Major John "J.C." Nalls, an aviator, deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom in mid-2004, diverted from an assignment to the Department of the Army staff. As an individual augmentee first to the Coalition Provisional Authority then ultimately to Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq, Major Nalls served in the advisory training group that supported the Joint Forces Headquarters, the military side of the new Iraqi defense establishment, roughly the equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (as the Iraqi Ministry of Defense is the Department of Defense's rough counterpart). Major Nalls worked for the Chief of Staff of the Iraqi Armed Forces, General Babaker Zebari. General Zebari was a Sunni Kurd who had left the Iraqi Army to fight with the Kurdish Peshmerga in the de facto Kurdistan, north of the no-fly zone after Desert Storm and before the 2003 invasion. Major Nalls served with the multinational coalition joint advisory team that included Australian, British and Italian officers as well as US Army, Marine Corps and Air Force officers attempting to stand up the senior-most Iraqi military headquarters in accordance with Western principles of civilian control of the military. In addition to the advisory challenges, Major Nalls experienced first-hand General Babaker's involvement in attempting to work across the Sunni-Shi'a divide. Major Nalls was present for an unprecedented meeting between the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and General Babaker. Tensions between the Ministry of Defense and the Joint Forces Headquarters ranged from budget battles - disadvantaging the military - to interservice rivalries among the Iraqi Army, Air Force and Navy. Differing visions of an ideal structure for the new Iraqi military also complicated the advisory mission as NATO-based ideas and individual officers from coalition countries at times competed. Major Nalls witnessed the friction caused by social and economic issues - class distinctions and the lack of a national banking system - for the nascent Iraqi military as well as the endemic corruption.

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