Bush: “Today Iraq has more thann 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions.”
Fact: Most Iraqi Security Forces Are Not Trained Or Equipped
Fact: “Only three battalions are rated fully operational by the Americans, and many others are far behind in terms of manpower, training and equipment.” [New York Times, 6/13/05]
Fact: According to the Brookings Institution, as of May 2005, only 50,000 troops were proficient and well-equipped. [Brookings, 6/3/05]
These so called trained forces are mostly police officers, not military troops.
June 28th, 2005 at 8:44 pmSpeech-Night Update
Some good reading, post-speech, from the blogosphere.
June 28th, 2005 at 9:33 pmUnfortunately, our terrorist enemies are not stupid, and they are not impatient.
I would bet a nickel that the most well-trained Iraqi forces are also the ones from which will spring the most blowback.
We are, figuratively speaking, training a kennel of attack dogs; some of which could not only bite the hand that feeds them, but chew off the whole arm, too.
This is crazy. We are training our future enemies.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:31 am