruits sent to the area they train in and then serve, they would never have to mix much? With so many locals to do patrolling and law and order work the main US fighting force can simply sit in base not taking casualties from low level attacks and still be ready to act as the rapid response force if need?
But with a very large Iraq/UN/US force would they even have to fight much, if the insurgency doesn't escalate due to being stamped on early and hard would it ever develop to the level of OTL?

Isn't this the opposite of what would be wanted to suppress an insurgency? Ie you would want huge numbers of men to man checkpoints and act as slightly better armed police (and soak up lots of young men out of work), the only professionalism that you really need them to not kill civilians and escalate the tensions (but that could be don by simply mixing Shia and Sunni in each unit?), actually doing the majority of the hard fighting against any insurgents that don't run at first contact can be left to US+ forces now free for day to day work?
That's basically what we tried to do. It didn't work so well. Why? Because heavily armed police tend to break and run in the face of mortars and machine guns. And have no idea how to handle an IED. Plus, what happens when the US leaves? Without a professional army backing them up, that "provincial militia" turns into a wet paper bag. We saw that when ISIS overran much of Iraq. Entire Battalions were breaking and running, abandoning masses of equipment, when attacked by platoon sized units. You still need a professional army. And you are right though, that the insurgency wouldn't be as bad in this scenario. And that's ok. Even if only the first couple of classes of recruits see combat, you can still take those men, promote them, and spread them out through the new units to act as a stiffener.
 
The US government would have been condemned for preserving and strengthening the Ba'athist state. The opponents of the war would have suddenly discovered the need for liberalization, democratization, breaking up the existing power structure, and so on, and be vehement in their criticism of the US occupation for "restoring Saddamism without Saddam".

Whatever the US had done, including doing nothing, would have been wrong.
 
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