RAWAH (Iraq): Few Americans are greeted as warmly by Iraqi soldiers serving in the western desert of Al Anbar province as Maj. John Bilas, a Marine from Camp Pendleton. He pays them.

Tall and sturdily built, with spiky blond hair under his helmet, Bilas recently climbed aboard a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad and headed for Al Asad, a military base in Al Anbar, the heartland of Iraq’s resistance.

He carried more than $2 million in cash stuffed in heavy sacks. Over the next several days, riding in Humvee convoys, he made the dangerous journey across Al Anbar to outposts and fortified military bases to deliver the payroll for Iraq’s 7th Army Division.

Without an effective disbursement system in the Iraqi defence ministry, Iraqi soldiers here are routinely paid late — sometimes waiting as long as six months, Marine officials said.

The lag fuels desertion, with rates running as high as 40 per cent among some Iraqi units in Al Anbar, Marine and Iraqi commanders said.

Even that slow, inefficient payment process would be impossible without US helicopters and ground transportation.

“We have to hand-deliver it to them,” Bilas said. “There’s no other way to do it right now.”

The ability to pay its troops is just one of the many basic services for which Iraq’s military remains almost totally dependent on American forces.

None of Al Anbar’s Iraqi brigades — among the newest and most strategically important — perform independently. Logistics is their greatest weakness.

Many rely on US forces for food, transportation, uniforms, identification cards, drinking water, weapons and virtually every other necessity.

The ability to supply and support troops in the field is where Iraqi troops are struggling, said Maj.-Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the US military command in Baghdad. “Logistics is the long pole of the tent.”—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service