Saturday, January 08, 2005

Iraqification not coming any time soon

So, we're already losing the war in Iraq. But the stated plan has been to turn the place over to the new Iraqi forces themselves, so that the loss can happen on their watch. Apparently even that weak plan now may be off the table, according to a new State Department report chronicling the sorry state of the Iraqi forces. Money quotes:

In some of the most violent areas of the country, Iraqi forces have been ''rendered ineffective," the State Department wrote in the report dated Jan. 5. Due to intimidation and attacks by insurgents, ''large numbers" of police, highway patrol, and border enforcement personnel ''have quit or abandoned their stations," it said. And many units are still waiting for key equipment such as rifles and ammunition, the report said....

Pentagon officials now acknowledge, however, that most of the 121,000 Iraqi security forces that have been trained so far are substandard and have little chance of standing up to insurgents seeking to upend plans for the Jan. 30 vote. Some say a wholesale restructuring of the training process may be required -- what one unnamed official described as ''starting from square one." Training is now divided among various agencies and tasks, and some police are being put on the streets after just two weeks of preparation.


Yet President Magoo keeps claiming that Iraqis are assuming "more and more responsibility for their own security." Dancing elephants, pigs on the wing, bears doing their thing on toilets....

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