In Iraq, a veteran Marine gunner sees a war to be won

Marine Gunner Terry Walker says the Iraq war is still America's war to win.

As pressure builds on the Bush administration to give the war its final push, Gunner Walker is a stalwart. This 51-year-old marine, on his third tour in Iraq, is the face of members of the US military who say the job can still be done, despite the odds.

Walker, a wiry intellectual with glasses and a chirpy exuberance, joined the Corps at age 17, straight from high school in Rittman, Ohio. Now, he directs training for the Iraqi security forces at a US base in Anbar Province, driven by a personal quest to help transform the Middle East. A serious guy, he says the US war in Iraq will have a "revolutionary" impact on the region.

"It's how to inculcate within these people the idea that you can win this fight," he says, referring as much to the Iraqi soldiers he trains as the American public that he knows still needs convincing. "It's about vision." Here in Habbaniyah, a former British air base distinguished by its Western-style barracks and palm tree-lined roads, Walker leads a group of about 50 trainers and interpreters, which grew from about 15 American instructors that he handpicked to come here and, quite literally, teach Iraqi soldiers and policemen how to shoot straight.

Largely motivated by their love of shooting, the US trainers take Iraqis who have already graduated from basic training to refine their marksmanship, safety, and weapons-maintenance skills. The hope is that the Iraqi students take these newfound abilities back to their units, making all the Iraqi security forces stronger and more professional – and able to defend their own country, Walker says.

But it's not clear that everyone shares Walker's optimism about his Iraqi students.

An independent panel commissioned by Congress to assess the Iraqi security forces recently gave mixed marks to those forces, but said that even with more improvement over time, the Army and police will still not be able to operate independently anytime within the next 12 to 18 months.

"The panel finds that, in general, the Iraqi Security Forces, military and police, have made uneven progress, but that there should be increasing improvement in both their readiness and their capability to provide for the internal security of Iraq," the report concluded.

The report was portrayed by some US lawmakers as proof that progress in training Iraqi security forces has become a losing proposition.

At this, Walker bristles.

"Are you telling me that after five years, we would cut the fish loose as soon as we got him to the boat?" he asks.

On a recent day, after several Iraqis finished shooting at paper targets at a rifle range, Walker darted to one of the targets after someone had shot a particularly tight "grouping" of rounds, ripping it from its wooden stand to make a point. "As marksmen, they're equals," he says.

An ideologue and soldier

Walker joined the Marines in 1974, after the military fundamentally changed in the aftermath of the Vietnam War from a draft-based institution to one made up only of volunteers. As a warrant officer, essentially a rank that is a hybrid between an enlisted man and an officer, Walker inhabits a class much his own and expresses his perspective more freely than his Marine brethren. And as a chief warrant officer-5, Walker is one of the Corps' most senior experts in marksmanship.

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