Bush said we’d have 125,000 by the end of December, which was absurd. Condi Rice argues 120,000 are now trained, equipped, and ready to provide security, while Joe Biden says there’s no more than 14,000.
Yesterday, two top Pentagon officials tried to settle the matter of exactly how many Iraqis are serving in the country’s security forces. Unfortuantely, their news wasn’t entirely encouraging.
Less than a third of the 136,000 members of Iraqi security forces that the Pentagon says are trained and equipped can be sent to tackle the most challenging missions in the country, and Iraqi Army units are suffering severe troop shortages, two top Pentagon officials told a Senate panel on Thursday.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said about 40,000 of Iraq’s forces “can go anywhere in the country and take on almost any threat,” but he quickly added that the remaining forces were useful in less demanding jobs, like police work in relatively stable southern Iraq.
Pentagon officials displayed a chart showing 79,116 Iraqi police and Interior Ministry officers, and 56,949 army and other military troops. General Myers said he had more confidence in the military figures than the police ones, saying the police figures might be inflated.
OK, so we really have about 40,000 Iraqis who are actually prepared to provide security. That’s less than a third of what Bush promised we had last fall and about a third of what Rice promised just two weeks ago. But maybe the rest of the 136,000 members will soon be ready? Hardly.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told senators that Iraqi Army units had absentee rates of up to 40 percent partly because many new soldiers had failed to return to duty after going home on leave.
We’re going to be there a long, long time.
Bush exaggerated the numbers to scam a few votes, Rice exaggerated the numbers to boost her standing, and the Iraqis are exaggerating for the cash.
At the hearing of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, read an e-mail message from a Marine colonel who complained about corrupt Iraqi commanders in his area.
“They have been lying about their numbers in order to get more money,” she read from the message, which an aide said was sent this year. “They say they have 150 when there are only 100. The senior officers take a cut from the top. We’ve caught soldiers in houses stealing property, and the commander won’t react to it. They have no interest in learning the job, because right now the Marines are doing all of that.”
I’m glad the elections went pretty well last weekend, but Bush said this week that we won’t leave until Iraq is “democratic, representative of all its people, at peace with its neighbors, and able to defend itself” — and that’s nowhere on the horizon.