Good News From Iraq Part #18

On the right side of this site there is a link to Operation Iraqi Freedom and there is some awesome news on that site daily. Good news. The news that the mainstream media somehow, either misses or simply ignores. We don't. We care. I challenge anyone to find me THIS on the front page of any major media outlet.

Iraqi Army graduates first sniper class.

12/03/06- BESMAYA RANGE — The Iraqi Army recently expanded its advanced marksmanship course to give their military a much-needed asset in the battle for the streets of Iraq’s cities – highly capable and lethal Iraqi snipers.

After nearly seven weeks of training at Besmaya range, 30 kilometers east of Baghdad, seven Iraqi Soldiers graduated from the advanced marksmanship course and sniper training in a ceremony here Dec.1. The students began by learning advanced marksmanship principles using AK-47 rifles before moving into the sniper part of the course, said a Coalition advisor who conducted the training.

“More and more attacks by insurgents have been by snipers; now we have the opportunity to send our soldiers out to defeat those threats,” said Iraqi Army Sergeant First Class Naim, an Advanced Marksmanship Course instructor and NCO-in-charge of Besmaya Range, through an interpreter. Naim attended the sniper course so he would be able to teach the course in the future. “One sniper can stop a battalion. These students are professionals; they are ready for any mission.”

The sniper portion of the course is a “train-the-trainer” session, and graduates take their lessons back to home units to train their own prospective snipers. Several students like Naim were already rated as advanced marksmanship instructors at Besmaya and were taking part in the sniper course to eventually take the program over from the Coalition, the advisor said.

“I want to be a professional sniper,” said Iraqi Army Sgt. Haida through an interpreter. “In my unit we have sniper rifles, but nobody knows how to use them. I really believe this training is going to help me in the future. I want to defend my country.”

Adding the sniper portion to the course was an easy decision in the eyes of the installation’s commander.

“This course is so important,” said Iraqi Army Col. Abbas, Besmaya Range’s senior officer. “This training will give us many new capabilities. When we attack enemies, we need to have a professional sniper on the roof. If we don’t have this, we will not have the power that we need.”

Before starting the course, the students had to pass physical fitness, reading and eye tests, Naim said. After that, the students attended classroom lectures about the characteristics of their weapons before heading to the range to “zero,” or adjust the weapon’s sights to fit each student’s handling of the weapon. In order to zero, students fired several shots on target to form a group.

Typical of sniper training, many students did not complete the course and were sent home after failing to complete the grouping portion, said a civilian contractor providing instruction here.

After zeroing, students fired at pop-up targets in a series of evaluations. The course culminated with each student completing a predawn 10-kilometer ruck march where they had to find a good shooting position, eliminate a target and leave the area while remaining undetected by advisors.

“These soldiers that are left demonstrated the ability to hit targets from ranges of 200 to 600 meters using the Romanian PSL sniper rifle; a version of a Russian sniper rifle, on which many former Soviet Bloc countries based the design of their own weapons systems,” the advisor said.

Naim said standards for this course were intentionally high, since these students are critical to the future success of other Iraqi military snipers.

“The Iraqi Army really needs this training for snipers,” Naim said. “The shooters who graduate from this course will go back to their units to work as instructors for those units.”

The course differed from a traditional sniper course in that instructors built the training based on situations relevant to what an Iraqi Army sniper would face in combat.

“When we started this course, we acknowledged the fact that these snipers would be operating in urban environments, so we did not focus on some of the traditional sniper course techniques such as stalking and the construction of ghillie suits [using elements of the natural terrain to provide natural camouflage for the sniper],” the advisor said. “We instead focused on establishing a good position, breathing and firing techniques and proficiency with the weapon system.”

When the training began, the majority of the students did not have much shooting experience beyond what they had learned in basic combat training. Most of them were “your ‘average Joes,’” the advisor said.

“A lot of them used ‘Kentucky windage and Tennessee elevation’ [terms used by shooters to describe firing based on a shooter’s tendencies to guess target range by feel rather than by computing the wind direction or elevation prior to engaging the target],” the advisor said. “We also needed to work with them to establish a tight shot group pattern rather than allowing them to ‘chase their rounds’ without adjusting their sights, since (forming shot groups) was not something that was focused on in the old Warsaw Pact doctrine.”

“We fired a lot of rounds,” he continued. “With just 19 guys going through this program and many of those washing out, we went through more than 1,800 rounds over the past seven weeks.”

According to Naim, the students of the class were grateful to have the chance to take part in the training and are looking forward to getting back to their units.

“I want to be an instructor,” said Staff Sgt. Sajid, prior to his completing the final evaluation before officially graduating the course. “I want to protect my country because my country needs me. God willing, I will become one.”

This is only one in many things on that site. Go read it, take a look at all you are not being told.

Others posting on this: Sadly, No One.

Refusing to show this type of news and fabricating bad news when there is not enough of it for their liking, the MSM is working for it's own demise.

Check out Flopping Aces post about the the Demise of the MSM.