Insurgents "capable" - Iraqi Army "not so much"

Pentagon Says:

Insurgents = "capable"

Iraqi Army = "no comment"

In a tardy report to the American people, represented by the Congress of the United States, the US military proclaimed the Iraqi insurgency to be "capable, adaptable and intent."

In a report described as "upbeat" Pentagon analysist refused to provide any similar characterization of the capability of 173,000 Iraqi Army and paramilitary police troops. The report suggests that sharing information regarding the capability and readiness of the Iraqi Army might "put both Iraqi and coalition forces at increased risk."

I guess that is possible, but since most Iraqi Army and police units are riddled with insurgent sympathizers and spies it seems likely that anything the Pentagon reported regard their capability would already be know to the insurgents. So it's really the American people the Pentagon wishes to shield from the harsh realities of the Iraqi's lack of readiness to defend themselves.

However, the word out of the Pentagon is that only three out of 100 Iraqi Army battalions are capable of counter-insurgency operations on their own. The remaining 97 units require substantial support from US forces just to get to their own mess halls, let alone deal with insurgents.

So, in a force of 173,000, maybe 5,200 soldiers and policemen are capable of standing up to an insurgent force perhaps at least five times that large.

So when will our troops be home?

The report offered no prediction of when the U.S. forces would begin to draw down. It said that the decision to scale back the 138,000 troops was "conditions based" — meaning it depended on how quickly the Iraqi forces are prepared to defend the country.

Things are going great.