Twentynine Palms, Calif. ? About 350 Marines here and at Camp Pendleton are being trained as advisers to the Iraqi army, in hopes that a strategy honed during Vietnam can be used to improve Iraq’s military and hasten the withdrawal of U.S. personnel.

“These are our best and brightest,” said Col. Tom Greenwood, who is leading the effort. Most of the Marines involved – who volunteered for the special, and especially dangerous duty – are combat veterans. They have been to Iraq before.

Split into teams of 11 to 15 men, the Marines will provide monthly evaluations of the Iraqi troops they are embedded with. In many cases, that will mean living outside the security of U.S. bases.

Only when the advisers feel the Iraqi battalions are battle-worthy should the U.S. forces leave, Greenwood said.

“Our number one priority is to train and mentor the Iraqi forces and, if necessary, to neutralize the enemy,” said Lt. Gen. John Sattler, commander of the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. More than 20,000 troops from the force are set to deploy to Iraq early next year.

Sattler and other officers say the adviser approach is preferable to setting a fixed deadline for withdrawal, as some politicians are demanding.

Army and Marine units in Iraq’s Al Anbar province – where the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is headed – already have begun an advisory effort, which Sattler hopes to expand and refine.

The Marines preparing for deployment receive training in a mock Iraqi village built in the open desert portion of the Twentynine Palms base. Two-hundred Marines, dressed as civilians, play the role of Iraqis who confront the troops.

In addition, the Marines who will act as advisers undergo an intensive two-week course at Camp Pendleton that involves lectures and additional field exercises.

“We have taken a page from Vietnam,” Sattler said. In Vietnam, the “combined action platoon” concept brought U.S. and Vietnamese troops together in a counterinsurgency strategy.

Bing West, former assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration and author of two books on the Marines in Iraq, said the adviser idea involves a trade-off of “risk of casualties vs. (the) reward of better-trained Iraqi soldiers.”

“On balance, placing Marines among Iraqi soldiers is the fastest means of training,” he said. “It involves risk but the Marines will volunteer in overwhelming numbers.”