Can 300 US Military Advisers save Iraq?

And yet in the years that followed all the ground-breaking work had largely unravelled, even before the Americans left in 2011.

Whether it was sheer laziness or due to former Baathists in the military who wanted to see Maliki toppled, equipment was left unmaintained, industrial-scale corruption flourished and arms and ammunition vanished.

The Iraqi Army became notable for desertion and absenteeism. I witnessed exasperated American colonels left fuming when Iraqi soldiers routinely turned up for work on Sunday and Monday and then took the rest of the week off without a second thought.

Left to their own devices any West Point-style discipline in the Iraqi Army went out of the window, because it is simply not the Iraqi way of doing things.

President Barack Obama says the US is ready for "targeted and precise military action" against advancing Islamists in Iraq, "if and when the situation on the ground requires it". But he stressed "American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq. "

He insisted there was "no military solution" and said the current crisis in Iraq needed a political solution.

Whilst the US president did not join calls for Al-Maliki to go saying "it's not our job to choose Iraq's leaders," he avoided saying he supported the Iraqi premier.