Thəorətic Muslim;4102315 said:
The people of Iraq are enough infantry.
I'm not saying don't get tanks and fighter jets, Iraq will need them. But you have to look at neighborhood.
The Middle East is filled with arm-chair generals who will send infantry brigade after brigade after brigade to break the enemy lines. If Iraq can develop decent spec-ops forces, they'll be able **** up any neighboring army, just by 6-10 men.
If Iraq adapts the Military operating procedures of Western Militaries, they'res not going to be any neighboring country that's going to mess with you.
Arming up to the teeth is not and should not be a priority for Iraq, I mean Iraq arm up eventually, but trying to rush as if some neighboring country is going to attack shouldn't be the case. Iraq has three threats, a possible ground from Syria IF the FSA manages to gain victory (which won't happen anytime soon). Even IF the Syria regime does collapse, no country is going to sell them any sophistication weapons without political stability which would take years and perhaps decades to achieve.
We have the Kurdish issue, if they decide to declare independence and include Iraqi territory as part of their future state, this will trigger a war (and get sunnis and Shia closer). Kurdistan won't get any sophisticated weapons from the west because Turkey wont allow it, and Russia won't sell them weapons as part of the Iraqi-Russian agreement.
The third threat is a push for a Syria style civil war, which is highly unlikely mainly, because the strength is extremely unbalanced and the international community (including Europe, Russia, China, India, Iran...) will all stand by the Iraqi government.
The f-16's are enough to deal with any of these threats. And make the conspiring neighbors loose their tools in Iraq. Arming with more advanced aircrafts will take some time. Iraq is currently focusing on extensive training to get the soldiers to fight both in guerilla warfare and medium-scale conventional warfare.
Most of the equipment is being upgraded to be able to survive and operate in guerrilla warfare. This is the one the one field where the Iraqi army is probably more combat proven and experienced than any other in the region.
Focus on special forces for hostage rescue, high value targets, night and all terrain capable combat operations is also happening with the 10,000 strong Iraqi special Operation forces, whom operate independently from the other security forces. This is really important since no other groups are cable at fighting in the dark, which gives the ISOF a huge advantage. There are also an estimated 15,000-20,000 special units within the Army, Federal police and Local police. Although they do not have the same training as the ISOF, they are still quite reliable.
But training is underway and the army is becoming more strict in terms of keeping all the troops in good shape both physically, mentally and also in terms of proper training. This wasn't the case a few years back when many of the troops were put on the battlefront after just one or two months of training. Many of the current soldiers are going through advanced training courses to raise their skills on different fields.
There are also new courses which were introduced after the invasion such as the human rights which shows the soldiers how to deal with both the civilians and the suspects, and also trains them not to steal or take bribes during operations. The continuous raise in pay has helped solvethese issues to a great extent.
Iraq has 3 times the population of Kuwait in just Basra city. 
