Originally Posted by Chi-Town

Here's a little insight from National Review:

"It was disturbing — if not genuinely surprising — when earlier this year large portions of the Iraqi*army fled in the face of the advance of the Islamic State, allowing the group to take over large swaths of territory across the country’s northern half. Well, if you were wondering how hundreds of thousands of American-trained and -equipped troops can turn out to be so ineffective, one explanation is that 50,000 of them didn’t exist. Loveday Morris of the Washington Post: The Iraqi army has been paying salaries to at least 50,000 soldiers who don’t exist, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Sunday, an indication of the level of corruption that permeates an institution that the United States has spent billions equipping and arming. . . ."


BTW this has been going for a long time, years. I'll stick with futile.