Analysis: Training of Iraqis proves easier said than done

The Bush administration has long emphasised that the key to an orderly US withdrawal is the state of Iraq's security forces. That emphasis is likely to remain even after the publication of Wednesday's report by the Iraq Study Group – yet the forces are woefully unprepared.

"Our strategy can be summed up this way: as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," President George W. Bush said in June 2005.

The Iraqi government has picked up the idea. On a visit to Washington last week, Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, said Iraqi security forces could take full control by the middle of 2007. But even senior US officials have doubts about the timetable. "Our commanders have looked at that plan; they think it is ambitious," said Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser.

If Washington now understands the state of Iraqi force readiness, that is long overdue, say experts.

Antony Cordesman, a former US military intelligence officer now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told an audience last week that "the capabilities of the Iraqi army, national police and police force have been systematically exaggerated [by the US defence department] to the point where the reporting is at least, in terms of omission, dishonest".

He estimated that out of 100 battalions "probably 20 to 30 perform a useful function". Many units are severely under strength and they are poorly equipped and untrained to deal with civil violence.

His assessment of the police was even more negative. The department says it has no way of knowing how many people are in the police or how effective they are.

Read the rest at MSNBC